Die gedanken sind frei
My thoughts freely flower
Die gedanken sind frei
My thoughts give me power
No scholar can map them
No hunter can trap them
No man can deny
Die gedanken sind frei.

I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure
My conscience decrees
This right I must treasure
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator
No person can deny
Die gedanken sind frei

Tyrants can take me
And throw me in prison
My thoughts will burst forth
Like blossoms in season
Foundations may crumble
And structures may tumble
But free men shall cry
Die gedanken sind frei

(Die Gedanken Sind Frei, English lyrics by Pete Seeger.)

REAL wellness represents reason, exuberance and liberty, elements of a deliberate lifestyle designed to foster a high quality of life. The "L" in the "REAL" wellness acronym stands for "liberty," which like the others is shaped by the choices we make. Americans are fond of reminding themselves that liberty comes at a price, that the freedoms we enjoy today exist in part because so many have taken great, often fatal risks throughout the nation's history to protect their liberties then and ours now.

One of my favorite songs about liberty and freedom is John Lennon's "Imagine." In fact, I wrote an essay about it a few years ago. Another freedom song, Die Gedanken Sind Frei, was first brought to my attention by singer Dan Barker, who also serves as co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation or FFRF. (FFRF is a Wisconsin-based organization that works "to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism, and to promote the constitutional principle of separation between church and state.") Die Gedanken Sind Frei is a German folk tune, roughly translated as, "my thoughts are free."

I suggest you listen to Die Gedanken Sind Frei now. Then I'll tell you a brief story about Germans who adopted it as their theme song during WWII. To hear the song, go to http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/read/135946

The 1943 photo (left) shows 21 year-old Sophie Scholl, who was one of five members of a mostly student non-violent resistance group known as the White Rose Movement. The White Rose members publicly (and bravely) urged Germans to passively resist the Nazis. Sophie and the other White Rose members were arrested for distributing a leaflet at the University of Munich on February 18, 1943. Die Gedanken Sind Frie—My Thoughts are Free, was the White Rose theme song. (Source:  Rayelan at RumorMillNews.com, 11/15/2008.)

In the Gestapo's "People's Court" on February 21, 1943, Sophie was recorded as follows:

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just do not dare express themselves as we did.

She and the others were sentenced to death and executed. Her final words were:

How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go. But what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action? Die Sonne scheint noch. (The sun still shines.)

In mid-1943, the Allies dropped millions of propaganda copies of the White Rose pamphlet over German cities. The defiance by White Rose members, in the face of dreadful consequences, gained Sophie and her friends the admiration of many contemporaries and the respect of millions in post-war Germany.

Sophie's memory and the memory of the White Rose Movement was honored by Germany with a commemorative stamp in 1991.

Playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag stated in Newsday on February 22, 1993, that the legacy of the White Rose movement is "possibly the most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the 20th century ... The fact that five kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I do not know why." (Source: Wikipedia.)

Die Gedanken Sind Frie. May your thoughts be free, as well.