usefulness to the resistance was now greatly reduced. However, the Gestapo did not have information about the full workings of the resistance. Most importantly, they did not know about the resistance networks based on Army Group Centre or the Bendlerblock. Meanwhile, the disaster at Stalingrad, which cost Germany 400,000 casualties, was sending waves of horror and grief through German society, but causing remarkably little reduction in the people's faith in Hitler and in Germany's ultimate victory. This was a source of great frustration to the military and civil service plotters, who virtually all came from the elite and had privileged access to information, giving them a much greater appreciation of the hopelessness of Germany's situation than was possessed by the German people. Opposition organizations The only visible manifestation of opposition to the regime following Stalingrad were organisations created by KPD (which was directly associated with the Soviet Union), the National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD) and its League of German Officers, formed by the prisoners of war (both created in the Soviet Union), the Anti-Fascist Committee for a Free Germany which was associated with NKFD; in Germany, there were manifestations such as the secret groups of the Workers' Movement, and European Union, which contacted forced labourers and prisoners of war, and the spontaneous action of a few university students who denounced the war and the persecution and mass murder of Jews in the east. The latter were organised in the White Rose group, which was centered in Munich but had connections in Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Vienna. In the spring of 1942, they launched an anti-Nazi campaign of handbills in and around the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. This campaign was paused when three of the main members, Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, and Willi Graf, were sent to the Russian Front in July 1942. The group continued when they came back to Munich in November 1942. In January 1943, the fifth pamphlet was published; titled "A Call to All Germans!" The leaflet berated the ordinary Germans for still supporting Hitler, even though the war was "Approaching it's destined end." On February 3, 8, and 15, Hans, Willi and Alexander snuck out at night to graffiti Ludwig Maximilian University and other nearby houses with slogans such as, "Down with Hitler!" And "Hitler the Mass Murderer!" These actions put the Gestapo on high alert. On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie