Was there a German Resistance?

I just saw Sophie Scholl: The Last Days over the weekend and was somewhat disappointed. It's not that the movie's not well made and the story's not compelling, but because the film's been touted as the best about German Resistance to the Nazi Regime. I've even heard of the name of this particular group, which calls itself the White Rose.

So, what kind of heroic activities does this most well known of the Anti-Nazi groups engage in? why, printing pamphlets, of course. The entire "movement", as far as I can tell from the film, is about seven college students and one professor who wrote, printed, and distributed pamphlets (in secret) about the nefarious deeds of the Nazi government. One can almost dismiss the whole thing as a prank by one of today's fringe group (like PETA, for example), except for the fast that every last one of the them were executed by gullotine for the act of printing and distributing pamphlets.

However ineffective the White Rose group was, its members still showed more bravery than the conspirators in The Valkyrie; at least the players in Valkyrie were army generals who commanded valuable military assets. In a totalitarian society that keeps track of how many stamps you buy and registers every typewriter in existence, it is extremely dangerous to engage in covert printing operations. Even if the movement's entirely successful, its impact is bound to be minimal, as the offending pamphlets were quickly confiscated and the people who could've read them are powerless students anyway. These people were not in a position to make a difference, and therefore under no moral obligation to act, yet they decided to do so even in the face of certain death.

For every one of the symbolic gestures of resistance that's recorded, I'll bet at least two are forgotten. How can one sustain the belief that what you do is worthwhile, knowing that most of it will be unacknowledged and forgotten?