German Resistance - Introduction

Introduction

The German Resistance movement consisted of several disparate political and ideological strands, which represented different classes of German society and were seldom able to work together – indeed for much of the period there was little or no contact between the different strands of resistance.

One strand was the underground networks of the banned Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD), such as the SPD activist Julius Leber, who was an active resistance figure. There was also resistance from the anarcho-syndicalist union, the Freie Arbeiter Union (FAUD) that distributed anti-Nazi propaganda and assisted people in fleeing the country. Another group, the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle), consisted of anti-fascists, communists, and an American woman. The individuals in this group began to assist their Jewish friends as early as 1933.

Another strand was resistance based on minorities within the Christian churches, Catholic and Protestant. Their role was mostly symbolic – a few Christian clergy spoke out against the regime, such as the Protestant pastors Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller (the latter after having initially supported Hitler), and the Catholic Bishop Clemens von Galen, and their example inspired some acts of overt resistance, such as that of the White Rose student group in Munich. The Catholic Church opposed the regime only when its own deepest values were challenged, as in opposition to the Nazi T4 "euthanasia" program. The Protestant churches never directly opposed the regime (or lacked the institutional hierarchy to do so creedally), although many Protestant ministers did so (see Confessing Church).

A third strand might be called the "unorganized resistance" — individual Germans or small groups of people acting in defiance of government policies or orders, or in ways seen as subversive of the Nazi system. Most notably, these included a significant number of Germans who helped Jews survive the Nazi Holocaust by hiding them, obtaining papers for them or in others ways aiding them. More than 300 Germans have been recognised for this. It also included, particularly in the later years of the regime, informal networks of young Germans who evaded serving in the Hitler Youth and defied the cultural policies of the Nazis in various ways.

Finally, there was the resistance network within the German Army, the Foreign Office and the Abwehr, the military intelligence organisation. These groups hatched conspiracies against Hitler in 1938 and again in 1939, but for a variety of reasons could not implement their plans. After the German defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, they contacted many army officers who were convinced that Hitler was leading Germany to disaster, although fewer who were willing to engage in overt resistance. Active resisters were drawn largely from the old Prussian aristocracy, since this was the only social class that had not been successfully penetrated by Nazi ideology.

Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to concentration camps. As early as 1935 there were jingles warning: "Dear Lord God, keep me quiet, so that I don't end up in Dachau." (It almost rhymes in German: Lieber Herr Gott mach mich stumm / Daß ich nicht nach Dachau komm.) . "Dachau" refers to the Dachau concentration camp. This is a parody of a common German children's prayer, "Lieber Gott mach mich fromm, daß ich in den Himmel komm."