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Modern History

Home > Modern History > National Studies > C Germany 1918-1939 > Germany 1918 - 1939: German resistance

Hermann Göring at work.
Photograph courtesy of the Treu family

• Outcomes
• Key features and issues
• Opposition to Nazism
• Resistance: the role of the Christian churches
• Resistance: the role of the German army
• Resistance by other groups
• References

Outcomes

• Explain forces and ideas and access their significance in contributing to change and continuity during the twentieth century (H2.1)
• Locates, selects and organises relevant information from different types of sources (H3.2)

Extract from Modern History Stage 6 Syllabus © Board of Studies NSW 2004.

Key features and issues

• influence of the German army
• changes in society
• the nature and impact of Nazism

From this tutorial you will learn about opposition to Nazism.

Opposition to Nazism

The consolidation of power into the hands of Hitler and of those around him such as Goebbels and Goering faced little organised opposition. Political parties, the trade unions and big business were no threat at all, and in the case of business were strong supporters looking to their own interests. Any potential resistance was ruthlessly dealt with by the Gestapo, the SS or other organised thuggery.

Besides, the great bulk of the German people supported Hitler in his many totalitarian activities and were prepared to act as the eyes and ears of the Fuehrer in most cases. Grunberger quotes an instance where a combat-weary veteran of the Eastern Front called Hitler a murderer and his own uncle denounced him to the Gestapo. He also says, "women tended to take the lead [in denunciation]...because many thought that prying into their neighbours' affairs constituted a female contribution to the war effort" (p. 153).

So where did the resistance come from? There were two main sources, the churches and the army.

Resistance: The role of the Christian churches

Greenwood says, "Of all the organisations which the Nazis sought to control, the Christian churches proved the most difficult" (p. 524). The Roman Catholic Church "proved the least pliable" (p. 524), but Hitler allowed Alfred Rosenberg, the most violent anti-Christian among the Nazis, to persecute them, and most resistance crumbled. Catholic bishops like Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich and Bishop Preysing of Berlin showed courage and defended their beliefs but to no avail.

The Protestants proved less effective in their resistance because of lack of cohesion, but they did form a "vigorous, confessional, evangelical church, determined to oppose state interference and Nazi attacks on Christian values" (Greenwood, p. 525). In May 1936 this group protested to Hitler about the anti-Christian attitudes of the Third Reich, against anti-Semitism, Gestapo brutality and the concentration camps; for their trouble many were arrested, including Pastor Niemoller.

By 1941 it was admitted that the efforts to silence the Christian churches had failed.

Resistance: the role of the German army

The Wehrmacht's (army) role in the resistance came in two stages. Their main concern was that Hitler was leading Germany into a war that could not be won in the first instance, and later that Hitler had lost the war and should be replaced so that an honourable peace could be sought. This was something Hitler refused to do. The first plot was aimed at overthrowing Hitler in September 1938 before the Munich Conference. This group, consisting of Generals Halder and von Witzleban and Schacht among others, stalled at the last minute and claimed that Neville Chamberlain, by agreeing to come to Munich, "had forced them at the very last minute to call off their plans to overthrow Hitler and the Nazi regime!" (Shirer, p. 502).

Shirer argued that the generals "had on tap the military force to easily sweep Hitler and his regime aside." They didn't give the order for the execution of the coup. Had they done so, Shirer contends, the population of Berlin would have come over as they were "scared to death that Hitler was about to bring on a war." The reason they didn't act, according to their view given after the war, was that they "could scarcely have arrested Hitler and tried him as a war criminal when it was obvious that he was about to achieve an important conquest without war" (Shirer, p. 505). Shirer says that they failed at an opportune moment to act on their own behalf. In August 1938 they had tried to communicate with the British and begged them to remain firm over Czechoslovakia. They waited to see how the British would respond, but the British hadn't trusted them.

Resistance by other groups

In recent years historians have tended to look more broadly at German anti-Nazi movements as aspects of social history. The volumes by Large and Peukert include essays on women in the resistance, the Jewish resistance, working-class resistance and forms of opposition in everyday life. As an example of such opposition, groups such as working-class youth, by engaging in counter-cultural activities, refused to conform to the ideals of Hitler Youth. While such activities were not as overt as plots against Nazi leaders, they were, nonetheless, instances of the failure to conform to Nazi norms.

References

Bullock, A 1990, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny. Penguin.

Greenwood, G 1965, The Modern World: A History of Our Time. Angus and Robertson.

Grunberger, R 1974, A Social History of the Third Reich. Penguin.

Large, D C (Ed.) 1991, Contending with Hitler:Varieties of German Resistance in the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press.

Peukert, D 1987, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life. Yale University Press.

Shirer, W 1960, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Secker and Warburg.