Nazi Resistance Paper

8/6/2019 Nazi Resistance Paper

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When a person looks up the word resistance in the dictionary he or she might be a little

surprised. Many of the definitions seen would be physics or science definitions explaining things

such as electrical current, the resistance such as is in friction, or a force that tends to retard

another force. But then there is one more definition, the only definition of out of all the

definitions of resistance of its kind. The definition goes something like this Resistance an

underground organization engaged in a struggle for national liberation in a country under

military or totalitarian occupation. This definition comes from the Collins English Dictionary. Is

this definition completely correct? Does there have to be an organization, does there have there

be a totalitarian or military rule? Most of all when people think of resistance do they think of a

rouge terrorist setting off a bomb or a sniper on a roof top shooting the countries leader? What is

resistance?

During Hitlers reign over Nazi Germany and the Third Reich many citizens of Nazi

Germany were very displeased with the powers that be. Many citizens foreshadowed what would

happen in the future and the atrocities that would happen to their country and their people if

something wasnt done about Hitler and his fascist government. Out of this fear and knowledge

many people took off to find their own ways disobeying and undermining the controllers of their

country. Some formed organizations and some resisted purely solo. These different people also

used very different methods in which they carried out their resistance towards the Fuhrer.

There where many different methods in which German resistance groups carried out

during Hitlers power. The most known and written about method would be assassination. Many

groups and people throughout the Third Reich tried hard to kill Hitler, and all of them failed. The

idea was that Hitler was the holder of power, the ultimate ruler of the Third Reich, Der Fuhrer.


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Without Hitlers leadership there would have been no chance at all of the Nazis continuation

of power and this would have even been the case if Hitler had died of natural causes. Hitler was

the power that held together the Nazi party, for Hitler was the Nazi party and without Hitler there

would have been no party, there would have been no Nazis. Many resistance groups and people

not allied towards the Nazis knew this and grew on the idea of a possible assassination attempt

on the Fuhrer.

The first attempt on the Fuhrers life was a man by the name of Johann Georg Esler. Esler

did not belong to any sort of faction or resistance group and instead acted out on his own,

although Esler was known to have some ties with the Communist party.1 Esler had spent over

thirty nights preparing an explosive charge, made from a 75 mm shell and black powder and

some clocks, inside a pillar close to the podium in which Hitler was to speak at.2 On November

8th

1939 Hitler was giving a speech on the anniversary of his infamous Beer Hall Putsch. Esler

had the bomb set to go off during Hitlers speech knowing the speech would last slightly longer

than an hour. Unfortunately Hitler decided to cut off his speech early and eight minutes later the

bomb detonated killing several and wounding 60 others. Esler was later killed in a concentration

camp for his failed efforts.

Since then most assassinations were carried out by organizations set up by military

officials or officers. Military officials and officers were the only people that had the only

slightest chance of getting close to Hitler for Hitler was notorious for being a recluse and

separated from large groups of people except for when he gave speeches or participated in

parades. Not only did this fact complicate things for assassination attempts it did give the

1Hoffmann, Hist of Resistance, Pgs 257-258



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military and other groups one aspect in which they could possibly succeed at, and that was using

the military to conduct the assassination. Hitler did meet with his generals occasionally to

discuss the happenings of the war or to meet with military officials to discuss new weapons or

technologies. Not only was this true but military officials were normally the only people that had

access to Hitler whenever they wanted and were thus able to have the chance at an assassination

attempt. Many different ideas and ways to kill Hitler were put into use here and most of which

involved a bomb of some sort or just blatantly killing Hitler point blank with a gun. Some

officials such as Albert Speer even thought of using a poison gas used in the concentration camps

to put into the ventilation housing that would leak into the Fuhrers office and kill him.

The most famous and known of all the assassination attempts on Hitler is that of the

Valkyrie plot. The plot was mostly devised by General Olbricht and Colonel Von Tresckow. It

was a declaration that if the Fuhrer was assassinated or killed that the main powers that be should

be arrested and a military state be instituted until a cease fire or surrender could be negotiated

with the allies. A Colonel by the name of Claus Von Stauffenburg was to carry the assassination

plot out. The plot was originally planned out and thought up by Henning Von Tresckow General

Olbricht during the winter of 1938-39, originally planning the operation without the cooperation

of General Fromm.3The Plan originally called for a military coup in which only a few select

officers would know of, the idea was put the blame on Himmler and the SS which were the

biggest threat to such a plans survival. Large amounts of reserve troops and training corps would

then come into power and basically secure predetermined areas all around Germany and

conquered territories in order for protection of vulnerable points in emergency.4

Due to the

survival of Hitler out of weird circumstances and the organizations in ability to carry out the

3Hoffmann, Hist of Resistance: Pgs 103, 301-302

4Hoffmann, Hist of Resistance: Pgs 303-304


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arrests of higher officials in time the plot became a failure and Stauffenburg and other officials

were immediately executed.

Organization, agreed on desires, and the changing of scenarios was probably the main

failure behind all of the resistors ability to assassinate Hitler. Most of the groups depended on an

almost perfect scenario that if one thing went wrong the whole entire operation became a total

failure and would almost always give away the organizations presence and cause. This was the

main problem with the resistance groups throughout the era. Not only did organized resistance

fail for the most part but even when people acted on their own it was never enough to bring

down Hitler. Apart from most organized resistance to the Fuhrer most lone parties never

intended or even tried to kill Hitler on their own. This was mostly due to the fact that trying to

kill Hitler by ones self it was almost impossible to get close enough to Hitler in order to put in a

fatal blow. This being said it easy to conclude that most lone resistance was non-violent in

nature.

Even though most of the core of resistance was trying to resist through the means of

assassination and was a violent means to countering Hitler and his fascist government, other

resistance groups and people found other ways of resisting the Nazi regime. Many people

believed in a non-violent method of resisting Hitler, as most of Germans were still religious, and

thought that persuading the people against Hitler was a total and probable idea. Many people

during and after Hitlers rise to power spoke out against him, distributed pamphlets, and held

rallies against Hitler, though most of these kinds of methods disappeared shortly after Hitlers

rise to power with the creation of concentration camps and the creation of the Gestapo to arrest

people that were deemed dangerous to the Nazi state.


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The Gestapo greatly hindered the spread of information, for soon after Hitlers rise to

power the secret police took hold and the German people went into a sort of cat chase mouse

game with the government. Even though the secret police was rather small when spread out it

was the German people themselves that spied and threw each other into the lions den. It was

due to this that many organizations and people failed with their resistance as most citizens were

spying and listening on each other, and they knew it. No organization was completely safe from

the public and if someone had the wrong idea or just didnt like the person it wasnt uncommon

for citizens to write the Gestapo and write out false accusations about the other party.

Religious groups were a huge base of resistance against Hitler, for Hitler greatly despised

religion and had it shortly pseudo-outlawed after he came into power. Many Priests and Pastors

spoke out against Hitler, some even criticizing Hitler for what he was not only doing to the

church but also to the citizens of Germany. Cardinal Clemons von Galen was highly against the

euthanasia of mentally unfit of people and gave sermons in catholic churches. The Nazi

leadership was astonished by the Cardinals spreading of his sermon that was spread throughout

the church and avoided making him a martyr by killing the three parishes that distributed the

sermon instead. Even though the Cardinal was able to get the law that allowed euthanasia banned

euthanasia was still practiced secretly by Nazi doctors by more discreet means.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor who was very much against the Nazi regime and tried

very peacefully to resist Hitler by every means. Bonhoeffer went around Germany giving secret

seminaries on pacifism and often housed Jews and protected them from the Gestapo which was a

capital crime. Bonhoeffer also helped escaping Jews by helping them through the border of

Switzerland. Eventually Bonhoeffer got mixed up with and joined the Abwehr in attempt to

throw Hitler out of power. The group that Bonhoeffer mostly affiliated with was the called the


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Kreisau Circle.5

Bonheoffers purpose was to go off to Switzerland to speak to Vissert Hooft

and other important bodies in order to get collaboration between London and the eventual coup

with the military.6

But the talks didnt go as planned as London was not convinced that such a

coup was going to take place and was unsure of the probability of these events.7 Unfortunately

for Bonhoeffer he was arrested when the assassination attempt on Hitlers life failed and was

thus imprisoned at Tegel military prison. Even though Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and would

face certain death by being sent to a concentration camp or being hanged Bonhoeffer made the

best of his situation and almost unknowingly mocked the Gestapo and government. Even though

Bonhoeffer was offered many chances to escape he stayed true to his beliefs and was shortly

hung before the war becoming a martyr of the Christian religion.

One of the many different methods people decided to risk their lives by resistance to the

Nazi regime was by through the use of information and the continual spreading of information.

Some ways that information was spread was by the mailing of letters that contained information

that would deglamorize the Nazi regime and would hopefully bring the citizens to their senses

about the Nazi regime. A group known as the die Weisse Rose (white rose) was a group of

students who spread their information by the mailings of letters to people within the city of

Munich. This method was a non-violent action intended to decrease Nazi support and decrease

support of the war. The group lost their cover when they decided to put extra copies of their

information in on the floor and railings of their college during classes as to not get caught. But

they failed in their secrecy and were caught, trialed, and executed. The allies found out about it

and decided to drop the leaflets from allied bombers that contained the same information that the

5Hoffmann, German Resistance, Pgs 64-65




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white rose had written in their letters. These leaflets contained information of German losses and

defeats and were supposed to be a way of getting the people to rally against Hitler. One could

say that the white rose group was semi-successful in their cause because their information was

eventually spread all throughout Germany and it wasnt long before the people of Germany knew

the truth.

Probably one of the most generally accepted and least dangerous forms of resistance to

Nazism and Nazi mentality was through use of culture. Cultures from around the world were

mostly prohibited. Different cultural norms other than the old Prussian/Nazi view were frowned

upon. American and British cultures and cultural practices were especially frowned upon since

they were mostly viewed as the main enemies of the Reich. Anything that had to do with the

other worlds was mostly forbidden. Cultural things such as books, records, social practices,

philosophies, and many ways of thinking could land you an unexpected meeting with the

Gestapo if you were not careful, but yet many Germans and Nazis themselves continued to

follow up and practice many of the different cultural norms. Listening to music or reading any

books from another country was a peaceful to resist the Nazis. In the movie Swing Kids two

high school students resist the social grain of the Nazi Reich by voluntarily dancing in clubs that

played Swing music secretly similar to how speak easies served alcohol in the Americas during

the 1920s.

The youth resisted in many more ways than just in music and culture. Many of the youth

were not fully in agreement with the Nazi regime and more often than not resisted Nazi ideals

and organizations. Many of the youth thought that a way to get back at the Nazis was to not sign

up or enlist in the Hitler Jugend (youth) as a way of keeping out of the Nazi regime. The Hitler

Youth was seen as a pseudo-military organization intended to train the youth of Germany into a


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military state of thinking that would be more malleable for Hitlers Wehrmacht. Much of the

youth not enrolled in such programs as these or thought different of the regime had no desire or

urges to be in such a militaristic state.

Resistance was also seen in the work place such as in the factories. The greatest way to

hurt Hitler and his regime, and to help the allied powers just a little more was to resist the Nazi

war machine. Factories saw a widespread amount of resistance, though most of the efforts were

tiny in comparison to other methods listed before. Hitlers ability to stay alive and ultimately stay

in power swung on the fate of the war that had begun in 1939. Initially resistance in the factories

and other such work places were almost non-existent at the beginning of the war, but as the war

drew on and the people began realizing that the fate of the nation had already been decided

factory workers decided they could speed up the process of the allies winning just a little more if

they could sabotage the machines that the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe had to use to fight with. It

was not uncommon for some of the panzers sent into battle to break down on the field due to a

chipped gear tooth that was knocked off by a factory worker and then glued back on. Such

incidents like these on the field of battle often resulted in the abandonment of equipment in the

field and many weapons never saw combat at the end of the war due to such efforts. Much

resistance was also carried out in the aircraft plants, with the sabotaging of ailerons or engines

resulting and more often than not resulted in the deaths of pilots. It was a heavy toll to pay in

order to assure certain victory for the allies. One most also find it important to note that much of

the labor by the end of the war was also slave labor and this in itself also propagated a lot of

mechanical breakdowns for the Wehrmacht.

Resistance is more than just an organization wanting national liberation. Resistance is the

soul, mind, and heart of a group of people bent on changing the current powers that be.


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Resistance is not only defined by the people who carry out their goals or tasks, but almost always

on the way they carry out their goals and tasks. Resistance is not something that is limited to

only one field or method. Resistance can be and is almost anything that defies the powers that be

whether it is peaceful or violent. Resistance can be any method whether it is spreading

information, disabling a war machine, assassination, culture, or even saying no to the regimes

laws. This is what resistance is, resistance is defined by the methods that are used to defy that

state and the powers that be for resistance would exist if there were no way of taking action.

Resistance can only be taken through the use of action, no matter the method of action used.

Documents

Nazi Resistance Paper