German
resistance to Nazism was a very complicated and ambiguous protest, stemming
from different ideologies across a whole spectrum of German people. There were
some important groups and leaders in Widerstand
who helped shape the protest and expand it among Germans, but there were so
many players in this protest it’s impossible to point to one historical
perspective. Anarchists, Communists, Jews, those who opposed totalitarianism,
all wanted to bring Hitler to an end. Though the goals all aligned, the Widerstand protest in Nazi Germany has a
rich historical context with multiple perspective and different methods.
It is important to understand the
context behind what it was that Germans protested in Nazi Germany. This is a
more ambiguous task than initially expected, because there were actually two
aspects to Nazism that different protesters addressed; the prosecution of Jews,
and the use of National Fascism in Germany. After World War I, Germany was left
in a depression, even worse than the one faced in America in the 1930s. The
Treaty of Versailles had blamed Germany for World War I, forcing it to pay all
war reparations. Germans were desperate for help, and along came Adolf Hitler,
promising to make Germany great again. He made promises to destitute Germans, “profiting
from these conditions to become a mass party with increasing popular support”
(Cox). Germans were desperate enough to agree with Hitler’s ideas initially,
but as he rose to power, many saw problems with his vision for a utopia; mainly
that it included a racial cleansing and a totalitarian government authority. It
was “Hitler’s initial rise to power in 1933… sparked a rebellious attitude within
youth groups and Jewish communities” (Axelrod). It was when Nazism came in full
swing that dissenters began to come out of the woodwork to protest. This was
the inception of the protest, which for this particular protest, was the most important
part. It marked the beginning of the event being protested, in conjunction with
the beginning of the protest itself. Furthermore, the inception drew the
distinction between Nazis and Germans for the dark events that were to follow.
The entire protest was built around the ongoing crisis of the Germans and the Nazi
party’s power and wrongdoings.
Hitler’s Fascist principles began to show
in the inception of Nazi’s power, which was welcomed by many destitute Germans,
but unwelcome by many others. Actually the protesters were of a minority, since
“most Germans did actively resist the dictatorship” (Axelrod). Some Germans
thought Communism was the right way and not Fascism, like the Red Orchestra,
who “followed Marxist principles of Communism right at the Crux of Soviet
influence in Europe” (Cox). The Red Orchestra was led by a group of three of
the biggest German Nazi protesters from the times; Harro Schulze-Boysen, and
Mildred and Arvid Harnack. The Red Orchestra consisted of mostly Communists,
and the members were Jews, Catholics, atheists, and Christians. This protest
group worked on Nazi intelligence and working to form large groups of
dissenters in order to expand the protest. This was the closest that any group
got to military resistance that didn’t end in bloodshed for the protesters. Unfortunately,
other versions military protest was impossible, since any “[violent] resisters…
were tortured to death after their capture by the SS”, especially in the case
of the Warsaw Ghettos (Marrus). The Harnacks, along with Harro Schulze-Boysen,
were able to do what they could to help in the resistance. Unfortunately, even
this came to an end. Mildred Harnack was “captured and killed by the SS in 1943”,
and her reputation was “met with ambiguity and confusion; Mildred was seen as a
Soviet Spy in the West and a Marxist saint in the East” (Brysac).
Military resistance was just the tip of
the iceberg for German resistance against Nazis, because perhaps the most
important form of protest came from intellectual protest, namely the White Rose
society. Hans and Sophie Scholl were two University students who decided to begin
their own form of protest. They created the White Rose Society, which was quite
possibly the most impactful and influential intellectual protest to Nazism. The
White Rose leaflets produced and distributed by the Scholls were paramount to
the idea of resistance. They framed their pamphlet distribution very similar to
The Federalist Papers from colonial America, as “underground… pamphlets that
called to arms or otherwise grabbed the attention of Nazi resisters” (Marrus). These
pamphlets were there to be read by all Germans that they could reach, and even
distribution was taken care of. The FAUD[i]
was a big group that helped White Rose out, when they used their “influence of
labor in order to further distribute pamphlets” (FAUD)[ii].
This is a huge indicator of the White Rose’s influence, as their mainly Jewish
identity was aided by the FAUD’s Anarchist identity. The fact that other
organizations were willing to help is also evident by the White Rose’s pamphlet
production, headed by Sophie Scholl along with help from “Ludwig Maximillian
University’s printing team… [who] previously worked for the Gestapo” (H.E.A.R.T.)[iii].
The printing press team had been Gestapo sympathizers who published propaganda
for Hitler, until the “prosecution of two of their members, Jews”, at which
point the printing team had shifted opinion to work for the resistance
(H.E.A.R.T.). The intellectual resistance was important and arguably more impactful
for Widerstand than the physical
resistance.
Widerstand was a much more involved resistance than
most people think. Though the Nazis were part of an evil superpower, the brave
resisters in Germany still stood for what they believed in. Most resisters were
caught and executed, but that just shows that they succeeded in posing a threat
to the third Reich. From Communists to Jews, many different people shared a
common enemy in Hitler, and proved to the world that the Germany identity is
stronger than any military superpower.
[i]
FAUD is the Freier Arbeiter Union (Free
Worker’s Union). The leaders followed a lot of Communist values and disagreed
with Nazi control over workers and business.
[ii]
Unknown Author, the FAUD article was a part of an English journal written about
anarchy and resistance called En,
Organise!
[iii]
H.E.A.R.T. published a historical article on the White Rose Society, no
expressed author.
No comments:
Post a Comment