The German resistance was not in support of Hitler’s political agendas and this disagreement lead them to a social and moral dilemma. The people of the resistance movement did not want to appear as traitors to their country. On the other hand, they accepted the fact that they could be executed for treason. They loved their country but hated their government. The road to resistance is well stated in the book The German Opposition to Hitler. Michael Thomsett writes,
The first phase is alienation, the experience of those who cannot agree with the philosophy of their government. The second step is resistance itself, Which may take many forms. The person may simply talk quietly with other about the problems they share. Another may simply slow down his or her work or purposely sabotage government operations through poor performance. The third step is conspiracy. When people recognize that resistance is not enough to solve the problems, they come to believe that they have no choice but to conspire with like minded people and make plans for the removal of the government.
These phases were reflected in the army, the Catholic Church, and Hitler’s political opponents.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the German army had strong political powers in the German government and they were completely independent of the political leadership. This ended when Hitler abolished the presidential office and declared himself commander in chief of the armed forces. This move allowed Hitler to draft a motion to force the German army to swear to the Law of the Oath of the Wehrmacht. This oath was to insure unconditional loyalty to Hitler and eliminate any political threat to the Nazi Party. This unconditional loyalty was the first time that the German Army was forced to commit illegal offenses. The army witnessed the SS (Shutzstaffein) and Gestapo’s abuses on innocent German citizens and had to use the oath as an excuse for their actions. This was against the German Army’s military code of conduct for they should not participate in illegal actions that would tarnish their uniforms.These phases were reflected in the army, the Catholic Church, and Hitler’s political opponents.
For awhile, Hitler did gain popularity in the armed forces. This popularity was the result of Hitler’s unwillingness to follow the laws of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler ordered a draft that tripled the size of the army to 300,000 men and commissioned two battleships for the navy. Hitler’s popularity would soon decline when he revealed his true intensions of going to war to liberate the German people inside the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia. Hitler also replaced several high ranking military generals who opposed his positions on war. General Werner von Blomber and General Werner von Fritsch were caught in accusations of immoral behaviors. They were both tried and convicted in a less than legal military court which was arranged by the Nazi Party. This resulted in beginning of the resistance’s movement in the military.
The person that was responsible for the creation of the military resistance was General Ludwig Beck. He had been a long-standing opponent of Hitler’s Nazi party. These indifferences were largely due to Hitler’s political aggressions, the abuses of innocent German citizens and the purging of the military generals in the armed forces. With civilian help, Beck organized the first military resistance group called the Wednesday Club (Mitwochgesllschaft). The purpose of the Wednesday Club was to destroy the Nazi regime and to remove Hitler from power. This group grew in numbers throughout the 1930s and also enlisted Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and General Hans Oster. They were the chiefs of staff for the Army Counter-Intelligence (Abwehr). With the added help from the Army Counter-Intelligence, Beck was able to send informants to Britain to inform the British Government of Hitler’s intensions on going to war with Czechoslovakia. Beck also pleaded with the British not to punish Germany because of Hitler’s actions. Beck’s last motive was to have the British government recognize the differences between the Nazi party and a new established government under the military’s control. On September 3, 1939, all communications would end after Britain and France declared war on Germany. The British government would discredit all of the German resistance’s attempts to keep peace.
The churches in Germany were also strongholds for the German resistance. This resistance was started when Hitler was trying to gain power as Chancellor in the Reichstag. He could not keep power without a majority, so he played into the interests of the Catholic Central Party. This was done by Hitler’s idea that there were too many Jewish influences in Germany. At first, the Catholic’s were pleased to entertain and support this ideology. Hitler reassured the Catholic Church that it was in his interest to “protect the souls of the German people” and to safeguard the values and ideologies of the German Catholic Church.
On March 23, 1933, Hitler asked for a state of an emergency and then secured his position in Germany with the Catholic Churches. Hitler’s real motives were to fool the people and gain total control. On July 20, 1933, Hitler drafted the Concordat and sent it to the Vatican. In the Concordat, Hitler promised total freedom to the Catholic Churches in Germany. He also promised to protect the Catholic’s affairs if the German Catholic Churches signed an oath of loyalty to the Nazi Party. Days after this promise, Hitler disbanded the Catholic party in the Reichstag and the Catholic Youth League. This disbandment was due to the Catholic’s objections to the sterilization policies.
The Catholic’s response was to form the anti-Nazi Organization (Rhatin). The Rhatin produced a newspaper that was circulated around Germany. This paper condemned the Nazi Party and told the Catholic followers that they could not be Catholic and support the Nazi’s ideologies. Furthermore, the Catholic’s response spurred Cardinal Michael von Faulhber of Bavaria to speak out defiantly against the Nazis. Faulhber’s defiant sermons on the treatment of the Jews were soon published and sent to other churches. Soon after, the Nazi party retaliated by torching Faulhber’s house. The Nazis also organized a riot to demonstrate outside of Faulhber’s home. The demonstrators chanted, “Away with Faulhber, the friend of the Jews.”
One of the most successful but disappointing strategies that the Catholic Church did in their resistance movement was to appoint 41 year old Dr. Josef Muller as a liaison to the Vatican. Muller was an anti-Nazi and he had a record with the Gestapo. Also, Muller was an outspoken German Catholic civilian and he was well known in the social circles of the Vatican. Furthermore, he was a stanch supporter of his friend Cardinal Faulhber of the Catholic Church in Munich.
This caught the attention of General Beck, the main supporter of the resistance movement in the military. General Beck sent Hans Oster to ask Dr. Muller if he would be interested in working with the military resistance. Dr. Muller accepted this offer and was drafted into the army. After being drafted, Muller was assigned to the Arwehr offices in Munich as a first lieutenant. In this job, he could now travel freely outside of Germany without raising suspicions with the Gestapo or the SS.
With this new assignment, Muller arranged interviews in Rome with Monsignor Kaas and Father Robert Lieber. Kaas was the current adviser to the Pope and once held the leadership of the Catholic Center Party in the German Reichstag. Lieber was a Jesuit priest and the Pope’s trusted secretary. Muller asked Lieber for a meeting with the Pope to open up indirect communications with the British government. This was channeled through the British minister for the Vatican, Sir Francis d’Arcy Osborne. Osborne then conveyed all messages through Lord Edward Frederick Halifax the British foreign secretary.
Muller traveled to Rome several times during 1939 and 1940 to report on Hitler’s military movements. On one such visit, Muller was given a document named Mr. X. Within the document, the British government was going to negotiate peace if the resistance removed Hitler and replaced the current government with a democratic government. When Muller presented Mr. X to the German chief of the armed forces, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, Brauchitsch accused his chief of staff of treason. Eventually, Brauchitsch dropped his accusations of treason and remained quiet on his knowledge of a coup. The only good thing to come of this channel of communication was to warn Britain and France of an appending invasion. This channel eventually faltered due to Britain’s mistrust of the German government.
The last major resistance movement was the political scene in the German Reichstag. In 1933, the political resistance was created when Hitler systematically eliminated his political opponents by imprisoning or murdering them. These political opponents were the Social Democrats, the Communist party and the White Rose. Hitler took full advantage of the People Court to insure his party’s laws were upheld. The People Court consisted of two professional judges and three officers. These officers usually had no understanding of the law but they used Hitler’s political dogma to overrule the two judges. Hitler first used this court system to exterminate the Communist party since they were a direct threat to his control over labor unions.
The Communist party was the largest political opposition to Hitler and vowed to rid Germany of the Nazi Party. They fought vigorously on the streets and at the political poles to gain offices in the Reichstag. In 1933, this opposition was the primary reason for Hitler to pass the Enabling Act. This act suspended all civil rights to Germany. After passing the Enabling Act, Hitler and the Nazi Party arrested and jailed over 340,000 Communists. These arrests were the result of listening to foreign broadcasts on the radio and the distribution of political propaganda. Hitler also blamed the Communists for the fire that burned down the Reichstag. The Communists’ political newspaper during that time was the Red Flag (Fahne). After the fire, it more than tripled in circulation from 70,000 to 300,000. The Peoples Court gave six year sentences to Communists that were convicted of a crime. As a result of Enabling Act and the fire at the Reichstag the Communist party was eventually driven underground.
Underground, the Communists were able to organize a three man cell system to protect them from the infiltration of the Gestapo. These cells if caught could only expose a maximum of two other people in the resistance movement. This system was very effective by smuggling Communist propaganda into Germany and smuggling out Jews and political dissidences. One of the main Communist resistance groups was the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle). This was formed by Lieutenant Harro Schulz-Boysen, an anti-Nazi. Schulz-Boysen was the owner of a newspaper called The Opponent (Der Gregner). Furthermore, Schulz-Boysen also worked in the Luftwaffe intelligence service and had many high ranking friends in the Nazi Party. His group was discovered in August of 1942, after a Russian agent was caught parachuting into Germany. This Russian agent was interrogated and he eventually released the names of his German contacts. These contacts were then interrogated and the whole communist underground resistance movement began to unravel. One hundred Communist resisters were caught and this lead to the exposure of Schulz-Boysen. Schulz-Boysen was convicted of treason and put to death in 1942.
Another major political party that was driven underground was the Social Democratic Party. Even though the Social Democrats were not as organized or politically motivated as the Communist party, they were still viewed as a threat to Hitler and the Nazi Party. After Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, the Social Democrats left Germany in the thousands. Most of the democrats went to Prague, where they were able to actively protest Hitler’s dogma. This protest was in the form of newspapers, flyers and books. The Social Democrats were actively exchanging news with the remaining Democrats in Germany. The remaining Democrats in Germany were on a constant alert because of the SS and the Gestapo. Hitler persecuted them relentlessly and confiscated all media that was against the Nazi Party’s philosophy. By 1933, the total amount of Social Democrats that were imprisoned in concentration camps climbed to 27,000.
Julius Leber was a Social Democrat and was one of the first political writers to be imprisoned. He was the main editor to the newspaper Luebeck People’s Messenger (Luebecker Volksboten). As a Social Democratic member of the Reichstag, Leber constantly clashed with Hitler on political issues. When Hitler came to power, he immediately arrested Leber for being a political enemy of the state. Leber was sent to a concentration camp where he continued to write. In 1937, after Leber’s captivity, he moved to Berlin where he continued his work in secrecy. He was executed in 1945 for his participation in the 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler.
Another Social Democrat that was arrested and placed in a concentration camp was Eilbek Walter Schmedemann. As a result of Schmedemann’s political involvement in the Social Democratic Party, Schmedemann was arrested when Hitler became chancellor. On his first release from incarceration, he was told not to involve himself in any political movements. Schmedemann disregarded this order and created the Elbek Comrades. The Elbek Comrades produced anti-Nazi propaganda and uncensored news in a four page flyer. They supported this flyer by selling illegal pictures underground. Elbek Comrades’ flyers were given to approximately 5,000 subscribers before it was uncovered and destroyed by the Gestapo. Schmedemann was rearrested and placed in Fuhlsbuttel Concentration Camp. In Fuhlsbuttel, Schmedemann was able to remember most of the crimes and atrocities that the Nazis had inflicted on the prisoners. When Schmedemann was released, he created a pamphlet of these crimes that included dates and names. He mailed copies of this pamphlet to Nazi German officials and Hamburg citizens. Schmedemann’s reason for doing this was to not give the Nazis an excuse that they never knew these atrocities had occurred.
The D.J. One-Eleven was the last major political resistance movement to be driven underground. D.J. One-Eleven was not a political organization but a group for young college students that focused on nature walks, intellectual discussions and climbing sports. This club was formed by Hans Scholl, when he became annoyed by the meaningless political dogma that the Hitler Youths were required to hear. Furthermore, Hitler had disbanded the Youth League that Scholl was a member of due to the fact; it was in direct conflict with Hitler Youths.
In 1937, Scholl was arrested by the Gestapo because he and other members of the Youth League would not cease their club meetings or give up their memberships. Scholl was imprisoned for six weeks on the charge of “loose talk.” When Scholl was released from jail, the Gestapo strongly implied that he join the Hitler Youths or face more jail time. Furthermore, Scholl would find out that other members of the Youth League had died in the custody of the Gestapo. This outraged Scholl enough to create the D.J One-Eleven in the memory of his fellow members.
Soon after this, Scholl was drafted into the Army for two years as a medical technician. There Scholl befriended some fellow comrades that liked his anti-Nazi philosophy. After Scholl was out of the Army, he and his new friends purchased a duplicating machine. They produced a flyer called the White Rose in protest of Hitler’s Mein Kamph, the treatment of the Jews and the evil actions of the Nazi dictatorship. In addition, this flyer also encouraged people to slow down their work production in factories and to not give clothes or money to the army. The White Rose was circulated around the University of Munich and was mailed to other sympathizers in Germany. One morning at the University of Munich, Scholl and his sister Sophie were caught by the maintenance superintendent Jacob Schmidt throwing their flyers out a second story window. Schmidt immediately contacted the Gestapo and had the Scholls arrested. On February 22nd 1943, the Scholls were found guilty of treason and where decapitated the same day at the Munich Stadelheim prison.
The last heroic act of the German resistance was the July 20th bombing of the conference room at Wolfsschanze, Hitler’s East Prussian headquarters at Rastenburg. This bomb was intended to kill Hitler but it became the last failure for the German resistance. The covert plan was called Valkyrie and was devised by General Friedrich Olbricht. On July 20, 1944, Hitler invited Colonel Claus Schenk Stauffenberg and Lieutenant Werner von Haeften to a meeting at noon. During this time, they delivered the briefcase that contained the two bombs. Stauffenberg ignited the briefcase bomb in a dressing room in the conference building. Then he secretly placed it under the conference table next to Hitler. Stauffeberg fled the scene knowing that he had less then ten minutes before the explosion. During this time, one of Hitler’s aids accidentally kicked the briefcase further under the table. This action protected Hitler from the explosion because the explosion tipped the table over shielding him from the main blast. From a distance, Stauffenberg witnessed the explosion and informed Berlin that Hitler was dead.
In Berlin, Olbricht started to implement the resistance’s coup. Olbricht notified General Beck to take charge of the newly formed military interim government by officially appointing himself Chancellor. With General Beck as the new Chancellor, he and Olbricht ordered their army units to round-up and arrest all SS and Nazi leaders. This was short lived after Major Remer and his troops reached Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’ office. Remer placed Goebbels under arrest but Goebbels insisted on calling Hitler to prove to Remer that he was still alive. Remer being a stanch support of the Nazi Party backed down from his orders to arrest Goebbels. This was the turning point in the resistance movement. The resistance no longer had the army’s support in Berlin. Remer and his troops surrounded the coup’s office building until the SS was able to arrest all the army resisters. General Beck committed suicide by shooting himself in the head and Olbricht, Stauffenberg and Haeften were executed after a military court hearing.
In closing, the failed assassination against Hitler in 1944 was the end of most of the major resistance movements in Germany. However, the German army, the Catholic Church and the political enemies of Hitler did have some positive attributes. They helped save peoples’ lives, they aided the allies by informing them of Hitler’s future military plans, and they slowed down the Nazi regime inside of Germany. Some might think these were acts of treason. However, in reality, the Germans that made their minds up to commit to a resistance movement loved their country and not their government. Those Germans who died for their country should be commended for they were true heroes of their time.
Work Cited
Hermann Graml, Mommsen Hans, Rechhardt Hans and Wolf Ernes. The German Resistance to Hitler. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1970.
Hoffmann Peter. German Resistance to Hitler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Mommsen Hans. Alternatives To Hitler: German Resistance Under The Third Reich. London: I.B. Tauris and Co Ltd, 2003.
Nicosia Francis, and Stokes Lawrence. Germans Against Nazism: Nonconformity, Opposition and Resistance in the Third Reich. Oxford: Berg Publisher Ltd, 1990.
Thomsett Michael. The Opposition to Hitler: The Resistance, the Underground, and Assassination Plots, 1938-1945. Jefferson: McFarland and Company Inc, 1997.
No comments:
Post a Comment