Resistance against the Axis powers during WW2 was widespread. Resistance in German-occupied
Norway to resistance in Axis-controlled Yugoslavia. But what about German resistance against Hitler
during WW2? Some stories you are familiar with. Think of the 1944 July Plot. But there
are also
the lesser known factions and stories. For example the Cologne Uprising late 1944.
In this video I am going to present you an overview video of the German resistance against
the Nazis during World War II. Keep watching.
Good to have you back on the channel. I'm Stefan, I'm a Dutch history teacher and I
like to hustle history 4 U!
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When Hitler came to power in 1933 the Nazis unleashed a purge against political enemies: socialists,
communists, liberals and other people they deemed a threat for their totalitarian regime.
Before WW2 broke out tens of thousands of opponents and alleged opponents were interned
in concentration camps. During the war this number would increase. See, within the group of German
opportunists and neutralists there were people who started to doubt the Nazi regime when
the effects of the war became visable in Germany: think of shortages, or the Allied bombings
and the soldiers that were killed in action of the battlefield. Many doubted the book
burnings, indoctrination sessions and deportation of the Jews by the Nazis.
However, resistance in Germany was much harder than in the German-occupied areas.
In Germany members of the NSDAP, the SA and the SS kept an eye on the people,
A majority of the German people did support Hitler which decreased the chance on resistance,
And during the war many Germans saw resistance against Hitler or the party as treason.
Resistance did occur and it came from different factions. Think of socialists (SPD) and communists
(KPD) Social democrats and liberals. Conservatists
from the army and the church. And also students.
These people took people into hiding who were wanted by the police. They aided Jews or they
spread anti Nazi leaflets (such as members of the White Rose, such as Sophie Scholl did).
With their small acts of resistance they had no chance to overthrown the Nazi regime. And
as the war went on many of these resistance members were arrested, hunted down, executed
or deported to concentration camps. Many were executed just before the war came to
an end, such as Wilhelm Canaris and Hans Oster, leaders of the Abwehr (German military-intelligence)
and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Lutheran pastor).
So let’s take a look at the church. Two religions were prevelent in Germany when
Hitler came
to power: the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The church
leaders were afraid that their institutions would be abolished by the Nazis.
Hitler actually wanted to do this, but he was hesitant to do so. So therefore he tried
to make the German churches an ally of the Nazi regime.
And to be fair: some political points of the church overlapsed with the ones of the Nazi
Party such as anti communism and traditional roles in the family. The German church did
object when the Nazis undertook Aktion T4, a campaign of mass murder by involuntary
euthanasia in psychiatric hospitals. In the summer of 1941 the murders were temporarily
halted due to protests of bisshop Clemens August von Galen. By that time many psychiatric
partients had been murdered and many continued to do so in secret and the Nazi continued
to carry out their killings. Over a quarter of a million patients would perish at the
hands of the Nazis during the war.
So let's take a look at the different German resistance factions that existed during the
war.
There was the White Rose (Weiße Rose). It was a non-violent student group in Munich.
Its most prominent member was Sophie Scholl. They spread anti-Nazi leaflets from the summer
of 1942. Around half a year later they were arrested and many of the group, among which
Sophie Scholl,
were executed after a show trial.
Red Orchestra – this was a group within the German Abwehr which had around 400 members
that are known by name such as Harro Schulze-Boysen, Adam Kuckhoff and Arvid Harnack. Just as the
members of the White Rose they also spread anti Hitler leaflets, but also aided Jews
and committed espionage by giving information to the Allies. It was a network of groups
and individuals, often operating independently.
The Kreisau Circle was a group of 25 dissidents led by Helmuth James von Moltke (who was
related to the famous German generals from the past who had the same name) and the group
was based in Silesia. It consisted of different men and women of different backgrounds and
political affiliations who set aside their differences because the had a common aversion
against Hitler and the Nazi regime. They discussed how to set up a German government once the
Third Reich was no more. Early 1944 Von Molkte was arrested and after the failed July Plot
(I'll get to that later) many others were arrested as well. Von Molkte was executed
early 1945. The Edelweiss Pirates was a group of youths
that emerged in the west of Germany and they rejected the norms of Nazi society. Further
east in Leipzig there was a group named the Leipzig Meuten. It was more of a gang of
youngsters that opposed the regime and wanted to overthrow it.
And then there was the National Committee for a Free Germany, a German
anti-Nazi organization that was founded by the Soviets in their POW camps after the Battle
of Stalingrad. Also communist Germans who fled to the USSR before weren't purged by
Stalin, they were also part of this organization and some of its
members helped with the foundation of the future East German state.
Let’s take a look at the army. The army had the biggest chance to
overthrow the Nazi regime. Many German generals were no Nazis, they were conservatists, but
because
of their oath they felt connected to Hitler and Germany. Now there was an attempt to assassinate
Hitler
in 1938 but due to misplaced
feelings of loyalty and timidity this plan was not carried out. Military leaders did
fear that Hitler would bring down Germany as a whole.
These fears became more of a reality after the German losses on the Eastern Front at
Moscow, later Stalingrad and then at Kursk. New plans to assassinate Hitler came up at
the end of 1942 when the Stalingrad disaster unfolded. Three attempts in 1943 all failed.
Oberst Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg had new plans when he was installed at the
German Replacement Army in Berlin. He wanted to subvert an existing emergency plan named
Operation Valkyrie (Walküre). The Replacement Army was meant
to quell a possible uprising by foreign labourers inside the Reich. And it would
cirumvent involvement by the SS. With this operation they wanted to seize power in Berlin,
but for that Hitler needed to be dead.
One important thing I do have to point out here was that the conspirators were no peaceloving
democrats. Many had conservative backgrounds and many approved of the execution of Operation
Barbarossa and its destructive nature. They wanted to retain the war on the Eastern Front.
However,
they did want to get rid of Hitler. And many also advocated
against the genocidal policies of the Nazis. The conspirators can be seen as conservatists
who want to restore a German Empire-like state once the Third Reich would find its demise.
On 20 July Von Stauffenberg joined Hitler's meeting in a pinewood forrest near Rastenburg
(in East Prussia, now Poland). At a certain moment Von Stauffenberg left with his briefcase to
prime the two bombs. Before he had time to finish he was called back to the conference
room. He took the briefcase back to the room. He answered several questions about the Replacement
Army. After this he shoved the briefcase with just one bomb in it under the heavy table
were Hitler was standing. At one moment everyone bent over the maps and that was the moment
Von Stauffenberg left. He left the building, entered his car and as he drove off the bomb
went off. Von Stauffenberg then flew back to Berlin.
Operation Valkyrie was set in motion but uncertainty, confusion and unexpected complications contributed
in the plans. But that wasn't the biggest problem. The communications between the bunker
and Berlin remained intact. But the biggest problem was that Hitler was not dead. The
bomb had killed a few,
injured some more and Hitler was only lightly injured. Towards the evening
Goebbes broadcasted over German radio that Hitler was alive and well.
Hitler inleashed a terrible venguance on the conspirators and those associated with them.
Olbricht and von Stauffenberg were shot in the courtyard of the War Ministry in Berlin.
More than 5,000 Germans were executed in the following months. Some generals committed
suicide. General Erwin Rommel was – due to his hero status – given the option of
committing suicide with a cyanide pill rather than facing a show trail which would lead
to his degradation and execution. Whereas the July Plot was meant to save Germany and
save German lives, it had the exact oposite effect:
“Stauffenberg’s assassination attempt marked an internal shift in the history of
the Third Reich. With the failure of the plot came not only the fearful reprisals against
those involved but also a sharp radicalization of the regime, both in repression and in mobilization.”
The consequences of that I did cover in my best watched video on this channel (so far).
Check it out if you have not already. See the link in the end card.
A different form of military resistance occured on a much lower level and then I’m talking
about man who refused to fight. There were conscientious objectors, many of them had
a Jehova's Witness background. They refused to be drafted in the army. Many of them were
executed. I read that already in the first year of WW2 over 100 were executed by the
Nazi regime. There was also deserters. Those who left the
ranks. The Nazi regime had no mercy for these men once caught.
And during the war over 15,000 were executed by the regime and many others were put in
deadly penal units. Some were even executed after the German surrender. And those who
lived received
no pension and they were looked down upon after the war. In the 1980s efforts were made
for the rehabilitation of these men.
In 2002 the German parliament adopted a law that nullified the war-time sentences.
Open protests or uprisings didn't occur that much by Germans in the Third Reich but there are
some. Early 1943 there was the Rosenstrasse Protest in Berlin. This was the only mass
public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews by
relatives of Jewish men who had been arrested and targeted for deportation. On Goebbels
orders the arrested men were released. So the protest was successful.
In the book of Ian Kershaw ‘The End’ I I found a very interesting story about an
armed uprising of Germans (mostly Germans) within the Third Reich.
This uprising occured towards the end of 1944 in the German city of Cologne. Towards the
end of October Cologne was subjected to another
massive Allied air raid which left huge parts of the city in ruins. Some person called this
air raid the city's death blow.
After the bombing a quarter of a million people remained in the city. However there was no
more gas or electricity and water was running low. So was food. Many resented the Nazi regime
and were war weary. Especially since due to the lack of transport
no inmediate evacuation could take place. But in the following days people start to
leave the city
in droves. It was then an armed uprising occured as groups of foreign
labourers, communists, youngsters and
deserters joined forces and managed to get grenades and machine guns from an army depot.
They started to
fight against the city police and even killed the head of the local Gestapo. In December
the hostilities reached its climax. One battle lasted for twelve hours before the resistance
fighters were overwhelmed by the Nazi authorities. Around 200 resistance members were arrested.
I also read that in November a dozen members of the anti-Nazi Ehrenfeld Group were hanged
in public among which some Edelweiss Pirates. I don't know to what extend they were connected
to this Cologne uprising I just discussed. But I have many other questions as well.
Such as how were all these different people (forced labourers to youngsters to deserters)
managed to join together and
fight against the authorities. What was their organization like? More important: what was
their goal? What did they want to achieve?
Did they want to overtake the city? Did they want to survive? I have so many questions
about this uprising. So therefore I am directing myself to the viewer: if you have
any more information about the Cologne Uprising that occured near the end of 1944 do share
information in the comments. I really would like to learn about this forgotten event in history.