National Studies GERMANY 1918 – 1939 Nazism in Power Opposition to Nazism By S. Angelo Head Teacher History East Hills Girls Technology High School 2009.

National StudiesGERMANY 1918 – 1939

Nazism in PowerOpposition to Nazism

ByS. Angelo

Head Teacher HistoryEast Hills Girls Technology High School

2009

Opposition and Resistance – SPD, KPD, industrial workers

• Underground organisation• Red Shock Troop newspaper• 3000 members• Arrested and imprisoned by Gestapo in Dec 1933• Socialist Action newspaper; pamphlets• Leaders arrested in 1935 by Gestapo• Resistance ended by 1939 when most accepted Nazi

policies• New Beginning: members arrested in 1935 and then in

1938

SPD

• Underground resistance• From 1933 – 1939• 1,000 cases of resistance were before the courts in 1933• 150,000 communist arrested and placed into

concentration camps• 30,000 were executedCommunist

• Absenteeism from work• Sabotage of machinery in factories• Refusal to join the German army

Industrial Workers

Institutional Opposition

POLITICAL PARTIES; TRADE UNIONS; ARMY; CHURCHES

This was essentially eliminated by the Nazis

Abolishment of political partys

Repression of SPD & KPD

Trade unions banned

Army pacified by elimination of SA

Outspoken church officials were arrested e.g. Pastor Niemoller – imprisoned for 8yrs

Types of Personal OppositionPrivate Acts of

Defiance

• Reading banned material

• Listening to music unacceptable to the regime

• Not attending Nazi events or celebrations

• Ignoring Nazi publications

Public Acts of Defiance

• Telling anti-Hitler jokes

• Not giving the Nazi salute Heil Hitler

• Expressing sympathy for the Jews

Active Resistance

• Producing anti-Nazi material

• Meeting with others to criticise the government

• Planning to overthrow the government or the assassination of Hitler

Resistance Organisations

Edelweiss Pirates

• Youth who opposed the regime

• Young men• Working class• Evaded

requirement to serve in Reich Labour Service

• Refused to join army

• Anti-Nazi slogans

• Assisted deserters from army & people fleeing the authorities

• 13 publicly hanged in 1944

Kreisau Circle

• Conservatives• Included church

figures & scholars

• Opposed regime• Passed

information on to British

• Von Moltke arrested

• Made an attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944

• Essentially ended by the end of 1944

The White Rose

• Founded by Hans & Sophie Scholl

• University students (Munich)

• Pamphlets demanding end to Nazi regime

• Death sentence in People’s Court Feb 1943

• Guillotined

Fritz Grünbaum (1880 –1941)

• The Viennese cabaret artist, Fritz Grünbaum, was known both in Germany and Austria.

• He wrote sketches, poems, chansons, screenplays and libretti. In March 1938,

• Fritz Grünbaum was arrested in Vienna for being a Nazi opponent and a Jew.

• Fritz Grünbaum arrived in Dachau on April 2,1938. • In September 1938 he was transferred to the Buchenwald

concentration camp and was brought back to Dachau in October 1940.

• The cabaret performances he gave for his fellow-prisoners made him very popular in both camps.

• He died on January 14, 1941, just three months before his 60th birthday

• Fritz Grünbaum as a prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp, June 28, 1938

• Photo: Friedrich Franz Bauer, commissioned by the SS • Bundesarchiv, Außenstelle Ludwigsburg

Albert Theis (b. 1920) • Albert Theis had served since May 1939 in a Luxembourg

volunteer company. • Following the occupation of Luxembourg by German troops,

this unit was forcibly incorporated into the German police force in 1940.

• For their refusal to serve in the partisan region of Slovenia and to swear an oath to Hitler, fortyfour Luxembourg

citizens, including Albert Theis, were arrested and sent to different concentration camps.

• In February 1942, seventeen members of the Luxembourg volunteer company were executed in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for refusing to take the oath.

• Albert Theis as a candidate for the Luxembourg national service (“volunteer company”), 1939

• 1312 On March 25,1942, Albert Theis arrived with sixteen of his comrades in the Dachau concentration camp.

• During their imprisonment, each Luxembourg volunteer was required every year to swear the oath to Hitler. They refused the oath up to the very end.

• Police registration photo of Albert Theis, 1942 Photo: Police Records Department

Roll Call at Dachau KL

Terror and Repression at Dachau

Why was opposition to the Nazi Regime ineffective?

•Loss of civil and basic rights

•Failure to have legal protection

•Agencies like SA, SS, Gestapo, Secret Police

•Denunciations

FEAR

•Nazi Organisations •Hitler Youth, German Labour Front, Strength Through Joy

CONTROL

•Elimination of centres of potential opposition & political parties

•Abolition of trade unions

•Ineffectiveness of conservative forcesLACK OF

COORDINATION

•Effective in winning support of many German people

•Ministry of Propaganda – eliminated ability and desire for change through increase apathy – “if you can’t change it , join it”

PROPAGANDA

•Delivered a measure of successes – increases public support

•Weimar V Nazi – appearance of control and movement to better conditions

•Recovery of economy; elimination of communist threat; recovery of international standing (League of Nations)

NAZI SUCCESS

Essay

• How effective was the opposition to Hitler and the Nazi regime up to 1939?– Institutional Opposition

• Political parties• Trade unions• Army• Other institutions

– Personal Opposition• Private acts of defiance• Public acts of defiance• Active resistance