[16][17][18][19], Because of Hitler's orders, many of these resistance fighters (- according to current estimates approx. [47] They offered organised, systematic and consistent resistance to government policies which infringed on ecclesiastical autonomy. Arrested in 1943, he was implicated in the 1944 July Plot to assassinate Hitler and executed. [133] Assigned to the staff of his uncle's command, Army Group Centre, for the forthcoming Operation Barbarossa, Tresckow systematically recruited oppositionists to the group's staff, making it the new nerve centre of the army resistance. Free shipping. He was horrified by Hitler's plan to unleash a new and even more terrible war in the east. [183] (See also Denazification). Talk of a coup again began to circulate, and for the first time the idea of killing Hitler with a bomb was taken up by the more determined members of the resistance circles, such as Oster and Erich Kordt, who declared himself willing to do the deed. [131] Most were willing to consider restoring nominal independence to the Poles and Czechs, but even then, both the reduced Polish and Czech states would have to be "client states" of the Reich. [157] The protest began as a smattering of “racial” German women seeking information about their Jewish husbands who had just been incarcerated in the course of the massive roundup of Berlin Jews in advance of the Nazi Party's declaration that Berlin was “free of Jews.” As they continued their protest over the course of a week, a powerful feeling of solidarity developed. The conspirators disagreed on what to do about Hitler if there was a successful army coup—eventually most overcame their scruples and agreed that he must be killed so that army officers would be free from their oath of loyalty. [13] Some priests—such as the Jesuits Alfred Delp and Augustin Rösch and the Lutheran preacher Dietrich Bonhoeffer—were active and influential within the clandestine German Resistance, while figures such as Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller (who founded the Confessing Church), and the Catholic Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen (who denounced Nazi euthanasia and lawlessness), offered some of the most trenchant public criticism of the Third Reich—not only against intrusions by the regime into church governance and to arrests of clergy and expropriation of church property, but also to the fundamentals of human rights and justice as the foundation of a political system. Peter Hoffmann, Widerstand – Staatsstreich – Attentat, Stuttgart 1969 (31979). In 1938, the plan had been for the army, led by Halder and if possible Brauchitsch, to depose Hitler. Bock's dismissal did not weaken Tresckow's position. [9], Those opposing the Nazi regime were motivated by such factors as the mistreatment of Jews, harassment of the churches, and the harsh actions of Himmler and the Gestapo. [56] Among the social democrat political conspirators, the Christian influence was also strong, though humanism also played a significant foundational role—and among the wider circle there were other political, military and nationalist motivations at play. [45], The problem these groups faced, however, was what form resistance to Hitler could take in the face of the regime's successive triumphs. [21][22][23][24][25], But even the Habsburg resistance on a small scale was followed extremely strictly. Überblicksdarstellung zu Formen und Akteuren des Widerstands auf den LeMO-Seiten des Deutschen Historischen Museums. [47][51], "From the very beginning", wrote Hamerow, "some churchmen expressed, quite directly at times, their reservations about the new order. Even if it fails, we must take action in Berlin. Axel von dem Bussche, member of the elite Infantry Regiment 9, volunteered to kill Hitler with hand grenades in November 1943 during a presentation of new winter uniforms, but the train containing them was destroyed by Allied bombs in Berlin, and the event had to be postponed. (© Deutsches Historisches Museum), Kontraste - Auf den Spuren ­einer Diktatur, Gesetz über das ­Bundesverfassungsgericht, Podcast "Rechtsextreme Rückzugsräume" - die Reihe, Politische Bildung in einer digitalen Welt, Datenbank "Politische Bildung und Polizei", Aus dem Ermittlungsbericht der Gestapo über die "Technik der Stauffenberg-Gespräche", Seiten der Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand abrufbar. Chamberlain, J & Faye, S. [14] Their example inspired some acts of overt resistance, such as that of the White Rose student group in Munich, and provided moral stimulus and guidance for various leading figures in the political Resistance. (It almost rhymes in German: Lieber Herr Gott mach mich stumm / Daß ich nicht nach Dachau komm. Stauffenberg, depressed and angry, returned to Berlin. Rosenstrasse was the only open, collective protest for Jews during the Third Reich, and in the estimation of historians over the decades, it rescued some 2,000 intermarried Jews. Der deutsche Aufmarsch in ein kriegerisches Jahrhundert, München 2014 (Co-Hrsg. Tresckow and Goerdeler tried again to recruit the senior Army field commanders to support a seizure of power. ("Dear God, make me pious, so I go to Heaven"), There was almost no organized resistance to Hitler's regime in the period between his appointment as chancellor on January 30, 1933, and the crisis over Czechoslovakia in early October 1938. In Paris Stülpnagel issued orders for the arrest of the SS and SD commanders. Again, the chance was lost. Pius, communicating with Britain's Francis d'Arcy Osborne, channelled communications back and forth in secrecy. v. N. B. Poulsen, K. H. Galster, S. Nørby, Newcastle upon Tyne 2013, S. 160-176; Der Erste Weltkrieg 1914-1918. Einige Ehefrauen wussten sehr genau, was ihre Männer taten, andere wurden zum Schutz kaum informiert. In fact both Churchill and Roosevelt were committed to the “unconditional surrender” formula. Most importantly, they did not know about the resistance networks based on Army Group Centre or the Bendlerblock. [76], Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber gained an early reputation as a critic of the Nazis. Their plans could never surmount the fundamental problem of Hitler's overwhelming popularity among the German people. In fact, as was noted earlier, the Gestapo had known since February 1943 of both the Abwehr resistance group under the patronage of Canaris and of the Goedeler-Beck circle. Others, particularly the army officers, felt bound by the personal oath of loyalty they had taken to Hitler in 1934. Hansjakob Stehle "Die Spione aus dem Pfarrhaus (German: The spy from the rectory)" In: Die Zeit, 5 January 1996. [119] Likewise, the Catholic Bishop Galen delivered a sermon calling the war against Poland a struggle to "win a peace of freedom and justice for our nation".[120]. Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus | Peter Steinbach, Johannes Tuchel | ISBN: 9783893311958 | Kostenloser Versand für alle Bücher mit Versand und Verkauf duch Amazon. [84] Bishop von Preysing also had contact with the group. In der Wehrmacht gab es zwischen Befehl und Gehorsam einen kleinen Spielraum, der von wenigen mutigen Soldaten genutzt wurde, um denen zu helfen, die in Zeiten der NS-Diktatur verfolgt wurden. Their resistance was directed not only against intrusions by the government into church governance and to arrests of clergy and expropriation of church property, but also to matters like Nazi euthanasia and eugenics and to the fundamentals of human rights and justice as the foundation of a political system. [12], As part of the agreement with the conservative forces by which Hitler became chancellor in 1933, the non-party conservative Konstantin von Neurath remained foreign minister, a position he retained until 1938. Trotzdem reist Falk Harnack am 8. These included the Social Democrats (SPD)—with activist Julius Leber—Communists (KPD), and the anarcho-syndicalist group the Freie Arbeiter Union (FAUD), that distributed anti-Nazi propaganda and assisted people in fleeing the country. Linking this asset to Tresckow's resistance group in Army Group Centre created what appeared to a viable structure for a new effort at organising a coup. This campaign continued after a brief hiatus in January 1943, when some members of the group also graffitied local buildings. [83] Delp—along with fellow Jesuits Augustin Rösch and Lothar König—was among the central players of the Kreisau Circle Resistance group. Christoph Thurner "The CASSIA Spy Ring in World War II Austria: A History of the OSS's Maier-Messner Group" (2017), pp 35. On 13 March 1943, returning from his easternmost headquarters FHQ Wehrwolf near Vinnitsa to Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Hitler was scheduled to make a stop-over at the headquarters of Army Group Centre at Smolensk. There was more confusion when Stauffenberg's plane landed and he phoned from the airport to say that Hitler was dead. [86] Among the German laity, Gertrud Luckner, was among the first to sense the genocidal inclinations of the Hitler regime and to take national action. Fighting broke out in the Bendlerblock between officers supporting and opposing the coup, and Stauffenberg was wounded. Very few of the plotters tried to escape, or to deny their guilt when arrested. Goerdeler was not arrested until August 12. Opposition to the policy sharpened after the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, because the war in the east produced for the first time large-scale German casualties, and the hospitals and asylums began to fill up with maimed and disabled young German soldiers. Richard Evans, "German Women and the Triumph of Hitler." Aufl., Hamburg u.a. Ziel der Zusammenkunft ist es, den studentischen Widerstand über München hinaus auf andere deutsche Städten auszuweiten. In late 1939 and early 1940 he opposed Hitler's plans to attack France, and kept in touch with the opposition through General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, an active oppositionist. Gersdorff was sent to see Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, the commander of Army Group South in the Ukraine. Schließlich wird herausgearbeitet, was heutige … [121] In the winter of 1939/40, the Bavarian lawyer and reserve 'Abwehr' officer Josef Müller, acting as an emissary for the military opposition centered around General Franz Halder, contacted Monsignore Ludwig Kaas, the exiled leader of the German Catholic Zentrum party, in Rome, hoping to use the Pope as an intermediary to contact the British. Stoltzfus, Nathan; Maier-Katkin, Birgit, eds. 648–49. [136] Stauffenberg felt that these were unrealistic demands and Goerdeler would have done better if he was prepared to accept a return to the frontiers created by the Treaty of Versailles. ", "Arthur D. Kahn, Experiment in Occupation Witness to the Turnabout: Anti-Nazi War to Cold War, 1944–1946", "Home – FDR Presidential Library & Museum", Pater Wilhelm Schmidt im Schweizer Exil: Interaktionen mit Wehrmachtsdeserteuren und Nachrichtendiensten, 1943–1945. On 28 September, however Chamberlain agreed to a meeting in Munich, at which he accepted the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. One of Tresckow's friends, Colonel Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, was scheduled to explain some exhibits, and volunteered to carry out a suicide bombing using the same bomb that had failed to go off on the plane, concealed on his person. [55] Virtually all of the military conspirators in the July Plot were religious men. It concealed a bomb, disguised in a box for two bottles of Cointreau. [81][82], While Hitler did not feel powerful enough to arrest senior clergy before the end of the war, an estimated one third of German priests faced some form of reprisal from the Nazi Government and 400 German priests were sent to the dedicated Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp alone. The plan was ambitious and depended on a run of very good luck, but it was not totally fanciful. This was now impossible, and a conspiratorial organisation was to be formed in the army and civil service instead. Alarm among local officials was escalating. Few now believed that the Allies would agree to a separate peace with a non-Nazi government, even if Hitler was assassinated. Nevertheless, the resistance were encouraged by the talks, and Müller told his contact that a coup would occur in February. The Encyclical was followed, on 26 September 1943, by an open condemnation by the German Bishops which, from every German pulpit, denounced the killing of "innocent and defenceless mentally handicapped, incurably infirm and fatally wounded, innocent hostages, and disarmed prisoners of war and criminal offenders, people of a foreign race or descent". He stated his "profound grief" at the murder of the deformed, the insane, and those suffering from hereditary disease... as though they were a useless burden to Society", in condemnation of the ongoing Nazi euthanasia program. If he had been arrested by Nazi organs, he should be shot immediately without further proceedings. Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus. This is a parody of a common German children's prayer, "Lieber Gott mach mich fromm, daß ich in den Himmel komm." When Soviet agents tried to enlist this group in their service, Schulze-Boysen and Harnack refused, since they wanted to maintain their political independence. The Irish Times. [38], Though neither the Catholic nor Protestant churches as institutions were prepared to openly oppose the Nazi State, it was from the clergy that the first major component of the German Resistance to the policies of the Third Reich emerged, and the churches as institutions provided the earliest and most enduring centres of systematic opposition to Nazi policies. [48] As one of the few German institutions to retain some independence from the state, the churches were able to co-ordinate a level of opposition to Government, and, according to Joachim Fest, they, more than any other institutions, continued to provide a "forum in which individuals could distance themselves from the regime". To direct attention away from dissent, the Nazi state appeased some public, collective protests by “racial” Germans and ignored but did not repress others, both before and during the war. In this context, ordinary Germans were sometimes able to exact limited concessions, as Goebbels worried that a growing number of Germans were becoming aware of the regime's soft spot represented by its response to protests. The Church knows that it will be called to account if the German nation turns its back on Christ without being forewarned". [75] On 2 August 1934, the aged President von Hindenburg died. Stoltzfus (2005, 450–59) in Historical Evidence and Plausible History. He read in the newspapers that Hitler would be addressing a Nazi Party meeting on 8 November, in the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall in Munich where Hitler had launched the Beer Hall Putsch on the same date in 1923. While resistance movements in the occupied countries could mobilise patriotic sentiment against the German occupiers, in Germany the resistance risked being seen as unpatriotic, particularly in wartime. Widerstand in der nationalsozialistischen Gesellschaft. His successor as chief of staff, Franz Halder, remained in touch with him, and was also in touch with Oster. [98][99][100][101][102] Pastor Martin Niemöller responded with the Pastors Emergency League which re-affirmed the Bible. [129] Though Britain in 1940 was prepared to cede the first two demands, but the demand that Poland was to surrender land to Germany as part of a peace terms proved to be a problem. Galen's sermons went further than defending the church, he spoke of a moral danger to Germany from the regime's violations of basic human rights: "the right to life, to inviolability, and to freedom is an indispensable part of any moral social order", he said—and any government that punishes without court proceedings "undermines its own authority and respect for its sovereignty within the conscience of its citizens".[90]. Those who survived interrogation were given perfunctory trials before the People's Court and its bullying Nazi judge Roland Freisler. The Propaganda Ministry on the Wilhelmstrasse, with Joseph Goebbels inside, was surrounded by troops. Halder nevertheless asked Oster to draw up plans for a coup. Illegale Flugblätter. Although prices were fixed by law, wages remained low and there were acute shortages, particularly once the war started. ), Bischof Clemens August Graf von Galen. Gerd R. Ueberschär (Hrsg. Kurt Huber, a professor of philosophy and musicology, Alexander Schmorell, and Willi Graf stood trial later and were sentenced to death as well, while many others were sentenced to prison terms. The decisive moment came at 19:00, when Hitler was sufficiently recovered to make phone calls. 3.Widerstand im Deutschen Reich. This told Fromm that the plot had been traced to his headquarters, and that he was in mortal danger. [106], Despite the removal of Blomberg and Fritsch, the army retained considerable independence, and senior officers were able to discuss their political views in private fairly freely. Unexpectedly, because of the pressure of wartime business, Hitler made a much shorter speech than usual and left the hall 13 minutes before the bomb went off, killing seven people. Examples of compromises for tactical reasons include social and material concessions to workers, deferment of punishing oppositional church leaders, “temporary” exemptions of intermarried Jews from the Holocaust, failure to punish hundreds of thousands of women for disregarding Hitler's ‘total war’ decree conscripting women into the work force, and rejection of coercion to enforce civilian evacuations from urban areas bombed by the Allies. Writing of the 1938 conspiracy, the German historian Klaus-Jürgen Müller [de] observed that the conspiracy was a loosely organized collection of two different groups. A more critical view is given by Theodore S. Hamerow, Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; pp. ), Das Nationalkomitee 'Freies Deutschland' und der Bund Deutscher Offiziere, Frankfurt 1996. [96][97], Following the Nazi takeover, Hitler attempted the subjugation of the Protestant churches under a single Reich Church. The attack was poorly organised and most of the Baum group was arrested. So far, the Allies have not offered the opposition any serious encouragement. The less resolute members of the conspiracy in Berlin also now began to change sides. This group was led by Harro Schulze-Boysen, an intelligence officer at the Reich Air Ministry, and Arvid Harnack, an official in the Ministry of Economics, both self-identified communists but not apparently KPD members. More than 200 people were arrested and dozens were hanged in public, among them six teenaged Edelweisspiraten, including Bartholomäus Schink. [105], Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another leading spokesman for the Confessing Church, was from the outset a critic of the Hitler regime's racism and became active in the German Resistance—calling for Christians to speak out against Nazi atrocities. [177] [171], Aristocrats such as Maria von Maltzan and Maria Therese von Hammerstein obtained papers for Jews and helped many to escape from Germany. If “friendly cajoling” failed “then one must use force.” At the moment, however, “the people know just exactly where the soft spot of the leadership is, and will always exploit this. Another potential indication that German civilians realized the power of public protest was in Dortmund-Hörde in April 1943. The Reserve Army had an operational plan called Operation Valkyrie, which was to be used if the disruption caused by the Allied bombing of German cities caused a breakdown in law and order, or a rising by the millions of slave labourers from occupied countries now being used in German factories. At Rosenstrasse, however, the regime relented and released Jews with “racial” family members. This view does not take the history of intermarriage or protest into account and supposes the regime did not worry about this continuous display of dissent enough to dispel it earlier, even though it was in view in central Berlin for foreign journalists, diplomats, as well as “racial” Germans including soldiers on leave. The underground SPD and KPD were able to maintain their networks, and reported increasing discontent at the course of the war and at the resultant economic hardship, particularly among the industrial workers and among farmers (who suffered from the acute shortage of labour with so many young men away at the front). This rarely took the form of overt political opposition—the White Rose group was a striking exception, but was striking mainly for its uniqueness. Halder hated Hitler, and believed that the Nazis were leading Germany to catastrophe. When in November 1939 it seemed that Hitler was about to order an immediate attack in the west, the conspirators persuaded General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, commander of Army Group C on the Belgian border, to support a planned coup if Hitler gave such an order. [131] Objections to Nazi foreign policy tended to be over the means, not the ends, with most conservatives taking the viewpoint that Hitler had conducted his foreign policy in a gratuitously aggressive manner that had caused war with Britain and France, made all the more objectionable because the policy of appeasement showed a willingness to accept Germany's return to great power status without a war.[132]. [116] In June 1939, Adam von Trott visited Britain where he presented his "Danzig for Prague" plan, offering to restore Czech independence (through Germany would keep the Sudetenland) in exchange for which Britain would pressure Poland to return the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig to Germany. Stealing explosives from his workplace, he built a powerful time bomb, and for over a month managed to stay inside the Bürgerbräukeller after hours each night, during which time he hollowed out the pillar behind the speaker's rostrum to place the bomb inside. She organized aid circles for Jews, assisted many to escape. The belief that this was the last chance for action seized the conspirators. [79] When in 1937 the authorities in Upper Bavaria attempted to replace Catholic schools with "common schools", he offered fierce resistance. The information was important to Operation Crossbow. Inge Jens (Hrsg. Auch die Wehrmacht wurde bald jeder politischen Einflussnahme beraubt, Hitlers Expansions- und Vernichtungspolitik entgegenzutreten. ARD-Themenseite mit Text-, Audio- und Videobeiträgen zu verschiedenen Persönlichkeiten, Gruppen und Aktionsformen des deutschen Widerstands. He remained mainly at Dachau until the fall of the regime. Eine einheitliche Widerstandsbewegung gegen das NS-Regime gab es zu keiner Zeit. Until 1941, the group operated a study circle, but after the German attack on the Soviet Union a core group advanced to active resistance. [5] The Foreign Office and the Abwehr (Military Intelligence) also provided vital support to the movement. In May 1936, the Confessing Church sent Hitler a memorandum courteously objecting to the "anti-Christian" tendencies of his regime, condemning anti-Semitism and asking for an end to interference in church affairs. Christof Dipper, Schwierigkeiten mit der Resistenz, Christoph Dippler "The German Resistance and the Jews" pp. [28], Ernst Karl Winter founded in 1939 in New York the "Austrian American Center", a non-partisan national committee with a Habsburg background. When Hitler was informed of this, he demanded and received Beck's resignation. After Stalingrad, however, he decided that not assassinating Hitler would be a greater moral evil. Eine Ausstellung des Militärhistorischen Museums der Bundeswehr, hrsg. Who resisted the Third Reich and why did they do it? Before these men could be deported, their wives and other relatives rallied outside the building in Rosenstrasse where the men were held. When Hitler heard of this he ordered Wagner to rescind his decree, but the damage had been done—German Catholics had learned that the regime could be successfully opposed. [27] The pro-Habsburg siblings Schönfeld were also sentenced to death for producing anti-Nazi leaflets. Most experienced senior officers now came to the conclusion that Hitler was leading Germany to defeat, and that the result of this would be the Soviet conquest of Germany—the worst fate imaginable. Hitler again left prematurely after hurrying through the exhibition much quicker than the scheduled 30 minutes. The last major German offensive on the Eastern Front, Operation Citadel, ended in the defeat for the Germans at Kursk, and in July 1943 Mussolini was overthrown. Over the years until the outbreak of war Catholic resistance stiffened until finally its most eminent spokesman was the Pope himself with his encyclial Mit brennender Sorge... of 14 March 1937, read from all German Catholic pulpits. In 1938 and again in 1939, he lost his nerve and could not give the order to strike against Hitler. 1 (Mar., 1987): 53–78. Olaf Groehler, Bombenkrieg gegen Deutschland (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1990), 270ff. Its strength was its loyalty and solidarity. – mit diesen Worten beschrieb Joachim Gauck als damaliger Vorsitzender des Vereins "Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie" im Juli 2004 den prozesshaften Charakter aller gegen die nationalsozialistische Diktatur gerichteten Verhaltensweisen. The second and more important "Red Orchestra" group was entirely separate and was a genuine German resistance group, not controlled by the NKVD (the Soviet intelligence agency and predecessor to the KGB). This movement, which involved distinctive forms of dress and gradually become more consciously political, became so popular that it provoked a crackdown: in 1941 Himmler ordered the arrest of Swing activists and had some sent to concentration camps. These included General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, the German military commander in France, who would take control in Paris when Hitler was killed and, it was hoped, negotiate an immediate armistice with the invading Allied armies. The exiled SPD leadership in Prague received and published accurate reports of events inside Germany. Da … If all these people had been arrested and interrogated, the Gestapo might well have uncovered the group based in Army Group Centre as well and the July 20 assassination attempt would never have happened. However, there was nothing approaching active hostility to the regime. The next occasion was a weapons exhibition on July 7 at Schloss Klessheim near Salzburg, but Helmuth Stieff did not trigger the bomb.