Opposition to the Nazis

• The political left was Hitler's main opposition.
• The Nazi Party was very right-wing and initially got the support of the DNVP party to get majority support in the Reichstag.
• On the 14th of July 1933, all political parties were banned apart from the Nazi Party.
• July 1933, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the KPD (the German Communist Party) were both banned.
• The Communist Party was particularly weakened after the Dutch Communist, van der Lubbe was blamed for the Reichstag Fire.
• The former members of the SPD and KPD formed underground, clandestine groups so that they could continue their political activity in Germany as a 1-party state.
• Underground groups were targeted by the Gestapo.
• The 200,000 informants could inform on anyone who was a member of a group.
• People were executed for being members of these groups.
• The groups (and their political views) had to stay hidden, so it was hard to build any broad support in the German population for political change.
• In addition to the threat of the Gestapo, the lack of cooperation between the politically left parties meant that their ability to create political and industrial unrest was limited.
• Anyone who tried to unite the groups publicly was likely to be killed.
• Early Youth Opposition to the Nazis was cultural not political.
• The Edelweiss Pirates were a group of youths in the Rhineland.
• The Edelweiss Pirates were mainly from working class backgrounds and showed resistance by attacking the Hitler Youth.
• The Edelweiss Pirates wrote anti-Nazi slogans in graffiti and sang popular songs from before the Nazi regime.
• The Edelweiss Pirates wore American style clothing.
• The Edelweiss Pirates' symbol was the Edelweiss, an Alpine flower.
• The Swing Youth organised illegal dances that thousands of young people attended.
• The most significant moment of dissent against the Nazi regime was the July Plot in 1944.
• The July Plot, 1944, was the most serious threat to Hitler, known as Operation Valkyrie, Count Stauffenberg of the army tried to kill Hitler with a bomb in his briefcase at a military conference on the 20th July 1944.
• The Rosenstrasse protest happened in Berlin, where "Aryan" women whose Jewish husbands had been arrested by the German police protested where they were being held.
• The White Rose emerged in the war as a new group of opposition, formed from two Munich University students, Hans and Sophie Scholl, the White Rose was a symbol of justice.
• People could passively resist by telling anti-Nazi jokes or listening to anti-Nazi regime music.
• The Nazis clamped down on the Edelweiss Pirates, with 700 members arrested in 1942 and 12 publicly hanged in Cologne in 1944 to send a message.
• Opposition to the Nazis was not successful because people were scared of repression and because any opposition that did exist was divided and did not communicate with each other.
• In 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were executed by the Gestapo after a public protest against the Nazis.
• Although the bomb went off, Hitler was only injured, and Stauffenberg and 5,746 others were executed, including 19 generals and 26 colonels.
• The Swing Youth gained more members over the war, but the Nazis sent anyone they caught listening to jazz to concentration camps.
• Any political opposition which was discovered was arrested and intimidated, sometimes they were sent to concentration camps.
• The Edelweiss Pirates distributed Allied propaganda, protected army deserters and openly attacked the Hitler Youth during the war.
• The White Rose published anti-Nazi leaflets and graffiti exposing the atrocities the Nazis were committing.
• Members of the Swing Youth came from wealthy backgrounds, as their families would have record players.
• By 1939, there were 2,000 Edelweiss Pirates.
• The Swing Youth embraced the ‘degenerate’ culture of the Weimar Republic and rejected Nazi values.
• Influenced by America, the Swing Youth played jazz, drank alcohol and smoked.