European states (Germany): Evaluate domestic resistance to the Nazis Flashcards
Thesis/intro
-Debate about nature and types of resistance that emerge (resistance (July bomb plot), opposition, and dissent (refusing to do a salute, telling joke are different things)
-How important, how effective, how significant, how widespread?
-Differing end goals of resistance (military- killing Hitler)
-Limited success, but most significant was military resistance (+ closest to success)
Paragraphs
-Student/youth
-Military resistance
-Resistance to Jewish persecution
Student/youth- examples
-Sophie Scholl was part of the White Rose anti-Nazi group. In February 1943, she distributed anti-government pamphlets at Munich University.
-The main working-class youth group that opposed Hitler was the Edelweiss Pirates. Members reacted to the discipline of the Hitler Youth by saying anti-Nazi slogans and singing pre-1933 folk songs. Their main activity was camping trips to the countryside to get away from the control of the Nazis. In 1944, the Pirates in Cologne killed the Gestapo chief, so the Nazis publicly hanged 12 of them.
-The ‘Swing Youth’ and ‘Jazz Youth’ groups were mainly upper middle-class young people who rejected Nazi values as well as having the money to visit nightclubs. They danced the jitterbug to banned jazz music. They were closely monitored by the Gestapo, who regularly raided illegal jazz clubs.
Student/youth- explanation + historiography
-Individual vs. collective opposition
-Sophie Scholl was sentenced to death and guillotined. Her death suggests that the success of her opposition was limited, but the fact that the Nazis cared enough to execute her suggests that they were threatened by her.
-Thus, opposition also took the form of not participating in Nazi activites.
-The opposition of the Swing and Jazz groups demonstrates that youth opposition was often non-violent and took the form of engaging in activities that the Nazis frowned upon/had outlawed.
-J. Hiden: ‘The persecution of hundreds of thousands of Germans by the Hitler regime serves to illustrate that the dissent and nonconformity must have been widespread. Resistance, defined as an organized and sustained attempt to destroy the government, was not’.
Military resistance- examples
-Operation Flash (March 1943): Treschow, and army officer, along with other army members, attempted to assassinate Hitler. A parcel bomb was put on Hitler’s plane, but the bomb never went off as the detonator was defective.
-The July Bomb Plot/Operation Valkyrie (July 1944) was an assassination attempt on Hitler. The plot was led by the army officer von Stauffenberg. He carried a bomb in his briefcase that was intended to go off next to Hitler, but the briefcase was moved under the table leg. It detonated, but failed to kill Hitler.
Military resistance- explanation + historiography
-It is significant that, unlike other forms of opposition, military opposition was internal and came from those that knew and worked with Hitler.
-Apart from these assassination attempts, the Nazi regime remained secure to the end and was only was ultimately toppled by the coalition of enemy powers.
-Housden: The most significant efforts at resistance came from the establishment sections of German society, most notably, members of the officer corps.
Resistance to Jewish persecution- examples
-The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was a significant attempt to resist Nazi brutality in Poland. In 1943, a small group of Jewish resistance fighters attacked soldiers of the SS overseeing the deportation. The SS was forced to suspend its operation in the ghetto with only 5,000 of the scheduled 8,000 deportations completed.
-In October 1944, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, members of the Jewish Special Detachment mutinied against the SS guards. Nearly 250 died during the fighting; the SS guards shot another 200 after the mutiny was suppressed.
-Resistance also took the form of hiding, aiding, and rescuing Jews.
