Support and Opposition Flashcards
What factors increased the Nazis’ popularity?
Successful expansion of lebensraum
Initial foreign policy success - motivating
Economic recovery
Strength Through Joy scheme
Beauty of Labour
Policy towards women (some women liked traditional values + the financial incentive to have children)
Youth groups
Revision of ToV
What factors reduced the Nazis’ popularity?
Euthanasia programme
Charity schemes eg. eintopf + Winterhilfe (dull and repetitive)
One-party police state (no freedom of expression)
Foreign policy after June 1941
Hitler Youth - became monotonous + loss of good leaders (went to war)
Bombings + food shortages
Groups excluded from Volksgemeinschaft
Which groups provided Opposition to the Nazi regime?
The Churches
Youth
The army
Government and the Civil Service
Judiciary
Workers
Opposition parties
Traditional elites
What factors limited opposition?
Terror - Despite limitations to terror, many people were frightened by the prospect of the Gestapo and concentration comps and, therefore, chose to conform
The economic miracle - The Nazis provided most people with jobs so many were prepared to accept Nazi measures and unpopular policies
The Nazis abandoned or hid Unpopular policies eg. kristallnacht + euthanasia
Opposition was divided
How did the Communists oppose the Nazi regime?
Produced pamphlets attacking the Nazis + following the invasion of the USSR in 1941 underground communist cells passed round newsletters encouraging sabotage and strikes amongst workers
The spy network the ‘Red Orchestra’ sent information to the Soviet Union
What were the weaknesses of the Communist opposition?
Their impact was limited as the leadership had been arrested after the Reichstag Fire
Pamphlets had little impact and many communists were more concerned with simply avoiding arrest
The Gestapo infiltrated their network with informers, making it difficult for them to operate
By 1944 most Red Orchestra members had been caught and executed
How did the Social Democrats oppose the Nazi regime?
Had support amongst the working class and, like the communists, had been banned as a political party but retained some underground activity
Produced pamphlets attacking the regime, but their leaders were arrested
There was an underground organisation run by the exiled party from Prague which gathered information and spread discontent
What were the weaknesses of the opposition from the Social Democrats?
Like the communists, much of their leadership had been arrested and the party was banned
They did not cooperate with the communists, which weakened the left-wing opposition
How did trade unionists oppose the Nazi regime?
Had support among the working class and factory workers
Undertook strikes in 1935-36
What were the weaknesses of trade unionist opposition?
Industrial action was not effective
They had been weakened following arrests in 1933-4 and the establishment of the German Labour Front to replace independent unions
How did churches oppose the Nazi regime?
Criticism of some Nazi policies from members of both the Protestant and Catholic churches:
- Pastor Martin Niemoller led the Confessional Church
- Bernhard Lichtenberg, provost of Berlin’s St Hedwig’s Cathedral, encouraged his congregation to pray for the Jews
- Bishop Clemens von Galen of Munster spoke out against the euthanasia programme in 1941
What were the weaknesses of opposition from the Churches?
In general, churches sought to avoid conflict with the regime without endorsing all aspects of its policies
Churches were, to a degree, tolerant of the Nazis due to their distrust of leftist thinking and traditional subservience to the state
Their opposition was ‘issue driven’ and they only reacted to individual actions (e.g. the withdrawal of crucifixes from schools and euthanasia) rather than maintaining a consistent anti-Nazi stance. This is because they were more concerned with self-preservation and defending their religious space than being society’s moral guardians - wanted to write themselves into the trajectory of the Third Reich rather than alter its direction.
Even those who did take more drastic action were not very effective - many lower-level clergy who spoke out against the regime were sent to camps
How did the youth oppose the Naz regime?
A number of groups were established, largely during the war, including
Swing Youth
Edelweiss Pirates
Roving Dudes
Navajos
These groups mainly behaved in an ‘anti-social’ manners which involved playing jazz and dance music
Who were the Edelweiss Pirates and what did they do?
They were a loose collection of subgroups, mainly containing boys aged 14-17 but included a few girls. Membership was mainly rooted in the working class
Earliest recorded groups existed in 1934 and membership has been estimated at 2000 by 1939
Aims not easy to identify - partly just rebellious youth trying to escape the intrusive Nazi system, joining in popular pastimes such as weekend camps, hikes, and singing songs about sex and food.
Some groups, however, were highly politicised, establishing links with the KPD and beating up Hitler Youth patrols with the slogan ‘Eternal War on the Hitler Youth!’. During WWII some groups helped escaped prisoners of war and distributed Allied and communist leaflets.
Hence, their actions ranged from socially nonconformist behaviour (resistenz) to political resistance
Who were the Swing Youth and what did they do?
Were groups of mainly upper-Middle-class youths, unlike the Edelweiss Pirates. I needed to be wealthy enough to attend night-clubs in the first place!)
These groups mainly developed in large cities, such as Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Dresden during the late 1930s
Rejected Hitler Youth ideals, but were generally anti-politics. Their approach was to develop a counter identity, expressed through forbidden music. They met in bars, night-clubs, and houses and played American Black and Jewish jazz and swing, not the officially sanctioned German folk music.
Nazis felt undermined by their activities and closed the bars and made some arrests - their existence showed the failure of the regime to dominate youth
