The extent of support, opposition and resistance Flashcards
What were reasons people backed the regime?
The economic recovery
The diplomatic successes of 1934-9 and military victories 1939-34
Restoration of political and economic stability well received, especially by middle classes
Many youth enjoyed the Hitler Youth
Social benifits
Traditional family values
Popular consent was deliberately ‘shaped’ by the Nazi regime through propaganda and censorship. What did propaganda successfully do?
Cultivated the Hitler Myth
Portrayed the Nazi regime and its ‘peoples community’ as a positive, stabilising force
Played on German nationalism
When was the confessing church established?
1934
What are two examples of youth groups that were critical/uncooperative with the regime?
swing youth and the edelweiss pirates
In may 1939, what became a department in the Reich Criminal police Office?
May 1939, a new Reich Centre for Combating Youth Criminality became a department in the Reich Criminal Police Office.
What was the Kreisau circle, when was it formed, what weakened it and what happened to Van Moltke and other members?
The Kreisau circle, formed 1933 - a small group of officers, disillusioned generals, aristocrats and professionals. Inc. Von Moltke.
Theoretical discussions on what non-nazi life would be like
Weakened by uncertainty and internal divisions
Von Moltke arrested in 1944, executed 1945, several others executed or imprisoned.
Who was Niemoller?
A chritian cleric who spoke against the regime
What did the church fail to do?
Failed to provide effective opposition and instead focussed on protecting their own positions
How did the SPD and KPD try and undermine the regime?
How did ordinary workers try to rebel?
What was a key obstacle to opposition from the left/workers?
SPD and KPD went underground. Produced and distributed anti-nazi pamphlets, and established cells within Germany
Ordinary workers, some strikes and other industrial action such as work-to-rule held in the early years 1933-35.
Key obstacle lack of coordinated opposition
Beck-goedler group and bomb plot
In July 1944, a group of army officers tried to assassinate Hitler and replace him with a government led by General Beck. A bomb was planted by Colonel Stauffenberg at a meeting in a tea house attended by the Führer. It exploded, but Hitler survived because a thick leg of the table shielded him from the worst of the blast.
Retaliation was swift and decisive.
Stauffenberg was shot the same day and 5,000 people were executed in the crackdown on opposition that followed.
