German resistance against the Nazi regime

Germany, 1933. Hitler attempts to silence any groups who might protest against him and the Nazis. The Communist and Social Democratic Parties: banned. The trade unions which speak up for workers: banned. Their leaders?

Beaten up, arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps. Despite Hitler’s attempts, in 1936, over a thousand scattered anti-Nazi groups are still at work. These groups print anti-Nazi leaflets and joke books that make fun of Hitler. They disguise their writings as cake recipes and instruction manuals, to hide them from Hitler’s secret police, the Gestapo. Some individuals resist in quieter ways.

The Nazis want everyone doing the same: flying the Nazi flag, saluting, using the correct Nazi greeting. Some people break the rules. Heil Hitler! God be praised. 1939: the outbreak of War.

Now resistance to the Nazis is considered a betrayal of the country — treason. But there is more reason to resist than ever. The Nazis are no longer imprisoning only political opponents, but murdering millions of Jews and other groups at home and abroad: shooting them en masse, starving them in concentration camps, or gassing them in death camps. Do ordinary Germans know what is being done in their name? Some do.

A few non-Jewish Germans take in their Jewish neighbours and friends. They hide them in their homes or give them their own identity papers. Not many Germans actively oppose the horrors, though. Those who do, risk being sent themselves to a concentration camp, or simply executed. Among the few brave enough to speak out are Hans and Sophie Scholl, students at the University of Munich.

They are members of a group that calls itself the White Rose. The White Rose prints anti-Nazi leaflets in secret and sends them by train across Germany. We will not be silenced. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace.

One day, Hans and Sophie are spotted in the empty university showering leaflets down a stairwell. They are arrested, tried for treason, and beheaded. Other young people resist in more spontaneous ways. Hitler has demanded that all young people join the Hitler Youth; a few refuse. They create their own gangs, some calling themselves the Edelweiss Pirates.

The gangs prank Nazi officials, paint anti-Nazi graffiti on walls, and simply hang out listening to jazz. Their casual, fun-loving attitude makes a mockery of Nazi control. Those caught are arrested and sent to concentration camps or hanged in the street. 1943. The German army is losing abroad.

More and more people begin to doubt that Hitler can win the war; a small group within Germany tries actively to stop him. Led by Officer Claus von Stauffenberg, around two hundred military leaders, intellectuals, and politicians devise a plot to kill Hitler. On July 20th, 1944, Stauffenberg places a briefcase containing a bomb under Hitler’s briefing table. Hitler survives the blast with minor injuries. The Gestapo rounds up everyone with the slightest connection to the plot.

Seven thousand are arrested. Those found ‘guilty’ are strangled or hung from meat hooks. Nazi resistance never becomes a unified movement. The individuals and isolated groups that push back against the wave of Nazi terror are considered traitors by their fellow Germans. “The real damage,” writes Sophie Scholl before her death, is done by those millions who just want to be left in peace.