The Anti-Nazi Resistance: Diverse Groups of People Motivated by Diverse Thinkers

In the 1930s and 1940s, a person who lived in Nazi-controlled territories who secretly or openly opposed Hitler was taking an enormous risk. In fact, it was less a risk and more a probability that such a person would be arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and murdered. Yet many people resisted anyway.

Why would people face death, when they could survive and go on living by simply accepting the National Socialist Party?

There is more than one reason which motivated people to actively resist the National Socialist. People from different parts of society had different inspirations. Yet these diverse groups all worked at the same time to achieve the same goals: to make sure that the Nazis would fail, to see to it that the Germans would be liberated from Nazi oppression, and to save the lives of as many Jews as possible.

The National Socialists oppressed Germany for twelve years, from 1933 to 1945. People of sincere faith could meet only secretly. Hitler had ordered that all churches be turned into Nazi propaganda centers.

Writing about one of the many groups of anti-Nazi resistance groups, historian Uwe Siemon-Netto explains:

More than six decades ago, scores of Germans were rounded up and tortured to death, hanged, guillotined, or executed by firing squads for their attempt to overthrow the National Socialist tyranny. Almost all of them were Christians; some were Roman Catholic, and some were Lutheran. The most famous among the latter group were Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian, and Carl Friederich Goerdeler, the former mayor of Leipzig. Goerdeler would have become Germany’s chancellor had the July 20, 1944 coup succeeded.

The idea of opposing Hitler produced an impressive cooperation between different groups of people.

The German women and men who resisted the Nazis came from many different demographic groups: aristocrats, scholars, military officers, theologians, and blue-collar men from the factories. Each social group had its own style of opposing Hitler. The Lutherans, as mentioned above, “acted in accordance with Martin Luther’s teachings on how and when to resist secular authority,” according to Uwe Siemon-Netto.

Four hundred years after his time, Martin Luther, who lived from 1483 to 1546, provided encouragement for the women and men who defied Hitler and undermined the Nazi government.

These freedom fighters willingly and knowingly embraced a great risk: many were arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and murdered for their actions. They followed Martin Luther’s advocacy of “an almost foolhardy opposition against all governmental injustice,” in the words of historian Franz Lau.

Here is a great historical paradox: on the one hand, many scholars accuse Luther of fueling the anti-semitism which ultimately led to the rise of Hitler; on the other hand, other scholars see Luther as providing the inspiration for the anti-Nazi resistance movement. Which one is true? Can it be both ways?

Part of the solution to this seeming contradiction is this: Nazi propaganda was so effective that its results have outlived the actual Nazis by almost a century.

The National Socialists attempted to legitimize themselves — or more precisely, to make themselves seem legitimate — by distorting the historical record. They hoped thereby to make it seem as if almost every great thinker in history endorsed Nazi views.

Martin Luther was only one victim of this propaganda effort. Philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer, both of whom stood clearly opposed to National Socialist ideas, were presented by the Nazis as if they agreed with, and predicted, the rise of Hitler and his policies. Poets like J.W. von Goethe and Ludwig Uhland were interpreted as if they were proto-Nazis. The list of brilliant authors who were portrayed as forerunners of Naziism is long — and each of them was in reality opposed to Naziism.

The Nazis were so good at lying that their propaganda has shaped the views of anti-Nazis, and their lies are molding media and authors a century later.

The notion that Martin Luther would have in any way encouraged the ideas of Naziism is a notion produced by Nazi propaganda.

Yet some people during the 1930s and 1940s were duped by the propaganda. Even now, many people have been tricked into believing it. Ironically, many sincere anti-Nazi thinkers in the twenty-first century have been deceived by Nazi propaganda, because that propaganda was so thoroughly disseminated that it has infused modern scholarship and culture.

So historian Uwe Siemon-Netto can write that, “well, yes, there were” a few “Germans who misunderstood Luther” under the influence of Nazi propaganda “and therefore did not resist the Nazis and who became Nazis themselves; and there were” many “other Germans whose internalized Lutheranism guided them in the opposite direction and made them choose the path of resistance and martyrdom.”

History is messy. History is complicated. Figuring out who the real Martin Luther is, and separating him from the fake ideas about Martin Luther which the Nazis presented, is not easy. Some people in the 1930s and 1940s were fooled. Some people today are fooled.

But some people, then and now, were and are aware of how the Nazis attempted — and often succeeded — in warping and twisting the words and actions of the real Martin Luther. Those who have explored the ideas of Luther see that he inspired resistance against Hitler and against National Socialism.

The resistance movement was multifaceted: while Luther inspired the Lutheran freedom fighters, a different group of writers inspired the Roman Catholic underground, and philosophers and poets inspired the academics who resisted Hitler. Just as the resistance movement was composed of diverse groups of people, so the inspiration behind that movement was a diverse group of authors and thinkers.

How the Germans Fought the Nazis

It is far too easy to not only associate, but even equate, “Germans” with “Nazis” — especially given the cliches from Hollywood — when studying the history of central Europe from 1933 to 1945. The student is tempted to believe that, during those years, Germans were Nazis and Nazis were Germans.

But that’s not the way it was.

Most Germans weren’t Nazis. Quite a few Nazis weren’t Germans.

The population of Germany, just before WW2 started, was a bit over 79,000,000. The peak membership of the Nazi Party was between 8,000,000 and 8,500,000. Approximately 90% of the German population were not Nazis.

Even in the German armed forces — the Wehrmacht — Nazis were in the minority.

Not only were the majority of Germans not Nazis; many of them were active anti-Nazis. They were engaged, not only in an intellectual rejection of National Socialism, but in concrete actions which slowed the war effort and saved the lives of thousands of Jews.

From the moment Hitler took power in 1933, groups of resistance formed among the Germans. A diverse group of Germans worked simultaneously to defeat the National Socialist: aristocrats, academics, military officers, theologians, and working-class men from the factories. Some of these groups were networked with other groups, forming a larger resistance web. Other groups worked in isolation. Together, they weakened the military resources of the Nazis and saved the lives of thousands of Jews, as historians Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis write:

There were people in the uniforms of the Third Reich who not only had plotted to overthrow Hiter but also hoped to assassinate him.

Lieutenant-Colonel Hans Oster, a talkative, open, and honest man who had served bravely in the Great War, despised Hitler and his “politicization” of all aspects of German society; among friends, he would insist on only referring to the Führer dismissively as “Emil.” His senior role in German military counterintelligence, the Abwehr, allowed him to discover the real truth behind the torture of political dissidents, Jews, and religious figures, and of the concentration camps. Oster, a pastor’s son, believed Hitler intended to drive Germany’s Jews to destruction and felt a growing responsibility before God for their rescue.

His friend Hans von Dohnanyi — a studious-looking man with dark hair swept to one side and this metal-rimmed glasses — was collecting a Chronicle of Shame, a legal file of Hitler’s crimes to be used in a prosecution of the Führer following a coup.

Oster was intent not only on resisting the Nazi regime, but also on removing Hitler.

Hans Oster was part of one particular resistance nexus which was organizing assassination attempts. Some of the civilian members of these networks were morally opposed to killing a human being, but soon they understood that by assassinating Hitler, they would save the lives of thousands of others. Parallel to the projected death of Hitler, these groups planned a coup which would overthrow the entire National Socialist government and put an authentically German government in place to end the war and stop the oppression of the civilian population.

He had already planned one coup and was now planning another. For Oster there would be no trial of Adolf Hitler. He planned to kill him.

Altogether, there would be more than twenty-five separate assassination attempts on Hitler between 1932 and 1944.

While none of these attempts was successful in killing Hitler, they did hinder the political leadership of the Reich and thereby reduced the effectiveness of the war effort.

The members of the German resistance understood earlier than the Allies what Hitler intended to do, and how repulsively evil it would be. The resistance members developed a passionate and urgent need to work against Hitler, long before the French, British, or Americans understood how horrifying the Nazi regime would be.

That’s why these German freedom fighters took such great risks in undermining the National Socialist regime.

German Officers in Uniform Oppose Hitler: Appearances Can Be Deceiving

It’s easy to think that the German military during WW2 was a Nazi organization. It’s helpful to know a few words: The German Army was the Heer. The German Navy was the Kriegsmarine. The German Air Force was the Luftwaffe. The overarching term for the complete military — army, navy, and airforce together — was the Wehrmacht.

But most of the military weren’t Nazis.

Most historians estimate that 29% of the officers in the Wehrmacht were members of the National Socialist Party. Among those officers, 33% of the junior officers were members, while significantly less than 29% of the senior officers were members. Among the enlisted men, even fewer were members.

The majority of both officers and enlisted men in the German military were not members of the Nazi Party.

A significant number of them were active in the resistance. Not only were they not National Socialists, but they were taking specific concrete steps both to undermine the war effort and to impair the extermination of the Jews. These soldiers and officers helped the Allies to defeat the Nazis and liberate Germany, and saved thousands of Jewish lives in the process.

The general public in the first quarter of the twenty-first century is accustomed to seeing black-and-white photos of German soldiers and officers in uniform, and simply equating them with Nazis. Yet the majority of them were not Nazis, and many of them fought vigorously against the Nazis.

One such example is Harro Schulze-Boysen. He was a well-respected officer in the Luftwaffe who’d worked his way up to a responsible position. In the word of historians Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis, Harro Schulze-Boysen worked “in the air force intelligence division, scanning foreign press reports and writing briefings for one of the most powerful figures in the Third Reich, Hermann Göring.”

By outward appearances, Schulze-Boysen was loyally supporting the Nazi war effort. But the reality was different:

Schulze-Boysen was in fact a daring, sometimes reckless anti-Nazi. Aided by his wife, Libertas, he planned not only to reveal some of the regime’s most heinous crimes, but also to turn over its military secrets to the enemy. As war consumed the world, he would become one of the most significant spies at the heart of the Third Reich.

Schulze-Boysen made contacts in the military and outside the military in order to form a resistance network. One of his contacts was Arvid Harnack.

Arvid Harnack was “one of the nation’s greatest academic minds,” having obtained both a doctorate in legal studies and a doctorate in philosophy. He had a job working in the Economics Ministry, where people supposed that he was making sure that Hitler’s plans were well-financed.

But in reality, Harnack was at the center of a growing opposition movement to Hitler, and was already sharing some of the Reich’s most confidential secrets with both Washington and Moscow.

In April 1939, before the war started, he and his wife Mildred were “busy passing Harnack’s secrets to America’s only spy in Germany.” Mildred was an American who’d moved to Germany. She was eager to protect the Germans from the Nazis.

Both Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack lived and worked in Berlin. Together they formed a group which sent Nazi military secrets to the Allies. Their efforts were effective and made a real difference in helping the Allies to defeat the Nazis.

They were discovered by the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, and murdered in 1942.

Germans vs. Nazis: The Resistance Undermines Hitler’s Plans

In January 1933, two things happened. Adolf Hitler’s Nazis completed their political scheme to seize power and begin oppressing the people of Germany, and thousands of Germans began organizing a resistance movement which to reduce the effectiveness of Nazi war machine and save the lives of thousands of Jews.

The resistance took different forms in different times and places. Many of the leaders were Aristocrats, academics, military officers, and Christians. But some leaders were blue-collar factory workers. They had several things in common: they were opposed to Hitler’s “National Socialist” movement, and they were determined to oppose it in concrete and effective ways.

Such an explicit refusal to accept National Socialism was dangerous, and more than dangerous, as historians Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis write:

These are the ones who through a love of Germany committed treason against it, rejecting the shackles of a warped, corrupt, and evil state.

They stood up in the knowledge that almost all dissent would be punished by death.

They gave their lives with one thing foremost in their minds: that through their actions they might redeem the honor of their nation.

The list of individual Germans who worked to defend their country from the Nazi oppressors is long. Specific names, dates, places, and actions reveal the ways in which this underground movement reduced the effectiveness of the National Socialist plans, weakened the Nazis, and assisted the Allies in the effort to liberate Germany.

One example is Robert Scholl. He and his wife Magdalena lived in the city of Ulm with their children. He’d been active in politics: he’d been the mayor Ulm at one point in time. When Hitler took power, Scholl could see the hidden intentions behind the Nazi propaganda, and realized that the National Socialists were preparing for war:

Fiercely independent-minded, he “translated” the Nazi propaganda on the radio for his family and told them war was coming. He had maintained his friendships with Jewish friends and associates in Ulm when others shunned them.

When some of Scholl’s neighbors draped Nazi banners from their windows, the Scholl family did not: “There were no flags flying from their windows.” Robert Scholl “was a man of deep conviction and strongly held” Christian and civic “beliefs.” Scholl’s children agreed with the ideas they found in the sermons of Bishop Galen: Real Christians must oppose the Nazi practice of treating human life as worthless.

Among Scholl’s children, two of them — Hans and Sophie — would become the most influential in the resistance movement. They saw the National Socialists as insulting to Christ. True Christians could not support a party which offended God by murdering innocent people.

Opposition to the National Socialists had a unifying effect: academics and factory workers found themselves supporting the cause; military officers and pacifists joined forces; Lutherans, Catholics, and Calvinists found common ground. There was a terrible tension: on the one hand, basic humanity demanded opposition to the Nazis; on the other hand, such opposition not only risked one’s life, but more likely guaranteed the end of one’s life.

So it was that the entire Scholl family persevered solidly in their efforts against the National Socialists:

Scholl had brought up his five surviving children in his image. Hans, the elder boy, was the dominant character among them, but Sophie matched him in spirit. As they learned about the treatment of Jews across Germany, the words of one friend struck them deeply: “They are crucifying Christ a second time, as people!”

For the Scholls, opposition to Hiter was a moral imperative, a simple question of right versus wrong. No matter what the consequences. In the horrors that Hitler would create in the coming years, the family would pay a terrible price for its desire for a better Germany.

The price paid was this: Hans and Sophie would be executed by the Nazis in 1943 for their conscientious resistance.

In the blue-collar neighborhood of Neukölln in Berlin, Jews and non-Jews worked closely together. Led by Herbert Baum, they engaged in a number of actions to undermine National Socialist propaganda. They printed and distributed their own writings against the Nazis, and when the Nazis set up an exhibition about the Soviet Union, Baum and his colleagues set it on fire. Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis report:

In areas like working-class Neukölln, Jews and Gentiles found common ground in their hatred of the Nazis. Many congregated around electrician Herbert Baum and his wife, Marianne, who were developing a flair for the dramatic, creating their own antifascist propaganda to counter that of Goebbels. They had already humiliated the “poison dwarf” once and intended to do so again.

The Baums and their Jewish friends intended to fight back.

Like Hans and Sophie Scholl, Herbert and Marianne Baum were murdered by the Nazis.

The underground resistance efforts against the National Socialists ultimately came from all income levels, from all regions of Germany, from Christians and Jews, from the highly educated and the blue-collar. Those who were part of the efforts understood that they were essentially signing away their lives, but they also understood that they were doing so in order to hasten the end of the evil which the Nazis were perpetrating.