Download `Opposition` and `Resistance` inside Nazi Germany

groupings
• Organise your cards in pairs
• How did you choose to do it?
‘OppOsitiOn’ and
‘Resistance’ inside Nazi
Germany
What do these terms
mean?
What do these terms
mean in a totalitarian
state like the Third
Reich?
Terminology
• ‘resistance’ – embrace every type of action or behaviour
which showed open opposition to the regime.
• ‘opposition’ – all acts of public defiance.
• ‘dissent’ – refusal to give the ‘Heil Hitler’.
• Reserve the term ‘active resistance’ to a small group of
individuals who were willing to risk their lives to
overthrow the Nazi state by force.
• What about indifference/sympathy/support? Draw a
quick scale attempting to highlight the range of attitudes
to the Nazi Regime.
• From RESISTANCE to COMMITMENT
7 possible reactions
Copy the following forms of resistance to the Nazi
regime out in a line with the most hostile on the left to
the least hostile on the right
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Nonconformity
Acceptance
Resistance
Participation
Enthusiasm
Protest
Commitment
What do you
think about the
terminology? Is it
helpful?
7 possible reactions
Resistance
Protest
Non-conformity
Acceptance
Participation
Enthusiasm
Commitment
success Of ‘active
Resistance’
• Reserve the term ‘active resistance’ to a small group of
individuals who were willing to risk their lives to
overthrow the Nazi state by force.
• Third Reich defeated by the Allies rather than from
within – therefore they ultimately failed? Fair
assumption?
• Why then? What organisations would you highlight as
being potential opponents in 1933? How did Hitler
deal with them?
Opposition and
Resistance
• How could people
oppose and resist
National Socialism
between 1933-1945?
• Most dramatic –
assassination attempts
which historians have
found out about 9.
Ranging from 19351944.
• 1935 – Jewish students.
• 1938 – Maurice Bavaud
(student) executed.
• 1939 – Georg Elser –
executed.
• 1940 – Police Chief
Schulenburg,
• 1943 – Gerneral Tresckow
• 1943 – Colonel von
Gersdorff
• 1943 – Major von dem
Bussche
• 1944 – Von Stauffenburg –
over 5,000 people executed
Opposition and
Resistance
• When would have been the best moment to replace Hitler
during the Third Reich?
• 1933-1934?
• After 1934 he could not be legally removed.
• Successful economic and foreign policy then made it
difficult to gain support for opposition groups.
• Added to this was the power of propaganda and the police
state. – Explain….
• The war also then made opposition harder – why?
• Although from 1943 there were more attempts to remove
Hitler – why?
Task
• ‘Active Resistance’ –
• 1) Communists
• 2) The Church
• 3) Army and foreign office (conservative elites)
• 4) Social Democrats
• 5) Students
Use your group’s hand out to answer the following
questions: Who were they? Examples of resistance. How
influential were they? Why did they ultimately fail?
The Volksgemeinschaft
• For your group, you must produce a handout (it
could be a spider diagram, mind map, key
words etc) that shows both the success and
failure the Nazis had with incorporating them
into the Volksgemeinschaft
• Include key facts, figures and evidence
• I’ll collect them in and make a booklet for each
of you that can be used for revision (and
preparation for your next tracker question)
The Volksgemeinschaft
• Youth –
• Women –
• Workers –
• Peasants –
• Churches –