Three million Germans became political prisoners during Hitler’s reign, and many tens of thousands died. As one writer puts it, ‘These numbers reveal the potential for popular resistance in German society – and what happened to it.’1
Some establishment figures, who shared a common class and political position to Allied governments, took the road of resistance, but the sort of problems they faced were revealed during the Czechoslovak crisis of 1938. Fearing the Führer would start an unwinnable global war, influential conservative conspirators including the Army’s Commander-in-Chief plotted to arrest him.
They were confident there could be ‘no possibility of a hitch’ to their plan just so long as Britain and France were willing to stand up to Hitler.2 These two countries were duly informed of the conspiracy.
Alas, neither was in a mood to have the German Chancellor deposed. Sir Neville Henderson, Britain’s ambassador in Berlin, wrote that Hitler had ‘achieved gigantic progress in the military, industrial, and moral reorganisation of Germany’.3 He regarded Czech objections to Hitler’s aggression as being on ‘uncertain moral ground’4 because the Nazis were merely ‘consummating at long last the unity of Greater Germany’.5 Above all, Henderson wanted a strong Germany to hold back communism: ‘Moscow’s chief aim was to embroil Germany and the Western Powers in a common ruin and to emerge as the tertius gaudens [the third one wins] of the conflict between them.’6 So the pleas of the plotters were ignored and Czechoslovakia was sacrificed.
Once the war began, the Allies adopted the opposite policy:
‘unconditional surrender’. This was equally fatal to the conservative resistance. Any attempt by them to encourage German peace feelers would, in Churchill’s words, be met with ‘absolute silence’.7 This stance paralysed the conservative opposition because, without a prior agreement with the West, toppling Hitler might result in a Soviet takeover, something they abhorred even more than Nazism.
Allied tactics undermined opposition amongst ordinary Germans too. Instead of engaging with the German people in a joint
struggle against Nazism, Britain and the USA gave them firestorms accompanied with leaflets saying: ‘Our bombs fall on your homes and on you … You can’t stop us, and you know it. You have no hope.’8 The Red Army reinforced that message. Russian soldiers fighting the ‘Great Patriotic War’ were encouraged into intense hatred of enemy civilians. Reports reached Stalin that ‘all German women in East Prussia who stayed behind were raped by Red Army soldiers’.9 The bitter choice for German women was expressed in this joke: ‘Better a Russki on the belly, than a Yank [bombing you]
on the head!’10 In sum, Allied methods produced sullen co-operation with Hitler’s regime. He thus avoided the revolution that befell the Kaiser in 1918. Nevertheless Nazism was resisted – through both imperialist and people’s war forms.
The german reSISTance
Most histories give pride of place to Conservatives. Gördeler, Mayor of Leipzig and Reich Price Commissioner, led an elite grouping which hoped to replace Hitler with himself as Chancellor. Gördeler’s supporters had the best opportunity to assassinate the Führer because they mixed with top Nazis. Stauffenberg’s bomb of 20 July 1944 came within inches of success. Tragically, Hitler survived, Operation Valkyrie failed, and the plotters paid with their lives.
Their rejection of Nazism was not based on opposition to German imperialism, but a disagreement over how best to maintain it. Like Ambassador Henderson, Hassell (Gördeler’s ‘shadow’
Foreign Minister), argued for ‘a healthy, vigorous Germany as an indispensable factor … in face of Bolshevist Russia’.11 Gördeler himself intended to retain Austria and part of Czechoslovakia for Germany after the war.12
Allied capitulation at Munich may have stymied their 1938 plot, but the Conservatives were galvanised into a new conspiracy by the Hitler–Stalin Pact which, they feared, gave too much influence to Moscow.13 But once the Second World War began, action against it was again delayed, because the Wehrmacht looked like succeeding.
They acted in the summer of 1944 because, as Mommsen puts it,
‘the generals of the Opposition, with but few exceptions, only made up their minds to unconditional action when the Bolshevist danger threatened to become a military reality’.14
On the domestic front the conservative resistance preferred authoritarian rule or a monarchy to democracy.15 They judged it expedient to ‘carry over, for permanent retention in the reconstructed
state, an appreciable amount of what had been achieved by National Socialism’.16 Indeed, Mommsen believes ‘leading generals in the military opposition were also deeply involved in the war crimes of the Third Reich’.17 Gördeler rejected ‘uncontrolled overdemocratic parliamentarianism’,18 concluding an elected chamber should have only advisory functions, and no independent legislative rights.
Only the tiny Kreisau circle, whose members included aristocrats, trade union leaders and socialists, went beyond such reactionary politics; but it was a discussion group. When it was caught up in the repression of the July 1944 bomb plot, its key figure, von Moltke, protested that: ‘We only thought … We are on the outside of each practical action; we get hanged because we have thought together.’19
If the conservative resistance was galvanised by fear of defeat and a concern to salvage German imperialism from the disaster Hitler was leading it to, workers’ opposition was rooted in fundamental opposition to Nazi dictatorship, war and racism. The communist youth wing warned that young workers were ‘being trained to be cannon fodder’ and to avert war it was necessary to ‘bring fascism to ruin’.20 The Party called for ‘solidarity through sympathy and help for our Jewish comrades’,21 while the socialists demanded the ‘overthrow [of] all supporters of despotism and all violent organisations that oppose freedom …’.22
Whereas many of the conservative opposition had been Nazis but broke away over the best policy for German capitalism, the working class resisted the pull of Hitler from the start. This was shown by the Nazi Party’s social composition. Labour was under-represented in membership (relative to the overall population) by almost half;
the lower middle class was over-represented by one-third; while there was a fourfold over-representation of the elite.23
Before Hitler’s accession as Chancellor, the Communist Party (KPD) fought Nazis valiantly on the streets. In Prussia alone, during June/July 1932, 82 died in political clashes, the majority being Nazis (38) or communists (30).24 Alas, Moscow’s insistence that the German socialists (SPD) were ‘social fascists’ and worse than Nazis, produced disastrous divisions in the working class.25 These were compounded by the SPD’s equally false belief that Hitler would be constrained by the democratic constitution of Weimar Germany – ‘Our foes will perish through our legality’.26 These follies fatally undermined the left and made it possible for the German elite, centred on President Hindenburg, to appoint Hitler as Chancellor.
Even after Hitler’s accession to power, and wave upon wave of murderous repression, working-class opposition continued.
Although Göbbels’ government-controlled media could successfully peddle lies concerning issues of which the population had no direct knowledge, the Nazis fared badly in 1934’s government sponsored shop stewards’ elections, because the candidates were known personally to voters. The one-party state barred alternative platforms, but ‘no’ votes and abstentions combined comprised three quarters of the final result.27 No further elections were held.
Workers tried various methods to withstand the Nazi onslaught.
Lacking direct access to Hitler’s circle, workers’ resistance could not easily mount assassination plots, though heroic individuals attempted this. The SPD hoped to ride out the storm by remaining passive. Although extremely reckless, to its credit the KPD called for
‘an unbroken chain of mass resistance and mass struggle …’.28 In June 1935 the Berlin KPD alone distributed 62,000 copies of its literature.
The SPD’s illegal newspaper had a national circulation of 250,000.29 Sometimes more could be done. Despite the dangers, occasional strikes and acts of sabotage of military production also occurred.30 Even in concentration camps the left mounted struggles for physical and moral survival. At Berlin’s Sachsenhausen camp a group of communists, socialists and non-party prisoners, organised equitable distribution of food and clothes, political education, morale-building cultural work, and even a demonstration of defiance.31
But by 1939 mass popular resistance had been smashed. This did not mean working class acceptance of Hitlerism. A report smuggled out and published by the Socialists estimated that: ‘Ninety percent of the workers beyond all doubt are convinced anti-Nazis [but there is] no active attitude against the ruling conditions.’32 Small groups composed of activists from a variety of backgrounds, such as the Red Orchestra (a network spying for Russia), the White Rose (students), and Edelweiss Pirates (youth) continued to splutter into life only to be snuffed out. The ‘other war’ had been reduced to an occasional skirmish. Nevertheless, as Peukert has argued:
Given the twofold trauma of 1933 – defeat without struggle, and the terror-induced split between the activists and the politically passive proletarian community – the sheer quantity of political opposition, the commitment and self-sacrifice of those involved, and the stubborn determination with which they persisted in secret operations, despite setbacks at the hands of the Gestapo, are certainly remarkable accomplishments. They constitute an immense and historic achievement, quite irrespective of the total impact of the working-class resistance on the Third Reich.33
A comparison in size of the conservative and communist resistance is instructive. The former numbered around 200 activists (though in the repression following the July 1944 plot the regime executed some 5,000 opponents).34 By the end of the Second World War, of the KPD alone, 300,000 members had been incarcerated, and at least 20,000 killed.35
As Peukert suggests above, it cannot be said mass resistance was decisive, but it was significant. The war which ultimately destroyed Nazism partly came about because it ‘sought to resolve its social antagonisms through dynamic territorial expansion. So Germany was inevitably drawn into a conflict with other Great Powers’.36 Equally, as Aly has shown, fearing a repeat of the revolution that ended the First World War the Nazis avoided antagonising German workers through lower living standards, and this significantly reduced the Nazi war machine’s effectiveness.37 Churchill and Roosevelt demanded levels of self-sacrifice from their populations that Hitler dared not request.
afTer The War
Victory in Europe day was 8 May 1945 and the fatal blow was delivered by Allied imperialism. But the motive was not to free the German population. A US spokesperson explained: ‘Our aim in occupying Germany is not to liberate it, but to treat it as a defeated enemy state.’38 Russia agreed and carried out the violent
‘ethnic cleansing’ of eleven million Germans from Eastern Europe.39 Furthermore, Stalin saw no reason to object ‘if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometres through blood and fire and death has fun with a women or takes some trifle’.40 Though notorious for mass rape, the Red Army was not the only occupying army to do this.41
Rather than the welfare of the German population, many of whom were victims of Nazism, the victors were interested in who would gain the greatest share of the spoils. Morgenthau, US Treasury Secretary, wanted to de-industrialise Germany and break it into several small states,42 but the State Department, mindful of the way the First World War ended in a wave of European revolutions, regarded this as ‘a plan of blind vengeance’ that would open the door to communism, and close it to American plans for economic reconstruction.43
Churchill agreed that ‘inflicting severities upon Germany [might allow] the Russians in a very short time to advance, if they chose,
to the waters of the North Sea and the Atlantic’.44 For this reason Admiral Dönitz, Hitler’s designated successor, was allowed to continue running government and to issue orders. Churchill even retained Luftwaffe planes and a force of some 700,000 soldiers as insurance against ‘Russian armies should they decide to advance farther than is agreed’.45 It was only the bizarre alliance of Russian and Daily Mail protests that put a stop to this outrage, Dönitz finally being arrested two weeks after VE Day.46
Imperialist considerations also shaped the treatment of Hitler’s henchmen. In West Germany the USA wanted Nazis to be brought to justice without destroying Germany’s social structure, lest Russia take advantage of the disarray.47 This was not easy because, contrary to conventional wisdom, Nazism was not some alien contagion, the result of a charismatic leader or collective madness. Although the Nazi Party started as a collection of counter-revolutionary cranks outside the mainstream, almost from the very beginning it garnered support from significant figures, such as the First World War commander Ludendorff. When the standing of the conventional middle class parties was destroyed first by the hyper-inflation of 1923 and then the 1929 Wall Street Crash millions voted for the Nazis. Now, with the economy spiralling downwards, the establishment realised that however unsavoury rabble-rousing individuals like Hitler might appear, the alternative to Nazism was social breakdown and civil war. So they backed his appointment as Chancellor in 1933. Hitler showed his appreciation a year later in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’, during which he massacred those of his own supporters gullible enough to believe that Nazism was some radical alternative to capitalism.
By the Second World War the leading Nazis were thoroughly integrated into the social structure and its elite. This posed a problem for the Western Allies. Cutting away much of the summit of society in their sector might release radical forces from below and weaken authority. In East Germany the Russians had no such qualms and took a different approach. They would expunge Nazism, not in order to hand control to ordinary Germans, but to Moscow.
Despite their different approaches, the Allied military authorities in both sectors were therefore hostile to the spontaneous mass movement of anti-fascist committees (Antifas) that emerged as the Third Reich disintegrated. These committees represented the long repressed people’s war against fascism. One of their first aims was to forestall Hitler’s ‘Nero Order’, the suicidal self-destruction of Germany’s infrastructure. In Leipzig Antifa leaflets urged soldiers
to desert, while in Stuttgart pro-war officers were challenged.
Such actions were still dangerous. In Dachau the SS repulsed the committee when it stormed the Town Hall. The same thing happened in an assault on Dusseldorf’s police HQ. But in places such as Mulheim and Solingen Antifas were in control when Allied soldiers arrived, so they marched in unopposed.48
The scale of the movement was impressive, with over 120 committees established nationwide. The Leipzig Antifa claimed 150,000 adherents.49 Many of these organisations broke through entrenched social barriers to include foreign slave labourers and establish working class unity across political parties and trade unions. Their functions ranged from creating local democracy, to restoring basic services like food supply.50 An official US report shows the Allies had a clear understanding of what the Antifas stood for:
Denunciation of Nazis, efforts to prevent an illegal Nazi underground movement, denazification of civil authorities and private industry, improvement of housing and food supply provision – these are the central questions which preoccupy the newly created organizations … .’51
The fact that so many committees adopted similar names and policies poses the question of whether there was a centralised organisation at work.52
Communists were prominent in nearly every Antifa53 despite the opposition of Moscow.54 Walter Ulbricht, the KPD leader, criticised the ‘spontaneous creation of KPD bureaus, people’s committees, and Free Germany committees’,55 but he could do little as the KPD central apparatus had no communication link with the rank and file.56 Once communications were restored he could report: ‘We have shut these [Antifas] down and told the comrades that all activities must be channelled through the state apparatus.’57
The Western Allies were equally disconcerted by the Antifas self-proclaimed ‘ruthless struggle against all remnants of Hitler’s party in the state apparatus, the local authorities and public life’.58 The US authorities expelled the Leipzig committee from its offices, ordered the removal of all leaflets and posters from the streets, and then banned it. Any further use of the name ‘Free Germany National Committee’ would be punished severely.59 The military government stopped Solingen’s workplace councils purging Nazi activists and then abolished them.60 Brunswick’s Nazis had been arrested by the
Antifa, but were liberated by Allied command.61 When Frankfurt Antifa housed people made homeless by bombing in apartments abandoned by fleeing Nazis, the authorities evicted them.62 A GI described his experience of the parallel wars in Germany:
The crime of it all is that we would take a little town, arrest the mayor and the other big shots, and put the anti-fascist in charge of the town. We’d double back to that town three days later, the Americans had freed all the officials and put ‘em back in power.
And they threw this other guy aside. Invariably it happened.63 It is important to realise that the Allied Military Government did not oppose the Antifas out of tenderness towards Nazism. But there was a greater enemy, as this German industrialist explained:
‘Frankly, we are expecting a revolution … Not without reason has the Military Government imposed curfews and banned assemblies.
It has prevented a growing threat coming from that direction’.64 Hitler’s supporters were to be punished as rival imperialists, rather than for their role in German society. There could be no people’s war against Nazism in conquered Germany.
So denazification would be on imperialist terms, and not shaped by the people. In Soviet-controlled East Germany half a million cases (or 3 per cent of the population) were investigated.65 Moscow was keen to replace the former German establishment with its own placemen, and therefore the process was thorough. During the 1945–65 period over 16,000 people were tried, almost 13,000 found guilty, and 118 sentenced to death.66
In the Western zone there were also mass arrests, with 100,000 Nazis interned in the US sector alone.67 However, when the Cold War began, Britain, France and the USA focused on the new enemy and forgave the old one. Suddenly the brakes were applied to denazification. That meant:
almost every case of even major offenders [was] downgraded to the category of followership, which in turn, rendered the offender eligible for amnesty. This meant that even a majority of those who had belonged to groups defined as criminal organizations (SS, Gestapo, and others) by the Nuernberg Tribunal were exonerated … .68
The impact of this at local level was illustrated when Sinti witnesses (Gypsies known by their German name of ‘Zigeuner’)
described the crimes of a brutal Nazi guard called Himmelheber to a German court. Despite hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma perishing during the Holocaust, Himmelheber was acquitted on appeal because it was ‘commonly known that accounts of
“Zigeuner” are not reliable’. Racist attitudes continued and in 1951 a senior policemen still described Sinti and Roma as ‘genetically criminals and anti-social persons’.69
In the British zone 90 per cent of Nazi internees were cleared.70 In West Germany, with a population three times that of the East,
In the British zone 90 per cent of Nazi internees were cleared.70 In West Germany, with a population three times that of the East,