A war where one man ruled a whole country and committed genocide of a whole race. Solely due to a previous war that left the country of Germany with many restrictions. The economy was horrible and the people of Germany wanted a change. To the wanting of change, came a man known as Adolf Hitler. From this man and other causes came World War Two. While there were many who agreed with Hitler’s ideas and ruling, there were still those who did not agree. The groups were spread all throughout the globe. Groups all around Europe and even the United States of America. Groups who resisted Hitler include, The Edelweiss Pirates, The White Rose, The Solf Circle, The Catholic Church, The Rosenstrasse Project, The Kreisau Circle and the Red Orchestra (“10 Awesome Groups Of Germans Who Resisted The Nazis,” 2014). Many of these groups failed in their efforts, however, made an impact on stopping Hitler’s rule and ending the war.
The Edelweiss Pirates were a group of young people who opposed the Nazi’s rule. The group started in 1936 due to the opposition of how the Hitler Youth Movement took over the lives of youth in Germany. Members of the Edelweiss Pirates weren’t documented, however, the group consisted primarily of 12-18-year-old boys (McDonough, 2011, p. 15).
The majority of cities in western Germany had a branch of the Edelweiss Pirates, however, a few did not use the title. For example, In Koln (Cologne) they were known as the ‘Navajos’ (“The Edelweiss Pirates,” 2016). The Edelweiss Pirates main purpose was to promote the opposite of what the Hitler Youth Movement represented. “. . .They were free to express what they thought. While boys and girls were strictly segregated in the Hitler Youth Movement, the Edelweiss Pirates encouraged the opposite. . .” (“The Edelweiss Pirates,” 2016).
Every group needs to partake in certain activities in order to reach a purpose. Doing certain actions helps promote a group’s purpose to either another group and/or the public. Members disobeyed the rules by going on hiking and camping trips. The Nazis had banned blues and jazz songs that came from France, however, during these trips the group would continue to sing such genres of music (“The Edelweiss Pirates,” 2016). The Edelweiss Pirates helped defend the locals against the Hitler Youth Patrol Service during the group’s outrageous actions. Guilty of many crimes, they broke shop windows, stole and beat people on the streets; raided movie houses looking for the Edelweiss Pirates, who stood up to them and even fought with them on the streets of Dusseldorf, Essen, Cologne and other cities in western Germany.The Edelweiss Pirates resisted Nazi rule by also offering shelter to deserters of the German army, escaped prisoners from concentration camps, and escaped prisoners from forced labor camps (“Faces of Courage, The Edelweiss Pirates,” n.d.).
The Edelweiss Pirates were not seen as a problem despite the group’s constant ignorance of Nazi rules, however, the nazis’ views towards the group changed which ultimately led to the end of the group. During World War Two the authorities believed that the Edelweiss Pirates were the ones who were collecting British and anti-Nazi propaganda leaflets dropped by bomber Command at the start of the war and sharing them through letterboxes. This was seen as being more than just an irritation; it was viewed as a major disruption (“The Edelweiss Pirates,” 2016). In a letter from Himmler to Reinhard Heydrich (January 1942), the head of the SS wrote that a weak approach to any such groups that failed to show total loyalty was unacceptable and that members of those groups had to be dealt with. Ideas of concentration camps for the rebels were brought up as well as for the rebels’ parents, depending on how much the parents’ encouraged the child. In November 1944, thirteen members of the Edelweiss Pirates were hanged in public in Koln. The group, despite the event continued to function in an attempt to join with the Allied Occupying Authority, however, the AOA wanted nothing to do with them. The AOA created and governed new movements, however, of all the movements, they did not include the Edelweiss Pirates.
The group could not exist due to the dangers it posed and the lack of support from other movements. The Soviet Union’s control over what is now known as East Germany did not allow the Edelweiss Pirates to exist. 25 years of prison were given as punishment for those found as members. From the group’s start in 1936 to its end around 1944, the Edelweiss Pirates’ goal to stop Nazi influence on german youth failed, however, helped in stopping Hitler’s rule (“The Edelweiss Pirates,” 2016).
The White Rose was a group of students who fought against Nazi policies while attending the University of Munich in Germany. The group started in the summer of 1942, with a group of young men involving Willi Graf, Christoph Probst, Hans Scholl, as well as a number of students and Kurt Huber, a philosophy professor. As time went on, Sophie Scholl, Alex Schmorell, and Inge Scholl joined as well.
Influences of the group included the German Youth Movement; a group Christoph Probst was apart of. Hans Scholl was a part of the Hitler Youth until 1936 and Sophie was a member of the Bund Deutscher Madel. D.j.1.11 also had influences on the group, Hans Scholl, as well as his brothers and sisters were apart of the group. D.j.1.11 was a youth group founded by Eberhard Koebel in 1929. Willi Graf participated in the Neudeutschland (a catholic youth association) and the Grauer Orden groups before the White Rose. The purpose of the group was fighting for civil rights and opposition to nazi policies while attending school by using a leaflet system.
Activities the group did to resist Nazi rule was the group established a leaflet system, which encouraged active opposition of the German people to Nazi oppression. Leaflets taken to other cities carried great risk, because trains were constantly patrolled by military police. Anyone traveling without official documents was considered “AWOL.” Most leaflets were transported by female students because security on trains rarely checked females’ luggage. One activity was in the early summer of 1942, Alex Schmorell and Hans Scholl wrote four leaflets, copied them on a typewriter, not exceeding 100, and delivered them throughout Germany. The leaflets were put in public places such as telephone books in public phone booths, mailed to professors and students, and taken by courier to other universities for distribution. Another activity was on the 3rd, 8th, and 15th, in February 1944 Hans, Alex and Willi conducted the most dangerous of all the White Rose activities: they used tar and paint to write slogans on the sides of houses on Ludwigstrasse, a main thoroughfare in Munich near the university at nighttime. The slogans included, “down with Hitler,” “Hitler mass murderer,” “freedom,” and drew crossed-out swastikas all while policemen patrolled the streets. The group started coming to an end when on Thursday, February 18th, 1943, Sophie and Hans distributed the pamphlets personally at the university. They dropped stacks of copies in the empty corridors for students to find they came out from classes. There were still copies left and they decided to continue to distribute them.The two went to the atrium on the top floor and threw the last remaining leaflets all over the room. Jakob Schmid, a custodian, saw the two and called the police. Hans and Sophie were taken into custody by Gestapo, along with the other members.
On February 22, 1943, the trials were run by Roland Freisler, head judge of the court, and later on the court carried out that sentence by guillotine. All three faced death with no fear, as Hans cried out his last words, “Long live freedom.” Soon after, Al
exander Schmorell, Kurt Huber, and Willi Graf were tried and executed; however, most the other members convicted for their participation received prison sentences. Before their deaths, several members believed that their execution would encourage university students and other citizens into a rally against Hitler and the war; however, many students continued studies as usual and the group's actions were unappreciated until later in time. The White Rose’s efforts to help stop Hitler while receiving an education is something that should be remembered and appreciated; for doing such a thing takes time, hard work, and dedication (“The White Rose,” 2007).
The Solf Circle was a group who gathered to discuss the bad of the Nazi Regime and Germany’s recovery from the rule of Hitler. Members of the group were Johanna Solf, the widow of the German ambassador to Japan under the Weimar Republic and her daughter Countess Lagi von Ballestrem-Solf. Others included Countess Hannah von Bredow, Count Albrecht von Bernstorff, Father Friedrich Erxleben, Nikolaus von Halem, Otto Kiep, Richard Kuenzer, Arthur Zaden and Elisabeth von Thadden. (“The Solf Circle,” n.d.)
Background of the members were, Johanna Solf, widow of Dr. Wilhelm Solf, ran a group of anti-Nazi intellectuals in her salon in Berlin, along with her daughter Countess Lagi von Ballestrem-Solf. Otto Kiep, a high official from the Foreign office, who was laid off from his position as Consul General in New York City due to attending a public luncheon in honor of Albert Einstein, but was later able to get himself reinstated in the diplomatic service. Count Albrecht von Bernstorff, who is the nephew of Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States during World War One. Father Friedrich Erxleben, a well-known Jesuit priest; Nikolaus von Halem, a merchant, legation advisor Richard Kuenzer, State Secretary Arthur Zarden and his daughter, Irmgard (Revolvy, L., n.d.). The Solf Circle’s purpose was to discuss the bad of the Nazi Regime and Germany’s recovery from the rule of Hitler.
Activities the group did to rebel against Hitler was the group hid Germans in homes and helped them in going to safer countries by providing falsified documents for them. The group also interacted with groups such as the Kreisau Circle in order to hinder the Nazi war effort. On September 10, 1943, Elisabeth von Thadden used her birthday as a cover to hold a gathering. Elisabeth invited a Swiss doctor named Paul Reckzeh to the meeting. A majority of the Swiss population were strongly against the Nazis and Reckzeh professed that he shared the same belief. However, he was working undercover for the Gestapo and reported all of the people at Elisabeth’s party to the Gestapo office (“The Solf Circle,” n.d.).
One of Kiep’s close friends, Erich Vermehren, who repeatedly refused to join the Hitler youth and excluded from military service because of a childhood injury, somehow managed to get himself assigned to the Istanbul branch of the Abwehr. When Kiep was arrested, Erich, along with his wife, were summoned to Berlin by the Gestapo to be questioned in connection with their friend’s case. Most members of the Solf Circle were taken to court, convicted, and eventually executed. Solf and her daughter were kept in Ravensbruck after their arrest. On December 1944, they were taken to Moabit Remand Prison waiting for their trial in the Volksgerichtshof. Johanna Solf and her daughter stayed alive because the Japanese ambassador knew her husband as german ambassador to Japan, interceded with the German government on their behalf; this marked the end of the Solf Circle group.The Solf Circle began as a small discussion that cost the members its lives, which shows how serious the Nazis were about Hitler’s rules and goals (Revolvy, L., n.d.).
Hitler believed jews, communists, the social democrats, the Catholic Centre Party and the Christian churches were threats to his racial community. The confrontation first began on January 30, 1933, SA stormtroopers and SS detachments came through the Brandenburg Gate onto the Unter den Linden in the center of Berlin. Even though it was a victory, Hitler knew he had to deal with the Catholic Church, as he felt the church was a deeply-entrenched threat that needed to be controlled and eventually set from German life in order to set his promised Thousand-Year-Reich.
On February 1933, Hermann Goering banned all newspapers that had any affiliation with Catholicism in Cologne. Goering denied that it was part of a deliberate campaign against Catholics. Even though the ban was dismissed, it sent a warning through the largely Catholic Rhineland and gave an accurate sign of possible of future government moves. By the end of June 1933, large-scale arrests were already happening; thousands of Catholic Center Party activists were in concentration camps during the time. Ignoring the occurrences, government negotiator and Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, who was a Catholic, told journalists that relations between the Reich and the Vatican were doing quite well that it had taken only eight days to create the outline of the proposed Concordat.
Threats first started when Hitler made a public appeal for the church to negotiate the terms of a new church-state agreement. Discussions took place quickly after a number of threats that the SA would be unleashed on defenseless Catholics unless an agreement was quickly reached. The Pope and his Secretary of State were faced with a problem; if they didn’t negotiate with the legally appointed government, Hitler would more than likely tell the public of his terms and state the Vatican as an anti-Nazi. Another in 1933, when an “Editor’s Law” arose in December directed at free speech. The law stated all editors were required to join the Literary Chamber of the Third Reich and follow whatever instructions were given. Also in 1937, parents were given the choice to pick which school their child went to. The decision was usually made in front of SA men in full uniforms, as hints would be provided of possible future trouble and no employment if Catholic schools were chosen. The Vatican sought help in unusual places. Dr. Joseph Mueller, an anti-Nazi Munich lawyer, also known as an officer in the Abwehr (Military Counter-Intelligence), he was able to move whenever between Munich, Berlin and Rome. Joseph held documents containing the detailed account of the campaign being waged against Catholics inside Germany and after the Anschluss of 1938, in Austria (Gajewski, K., 1999). From 1939 through March of 1940, Pius XII served as a bridge of communication between a group of anti-Hitler German army chiefs, controlled by General Ludwig Beck, and the British government, represented by Britain’s Vatican minister, Francis d’Arcy Osborne.
Pope Pius XII soon after passed away (Carroll, J., 1999).With the death of the pope and the coming of war in 1939, Hitler had no choice but to put persecution of Christians second to the effective prosecution of military aims.While Hitler was attempting to take rule over everything in Europe, the Vatican still fought back in secret for the best of its people and ended up working out in the end (Gajewski, K., 1999).
The Rosenstrasse Protest involved a group of people rioting outside a local building.The protest first began when a group of up to 200 non-Jewish Germans stood waiting outside the local Jewish community building at Rosenstrasse, in Berlin. On February 27, 1943, German partners and siblings, gathered on the street outside of the Jewish community center building in hope to find information about loved ones. Civilians yelled, chanted, remained silent, but remained on the streets to seek info and/or comfort. The cause was the decision of Nazi leadership, in result of deporting what was left of the German Jews to killing centers, to manage the domestic problem of Jews in “mixed marriages” and the offspring of those marriages. The event cam
e to be known Factory Operation Action. A deporting of around 11,000 Jews to Auschwitz in the month of March.
The end of protest amounted to the German police’s incarceration of around 2,000 Jews- mostly male married to non-Jewish partners and the male children of those married. Gestapo’s deportation to Auschwitz 25 persons of the approximately 2,000 incarcerated in the Rosenstrasse. Gestapo’s continuation to deport “mixed-marriage” Jews capable to work in forced-labor camps in Berlin and elsewhere in Reich. Even though the members of the protest had no weapons and only their two fists, they still stood up and rebelled against the Nazi forces (“The Rosenstraße Demonstration,” 1943).
The Kreisau Circle was a group composed of various people who all disliked the Nazis. Members of group had different religious and ethnic backgrounds, yet all shared a hatred for the Nazis. Meetings were held in Berlin, Munich, elsewhere in Germany by Helmut von Moltke. The purpose of the group was to discuss the reorganization of Germany after the war into a democracy government (Zanthier, A., n.d.).
Activities the group did to rebel against Hitler were they established connections with resistance groups in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway. The group also requested support from other allies. Meetings were quite small as it was rare for more than three or four members to meet together due to security. It is believed that only von Moltke and Yorck knew the names of all members of the group, due to security reasons.
The group started to come to an end in 1944 when Helmut von Moltke was arrested in January. In June of 1944, members implicated in the July Bomb Plot were also arrested. Von Moltke wrote a final letter to his son saying he was going to be killed for having the will to think and have some ideas. The Kreisau Circle was punished and executed for having small discussions that didn’t affect the Nazis physically at all. (“The Kreisau Circle,” n.d.).
The Red Orchestra was known as the biggest intelligence-gathering operation in the history of espionage. Members involved were from the Soviet Union’s group of spies in Europe, set up by the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) (“The Red Orchestra,” 2015). The group was made up of three different units including, the Trepper unit, the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group and the ‘Red Three.’ Locations included Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied France, Belgium, Holland, and in neutral Switzerland. Purpose of the units was to gather intelligence about the Nazi’s military power in Western Europe (“The Red Orchestra,” n.d.).
The group played an important role in thwarting Hitler’s designs to conquer Soviet Russia. One event was Lucy Ring’s warning to Russians about Hitler’s plan to invade the Soviet Union and other intelligence later on. Top secret plans of the German High command, were known by the Soviet frontline generals, even before the German commanders knew of them (“The Red Orchestra,” 2015).
The group came to an end in the spring of 1942, with the first Red Orchestra agents arrest in Belgium. Schulze-Boysen himself was arrested on August 30th, 1942, which broke up the second unit. German interrogators interrogated agents of the Red Orchestra and caused them to break under pressure. The result was the Germans ability to eradicate most of the spy network in Belgium, Holland, and Germany; and after a trial, 58 of the members were put to death, while others were sentenced to imprisonment. The Red Orchestra was the biggest of all resistance groups, although the group failed, the group’s efforts did assist in stopping Hitler’s rule (“Report on the IRR File on The Red Orchestra,” n.d.).
A war where one man ruled a whole country and committed genocide of a whole race. Solely due to a previous war that left the country of Germany with many restrictions. The economy was horrible and the people of Germany wanted a change. To the wanting of change, came a man known as Adolf Hitler. From this man and other causes came World War Two. While there were many who agreed with Hitler’s ideas and ruling, there were still those who did not agree. The groups were spread all throughout the globe. Groups all around Europe and even the United States of America. Groups who resisted Hitler include, The Edelweiss Pirates, The White Rose, The Solf Circle, The Catholic Church, The Rosenstrasse Project, The Kreisau Circle and the Red Orchestra (“10 Awesome Groups Of Germans Who Resisted The Nazis,” 2014). Many of these groups ended up dying in their efforts, however, many lessons should be learned from the groups’ efforts. To always believe in one’s self, to never back down to higher authority no matter how big the authority (when the authority is wrong), and if needed, die to fight for what is right.