Opposition to Hitler

There was no consistent, organized resistance movement in Hitler's Germany. It had been possible to oppose the Nazis before they came to power; it was not so after. When moves were made against Hitler, they were invariably desperate, doomed affairs. The isolated cases of individual or group resistance that did occur usually coincided with times of uncertainty, as in 1939 when a number of Germans doubted the wisdom of going to war, and in the period 1942-45 when Germany began to suffer serious military reverses. However, it is noticeable that between 1939 and 1942, when Hitler was making Germany master of Europe, opposition became dormant. What all this suggests is that opposition was rarely a matter of moral objection to Nazism. It was at its weakest when Germany was doing well under Hitler and at its strongest when his foreign wars appeared to be putting Germany at risk.

Of the different forms of resistance that can be measured, the three main types that stand out are:

•  the Left, made up of communists and socialists

•  the Right, made up of traditionalists and conservatives

•  the young.

Interestingly, the main opposition to Hitler in Germany came from the political Right rather than the Left.