Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Why Didn't Public Grumbling
Become Open Opposition??
- there was no organised opposition
- Nazis had dismantled or taken
over virtually all other organisations
- no groups which people could join to resist them
- main exceptions were
the Christian churches
- formed some of the most
public opposition to the
Nazis in the early years
- Germans were afraid
- the SS and Gestapo could destroy
people's lives if they did not follow the rules
- as long as people kept complaints to
themselves, they were tolerated
- if complaints became open opposition then the
apparatus of the police state was there to deal with it
- people were pleased with the Nazis
- many Germans were pleased
with what the Nazis were doing
- particularly with success of
Nazi foreign policy
- even if they did not agree with something the Nazis
did, people would tolerate it for the sake of the stability
and prosperity they thought the Nazis were creating
- people did not know what
was going on
- censorship and propaganda stopped people
from receiving reliable information
- some of the extremes of Nazi policy were kept secret
- those who did suspect had learned not to ask questions for fear of their own lives
- criticisms were minor
- Those who were dissatisfied with the
Nazis had very minor complaints
- e.g. in Northeim the decision to merge the four sports clubs into
one raised more opposition than the victimisation of the Jews
- "we did vote for them"
- Nazis had achieved electoral success
- most Germans (and people in other
countries) saw Nazis as having the legal
authority to do what they wanted
- Nazis did drop unpopular policies
- the Nazis sometimes moderated their policies if
they seemed to be alienating normal Germans
- Kristallnacht produced such widespread condemnation
among ordinary Germans that from then on all
measures against the Jews were kept secret
- 1940- Nazi programme of euthanasia
was halted after a popular outcry
against it led by church leaders
- opposition was divided
- Left-wing groups like Communists and Social
Democrats were natural enemies of Nazism
- both banned in 1933
- did not trust eachother so did
not cooperate to resist the Nazis
- resisted in different ways
- Social Democrats: did little more than meet in small groups,
talk, start whispering campaigns against the Nazis
- Communists: for a long
time just assumed Nazis
would fall; later decided on
more active campaign of
spreading discontent
amongst factory workers