The White Rose & Internal Resistance to Hitler.

Discussion in 'The Third Reich' started by Gerard, Mar 9, 2005.

  1. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    n
    Tricia,
    very tragic indeed. They were still so young, but my heroes for trying the impossible. Both were students in Munich, but originated from Ulm, a city only 30km north of where I live.
    The book should be given to any Neo Nazi of today in the hope to make them realise how cruel the Nazis were.
    Stefan.
     
  2. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    They stood up for their principles and paid the ultimate price.
    Many other Germans were executed for going against the Regime.
    Not just those who carried out acts against the NS but it effected all family members too who were also arrested.
    Truly brave acts when you consider the repercussions when caught.
    Regards
    Tom
     
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  3. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    There are numerous accounts of individuals like Josef Schulz or Fritz Lindermann who paid the price for failing to execute civilians and many senior officers who were cashiered for the same reluctance.
     
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  4. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Yes indeed one of my uncles was not executed, but sent to fight in Stalingrad and never returned.
    Rudi just left this world for everfor opening up his mouth for a minute or two.
    Stefan.
     
  5. KevinBattle

    KevinBattle Senior Member

    As regards people asking "Why was OUR town bombed?" I think the list would run into thousands....

    Having suffered only one raid during the whole 6 years of the War, well, they should count themselves very fortunate.
     
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  6. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    As regards military service,apparently 5000 men who refused conscription were executed,quite a number by the guillotine.

    The German population must have known what was coming in that Hitler revived conscription in 1935,the Luftwaffe was revealed..... then the 5 year plans were laid down as the foundation for war.
     
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  7. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Trouble is, like myself, we started school in the early fiftees withGerman history lessons from approx.1920. Quote my history teacher:"O my god, we suffered so much by the treaty of Versailles, We were so much looking for leadership. OK, The Füehrer over did it, but does that justify to bomb civilians as well.? certain factories ok, but why all houses around2 km as well?" I remember these statements by our teacher very well.

    Unfortunately many Germans, never looked into the history back to the beginning of WW1 and came and some still do to the wrong conclusions.
    I fully understand the reasons why German cities were bombed by the Allies - stillII hated wars and will hate wars as long as I live.
    There are better solutions!

    Stefan.
     
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  8. KevinBattle

    KevinBattle Senior Member

    I blame Napoleon!
     
  9. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    As a German veteran once told me, "In 1938 we were all Nazi's and if you had been there you would have been one too. We were caught up in the euphoria and no one could have fully imagined what lay around the corner."

    There were certainly segments of the population who had grave concerns but the youth in particular were taken in by the leader who brought order, prosperity and pride out of chaos.
     
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  10. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

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  11. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Thank you for the Flugblatt Much appreciated.I have a copy of another one also dropped by the RAF in Oberschwaben. The text is a translation of a speech of Viscount..... in The House of Lords.
    If I find it in my files I will post it.
    In these days the farmer's wife could have been shot for not passing it on to the local police (Feind Propaganda). Glad she did not.
    Stefan.
     
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  12. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    I would agree with you to a certain extent.the other side of the coin was the numbers of dissenters and opposition to the NSDAP and its totalitarian Third Reich.A core principle of the NSDAP was that democracy would pay no part in the new Germany...thus party political opposition leadership was eliminated by state custody.The conduit for Hitler's totalitarian grip of Germany was his March 1933 Enabling Act whereby he could raise legislation without any discussion apart from those in his inner circle where there would be no dissent expressed.

    Prewar,the concentration camp system was being used for those who were held on the pretext of "state security"......murder conducted without responsibility and accountability.(Interestingly I saw this in a Danish internment camp and in again in Mauthausen where it was claimed that the Germans were the first to categorise certain individuals as "social undesirables"....such individuals were arrested and packed off to "state security"

    As regards German youth of both sexes,indoctrination started early with the mandatory membership of the Hitler Youth and the BDM...League of German girls...girls whose prime role was comradeship,service and physical fitness for motherhood and above all to be bearers of the Nazi ideology. Junker Schools such as Bad Tolz were set up to provide succession for the SS officer class where the party ideology was central to military training.

    Without doubt the German victories in the summer of 1940 were met with rapturous welcomes throughout Germany with wild scenes by the welcoming Berlin crowds....the German propaganda newsreels of the time bear evidence to this.The official news permitted for the population was via the NSDAP Volkischer Beobachter which was recognised as the Third Reich official newspaper. Goebbels reinforced his Propaganda Ministry by a media creation of his own,Der Angriff. Other publications were allowed but supervised by Goebbels who allowed such publications but the journalists had to project National Socialism and above all never criticise the Fuhrer.

    In the summer of 1940 there must have many baby girls born and given the name Germania after Hitler's plan to rename Berlin as Germania in his vision for his 1000 year Reich.

    Nationalistic feavour was evident from when Hitler took power and it was instilled into the population that the country was at risk from its neighbours and individuals were invited to volunteer as part time frontier guards.Some years ago I had the opportunity to look at the scrap book of a German Great War veteran. He farmed close the Sudetenland border and must have volunteered for these duties to protect the Reich against Czech"aggression".For his part he received an elaborate certificate from Hitler appointing him as a frontier guard with Hitler's facsimile signature at the bottom...he must have felt proud guarding the fatherland in 1935.
     
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  13. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Let me add some personel note: My mum was running a Kindergarten in 1941 and was asked by the local NSDAP to quit a nd join the NSDAP Kindergarten instead. My dad was a training yound men for the police, sohere was no way to refuse without imidiate negative actions, but my parents decided to have kids much earlier than planned. my brother and me are the evidence of that decission,born in 1942 and 2945.
    Stefan.
    Stefan.
     
  14. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

    Wow Stefan so you are talking to us from the future, :rolleyes: theres a few questions I would like to ask you ........................

    TD
     
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  15. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Well spotted TD, but honestly, Ican live with it. so go ahead with your questions in 2045 on my 100. birthday and you better stay fit until then.:cheers:
     
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  16. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96


    Only recently a local historian discovered new facts about this young woman with that courage.

    Together with other woman she worked at a farm in Krauchenwies.

    Private books were not allowed, but she still read a book from Thomas Mann.

    This Forced Labour, the circumstances and the poor payment might have contributed to the actions ending with the execution in Munich.
    Stefan.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2021
  17. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Prophetic words that unfortunately, all too unfortunately, fell on deaf ears:

    First leaflet of the White Rose
    (The quotations from Friedrich Schiller, "Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und Solon" and Goethe's "Des Epimenides Erwachen", second act, fourth performance have been omitted by me.)
    A facsimile of the original leaflet can be found in the appendix.


    Nothing is more unworthy of a cultural people than to be "governed" without resistance by an irresponsible clique of rulers who surrender to dark urges. Is it not the case that every honest German is ashamed of his government today, and who of us has any idea of the extent of the disgrace that will come upon us and our children once the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrendous crimes, which infinitely exceed all measure, come to light? If the German people are already so corrupted and decayed in their deepest being that they, without lifting a hand, in reckless trust in a questionable law of history, surrender the highest thing that a human being possesses and that elevates him above every other creature, namely free will, and which elevates him above every other creature, namely free will, and abandons man's freedom to intervene in the wheel of history and to subordinate it to his own rational decision - if the Germans, so devoid of individuality, have already become such a mindless and cowardly mass, then, yes, then they deserve their downfall.

    Goethe speaks of the Germans as a tragic people, like that of the Jews and Greeks, but today it rather seems as if they are a shallow, will-less herd of hangers-on, whose marrow has been sucked out of their innermost being and who, robbed of their core, are now ready to be rushed to their doom. It seems so - but it is not so; rather, in a slow, deceptive, systematic rape, each individual has been put into a spiritual prison, and only when he lay bound in it did he become aware of his doom. Only a few recognised the impending doom, and the reward for their heroic admonition was death. The fate of these people will be discussed later.

    If each waits until the other begins, the messengers of the avenging nemesis will inexorably draw nearer and nearer, then even the last victim will be thrown senseless into the jaws of the insatiable demon. Therefore, each individual, conscious of his responsibility as a member of Christian and occidental culture, must in this last hour resist as much as he can, work against the scourge of humanity, against fascism and every system of the absolute state similar to it. Offer passive resistance - resistance - wherever you are, prevent the further running of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last cities are a heap of ruins, like Cologne, and before the last youth of the people somewhere has bled to death for the hubris of a subhuman. Do not forget that every people deserves the government it can bear!
     

    Attached Files:

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  18. WackySmokey

    WackySmokey New Member

    There was a resistance to Hitler. Ever heard of operation valkry?
     
  19. Mr Jinks

    Mr Jinks Bit of a Cad

    Hope you are not expecting a reply ? WW2 Veteran,` Sapper` ,Brian Guy sadly passed away in 2019 . :poppy:


    Kyle
     
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  20. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    There is absolutely nothing to sugarcoat:
    The majority of us Germans only distanced ourselves from Hitler when the Allied tanks were standing in their front yard....after that, however, pretty much everyone who at least once secretly listened to the BBC was in the resistance. And otherwise they were completely clueless.
    How happy they were to be rid of the Nazis....the following years were more than revealing....
    The actual democratisation process and a truly critical questioning of one's own guilt only began (slowly and painfully) from 1968 onwards, when a new generation had grown up.
     
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