The White Rose & Internal Resistance to Hitler.

Incredible how Nazi prosecutors who willingly enacted Nazi law were able to return to law practice after WW2 - Walter Romer is a case in point - he became a human rights lawyer after the war!

 

Yes, that is an interesting post war transitional period in the return to democracy. It is incredible. I have not seen references to any denazification procedures regarding judges.

It was said that that in immediate postwar West Germany,80% of the judiciary had served in similar capacities during the Third Reich. I would think it have been difficult to have available democratic succession after the 12 years of Hitler tyranny.

 

Please see itdan (Olli) post from yesterday here:

On this day during WW2

Always remember, never forget,

Jim.

Willi Graf of the White Rose: Words, Will, and a Way to Resist – WHITE ROSE PROJECT

 

An early thread and considerable debate on The White Rose internal resistance to Hitler's regime

The White Rose & Internal Resistance to Hitler. | WW2Talk

Nor forgetting the many German conscripts who refused to join the Wehrmacht and were brutally executed. It has been said that there were about 5000 in total.

 

Jim. The White Rose project into the internal resistance to the Hitler regime is an excellent insight into the 12 years of European terror.

Lawrence Rees sums it up well in his "Twelve Warnings from History" which is defined in his latest work, "The NAZI Mind"

 

Walther von Rathenau, a German Jew mentioned in the book I referred to before, was murderd on 24th June 1922, long before the Nazis gained power, should have never gone into politics as advised by his mother and rather joined the family business with little exposure to his murders.
Stefan.

 

Yes Stefan, Rathenau is well known in the study of the violence involved in the rise to power of the NSDP.

It would appear that Rathenau was successful in his political civilian role during the Great War but a victim of the emerging NSDP violence against former ministers and those associated with the Weimar Republic.

Additionally, being Jewish he was persecuted on account of it and having held senior positions in the Kaiser's prosecution of the Great War, he was a victim of the "the stab in the back" from accusations of national betrayal.

He is also remembered in engineering history by being the head of AEG who produced steam turbines/generators at the time and now seem to be involved primary in domestic appliances.

 

Thanks Harry,
when I changed my job back in 1972 to work in Electrical Engineering, AEG and Siemens were my customers and competitors.
Stefan.

 

To clarify:
I did not mention Graf primarily because of his membership in the White Rose.
But to remain silent for eight months in Gestapo custody—THAT is a test of character that,
with my 60 years of life experience, I am certain I would never have passed.
And that is why I find this man so remarkable.

 

Goebbels had the task during the war of maintaining the morale of the German population. He did so with his propaganda machine pointing to discontent within the Soviet Union and urging the Germans to hold on to until eventual victory. His efforts to keep them continually onside were made by reminding them of their fate if they surrendered.

His rallying call to the German people in October 1943 asking the question "do you wish for total war," the reply was an overwhelming "Yes". Describing Allied aircrew as "terror flyers" he motivated certain sections of the German people to act as war criminals.

Any attempt to overthrow the Nazi regime was impossible with Hitler's building block power arising from the Wehrmacht general's allegiance to him in 1938.That allegiance was never broken by the top military leadership.

The White Rose conspiracy and resistance was never going to lead to the overcoming of the totalitarian regime without the assisted involvement of the Wehrmacht. The SS/Waffen SS were loyal to the end and the intensity of the NSDP structure from the Gauleiters downward kept a firm grip on any dissent from the common citizen.

While I would agree with the implications of "internet embellishment", the 12 years of the Hitler regime have been deeply researched both by Allied intelligence and reputable historians long before the internet.

 

Late to this thread, so apologies. A couple of good books on some of the lesser known resistance efforts against Hitler are Randall Hansen's "Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Operation Valkyrie" and (in German) Veronica Diem's "Die Freiheitsaktion Bayern" - about a failed late-war attempt to overthrow the Nazis in Munich and the terrible aftermath of Gestapo and SS vengence..

 

Thanks for mentioning these books which I did not know about so far.
Stefan.

 

Glad you found mention of the books useful Stefan.

 

George Paxton has a great book "Nonviolent Resistance to the Nazis"

 

This is interesting and does breach some ideological lines... The recuperation strategy that Germany possessed is nothing short of interesting.

Usually, this emphasizes contextualization; some of the Nazis had effectively been useless in terms of being able to understand the modern interpretation of human rights, directly challenging the assumption of the fallibility of denazification. Often, this racism was ingrained into the system and could not have been avoided lest totalitarian methods of extermination be applied.