The White Rose & Internal Resistance to Hitler.

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

  1. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    I am assuming you mean,German political opposition to Hitler and the Third Reich sentenced and held in the concentration camps.Some had opposed the National Socialists before 1933 on political or religious grounds.It mattered not for they were all destined to be persecuted and worse as the new regime purged Germany of any dissention to Hitler's rule.

    The fact is that all those opposing the Hitler and the regime were subject to the Nacht und Nebel decree.This means that for a start they were taken into state custody and if not murdered immediately,were destined for unknown locations, unknown to their next of kin.Look at the people suspected as being involved in the 20 July 1944 plot.If they were not put in front of the People's Court for a show trial under Roland Freisler,then there were destined for the concentration camps under the N und N decree.

    At the death of the regime,the SS,carrying out their last orders, saw that these people would not survive and murdered them wholesale in early April 1945.(Included in this group were a number of captured SOE agents who lost their lives in various concentration camps as this policy was enacted.)

    There were many "resistance" groups and individuals involved.As regards assassination of Hitler,one might say that,apart from the attempt on 20 July 1944,the aims were not entirely focussed.But it has to be said that armed resistance in Germany against the Hitler regime was highly unlikely as the Wehrmacht officer corps and SS remained loyal to Hitler.

    For an excellent insight into resistance against the Nazis,have a look at the Encyclopedia of German Resistance to the Nazi Movement,edited by Wolfgang Benz and Walter H Peble (English translation 1997)
     
  2. Alan Jones

    Alan Jones Member

    Hello ,
    I am going to Berlin later this year and wondered if anyone knew anything about Hedemannstrasse area please in WW2 ?
    Thanks
    Alan
     
  3. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    hello Alan

    im sure "Our Man in Berlin" will be along shortly to provide you with some answers
     
  4. Kbak

    Kbak Senior Member

    I noticed there was a thread about the White Rose, and I thought I might share my experience with you all.

    On February 22nd 1993 50 years after the death of Hans and Sophie Scholls and Christoph Probst.
    I was proud to preform in a play written by a lady called Kate Coleman about the White Rose group called Shatter the Silence in the university of Munich, it tells the fascinating story of this group of extraordinary intellectuals their recklessness, their courage, their doubts,their fears but above all their steadfastness in the face of a tyrant.
    We preformed the play in England and then we were invited by Franz Muller, director of the White Rose Foundation to preform the play in Germany and tour the schools that where named after these brave ones.
    I played the role of Christoph Probst a son of a private scholar of Sanskrit and eastern religions.
    I got to meet Christoph's Grand daughter, not by chance, they had been invited by the White Rose Foundation to see the performance, we had no idea that their family's were watching us on stage.
    After it all had finished a young lady approached me, and introduced her self as the grand daughter of Christoph, she said that her father Micha who was two at the time of his fathers death had asked her to come back in and to thank me on his behalf for portraying his father the way that I did, he could not speak to me personally as it had choked him up.
    She gave me a white rose and kissed both my cheeks, and then thanked me herself, for remembering her grandfather the way I did I was deeply touched.

    Whilst many of us believe that there must have been some feeling of dissent among the non-Jewish population of Germany, very few of us in Britain know of The White Rose or the other resistance groups that operated at the time.
    The risks they took to unite public feeling against Hitler and his regime were no less than any other resistance group in Europe during the second World War.
    This story and others are told in German schools to day.

    Attached is a copy of the final leaflet which was penned by Professor Kurt Huber, photo's of Christoph and Micha and Hans Scholl Sophie Scholl and Christoph together in 1942 before Hans left for the eastern front
     

    Attached Files:

  5. Jakob Kjaersgaard

    Jakob Kjaersgaard Senior Member

    Well done. A great tribute to a group of brave young people who stood up against tyranny.
     
  6. sebfrench76

    sebfrench76 Senior Member

    They still are examples of courage nowadays for me.
    Sadly,their fate is mostly unknown here in France.
     
  7. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    There were groups of people who resisted the Status Quo in Germany during the Third reich. Some passively, others took on a more "public" role. These groups invariably fell foul of the Authorities and almost all paid the price. Their achievements were minimal in the overall context of the regime but their bravery deserves recognition and gives lie to the myth that no-one opposed the Nazis.
     
  8. Kbak

    Kbak Senior Member

    Well done. A great tribute to a group of brave young people who stood up against tyranny.

    Thanks
     
  9. Kbak

    Kbak Senior Member

    So true
     
  10. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    There were groups of people who resisted the Status Quo in Germany during the Third reich. Some passively, others took on a more "public" role. These groups invariably fell foul of the Authorities and almost all paid the price. Their achievements were minimal in the overall context of the regime but their bravery deserves recognition and gives lie to the myth that no-one opposed the Nazis.

    Another group were the Edelweiss pirates. Various groups of young teenagers who set up their own bands of an anti-Hitler Youth movement.

    Edelweiss Pirates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  11. Kbak

    Kbak Senior Member

  12. Cee

    Cee Senior Member Patron

    Thanks for your story Keith, very interesting. Are you still involved with acting? This is a bit of an incentive for me to watch the Sophie Scholls movie on Netflix.
     
  13. Kbak

    Kbak Senior Member

    Hi Cee,

    Thanks

    I do a bit of acting now and again at Christmas played Santa in a Christmas show in Swanage and ferndown lol, but I ended up on the other side by qualifying in set and costume for theatre Film And TV, now days i do commissioned art work and I am a teaching assistant.
    I haven't seen the film all the way through, I might get it out to watch, I'm thinking of doing some art work about the white rose as its the 70th anniversary next year.

    Regards

    Keith
     
  14. Kbak

    Kbak Senior Member

    cancelled due to double posting
     
  15. Kbak

    Kbak Senior Member

    :poppy:Remembering today the members of the white rose who died for their cause against the Nazi regime. RIP:poppy:
     
  16. Drayton

    Drayton Senior Member

    Hans and Sophie Scholl, brother and sister, were beheaded in Munich Prison, 22 February 1943, two days after being arrested for distributing White Rose leaflets at Munich University:

    "We grew up in a state in which all free expression of opinion is unscrupulously repressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA, the SS have tried to stupefy us, subvert us, in the brightest years of our lives. We want genuine learning, real freedom of opinion."

    Their associate, Professor Kurt Huber, was executed on 13 July 1943.

    Never let it be said that there was no nonviolent German resistance to the Nazi regime.
     
  17. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    It took immense guts, it took immense heart. May they Rest in Peace.
     
  18. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

  19. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    There is a news item on the BBC website today on the epic and tragic story of those young people who opposed the Nazi regime.

    BBC News - White Rose: The Germans who tried to topple Hitler

    Also remembering the reported 5000 or so young Germans who refused Nazi war service and paid for it with their lives in a barbaric fashion.
     
  20. Drayton

    Drayton Senior Member

    The 70th anniversary of the founding of the White Rose group was celebrated in the 2012 Housmans Peace Diary.

    The first German conscientious objector of WW2 was executed by shooting on 15 September 1939. Hitler later decided that shooting was too good for such dissidents and ordered the revival of the guillotine. The best known CO was probably the Austrian, Franz Jaegerstaetter, beheaded in Berlin on 9 August 1943.

    The nonviolent resistance to Nazism within Germany has never been remembered in the UK as much as the July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler.
     

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