Section D: opposition, resistance and conformity 

Extent of support for Nazi Regime 

1. On their road to power, the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag, but they never won an overall majority. 

2. The majority of Germans either supported or conformed with (went along with) the regime.  

3. Resistance meant refusing to support or speaking out against Nazi policies  

4. Opposition was rarer, meaning actively working against the regime to try and remove it. 

5. Opposition was hard as alternative political parties and trade unions were banned, while the Gestapo spied on the German people and the fear of the concentration camps powerful. 

6. Most of the opposition was located in the following areas:  

1. secret trade union sabotage, sometimes supported by the Communists;  

2. youth groups like the Edelweiss Pirates who refused to conform;  

3. secret political opposition like SOPADE;  

4. socialist supporters sent into Germany from abroad; 

5. opposition within some sections of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Pastors Emergency League (later becoming the Confessional church);  

6. and some opposition within the army Generals led by General Ludwig Beck. 

Church Opposition 

1. The Protestant Pastors Emergency League (PEL), opposed the pro-Nazi Reich church for two reasons: 

1. trying to force regional churches into one national state controlled church 

2. Nazi attempts to prevent Jewish people being Christians and banning Jewish Old Testament teachings. 

2. In 1934, the PEL set up the Confessing Church, to rival the Reich Church. 

3. About 6,000 pastors eventually joined the Confessing church while 2,000 remained in the pro-Nazi Reich church.  

4. About 800 pastors were sent to concentration camps for criticizing Nazi policies. 

5. After the breakdown of the Concordat, some Catholic priests also criticized the Nazis. 

6. 400 Catholic priests were sent to Dachau concentration camp.  

7. There was criticism by Bishop Galen in 1939 of the T4 programme to murder physically and mentally handicapped children. 

8. The most famous religious opponent of the Nazi regime was Pastor Martin Niemoller. He was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Sachsenhausen camp in 1938.  

Youth Opposition 

1. Although attendance at Hitler Youth meetings was compulsory by 1939, not all youngsters liked the increasing restriction of freedom of choice and alternative youth groups emerged. 

2. The ‘Edelweiss pirates’ emerged in working class districts in German cities by the late 1930s. Groups included ‘the travelling dudes’ of Essen or the ‘Navajos’ of Cologne.  

3. There were boys and girls involved, but disproportionately more boys who resisted the military discipline of the Hitler Youth, enjoyed wearing their hair longer, American style clothing and telling anti-Nazi jokes.  

4. ‘Swing Youth’ were mainly teenage groups located in big Northern German cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Kiel and tended to come from middle class families.  

5. They were inspired by banned American music, such as the ‘swing’ music of Glenn Miller or the Jazz music of Louis Armstrong. Attendance at illegal dances could number up to 6,000. 

6. Their opposition was limited to anti-Nazi graffiti and jokes up to 1939 and their opposition was cultural rather than political. Their numbers were small; there were 2,000 estimated Edelweiss Pirates in 1939, compared to 8 million in the Hitler Youth.