Nazi Open Resistance

2019 Words9 Pages
Although we know there was opposition against Hitler and the Nazi regime it is hard to assess who and how many people took a negative approach to him. Fear of the Gestapo (the secret police) was vast and always present as people were regularly being arrested for crimes of speaking out against Hitler and the Government and sent to the early concentration camps which were later became the ‘death camps’. After the war people were all too keen to announce their distrust and negative feelings towards Hitler as they were ashamed of what he had done, however during his regime many people did not openly oppose him. This makes it hard to know how many people really opposed Hitler. There were different types of opposition towards the Nazi…show more content…
Pastor Heinrich Grueber is a good example of open resistance as he formed an organisation that helped Jews escape Germany. He was arrested in 1940 and sent to a concentration camp. Although many of the working class had good reason to support Hitler, such as jobs from the public works, those who didn’t, sabotaged factories, railways and army depots. Many workers kept links with their previous, now illegal parties. Another way the workers sent a message to the government was through strikes, there were around 400 strikes between 1933 and 1935. Others Germans acted as spies and leaked industrial and military secrets to other foreign countries such as the USSR. Although the workers had the numbers to demand attention they lacked the organisational skills needed to overthrow a strong leader like Hitler. As time went on there was less open resistance as people were scared of being arrested as the punishment for speaking out against the government could often be…show more content…
There was no one to replace Hitler if he was overthrown and it would probably cause mayhem trying to replace him or reinstate the previous form of parliament. The opposition from the disbanded left wing parties was unsuccessful as neither party trusted each other and did not work together to achieve their full potential. As each party wouldn’t work together they worked separately and worked underground achieving very little. Trade unions were also banned in 1933. Hitler had stopped any organisation with enough man power or resources to possibly overthrow him before the end of his first year in
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