Hitler suffered his political opposition from socialists, communists, Trade Unionists and just about every left wing thinker. These parties would have been much more effective and influential if all political parties had not been outlawed very soon into Hitler’s reign. All of Hitler’s political opponents went into (either self-imposed or forced) exile, put into concentration camps, jailed or murdered. Although the opposing political parties had very limited effect due to them being banned they did manage to stage few small scale demonstrations and leaflet delivery thought of course this was risky as if the Nazi’s found out there would be severe punishments dealt.
In the early stages of the regime in 1934 there was opposition by the S.A to Hitler although this was appeased. There was a small-scale opposition towards the end of the regime by Edelweiss Pirates and some youth groups especially in regions where Nazi support was lower e.g. Cologne in 1944. The elites of society also opposed Hitler towards the end of his reign in 1944.
There is also a small amount of evidence of a few planned assassinations; however there was more non-compliance and non-co-operation than actual resistance or planned assignations. Though the Nazi’s would deem non-compliance as opposition.
A large factor as to why there was limited opposition to the Nazi’s was the totalitarian control the Nazi’s had over law making which outlawed political parties and banned outspoken opposition. However it was also the propaganda tactics they used which convinced the public the Nazi’s were the best thing for Germany as they controlled the media and used campaigns, leaflets, posters, speeches to convince the public everything was brilliant in Germany thanks to the Nazi’s and during the war years the public were told Germany was winning and it national identity, morale and self-esteem would have been high and Germans would have been proud of being German. The Nazi’s pushed the message that the way forward for Germany was compliance, acceptance and order within the ranks of the public and if the public did this they would be good Germans.
It was nearly impossible to publicly oppose Hitler and his Nazi regime. Because people had to keep their thoughts private opposition could not spread and the public could not learn the faults and reasons not to like the government or perhaps thought they were alone in their opposing beliefs. This meant opposition could not grow and spread. There was also no official opposition to the Nazi’s due to the ban over other political parties. This left no spokespeople of especially learned politically aware people to be leaders of opposition and to rally public support. All writings, books, newspapers, radio programmes that opposed Nazi’s were banned and the Nazi’s promoted themselves shamelessly using propaganda to their advantage. Nazi’s also used threats to stop the public speaking out against them and encouraged people to be good Germans by reporting those that did. By appealing to the German publics previously bruised national identity and ego’s the Nazi’s managed to paint a picture of Germany being best under them. It is difficult to measure opposition and many Germans may not have agreed with the Nazi’s and Hitler but there is little evidence of recorded, outspoken, official opposition to them.
