Describe Opposition to the Nazis

. Explain why some Germans opposed Nazi rule?

[7 marks]

German Christians opposed Nazi rule because they believed Christianity could not accept such racist views. People such as Paul Schneider preached the words of God and spread anti-Nazi messages, Schneider was sent to a concentration camp but secretly sent messages tot the Church warning them no to compromise with the Nazi’s because he believed they were not to be trusted. Also, Cardinal Galen found out that the Nazi’s were killed mentally and physically handicapped people and Galen’s shock led to him revealing it to the public and spreading his finding to oppose Nazi rule.

Young people were becoming fed up being told what to do and having so many restriction on daily activities that they opposed through music and dancing. The Swing Youth group were annoyed that swing music was banned and they did not approve of the Nazi ideas of the Aryan race so they met up and listened to music whilst including Jews and inferiors. The Edelweiss Pirates were another group of young people who were annoyed with the regulations and they disliked Nazi concentration camps, therefore they gathered escapees and targeted leaders and commanders of the Hitler Youth as well as the concentration camp guards.

. How successful was the Nazi regime in dealing with opposition to its rule? Explain your answer.

[8 marks]

The Nazi’s were successful in dealing with opposition because they had methods of scaring the German people into following them, so many of the opposition that did occur was private grumbling.

The SS was an elite force of Aryan soldier who were used to terrorise the German people into following them. They had unlimited power to arrest and confiscate people’s property, as they were also in charge of the concentration camps many Germans feared them as well as the camps themselves. The concentration camps were set up to torture and question those who opposed the Nazi regime. People knew about the camps and therefore stayed obedient to the Nazi’s because they were afraid of what might happen to them otherwise. The gestapo was another group of people who were used to terrorise the German people, however the gestapo was a secret force and therefore this brought more fear to the people, because the gestapo could arrest at any time and they spied on private conversations. However, the gestapo did not do much. When opposition had been found the gestapo, members did not do much about it and they did not take action. But people were still afraid of them and thought they would strike and therefore stayed obedient.

The Nazi’s also reduced opposition by banning all other parties. This impacted opposition in two ways, firstly many people did not know about the underground opposition groups and meetings and therefore they were unable to join. Secondly, this divided opposition and therefore groups were not strong enough to take much action so the private grumbling remained silent and never turned into open opposition.

The Nazi’s were successful in dealing with opposition because they reduced the number of people who knew about underground resistance and they created fear within the German people in order to stop them from opposing the Nazi regime.