The German Opposition to Hitler: A Non-Germanist's View

In: Central European history, Band 14, Heft 4, S. 362-368

Abstract

This paper originated as part of a panel in which the author's intended role was to bring comparative perspectives formed in the study of other parts of Hitler-dominated Europe to bear upon the German opposition to Hitler. After giving hard thought to my comparative assignment, I came to the conclusion that internal opposition, as in Germany between 1933 and 1945, is fundamentally incomparable to resistance to a foreign occupation. The constraints of patriotism and the problems of legitimacy that face a domestic opposition, especially in wartime, are of an altogether different order than the more narrowly corporeal dangers facing resistance to a foreign occupation. Very few even of the most determined opponents of Hitler were willing to accept the defeat of the German Army or the overthrow of the German state as necessary for Hitler's removal, while very few resisters outside Germany believed that his removal could be accomplished in any other way. Such unbridgeable differences of perception make comparative discussion of resistance to Hitler inside and outside Germany so general as to be of little use. I have even used different terms here, referring to struggles against foreign occupation as "resistance" and to the anti-Hitler movements within Germany as "opposition."