The Nazi Party and Resistance
Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany
through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945. Founded in 1919 as the German Workers’ Party, the group promoted German pride and anti-Semitism, and openly showed distain toward the terms put in place in the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I and required Germany to make numerous payments, causing them to lose most of their national funds. Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. In 1933, he became chancellor of Germany and his Nazi government soon assumed dictatorial powers. After Germany’s defeat in World War II, the Nazi Party became illegal and many of its top officials were convicted of war crimes related to the murder of some 6 million European Jews during the Nazis’ reign.
One of the most prominent members of the Nazi Party was Hans Georg Fritzsche. Fritzsche was a senior German Nazi official during World War II. After serving in the German Army in 1917, he decided to study at a few universities before becoming a journalist. Once the Nazi party rose to power, Fritzsche became the head of all of the German media, helping with the censoring of information and making sure that everything broadcasted was pro-Germany and pro-Nazi.
Another prominent member was Kurt Gruber. Gruber served primarily as a politician from 1926 to 1931 in Germany, but soon after became a leader of the Hitler Youth program. Gruber had originally started the Greater German Youth Movement, which was the organization that eventually became the Nazi Party's official youth organization. In July 1926, it was given the new name "Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth." Because this program got children into the mindset of the Nazis, it was an important part of the Nazis success.
Although uncommon, some of the prominent members of the Nazi party were women. One of these women was Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, who was later known as Maria Stuckebrock. Scholtz-Klink was a fervent member of the Nazi party and leader of the National Socialist Women's League in Nazi Germany. She was basically a puppet for the Nazi men, her job was to promote the patriarchy in Germany and to talk about how much she loved simply being a housewife and mother to the men, although this was not the case (she was a politician). She spent the years during WWII promoting these ideals, until the fall of Nazi Germany when she escaped a Soviet labor camp and lived out her days under the name Maria Stuckebrock. Another famous woman involved with the Nazi party was Johanna Goebbels, who was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. A prominent member of the Nazi party, she was a close ally and political supporter of Adolf Hitler. Both Goebbels and his wife derived personal benefits and social status from their close association with Hitler. Joseph Goebbels (as propaganda minister) and her remained loyal to Hitler and publicly supported him. Privately, she expressed doubts, especially after the war began to go badly on the eastern front. Even th0ugh she had her doubts, she remained loyal to the party up until the war and would publically discuss her love for Nazi Germany and its ideals.
There were also men who served as diplomats in the Nazi party, helping it appear to be more classy and put-together than it really was. One of these men was Walther Hewel. Hewel was a German diplomat before and during World War II, and was an an early and active member of the Nazi Party. One of the most unique things about Hewel was that he was one of Hitler's close and personal friends, which he didn't keep very often. During the 1930s, Hewel was appointed to the Germany's diplomatic service and sent to Spain to do work there. Also during this time, he was a transcriber for Hitler during his meetings with other leaders and remained one of his close friends. Another diplomat of this kind was Hanns Ludin was a German diplomat. Born in Freiburg to Friedrich and Johanna Ludin, Ludin began his Nazi affiliation in 1930 by joining the party, and was arrested for his political activities the same year. Imprisoned until 1931, he joined the party on his release. Although it seemed grim at times, Ludin restored his reputation by joining the Foreign Office and became Ambassador to the Slovak Republic in 1941, replacing Manfred von Killinger. Ludin served in this position until the end of the war, when he was moved to Czechoslovakia and sentenced to hanging.
The Nazi Party was the most powerful regime that Germany had ever seen. With its radical ideals, influential leaders, and extremely controlling government system, it ran fairly well throughout World War II and kept a tight hold on the people of Europe. However, with the end of the war came time for the people involved to pay the price for their crimes on humanity, and the Nazi party was diminished into nothing but a history lesson.
(Information from http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nazi-party and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nazi_Party_leaders_and_officials\)
through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945. Founded in 1919 as the German Workers’ Party, the group promoted German pride and anti-Semitism, and openly showed distain toward the terms put in place in the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I and required Germany to make numerous payments, causing them to lose most of their national funds. Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. In 1933, he became chancellor of Germany and his Nazi government soon assumed dictatorial powers. After Germany’s defeat in World War II, the Nazi Party became illegal and many of its top officials were convicted of war crimes related to the murder of some 6 million European Jews during the Nazis’ reign.
One of the most prominent members of the Nazi Party was Hans Georg Fritzsche. Fritzsche was a senior German Nazi official during World War II. After serving in the German Army in 1917, he decided to study at a few universities before becoming a journalist. Once the Nazi party rose to power, Fritzsche became the head of all of the German media, helping with the censoring of information and making sure that everything broadcasted was pro-Germany and pro-Nazi.
Another prominent member was Kurt Gruber. Gruber served primarily as a politician from 1926 to 1931 in Germany, but soon after became a leader of the Hitler Youth program. Gruber had originally started the Greater German Youth Movement, which was the organization that eventually became the Nazi Party's official youth organization. In July 1926, it was given the new name "Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth." Because this program got children into the mindset of the Nazis, it was an important part of the Nazis success.
Although uncommon, some of the prominent members of the Nazi party were women. One of these women was Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, who was later known as Maria Stuckebrock. Scholtz-Klink was a fervent member of the Nazi party and leader of the National Socialist Women's League in Nazi Germany. She was basically a puppet for the Nazi men, her job was to promote the patriarchy in Germany and to talk about how much she loved simply being a housewife and mother to the men, although this was not the case (she was a politician). She spent the years during WWII promoting these ideals, until the fall of Nazi Germany when she escaped a Soviet labor camp and lived out her days under the name Maria Stuckebrock. Another famous woman involved with the Nazi party was Johanna Goebbels, who was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. A prominent member of the Nazi party, she was a close ally and political supporter of Adolf Hitler. Both Goebbels and his wife derived personal benefits and social status from their close association with Hitler. Joseph Goebbels (as propaganda minister) and her remained loyal to Hitler and publicly supported him. Privately, she expressed doubts, especially after the war began to go badly on the eastern front. Even th0ugh she had her doubts, she remained loyal to the party up until the war and would publically discuss her love for Nazi Germany and its ideals.
There were also men who served as diplomats in the Nazi party, helping it appear to be more classy and put-together than it really was. One of these men was Walther Hewel. Hewel was a German diplomat before and during World War II, and was an an early and active member of the Nazi Party. One of the most unique things about Hewel was that he was one of Hitler's close and personal friends, which he didn't keep very often. During the 1930s, Hewel was appointed to the Germany's diplomatic service and sent to Spain to do work there. Also during this time, he was a transcriber for Hitler during his meetings with other leaders and remained one of his close friends. Another diplomat of this kind was Hanns Ludin was a German diplomat. Born in Freiburg to Friedrich and Johanna Ludin, Ludin began his Nazi affiliation in 1930 by joining the party, and was arrested for his political activities the same year. Imprisoned until 1931, he joined the party on his release. Although it seemed grim at times, Ludin restored his reputation by joining the Foreign Office and became Ambassador to the Slovak Republic in 1941, replacing Manfred von Killinger. Ludin served in this position until the end of the war, when he was moved to Czechoslovakia and sentenced to hanging.
The Nazi Party was the most powerful regime that Germany had ever seen. With its radical ideals, influential leaders, and extremely controlling government system, it ran fairly well throughout World War II and kept a tight hold on the people of Europe. However, with the end of the war came time for the people involved to pay the price for their crimes on humanity, and the Nazi party was diminished into nothing but a history lesson.
(Information from http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nazi-party and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nazi_Party_leaders_and_officials\)
Background on Nazi Leaders
Herman Goering:
Hermann Goering (1893-1946) was the highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg. A decorated fighter pilot during World War I, Goering joined the Nazi party in 1923 after hearing a speech by Adolf Hitler. He eventually found his way into the inner circles of Nazi power. After Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Goering took on many positions of power and leadership within the Nazi state: Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force)Director of the Four Year Plan in the German economy, and, at the outbreak of war in Europe, Hitler's acknowledged successor. It was Goering who ordered Security Police chief Reinhard Heydrich to organize and coordinate a "total solution" to the "Jewish question."
Rudolf Hess:
Rudolf Hess, in full Walter Richard Rudolf Hess (born April 26, 1894, Alexandria, Egypt—died August 17, 1987, West Berlin [Germany]), German National Socialist who was Adolf Hitler’s deputy as party leader. He created an international sensation when in 1941 he secretly flew to Great Britain on an abortive self-styled mission to negotiate a peace between Britain and Germany.
Adolf Eichmann:
SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Karl Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) was head of the Department for Jewish Affairs in the Gestapo from 1941 to 1945 and was chief of operations in the deportation of three million Jews to extermination camps. He joined the Austrian Nazi party in 1932 and later became a member of the SS. In 1934 he served as an SS corporal in the Dachau concentration camp. That same year he joined the SD and attracted the attention of Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. By 1935 Eichmann was already working in the Jewish section, where he war investigating possible "solutions to the Jewish question." He was even sent to Palestine to discuss the viability of large scale immigration to the Middle East with Arab leaders. British authorities, however, forced him to leave. With the takeover of Austria in March 1938, Eichmann was sent to Vienna to promote Jewish emigration. He set up the Zentralstelle fuer juedische Auswanderung [Center for Jewish Emigration], which was so successful that similar offices were soon established in Prague and Berlin.
Joseph Goebbels:
In 1933, the year Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) became chancellor of Germany, he named Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), his trusted friend and colleague, to the key post of minister for public enlightenment and propaganda. In this capacity, Goebbels was charged with presenting Hitler to the public in the most favorable light, regulating the content of all German media and fomenting anti-Semitism. Goebbels forced Jewish artists, musicians, actors, directors and newspaper and magazine editors into unemployment, and staged a public burning of books that were considered ”un-German.” He also spearheaded the production of Nazi propaganda films and other projects. Goebbels remained in this post and was loyal to Hitler until the end of World War II (1939-45). On May 1, 1945, the day after Hitler committed suicide, Goebbels and his wife poisoned their six children and then killed themselves.
Heinrich Himmler:
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) was the Reich Leader (Reichsführer) of the dreaded SS of the Nazi party from 1929 until 1945. Himmler presided over a vast ideological and bureaucratic empire that defined him for many -- both inside and outside the Third Reich -- as the second most powerful man in Germany during World War II. Given overall responsibility for the security of the Nazi empire, Himmler was the key and senior Nazi official responsible for conceiving and overseeing implementation of the so-called Final Solution, the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe.
The French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to describe the French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi occupation of France and against the Vichy régime during World War II. "Resistance cells" were small groups
of armed men and women (called the Maquis in rural areas) who, in addition to their guerrilla warfare activities, were also publishers of underground newspapers, providers of first-hand intelligence information, and maintainers of escape networks that helped Allied soldiers and airmen trapped behind enemy lines. Three people that were mainly involved in the French resistance were Charles Maurras, Georges Loustaunau-Lacau, and Marie-Madeleine Fourcade. These people helped create the ideas behind the Maquis movement and were credited with most of the success. The men and women of the Resistance came from all economic levels and political leanings of French society, including "émigrés"; conservative Roman Catholics, including priests; and citizens from the ranks of liberals, anarchists, and communists. The French Resistance played a significant role in facilitating the Allies' movement through France following D-Day and the invasion of Normandy, by providing military intelligence on the German defenses known as the Atlantic Wall and on orders of battle. The Resistance also planned, coordinated, and executed acts of sabotage on the electrical power grid, transportation facilities, and communications networks. It was also politically and morally important to France, both during the German occupation and for decades afterward, because it provided the country with an inspiring example of the patriotic fulfillment of a national imperative, countering an existential threat to French nationhood. The actions of the Résistance stood in marked contrast to the collaboration of the regime that was based in Vichy. After the landings in Normandy and Provence, the paramilitary components of the Resistance were organized more formally, into a hierarchy of operational units known, collectively, as the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). Estimated to have a strength of 100,000 in June 1944, the FFI grew rapidly, doubling by the following month, and reaching approximately 400,000 by October of that year. Although the amalgamation of the FFI was, in some cases, fraught with political difficulties, it was ultimately successful, and it allowed France to rebuild a reasonably large army by 1945.
(Information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance)
(Information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance)
Worldwide Resistance
Belgian Resistance:
The armed Belgian resistance movement effectively based itself in the wooded Ardennes region of the country. Elsewhere in Belgium it spent a great deal of its time gathering intelligence and passing it onto the British. By the end of 1941, ten resistance cells existed in Belgium and by the end of 1942, they operated 25 clandestine transmitters. By the time of D-Day in 1944, the number of transmitters had gone up to 40. British records from 1942 show that 80% of the intelligence gathered by all resistance movements in all occupied countries in that year came from Belgium. In particular, the reports sent through on the placing of German. most significant was "Clarence", led by Walthère Dewé, which had over 1,000 members feeding it information which was then communicated to London by radio. Radar was vital to the Allies bombing campaign. The German Geheime Staatspolizei ("Secret state police"), known as the Gestapo, was responsible for targeting resistance groups in Belgium. Resistance fighters who were captured could expect to be interrogated, tortured and either summarily executed or sent to a concentration camp. The Gestapo was effective at using informants within groups to betray whole local resistance network and in examining resistance publications for clues about its place of production. 2,000 resistance members involved in underground press alone were arrested during the war. In total, 30,000 members of the resistance were captured during the war, of whom 16,000 were executed or died in captivity.
Danish Resistance:
A Danish Resistance movement did exist. Many of those in it had been in the Danish Army. Those in the resistance were willing to pass on intelligence to the Special Operations Executive (SOE) but refused to get involved in any sabotage operations called for by SOE. Any sabotage that did take place was sanctioned by resistance leaders within Denmark or based in Stockholm. There was an increase in acts of sabotage within Denmark from 1943 on. Up to 1943, the Germans within Denmark had had a relatively easy time - for an occupying force. However, sabotage within Denmark led to a more marked hardening of attitude by the Germans. The arrest of resistance suspects usually led to strikes. This led to more arrests for civil disobedience, which caused more strikes. Soon afterwards, Ebbe Munck, a journalist from Berlingske Tidende arranged to be transferred to Stockholm where he could more easily report to the British.