What I Am Reading: "Defying Hitler: The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule" by Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis

This book has been weighing on my reading list for months, and I was not looking forward to the grim task of reading it. It is about the German Resistance to the Nazis, the most unfortunate resistance of all. Theirs was a moral and ideological resistance, and not the resistance to a foreign occupier; thus they had the least internal and external support, and were pursued the most fervently by the regime. They were also ultimately unable to accomplish their goals, and most did not live to see the downfall of the regime that they struggled against. Nevertheless, their existence held an important moral value, demonstrating that not all Germans supported the Nazis, and some took it upon themselves to try to stop them.

The book covers four subgroups of the resistance, as well as a few other lone wolves. The groups are: the Harnack / Schulze-Boysen group, several highly-placed civil servants and other well-networked types who passed intelligence to the Soviets and Americans, who are known to history as the Red Orchestra; the Baum group, a group of Jewish factory workers who engaged in industrial sabotage and in an arson attack on a propaganda exhibit; the group of Abwehr (military intelligence) members and military officers who engaged in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler and overthrow the regime in a coup; and the White Rose, a student resistance group in Munich.

The book covers a few other loners who made assassination attempts on Hitler or passed intelligence to the allies. There are a few other groups that are mentioned briefly, but are not part of the narrative; such as the Swingjugend subculture of jazz-listening Anglophile youth in primarily Hamburg (a cosmopolitan port city) who seem to be a Weimar Republic holdover, or the similar Edelweiss Pirates, a loose group of anti-establishment, disaffected dropouts. The book pays less attention to these subjects than an academic overview might, but is mainly a narrative history of the groups mentioned above.

The early parts of the book touch on all of the forthcoming main characters in the early days of the war, as they all develop their antipathy toward the regime. The authors, a pair of British journalists, use this time to do a little throat clearing about the hideousness of the regime by closing many of the sections with a blunt reminder of how dangerous any dissent or opposition was. They probably thought of this as dramatic punctuation, but I found it to be heavy-handed, and I was glad they got over it as the book went on. The book touches on some early resistance to the Nazis from the American ambassador, William Dodd (see: In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson) and from some of the young reactionaries on Franz von Papen's staff (see: The Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett).

One of the key points of the book is that resistance did not come about only when Germany saw its military fortunes reversed, but existed from the earliest days of the regime. Leftist and student resistance groups formed early on, and many mid-level military officers plotted Hitler's removal from the earliest days, though support would wax and wane after early Nazi successes in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France. This early period was when many of the resistance groups within the state apparatus itself started to come together: Arvid Harnack, working at the Ministry of Economics, formalized an arrangement to pass data to the Russians and to the Americans, forming a group with other left-liberal types including his American wife, Mildred Fish-Harnack. They did not view themselves as spies, but as "working for Germany" and against the regime. This "Red Orchestra," a name given to them by the Gestapo (“rote kapelle”), was viewed for many years after the war as no more than a Soviet espionage operation, but their status as ideological opponents and resisters has been better recognized in recent decades.

Meanwhile, the Abwehr, led by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, developed into a hotbed of ideological opponents of the regime. Many of these, such as Confessing Church pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were actively brought into the Abwehr for this purpose, after his organization, formed to fight Nazi control of Germany’s churches, was suppressed. This ingress was largely at the instigation of Hans Oster, a military opponent who turned against the regime after their murderousness was exposed early on. Admiral Canaris did not participate directly in much plotting, but he tacitly sheltered it as a canny political move, believing that a removal of Hitler might lead to his own gains. Similarly, Heinrich Himmler counted Canaris as an ally and sought a peaceful takeover of the Abwehr by the SS, and thought that he also could turn a political disruption to his own advantage. Oster's group attempted to organize a coup during the "Phoney War" between the invasions of Poland and France, but could not get British support to hold off on attacking during the regime change. Oster even attempted to pass the invasion plan to the Dutch, but his intelwas not believed, and dissatisfaction with Hitler in the military simmered down after the successful attack on France, Belium, and Holland. Oster, having considered simply the removal of Hitler (and perhaps a replacement by Göring, considered a moderate on the war), came to believe that a coup would be needed to remove the entire Nazi apparatus.

As these higher-level maneuverings were going on, there were also acts of resistance being undertaken by Jews, students, religious organizations, and other opponents, mostly in the form of leafleting and other propaganda efforts. None of these efforts would receive help from the British; it was thought, in light of the new alliance with Russia, that Stalin would not like to see any resources going to his new enemy, and that the Wermacht had access to plenty of their own resources if they wanted to take matters into their own hands.

The brutality of the war in Russia, starting in 1941, with atrocities committed against Jews, Romani, and Russians, led many more into opposition to the regime. Some, such as Luftwaffe officer Harro Schulze-Boysen and his socialite wife, Libertas, were privy to such plans, and Libertas found it surprisingly easy to work, under the guise of the film industry, at accumulating evidence of these atrocities. Harro had been an opponent of the regime before deciding to try to infiltrate it as an officer, and I was surprised several times to see the Nazis welcome people who had previously opposed them, and give them an opportunity to do so again. The Schulze-Boysen couple and their social circle were part of Arvid Harnack's spy ring, and this group of resisters in the civil service started to interact with some of the regime's opponents in the military around this time. However, a larger operation was not to be, as the Soviets sloppily transmitted the names of the leadership of this ring, and the Red Orchestra was uncovered in 1941. Its membership, including Arvid and Mildred, Harro and Libertas, and others, were executed. Mildred, an American, had an initial prison sentence overturned in order for the regime to kill her instead.

Meanwhile in Berlin's factories, Jewish laborers led by electrician Herbert Baum committed small acts of sabotage intended to slow down the war machine in whatever ways possible. Eventually, Baum came to form a group with his fellow workers and their families, including his wife Marianne Cohen, factory foreman Heinz Birnbaum, nurse Charlotte Paech, and others. They also created and distributed anti-Nazi propaganda in Berlin, often removing their Star of David patches to allow them to move anonymously through the city (with dire consequences in the event of discovery). Some of these Jews went underground to avoid deportation to concentration camps. They even engaged in the morally interesting act of (in the guise of Gestapo agents) shaking down rich Jews for funds needed to support their operations. Eventually, Baum and others wanted to escalate their opposition, despite warnings from some members of the circle that it would bring too much heat for them to withstand. Baum plotted to burn down Gobbels' prized exhibition on the subhuman living conditions of Jews and Soviets, and were partially successful in doing so. However, a strong Gestapo response led to the predictable outcome, and the group's members were mostly executed in 1943, though a few survived.

Also lasting until 1943 was a student group in Munich known as the White Rose, which I first encountered years ago through this webcomic. The White Rose included siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, who grew up during the regime as children of an ideological nonconformist, and came to reject Nazism. This group engaged in a propaganda campaign, eventually learning from sympathetic professors to alter the language on their leaflets to speak more to common citizens. They were smart in some ways about distributing and mailing these leaflets in ways that did not bring attention to themselves; but the Gestapo investigators had a hunch that the leaflets originated in Munich, after some enthusiastic graffiti by Hans indicated the city as a focal point. In a painful scene, Hans and Sophie were caught by a janitor while distributing leaflets in a large, open university hall, and the Gestapo agents were summoned and quickly uncovered the scheme. The members of the group were rapidly found guilty and guillotined. I was interested to learn more about the White Rose, because my assumption had been that their resistance was mostly localized, and important more for symbolic reasons than practical ones. However, they did have some tentative contacts with the Swingjugend in Hamburg, and had sought out and received advice from Falk Harnack, the late Arvid's brother, who told them that opponents to the regime existed within the state hierarchy. These connections are tantalizing, but the German Resistance was pursued too aggressively to develop into any larger, unified front (and did not have any outside guidance in doing so). However, many participants were inspired by unrelated acts of opposition, learning that the country's union behind Hitler was not without dissent. After their execution, the White Rose's last pamphlet was dropped by Allied planes on German cities.

Stalingrad was a turning point in German morale, including for the plotters in the Abwehr. This is when Admiral Canaris started to send out some feelers to the Allies, such as through future CIA chief Allen Dulles; then stationed in Switzerland and receiving copious intelligence from Fritz Kolbe, a middle-manager in the diplomatic corps. Meanwhile, officers such as Col. Henning von Tresckow made several plans to kill Hitler through the use of a bomb, though this had to be aborted on several promising occasions. Canaris and the Abwehr had a close call themselves around this time, as his officer, Hans von Dohnanyi was discovered in an attempt, with Oster, to smuggle several Jews into Switzerland. The Gestapo didn’t buy the cover that this was part of an intelligence operation, and they attempted to connect it to Canaris. However, Himmler calls them off, still viewing the Abwehr as a useful organization and Canaris as a potential ally. Dohnanyi and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who has been making overtures to outside Christian groups, spent some time in prison, but were all ultimately able to live another day due to Canaris' maneuvering; though Oster was neutralized as a useful force. It was not much longer before Canaris was sidelined as well, biting off more than he can chew in terms of sabotaging the war effort through purposefully bad analysis of intelligence, leading to strategic blunders such as an under-defense of Italy. The Abwehr could not be ignored any longer, and was absorbed into the SS.

Despite this, the most dramatic act of German resistance was formed inside the Abwehr, Operation Valkyrie. This plot involved an actual battle plan to call up the home [reserve] army in the German heartland to deal with an insurrection; the plan was altered so that the army would detain and neutralize Nazi leadership and members of the SS and Gestapo. The execution of this plot would follow the death of Hitler, with Col. Tresckow joined by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a wounded veteran of the war in North Africa who was another moral and ideological opponent of the Nazis. Stauffenberg was maneuvered to be the Chief of Staff to the home army's commander, Gen. Friedrich Fromm, who did not help or hinder the coup but merely waited to maneuver in its aftermath. The plotters tried to hash out who would run Germany after the coup and what their overtures to the allies would be, and drew up a hypothetical broad-coalition cabinet that would doom many of its proposed members. To make a long story short, the Valkyrie plot was engaged, and Stauffenberg did manage to plant a bomb at a meeting Hitler attended, wounding the Fuhrer and killing several of his officers. However, the plotters did not move quickly enough to send the Valkyrie orders to the home army units, and sympathetic or involved officers were not necessarily at their posts, since they hadn't known the coup was coming. Himmler managed to restore order in Berlin, and Gen. Fromm seized the main plotters and had them executed to (unsuccessfully) cover up his own non-opposition. Hitler's paranoia was fully engaged in the aftermath, and anyone remotely involved faced execution, including Adm. Canaris and Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and the Kreisau Circle, a group of aristocrats planning for the post-war landscape as well (including the great grand-nephew of Helmuth von Moltke, Helmuth James). The Gestapo pursued this vengeance far past the point of the war being lost, with some participants killed in concentration camps only weeks before their liberation. The Nazis had been surprised by the documents from the coup plotters indicating that their opposition did not only come in the face of a deteriorating military situation, but had been ideologically ingrained since almost the beginning.

So those are the four main strands: the Red Orchestra, the Baum group, the White Rose, and the bomb plot. Almost all of the participants died, often in gruesome executions. However, all of the participants mattered. This book did a good job of recounting their motivations and struggles, their triumphs and their fates. As you can tell by this somewhat rambling review, the book had a lot of information and a lot of moving parts, and I wasn't quite able to it justice in my summary. For example, another thread that I didn't mention was another lone wolf, strong Nazi opponent Kurt Gerstein, who decided to join the SS in order to witness the darkest part of the Holocaust, so that he might present his evidence later. He became a psychological wreck, and eventually killed himself in French captivity after he was viewed as no more than a perpetrator. His postmortem analysis presents the most challenges: he was a decontamination expert in the public health sphere, and thus came to be a consultant on the use of Zyklon B gas in concentration camps. It was ruled by the postwar denazification courts that, despite acts of resistance such as trying to scuttle individual shipments of gas, he, essentially, could have done more with his position, or not taken that position at all. The authors ask if this really makes him less culpable than "good German" civilians who were uninvolved in the Holocaust but did nothing to hinder it.

In any event, this book contains a lot of useful and frankly heart-wrenching information. It does not always include as much analysis as I would have liked (that of Gerstein being the high note), and does not devote much time to such things as the aforementioned youth culture that defined itself as separate from the Hitler Youth, or the fates of pre-1933 dissidents like Carl von Ossietzky and Hans Litten, or the activities of members and officeholders from the political parties of the Weimar Republic that had electorally opposed the Nazis. I can't help but think that there are stories, perhaps more sociological and less gripping, that the book does not tell. Despite these weaknesses that perhaps nobody other than me, with my bias toward academic histories, would choose to perceive, this book relates a very necessary story.