German Resistance

[Jim]

The vast popular enthusiasm for Hitler’s regime in Germany combined with the power of the Gestapo made organised resistance very difficult. But some voices were raised in dissent. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Munster, Cardinal Claus von Galen, preached openly against the Nazi policy of euthanasia for the mentally ill, and his opposition was a key factor in getting the programme dropped. After the German defeat at Stalingrad, the so-called ‘White Rose’ group of dissidents led 4000 students at Munich University in shouting down the Gauleiter (district governor) of Bavaria when he came to address the student body.
Seven thousand Jews managed to survive the war by living underground in Nazi Germany - including about 4000 in Berlin itself. They were dubbed ‘U-boats’ because of their submerged life, and survived on forged or borrowed papers and ration cards, moving between cellars, cupboards under the stairs, and garden sheds in the homes of the few friends prepared to assist them.
Wartime schoolgirl Renate Ungewitter, whose father was a Lutheran pastor, described how their vicarage had a secret room where Jews were hidden while she and her brother (both active in the Hitler Youth) helped to watch out for the Gestapo. The fugitives’ faces were always thin and pale from worry and lack of fresh air. They may have stayed for only one night or at the most a week.
‘Every time they moved on to the next hideout, a new address was given to them, never more than one address at a time. Continuously they were on the move. I know of one couple who in 18 months went to 66 different houses, but they survived.’

WWII Magazine