The Ploetzensee Memorial Centre's publication provides glimpses of public resistance to Nazism's totalitarian claims. As the months passed, it became increasingly risky and dangerous to be recognized as an opponent of the regime. The cost was high because in the Nazi system, enemy - real or presumed - was expendable whether the resistance was substantial or minimal. Nevertheless individuals and groups persisted in resisting.

What follows is a few examples of written resistance drawn from diverse sources. The translation is mine. (H.O.)

Leaflets glued to telephone poles, mail boxes, etc.:

"The times are great; but the portions are slim;
What gain is it when Hitler's flags wave!
When under these flags currently millions
Have less bread and no freedom!"

"Hitler talks about peace; but arms for war.
Are we again going to see millions dead?
Is Germany going to be laid waste?
Ensure peace!
Bring an end to Hitlerism!"

"Only Hitler's downfall creates freedom and bread."

Declaration of the Confessing Synod of Barmen - 31 May 1934.
"We reject as false teaching the assumption that the state could or should become the only and total orchestrater of human life beyond its specific mandate, and that the state could even fulfill the vocation of the Church."

The Bishop of Muenster, Count von Galen, in a sermon preached 20 July 1941: "Become firm! Remain steadfast! It may be that obedience to God and a faithful conscience may cost me or you life itself, freedom, our homeland. But rather die than sin!"

Leaflet:
"Catholics!
Hitler is grasping for a crown! He claims total power. His efforts are hubris, which become blasphemy! Do not burden your conscience by giving testimony for Hitler. Take into account the deep concerns of the Holy Father and the words of warning of the very worthy bishops. Witness against Hitler!"


Continuing in the text of the Ploetzensee booklet - p. 19 - resisters contradict the totalitarian claims of Nazism:

The Nazis' claim to spiritual and worldly totalitarian sovereignty inevitably had to lead to conflict with the religious communities [of Germany]. Already in the spring of 1933, the Watchtower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) was proscribed. Of the 6034 Jehovah's Witnesses living in Germany's Third Reich 5911 were tortured in concentration camps and more than 2000 lost their lives.

The two big churches {Roman Catholic and Evangelical [i.e. Protestant]] initially sought to win over the state. A Concordat was signed with the Roman Catholic church resulting in a certain measure of legal rights for Catholics. The rights were however never honoured in detail by the Nazis. Church work was increasingly burdened, with religious leaders being constantly kept under surveillance and called to account for the slightest offences.

To take over and neutralize the Protestant Church, the Party created for itself a "church group" - the "German Christians". Against this attempt to create a pseudo-church with education and order according to the model of the Nazi leader-state and as a result of the introduction of the Aryan race paragraphs, the "Confessing Church" was born.

Despite all prohibitions and chicanery, the Nazis were not successful in suppressing the churches' resistance. The more intense the church struggle became, the more firmly the Confessing Christians banded together, and the larger became their numbers. Right to the end of its rule, the Nazi state did not dare employ its complete arsenal of brutality to fight the Christian church in Germany/ The churches' resonance in the population was too substantial, connections with the armed forces personnel were too intimate. Nevertheless many Christians suffered arrest and martyrdom.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Churches' struggle against the German Nazi Reich is well recounted in various sources. It is clear that the churches were able to undermine the limitless claims of the Nazis, but not impede its demonic program of exterminating Jews, gays & lesbians, other religious groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, and other people who did not buttress the false claim of Aryan purity, i.e. the disabled, mentally ill, etc. Nor were the churches able to counter the rush to war with its tremendous cost of lives, human turmoil and distress, destruction of nature and creatures, and the death and wounding of military personnel. But resisters both in Germany and in the occupied lands persisted.

More on this in the next blog.

Recommended reading - re-reading: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Letters and Papers from Prison".