Active resisters to Adolf Hitler only made up a small percentage of Germany's population, as going against the dictatorship in Nazi Germany meant, if caught, imprisonment, torture, or execution. "Active resistance" involved everything from sabotage of rail systems to producing anti-Nazi pamphlets to trying to kill Hitler.
Commemoration at the Bendlerblock
Every year, on July 20, the Memorial to German Resistance, located at the military building complex in Berlin known as the Bendlerblock, commemorates the few Germans who had the courage to go against Hitler and the Nazi regime. Taking place in the courtyard of the building complex at which the museum is located, the ceremony serves as a reminder of the events that occurred there on the night of July 20, 1944, when a firing squad executed military officers involved in the plot: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, First Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, General Friedrich Olbricht, and Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim.
A Formerly Divided Memory of the Resistance
The Memorial to German Resistance, which opened a permanent exhibition in 1989, contains exhibits remembering every known resister to National Socialism. Such a universal commemoration of resisters had not always been the case in Germany. Biased memory of the resistance had been the trend since the end of the Second World War. The governments of East and West Germany promoted the resisters they felt best reflected the image each country wanted to project to the rest of the world.
In the West, the officers behind the July 20 plot to kill Hitler received the bulk of the attention in commemorations, and there was even a film made in the 1950s about the assassination attempt. Also receiving substantial recognition was the Munich-based student resistance, the White Rose, which produced several anti-Nazi pamphlets. Three of the group's leaders, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend Christoph Probst, were executed on February 22, 1943.
In the East, the communists were hailed as anti-fascists. The resistance served as a mechanism to distance the country from the Nazi atrocities for which the West, beginning to repair its image and establish a positive relationship with the Allies, was taking full responsibility. Several left-wing groups, as well as more moderate groups such as the intellectual circle dubbed the "Red Orchestra" by the Gestapo, were hailed as the East's heroes. The communists had been among the Nazis' first inmates of prison camps in the 1930s, and the German Democratic Republic made this fact known. Several East German streets were named after communists who resisted the Nazis.
Memory and German Reunification
The two memories slowly came together, merging and blurring the lines between left-wing, communist resistance promoted in the East, and military and other resistance hailed in the West. By July 20, 2004, the recognition of all forms of resistance became official as then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder made the annual speech at the Memorial to German Resistance and mentioned the communists, social democrats, and others alongside the July 20 conspirators and the White Rose. Since East and West Germany reunified in 1990, divided memory has become more and more obsolete, and a more complete, universal memory has taken shape, honoring those who risked their lives to do whatever they could to weaken and bring down the regime.
Selected Sources and Further Information
- Niven, Bill. 2002. Facing the Nazi Past. London: Routledge.
- Swartz, Suzanne. 2007. "Obstacles and Stepping Stones to the Hero's Pedestal: Reunified Germany's Selective Commemoration of Resisters to National Socialism." Waterville, Maine: Colby College Digital Archive.
For a fantastic overview of resistance commemoration, as well as short biographies of resisters, see the website for the Memorial to German Resistance (Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand). Unfortunately, the full text of Gerhard Schröder's speech on July 20, 2004, is no longer available online, but further information on the 2004 ceremony can be found here, on the German embassy's website. The German film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for 2005, is available on DVD with English subtitles, and is a product of meticulous historical research, telling the story of the last days of the lives of the arrested members of the White Rose.
 |
 |
 |
