As the Allies witnessed the true scope of the devastation created by the Nazi regime,
shock spread around the world.
Millions dead, multiple countries in ruins, and a war that spread around the world.
How could this have been allowed to happen?
Why didn’t more German citizens stand up to the Nazi regime?
Well, for one thing, it comes back to one of the most famous analogies in history - the
frog and the hot water.
If you dump a frog in a pot of hot water, he’ll jump out.
But if you put the frog in cold water and slowly heat it up, he’ll take a nice warm
bath, and the next thing you know you’ve got frog soup.
The Nazis didn’t take power and immediately start herding people into death camps.
They built their power slowly and built a network of support and propaganda that made
it difficult for people to see just how badly things were going.
To make matters worse, they didn’t even take power through normal means.
The Nazis didn’t win an election outright to take power, and their early years were
messy.
Hitler originally started as a crackpot far-right activist who joined the German Workers Party.
These early years, just after World War I, were characterized by violence and Hitler
was even sent to prison briefly for attempting a coup in the famous Beer Hall Putsch.
He got a relatively light sentence, with many of the people in power viewing him as a harmless
nut and not wanting to give him more attention.
Needless to say, that didn’t go well.
He spent that time in prison writing Mein Kampf and rededicated himself to gaining power
through legal means - and he found a population that was ripe for filling with popular rage.
Why was Germany at the time so angry?
The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was massively skewed to punish Germany
for its role in starting the war.
It left Germany in dire economic straits, but the people had no way to take their anger
out on the powers responsible.
That led many people to seek convenient scapegoats - and Hitler was more than willing to provide
them.
And that led to one of the most successful ways Hitler minimized opposition - propaganda.
Even before Hitler took power, he was working to increase antisemitism and populist rage
in Germany and to paint himself as the only solution.
Mein Kampf was full of commentary on how effective propaganda is, and when he came out of prison
Hitler went about winning the hearts and minds of Germany.
He established a daily newspaper in 1925, picked the notorious Joseph Goebbels as his
head of party propaganda, and led protests designed to rouse the German patriotic spirit.
He even succeeded in getting the acclaimed anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front
banned.
But with all things Hitler, there was an even darker edge.
Much of the Nazi propaganda was designed to make the citizens see Jewish people as less
than human.
The notorious newspaper Der Stürmer, run by antisemite Julius Streicher, was known
for its extreme caricatures and calls for violence.
The propaganda film Jud Suss was a massive success in Germany, and its portrayal of a
historical Jewish figure as a sinister figure infiltrating a European court led German citizens
to mistrust their own Jewish neighbors.
The propaganda was so extreme that people involved in the movie were put on trial after
the war - and Streicher became one of the only non-party figures executed at Nuremberg.
And Hitler never let an opportunity go to waste.
One of the biggest parts of propaganda is taking advantage of opportunities - or making
them.
The true story of the Reichstag Fire is still not 100% known, but many modern historians
believe it to be a false flag created by the regime.
Hitler had been made chancellor of Germany, but the Nazis didn't yet have complete control
of the government in 1933 when the landmark went up in flames.
Hitler quickly blamed a Dutch communist activist and used it to push the idea that Germany
was on the verge of being taken over by a communist revolution like Russia was.
He panicked the public, convinced the President to suspend civil liberties, and gained a majority
in the next election - at which point he began purging the opposition.
And once he had absolute power, resistance was only going to get harder.
One of the most important elements of Nazi propaganda was to get them while they’re
young.
Children would be indoctrinated early, and parents who opposed the Nazi regime would
find they might have enemies within their own homes.
The instrument for this was the Hitler Youth, a massive network of training camps and indoctrination
programs that essentially worked as the summer camp from hell.
Boys attended summits, participated in patriotic activities, learned valuable life skills,
and were told all about how their many, many enemies would have to be dealt with.
And when they say to get them young, they mean it.
The Hitler Youth proper was for boys aged fourteen to eighteen and often had paramilitary
overtones as the boys were being prepared for their role in the German military.
But for younger boys, there were the German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth program.
Immortalized in the Taika Waititi movie Jojo Rabbit, it was heavily patterned after the
Boy Scouts and the young boys were trained to report on their neighbors and spy on other
gatherings like Church youth groups.
Hitler believed that the children were Germany’s future - and he made sure that the future
liked to goose-step.
All this worked together to create a climate of fear.
Many people, especially in the early days of the Nazi regime, might have disagreed with
some of the more extreme elements of Hitler’s platform.
Even those who voted for the Nazis may have been shocked by how quickly he moved to tighten
his grip on Germany.
But who were they going to talk about that to?
Most anti-Nazi political organizations were outlawed, kids were indoctrinated into Nazism
at an early age, and no one knew if the neighbor they talked to was actually a Nazi die-hard
who would report them to the authorities.
For many people, the fear of the consequences of speaking up was enough to keep them silent.
And the reach of Nazism didn’t limit itself to Germany.
Many anti-Nazi activists, including Jews who were worried about their future in the country,
reached out to their friends around the world seeking support.
But two could play at that game, and the Nazis were willing to play dirtier.
In the 1930s, a pro-Nazi organization called the German-American Bund was established in
the United States to promote an alliance with Nazi Germany.
They held massive anti-semitic rallies in New York City, making many prominent politicians
and journalists hesitant to speak out against the Nazis.
But one major element was about to make opposition to Nazism much harder.
For the first six years of his regime, Hitler concentrated on internal affairs and built
a powerful network.
The governments of Europe, hoping to avoid war, ceded territory to him to pacify his
aggression.
It didn’t work, and in 1939 he invaded Poland.
World War II was on - and with it, opposing the Nazis was about to become even trickier.
When a country goes to war, the Rally Round the Flag effect kicks in.
This causes a leader’s approval rating to skyrocket and often makes anyone opposed to
the leader fall out of favor.
And in this case, it didn’t matter that the leader started the war.
Things move fast in war, and soon Germany was involved in the conflict on multiple fronts.
Not only did they conquer Poland, but the pro-Nazi government of Austria quickly surrendered
and was integrated into the Nazi regime.
France was the next big front, as well as the growing air war with Britain.
Not only was there intense pressure to support the war effort, but with the rate the country’s
territory was growing, it became harder to argue that the regime wasn’t a success.
And for many on the ground, that was all that mattered.
And many men weren’t there to argue at all.
It’s one of the biggest factors in society during a war - conscription.
The military draft in Germany had been reinstated in 1935 as Hitler built up the military in
advance of the war, and his war machine was training 300,000 conscripts a year.
That took many men away from their homes and left them facing military justice if they
crossed their commanders.
As for those left behind, the women were often forced into the workforce and were the sole
providers for their families while their husbands were at war.
If you don’t want people to resist your regime, make it harder for them to have the
time or security.
And for those who did stand up, harsh treatment awaited.
Hitler wasn’t able to put down all resistance to his regime, but those who were caught in
the act often faced a court system stacked against them.
The Nazi courts were notorious for their bias in favor of the regime.
This was at its worst when dealing with cases involving Jewish people, such as the infamous
riots of Kristallnacht.
It was near-impossible for enemies of the regime to get justice in courts, and those
who were hauled into court often faced swift deportation to a prison camp - or worse.
That was the fate of journalist Fritz Gerlach, who had advocated against Hitler in the years
before he took power.
Gerlach was swiftly declared an enemy of the state, arrested less than two months after
Hitler took power, and murdered during the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler purged
his enemies.
But that didn’t stop those who refused to bow down - no matter how dangerous it became.
During the early 1940s, a growing anti-Nazi youth movement began in Munich.
This gang of intellectuals would come to be known as the White Rose movement, and their
tactics were peaceful.
They launched a campaign of leaflets and graffiti to raise awareness of the brutality of the
Nazis and call for peaceful resistance.
They were led by the Scholl siblings, Sophie and Hans, and their friend Alexander Schmorell.
They operated for seven months until the Gestapo arrested the ringleaders.
So what was the punishment for minor vandalism in Nazi Germany?
The Scholl siblings and many of their allies were placed on trial, but the Nazi People’s
Court was not a place for justice.
They weren’t allowed to speak in their defense - although that didn’t stop Sophie from
frequently interrupting the judge.
They were convicted in only days and were quickly sent to the guillotine and executed.
This had a chilling effect on all the opposition in Nazi Germany, as they knew that even the
most peaceful opposition to the regime could earn you a public execution.
Many of the resistance in Germany was highly under the radar - and one mistake could get
you killed.
It often took the form of providing goods to Jewish residents who were banned from participation
in public life, and later hiding them from the deportation forces that took them to the
ghettos and later to the death camps.
Houses around Nazi Germany and the nations it occupied became secret hiding places, with
refugees staying in attics and basements - often for years, for those who were lucky enough
to escape detection.
But these saviors weren’t always what you’d expect.
There are some reports from the time of the Holocaust of people who hid Jews in their
homes, despite being loyal members of the Nazi party and even publicly antisemitic.
Many of them may have been putting on an acceptable public face to avoid suspicion.
Many may have even been Nazis originally, but couldn’t stomach the switch from bigotry
to open genocide of their neighbors.
Whatever the reasons, these righteous gentiles often survived by hiding their opposition
to the regime - and those who were found out often found themselves on the next train to
the camps alongside those they tried to help.
There was resistance - but it often took a certain advantage or privilege.
After Hitler consolidated power, open opposition to the regime was usually a one-way ticket
to imprisonment or death.
For the people on the ground, the only way to help was usually under cover of darkness.
But other, more powerful figures took advantage of their position.
Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat, was able to print visas for hundreds of Jewish
people to come to Japan and escape Nazi persecution.
Industrialist Oskar Schindler arranged for Jewish prisoners to work in his factories
as slave labor - thus sparing them from the gas chambers.
The opposition to Nazism was running uphill from the start, as Hitler had the power of
propaganda and anger on his side.
It then became a hopeless fight when he turned the law, military, and courts in his favor.
For many of the regime’s opponents, it became a battle to survive the era, and most were
scared out of playing an active role in the resistance.
Ultimately, it would take the entire Allied forces to bring Hitler’s rule to a much-deserved
end.
For more on the fates of the ringleaders of the Nazi regime, check out “What Actually
Happened to Nazi Leaders After World War 2” or watch “Escaping the Nazi Death Camp”
for the shocking battle for survival waged by the prisoners.