Opposition Within the Reich

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23131, 21 September 1940, Page 12

Opposition Within the Reich

Many persons, with an optimism that Nazi, propaganda agencies do their best to check, believe that the collapse of the Nazi regime in Germany will come about as. much from opposition within’the countries (including Germany) now within the German Reich as from the activities of the British and French forces outside. The final blow dealt at tottering militarism in 'Germany ‘in the last war was struck by revolt of thd German people themselves.. That history may repeat itself is the theme of a welldocumented book, “The German People versus “Hitler,” written by Heinrich Praenkel, an active member of the German opposition in Britain. The problem that confronts the underground opposition to Hitler and all his works in Germany is unification of effort, according to Mr Fraenkel; and he does not seek to deny that the war has accentuated the difficulties of solving it. When Hitler, by trickery and force.

smashed political opposition to the Nazi Party, he found the task the easier because the groups opposed to him (ranging from the extreme Right to the extreme Left, with a large politico-religious body in the centre) were violently opposed to one another. Thus Hitler was able to take them one by one, dealing with them first as open opposition, and finally, by declaring all other political parties illegal, driving opposition underground. There it has had to remain, harried by the Gestapo and Storm Troopers, its members ever threatened by murder, torture, or internment in concentration camps. Mr Fraenkel’s account of the work and organisation of the underground opposition makes a story of amazing heroism and dogged defiance of danger and brutality. The diabolical efficiency of Himmler’s Gestapo, armed with the widest powers and protected by the Nazi State from all consequences of its brutal excesses, has strewn the path of the oppositionists with dangers and difficulties. But the oppositionists, with extraordinary ingenuity, have set up systems to defeat the ever-watchful Gestapo and to organise united opposition to the Nazi regime. Part of the work has been to distribute anti-Nazi propaganda and part to spread discontent among working people, and encourage go-slow and sabotage tactics. One of the most potent propaganda agencies has been a secret wireless transmitter, the “ Deutscher Freiheits-Sender,” which has eluded the Gestapo with remarkable ingenuity and replied effectively to many of the outpourings of the Goebbels publicity machine. A part involving certain death on discovery has been played by brave men and women who have joined Nazi organisations and worked from the inside to betray their tyrants. Mr Fraenkel admits that so far very little has been achieved towards establishing effective unity among the various elements of the active opposition. Especially at first, efforts to establish the “ United Front ” so greatly to be desired were marred by lapses into former feuds. This particularly applied to attempts at reconciliation and co-operation between the Communists and the Social Democrats. “ Whatever practical and lasting co-operation there “has been (and is) between them,” writes the author, “is mostly on the wider basis of a “ really ‘ Popular Front,’ comprising both “Socialist parties, as well as considerable sec- “ tions of the Liberals and Conservatives.” This “ Popular Front ” is responsible for the establishment of the “ Frerheits-Sender,” which has always striven to be strictly non-party and which invariably prefaced its broadcasts with the words: “We stand for all those who are “opposed to Nazi terrorism and war-monger-“ing. We stand for all those who are striving “for the peace of the world and civic liberties “in a truly democratic Germany.” Mr Fraenkel ridicules the Nazis’ boast that 99 per cent, of the German population are body and soul behind them, and pointedly asks why the necessity then for the enormous man-power and machinery which the Nazi leaders consider essential to control the activities of 1 per cent, of the population? But the opposition will not be confined to Germany alone. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and since her defeat, France, as well as Belgium, Holland, and Norway, contain an enormous body of passive and sometimes active resistance to the Nazi yoke. Here are the elements of active revolt which can grow in weight and strength as the Nazi power is weakened by the onslaughts of British arms and the effectiveness of the British blockade. There is room for hope and optimism in a study of such possibilities.