hi in this video we're going to look at how significant German opposition was to the Nazi Party between 1933 and 1939 now I want to start this with the same photo that I've been looking at in the last two videos because I said in the last two videos that this photo to me summarizes the control that the Nazis had over the German people you can see everyone see chi-ling and going along with what they're saying except if you look a little bit closely right in the middle of that photo there is one man here who is not see chi-lin and his name is August Landmesser and Landmesser opposed the Nazi Party and this photo to me perfectly summarizes really the control that the Germans had sorry that control that the Nazis had over the Germans between 1933 and 1939 most people are controlled by the Nazi Party except for a notable view and it's that notable view that I want to look at today and I want to look at opposition today and how people oppose the Nazis and why they oppose the Nazis now opposition takes many many different forms and really you can put all of these different forms on a scale from passive to active now probably if you think about opposition people are posing something you're probably thinking about violence you're probably thinking about people beating other people up you could be thinking about protests now those are very very active forms of opposition and actually opposition could be a lot less than that for example it could be about writing a secret newspaper now that to me sits somewhere in the middle between doing nothing and doing something quite actively you could be writing graffiti on the walls of a German town so you could be putting that you hate Hitler on the wall again quite active but it could be less than that it could be like lime Messer who's refusing to see Kyle or it could just be about telling a joke about Hitler to your neighbor now it's really important that we think about the fact that all of these are types of opposition all of them even from telling a joke or the way up to violence they are all a form of opposing the Nazi Party and when you think about our position don't just think about the active end I think about this is a big scale now the Nazis ruled from 1933 until 1945 so we've got pre-war and we've got the war years and it's important when we think about opposition that we think about these two separate time periods because actually the Opposition in these two separate time periods was quite different in this lesson in this video we're going to look at opposition pre-war and pre-war there were three groups who mainly oppose the Nazis the left the church and the youth and it's those three groups through a garlic out now now opposition from the left and really those groups were opposing the Nazis due to political ideology if you remember from the first few videos the Nazi Party were an extreme right-wing party so it's not really that surprising that the Left opposed their political views and the left these people here opposed because they were politically opposed to the Nazis opposition from the left and we'll look at who we mean by the left in a minute was the most active and the most persistent opposition before the war and really fell to two groups the Social Democrats who were one of the political parties of the Nazis had kicks out in 1934 they continued underground to be opposition to the Nazis they form resistance groups they produced an tenacity leaflets but ultimately they were hunted down by the Gestapo the other really important opposition group from the left were the Communists and the Communists were by far the most active opposition to the Nazis they did a lot they held meetings they run a propaganda campaign they wrote newsletters they were really really active but unfortunately for the Communists their level of action their level of active opposition meant they were really really easy to be expound by the Gestapo and again they were hunted down so the left actually were really doing quite a lot before the war but really importantly as a result from doing so much they were easily hunted down by the Gestapo the best example for me of somebody from the left who opposed the Nazis was the man on the previous slide and the man on the previous slide his name is Georg Elser now Elsa was a communist and in 1939 before the war he tried to blow up Hitler with a bomb and this picture here is the beer hall that Hitler was speaking in that Georg blew that bomb up in unfortunately for Georg Hitler's speech actually finished early that day so his bomb went off after Hitler had left the building if it hadn't probably would have killed him opposition also came from the church and the church opposed the Nazis for two main reasons firstly because of their religious ideas unsurprisingly for a group of Christians who promoted love and forgiveness they would directly opposed to the Nazis who promoted things like violence they also really opposed the Nazis because of the Nazi level of control the Nazis tried to close church schools and the church and they closed Church youth groups and that really brought them into opposition with the church now it's really important that you don't think that everybody in the church opposed the Nazis it wasn't everybody but there were a significant few who did and a significant few in the church from both the Protestants and the Catholics who opposed the Nazis notable examples of this at least - and again you can't remember everything s remember these - Martin niemöller was a Protestant pastor a Protestant priest and I molar started a confessional church he started his own opposition group to challenge the Nazi led Reich Church the Nazi led Protestant Reich Church as a result of this 9 molar was put in a concentration camp he actually did survive after the war but no molar was really significant because he set up an entire separate church to oppose the Nazis on the Catholic side Cardinal Galen is probably a best example of opposition from now Galen interestingly initially kind of went along with Nazi ideas but for towards the end of the 1930s he started criticizing the Nazis really heavily about their racial policies and in particular about their policies towards disabled people he preached huge long sermons in his church really opposing them Galen was interesting though as well because he was such a significant figure in the church as a Cardinal Cardinal sit above bishops that they couldn't just put him into a camp they couldn't put him into prison because he was too much of a popular figure and as a result Galen was actually left alone this man here is another really good example for me though this is Paul Schneider now Schneider was a pastor he was a Protestant pastor and he was part of that confessional Church and like might know mola he spoke out against the Nazis and he did it really prominently unlike niemöller though Schneider was put into a concentration camp and he was given lethal injection in 1939 he was the first priest to be killed in Nazi Germany and as a result he's a significant person that we should be thinking about the third group her post the Nazis were from were young people now young people opposed the Nazis for a huge variety of reasons some of them it was political so there were youth groups like the young communists some of them it was religion there were youth groups like young Jewish groups and young church groups who opposed the Nazis but for lots of young people actually it was just about culture young people in the same way that they do today don't like being told what to do Nazi Germany was totally about being told what to do so lots of young people opposed them right from the start and there are lots of really good notable examples the two that I want you to try and remember though because I think they're the two that are the most notable and easy to remember the first group of a swing kids and again let's think about that scale of active to passive opposition the swing kids opposed the Nazis by listening to jazz because jazz music was at that point predominantly african-american it was music that was the Nazis hated said these young people listened to jazz to oppose the Nazis they held long they had long hair because they didn't want to look the same as everybody else they wore baggy trousers so the swing kids opposed the Nazis through what they wore through what they listen to the other really good example of young people opposing the Nazis at the aid of Vice pirates of which you can see one of them pictured here with his a device flower pins days chest and these groups who were mostly working in the Rhineland region of western Germany they did a lot they produced leaflets they beat up the Hitler Youth whenever they found them out in the streets and they went on camps and they sung songs and basically they formed like an opposition group that was very similar in terms of its activities to the Hitler Youth but completely completely different in terms of its ideology as if we're returning to this question and we're looking at today of how significant miss German opposition's of the Nazis in 1933 239 there are obviously two sides to the argument you could easily argue that even the opposition was not significant it was really small in number they were really easily controlled by groups like the Gestapo and the SS and arguably they didn't really provide any major threat there wasn't really much of a violent threat at this point a lot of that opposition after you've seen was leaflet writing a meeting however on the other hand you could argue it was significant it showed that not everybody agreed it was definitely a nuisance for the Nazis trying to run their country now again with all of history there is no right or wrong answer with this it's what you think to me I think German opposition was really significant I think it's important that we realized that not every single person in that country did follow what the Nazis said there were some people like orcas lomasa with his arms folded in that photo that showed that actually some people stood against them