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It is difficult to know the exact extent of opposition during the war as the Nazis controlled information tightly and continued to monitor the German population for signs of dissent. However, the war effort was generally supported, especially against the supposedly racially inferior Russians in the east. The allied bombing campaigns weakened enthusiasm for the war but it wasn’t until the Reich itself was invaded in 1945 that German civilians’ morale collapsed.

Opposition within the army

There were two main efforts to remove Hitler during the war, one near the beginning of the conflict and one towards the end, when it was becoming clear that Germany would be defeated:

• In October 1939, after the successful invasion of Poland, Hitler ordered plans to be drawn up for the invasion of France, via Belgium. Fearing a repeat of the failure of the Schlieffen Plan of 1914, the head of counter-intelligence, Admiral Canaris, attempted to gain the support of the heads of the army for a coup against Hitler. However, when a harsh winter postponed the plan, support for the idea dissolved.
• In July 1944, a group of army officers tried to assassinate Hitler. A bomb was planted by Colonel Stauffenberg at a meeting attended by the Fuhrer. It exploded, but Hitler survived. In retaliation, Stauffenberg was shot the same day and 5,000 people were executed in the crackdown on opposition that followed. The great German general Field Marshal Erwin van Romell was implicated in the plot and was forced to commit suicide as punishment for his involvement.

Opposition from the young

The main youth opposition group during the war was the Edelweiss Pirates, who were fond of singing anti-Nazi songs. In 1942 over 700 of them were arrested. In 1944, 12 members were publically hanged after the Pirates in Cologne killed the Gestapo chief.

The White Rose group was formed by students at Munich University in 1943, led by brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl. They published anti-Nazi leaflets and marched through the city in protest at Nazi policies. Its leaders were eventually arrested and sentenced to the guillotine.

During the war, ‘Swing Youth’ and ‘Jazz Youth’ groups were formed. These were young people who rejected Nazi values. They drank alcohol and danced to jazz music. The Nazis rejected jazz as degenerate and called it 'Negro music', using their racial ideas against this cultural development. These youths were closely monitored by the Gestapo, who regularly raided illegal jazz clubs.