German citizens options to legally express disagreement with Nazi regime

[James1]

Both prior and during WWII, what were the options (i.e., possible modes of action) for German citizens to legally / lawfully express their disagreement with the Nazi regime's views, policy, actions, etc., in various matters, including, but not limited to, the regime's attitude to the Jews, the annexation of Austria, the Sudetenland crisis ?

Would appreciate your responses,

James.

[James1]

Interesting..., more than 80 members of the forum have read my above topic (that's more than just 3-4 people...), since I posted it yesterday, none of whom had any idea about a possible comment ...

[london dave]

I didn't think there were any, though I'm no expert. The only protests etc I can think of are examples like the Rosenstraße protests etc. I don't think they were 'legal'.

Another option may have been to write to/bribe a high up official.. but again, don't know if it was legal. People used to write to the Fuhrer to 'complain', but how far that got I do not know.

Perhaps there's something in the fine print of the Enabling Act that clarifies this.

[James1]

Thanks, london dave.

[Sheldrake]

Interesting..., more than 80 members of the forum have read my above topic (that's more than just 3-4 people...), since I posted it yesterday, none of whom had any idea about a possible comment ...

London Dave, and many apologies if this appears rude, but you made a post and have now complained that no one had responded.

I don't mind answering questions where i can add something and have the relevant knowledge. I don't mind helping someone who clearly knows nothing and has turned to the forum to help with family research or some school project. However, I try to avoid responding to posts where the OP might be be trying initiate some political point, provoke a time wasting debate by resurrecting some known controversy, or simply too idle to carry out any preliminary research.

The question you asked is interesting, and forms the best part of a chapter in books about life in Nazi Germany. The degree to which it was possible to speak out in Nazi Germany is part of the debate about the complicity that individual Germans shared with the Nazis. (“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”)

A search of "dissent against Nazis" would have brought up the wikipedia entry on "German resistance to the Nazis" and the role of the churches, whose clergy could and did speak out. It would have introduced you to this academic paper http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~semp/germans.htm which referred to the debate about what constituted "resistance" and some of the channels people had for expressing dissent. It also mentioned academics such as Ian Kershaw whoi have researched and publishsed

This in turn might have helped you to frame a post that attracted more discussion.

[James1]

Just to clarify, Sheldrake: It was I, James, who initially posted that topic, not London Dave...

Now, on the one hand, in your criticism about the topic you write that you: "try to avoid responding to posts where the OP might be be trying initiate some political point, provoke a time wasting debate by resurrecting some known controversy, or simply too idle to carry out any preliminary research".

However, on the other hand you state that: "The question .... asked is interesting, and forms the best part of a chapter in books about life in Nazi Germany ...".

So, how do you reconcile these two opposite views, writing at the same time that the topic is a waste of time and that it is an interesting question?

Further, in your commenting post, you referred to resistance, where my topic/question related only to legal/lawful methods available for Germans to dispute the Nazi regime's policies.

James.

[wm]

The German citizens of Polish ethnicity were able to lodge their complaints and demands through their organization - Union of Poles in Germany. This included sending petitions directly to Hitler.
The union was legal until the outbreak of World War II. It was one of the last organizations independent from the Nazi regime.

[Knouterer]

Sadly, this topic, like so many other threads on AHF, seems aimed at demonstrating, in a rather invidious way, that "things were not so bad" in the Third Reich.

But of course they were. The Führer and the Nazi Party were the expression of the will of the people and were leading Germany to its glorious future. Anyone who dared to doubt that, or to disagree with them on any point, was - obviously - a Volksschädling (enemy of the people). Not a healthy thing to be.

The only people who could afford to express some degree of dissent were those who were protected by their (international) status, but even then that went only so far. Thomas Mann was a world famous writer but still had to flee early on (1933). Clemens August von Galen, bishop of Münster, protested, from the pulpit, against the wholesale murder of the handicapped by the State (in 1941). Leading Nazis urged his arrest, Bormann was in favour of hanging him, preferably from the tower of his church, but Goebbels thought that would cause unrest in the region and it was decided that he would be dealt with after the Endsieg.

Less prominent members of the clergy who showed a lack of enthusiasm for National Socialism ended up in concentration camps (KZ).

And by the way, addressing petitions or letters to those in power humbly asking for some favour is not at all the same thing as openly expressing disagreement with policy.

[ManfredV]

Of course, people could complain or go to justice. And then?
"Best" what could happen was they were ignored. Or they were told to shut up by the party or Gestapo. Or their applies at justice or authorities were procrastinated or rejected. More worse they were threatened by Gestapo. Or at least they came into KZ. Or declared as "lunatic" and "disappeared" in asylems or were killed there. And so on...
There were these tax inspectors at Munich finance office who wondered why Mr. Hitler from Prinzregentenplatz didn't pay his income tax. Their bosses stopped the case and the files "disappeared". Some relatives of people killed during euthanasia action didn't believe a "natural dead" and tried to find out - their cases were procrastinated or they were threatened to shut up.

[wm]

On 5 December 1941 Hoepner ordered a retreat of his over-extended forces, refusing to comply with Hitler's rigid categorical 'Halt Order'. A month later, on 8 January 1942, Hoepner was dismissed from the Wehrmacht with the loss of all his pension rights. leading him to launch a lawsuit against the Reich. His lawsuit was successful.

[Ironmachine]

It should be noted, however, that Hoepner's lawsuit was settled in a military court, on the grounds that he could not be deprived of his rights and benefits (pay, pension, and the right to wear the uniform and decorations) without a court-martial. And IIRC Hitler later had the Reichstag grant him the power to deal with those situations as he saw fit.

[Knouterer]

The whole idea that there would be some "legal" way to express disagreement with the regime is rather bizarre anyway. Germans no more could criticize Hitler openly than Russians could criticize Stalin in the 1930s, or Chinese could criticize Mao in the 1960s, or Cambodians could criticize Pol Pot, without ending up in a concentration camp, or worse.

Old-fashioned "liberal" and "individualistic" legal notions had been discarded, as many German law professors hurried to explain after the Nazis took over. The individual only had rights as a member of the Volksgemeinschaft. If he placed himself outside it - for example by displaying a negative attitude - then he no longer had any rights which the State was bound to respect.

[london dave]

I suspect you are right on the money Knouterer. Everyone would have fairly quickly figured out if you made a complaint, your cards were marked. Complaints/disgreement possibly wasn't 'illegal', but given that everyone knew what happened if you did, they (the Nazi's) didn't need to make it illegal in a statute.

[wm]

The Germans of Polish origin didn't have to ask humbly. They and their rights were protected by a bilateral agreement with Poland. So their political power was real and they weren't as defenseless as the others. If needed the rights of the Germans in Poland could have been held hostage to ensure compliance.

And really, the pre-war Nazi Germany was a land of the free in comparison with Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.
In Germany people were able to travel freely - even abroad, make friends with foreigners, read foreign books and newspapers, and were able to express their opinions although better without overdoing it.

In Russia and China people were killed by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands preventively, just in case, before anyone of them even thought about expressing an opinion.
In Russia and China the Jews were their own people.

An example of Germans showing their, easily detectable by foreigners disapproval openly - without keeping it to themselves, this wouldn't possible in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China:

Unsigned note about anti-Jewish excesses in Germany
18 November 1938
To the Minister of Foreign Affairs

[...] All the information I have obtained from Germany indicates that German society as a whole, except for the most obstinate party formations, took a rather negative view of the retaliatory action applied to the Jewish population.
Even though the majority of German society approved of the Nuremberg Laws as measures aimed at the separation of the Jewish element from the Germans, even at the cost of heavy material losses for the Jews, the systematic destruction of Jewish property, be it in the form of breaking windows and equipment in shops and dwellings and the plunder of objects, or in the form of setting synagogues on fire or blowing them up with dynamite, organised by the party in broad daylight and before the eyes of the public, has exceeded the measure of what a normal German citizen considers acceptable.
Thus, criticism is unexpectedly widespread and includes all social strata.

from: Polish Documents on Foreign Policy. The Polish Institute of International Affairs

[Gorque]

And really, the pre-war Nazi Germany was a land of the free in comparison with Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.
In Germany people were able to travel freely - even abroad, make friends with foreigners, read foreign books and newspapers, and were able to express their opinions although better without overdoing it.

I believe you hit upon the primary point for answering the question properly, that being when in the short span of the Third Reich would determine the amount of latitude given to lawfully express disagreement.