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Widespread Opposition in the Third Reich

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Martin Brozat has described the middle ground as “Resistenz” which essentially means casual non conformity. There is no doubt that opposition as non conformity was widespread, and this part of the question is not the controversial part as historians are generally in agreement. However, the controversial aspect is the efficay of the opposition as historians are still in disagreement regarding this, hence why we have three sources representing different viewpoints. One cannot describe the opposition as “totally” ineffectual, it was largely ineffectual yes, but not “totally”. Some historians have argued that the opposition was totally widespread and was ready for an uprising at any point, however it never materialized becaue they had to remain secretive and therefore was ineffectual (S1) as the terror surrounding the Nazi regime and its total power grew. This is supported by Source 1 which states that they had to operate “close circles” of “like minded individuals” in order to avoid denunciations to the SS which would consequently lead to incarceration in Dachau or even death. The main key reason for this was because there was no legal way for any opposition to act on the Regime, because Hitler had passed the one part state law and the enabling act, and therefore people had to go through “illegal” channels and hence this was not a popular decision among the masses. The other reason that many germans did not take action was because of the intimidation surrounding the Nazis, such as the public depictions of Dachau, and the fear surrounding the SS. Furthermore as source 3 shows, there were entire “propaganda organs” that were dedicated to intimidation; these included the newspapers and radios, as Goebbels and the propaganda minisrty had total control over these avenues, there was a terror culture surrounding the regime. Hence for this reason the opposition became totally ineffectual. Additionally, another criti

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