As ever Katja you make us think. It’s yet another aspect of the history of the SWW that is hugely complex. As a Brit I hesitate to criticise the motives of anyone who resisted the Nazis. Whether or not we like the politics of Thälmann et al it took great courage to confront the Nazis. I saw the film yesterday (28/6/25) and was incredibly moved by the story. I knew vaguely of the Red Orchestra story but not the detail. The lead performance of Liv Lisa Fries (Hilde) was remarkable, she carries the entire film. Also worthy of recognition is Lisa Wagner’s portrayal of the transformation of the female guard Frau Kühn from stern functionary to human being in my opinion. And as you have said the Nazis are portrayed as full human beings rather than cartoon evil figures. We see them as mere functionaries carrying out their roles and duties without obvious violent emotions. I found watching the film quite unsettling, for me there was a pervading sense of foreboding. That could be because I knew the story does not end well. An extraordinary film.
We have to remember, too, that many—perhaps most—of those who became communists in the 1920s and 1930s did so because they hated exploitation, not because they loved dictatorship. So the human and thee political are not that separate.
As a historian, I disagree. They are not the same thing and saying so usually stems from political motives rather than attempts to understand these historical ideologies. As you say, people call Trump a fascist to make a political point. The same is true for saying Marxism and Nazism are the same thing. Even Fascism and Nazism are different in important ways, notably on antisemitism.
This could open up some debate , I’ve never understood why communism in relation to nazism gets an easy ride , the murder rate with communist regimes wins hands down and there has been plenty of examples, is it a British thing that anyone against the nazis is a good thing ? Which is probably how I first learnt history, there is no definitive answer both systems were / are repugnant. Could the answer lay in Poland ? They had the worst of both worlds from 39 to 89 🙁
At one point you write that Hans Coppi's opposition to the Nazis was political. Is it possible to apolitically oppose the Nazis, who were a political party? That seems odd to me.
I'm willing to give Thälmann his due for standing up to Gestapo abuse. I take his actions perhaps with a grain of salt that he would have replaced it with a nearly equally repressive communist regime (without the full-on genocidal dimension), like Honecker did.
On thing that colors my thinking on giving credit to the communists for fighting the Nazis was the fate of the resistance in France. The communists were stalwart opponents of the occupation, and fought hard for the resistance. They were largely forgotten after the war, colored by anticommunism of the Cold War. Meanwhile many collaborationist policy officials of the Vichy puppet regime were exonerated of any crimes, and went right back to running the police, sometimes with horrific results. Please note the case of Maurice Papon, who after being cleared of deportations of Jews, got involved with torture in the Algerian War of Independence, then random killings of Algerian protestors in Paris during the 1960s.
Vielen Dank 🙏 für Ihre aufschlussreiche Berichterstattung! Das war mir nicht bewusst und ich bin der Meinung das jedweder Widerstand gegen Diktatorische Gewalt anerkannt werden muss! Sie leisten wichtige Arbeit!!
Thälmann “worked towards a violent revolution during the years of Weimar democracy”. This to me means he wanted to replace what was in fact the only period of anything like democracy that the country had known with an ideology that was, as was well known by then, to be brutal, as brutal as the Nazi regime tuned out to be. He aligned himself and his party with Stalinism and would, presumably, have instituted a similar regime in Germany had he had his way. His resistance to the Nazis was was self-serving rather than about the people of Germany. If fate had swung slightly differently, he would have been the one doing the beating and torturing.
Sophie Scholl and Hilde Coppi on the other hand had nothing to gain personally, no future dictatorship for them, but still tried to raise public awareness of the dangers of Nazism. That they were executed says more about the regime at the time, and it is more than likely they would have suffered the same fate under a Thälmann dictatorship. There never has been nor never will be a successful Communist, in the true meaning of the word, government, largely because those that claim to be communist leaders are just over-ego’d individuals who delight in telling everyone else how to live.
Thank you, Katja, for raising the important question how communist resistance to Nazism should be remembered. In the former GDR, the communists were presented as the most efficient and convinced fighters against Fascism and Nazism everywhere. Things were more complicated.
In his book “Homage to Catalonia” first published in 1938 George Orwell drew the conclusions from his time of fighting in the Spanish Civil War by describing “the temporary alliance that Fascism, in certain forms, forces upon the bourgeois and the worker. This alliance, known as the Popular Front, is in essential an alliance of enemies, and it seems probable that it must always end by one partner swallowing the other. The only unexpected feature in the Spanish Situation … is that among the parties on the Government side the Communists stood not upon the extreme Left, but upon the extreme Right. In reality this should cause no surprise, because the tactics of the Communist Party elsewhere, especially in France, have made it clear that Official Communism must be regarded, at any rate for the time being, as an anti-revolutionary force. The whole of Comintern policy is now subordinated (excusably, considering the world Situation) to the defence of U.S.S.R., which depends upon а system of military alliances. In particular, the U.S.S.R. is in alliance with France, a capitalist-imperialist country. The alliance is of little use to Russia unless French capitalism is strong, therefore Communist policy in France has got to be anti-revolutionary. This means not only that French Communists now march behind the tricolour and sing the Marseillaise, but, what is more important, that they have had to drop all effective agitation in the French colonies.”
On 23 August 1939, in Moscow the German Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression was signed, an important pre-condition for the German attack on Poland on 1 September 1939. Until 22 June 1941, the German attack on the Soviet Union, Communists all over the world were prohibited by the Comintern leadership in Moscow to engage in any resistance against Nazism. It is alleged that the Nazis offered to the Russian Communists to hand over Ernst Thälmann to them, but they were not interested. Hans and Hilde Coppi started their resistance activities dutifully only after 22 June 1941. Therefore, my answer to your question how communist resistance to Nazism should be remembered would be: No myths, please! Tell the full facts!
May I refer to another aspect of your article. You seem to distinguish “non-Jewish Germans who had a choice to keep their heads down and live quiet, compliant lives” and the very few of them who risked their lives by rendering active resistance. I wonder if this distinction is correct. When I was a student in West Berlin in 1967, West Berliners were not allowed to go to East Berlin. I could go there with my West German passport. My landlord asked me to visit a former work colleague of his in East Berlin and said that man had told him once at the time when the Wehrmacht went from victory to victory: “Die werden sich nochmal totsiegen.” (Approximate translation: They will win until they are all dead.) My landlord told me that if he had reported that statement of his colleague to the authorities, he would have been put into a concentration camp, but he didn’t report on him. Conclusion: Not all those who did not go into active resistance were compliant.
Hannah Arendt, in her essay “The Aftermath of Nazi Rule: Report from Germany” (1950) had this to say about the Berliners:
“Above all, there is Berlin, whose people, in the midst of the most horrible physical destruction, have remained intact. I do not know why this should be so, but customs, manners, speech, approaches to people, are in the smallest details so absolutely different from everything one sees and has to face in the rest of Germany that Berlin is almost like another country. There is hardly any resentment in Berlin against the victors and apparently never was; while the first saturation bombings from England were pulverizing the city, Berliners are reported to have crawled out of their cellars and, seeing one block after another gone, remarked: “Well, if the Tommies mean to keep this up, they’ll soon have Io bring their own houses with them." There is no embarrassment and no guilt-feeling, but frank and detailed recital of what happened to Berlin’s Jews at the beginning of the war. Most important of all, in Berlin the people still actively hate Hitler, and even though they have more reason than other Germans to feel themselves pawns in interna¬tional politics, they do not feel impotent but are convinced that their attitudes count for something; given half a chance, they will at least sell their lives dear.
The Berliners work just as hard as other people in Germany, but they are less busy, they will take time to show one around the ruins and will somewhat solemnly recite the names of the streets that are gone. It is hard to believe, but it seems there is something in the Berliners’ claim that Hitler never entirely succeeded in conquering them. They are remarkably well-informed and have kept their sense of humor and their characteristically ironical friendliness. The only change in the people—apart from their having become somewhat sadder and less ready lor laughter—is that "Red Berlin” is now violently anti-Communist. But here again there is an important difference between Berlin and the rest of Germany: only Berliners take the trouble to point out clearly the similarities between Hitler and Stalin, and only Berliners bother to tell you that they are of course not against the Russian people—a sentiment all the more remarkable if one remembers what happened to the Berliners, many of whom had welcomed the Red Army as the true liberator, during the first months of occupation, and what is still happening to them in the Eastern sector.”
Thanks, Gerfried! On the point of Germans compliance, it's of course complex. I didn't mean to suggest that everyone supported the Nazis. The point is that if you were German and not Jewish, you had a choice to be compliant. Some assimilated Jews though the same thing, pointed to their war service or contributions to communities. But for them, living a compliant life wasn't an option.
Thanks, Katja! Our discussion is more about the meaning of the term "compliance". According to Webster's it means "1. a complying, or giving in to a request, wish, demand, etc.; acquiescence 2. a tendency to give in readily to others." This was not the case for the great majority of working class Berliners. They did not have the choice to stay or to emigrate; their life conditions forced them to stay and go on working. But I agree with Hannah Arendt that "it seems there is something in the Berliners’ claim that Hitler never entirely succeeded in conquering them." That's why I would not call them compliant.
As ever Katja you make us think. It’s yet another aspect of the history of the SWW that is hugely complex. As a Brit I hesitate to criticise the motives of anyone who resisted the Nazis. Whether or not we like the politics of Thälmann et al it took great courage to confront the Nazis. I saw the film yesterday (28/6/25) and was incredibly moved by the story. I knew vaguely of the Red Orchestra story but not the detail. The lead performance of Liv Lisa Fries (Hilde) was remarkable, she carries the entire film. Also worthy of recognition is Lisa Wagner’s portrayal of the transformation of the female guard Frau Kühn from stern functionary to human being in my opinion. And as you have said the Nazis are portrayed as full human beings rather than cartoon evil figures. We see them as mere functionaries carrying out their roles and duties without obvious violent emotions. I found watching the film quite unsettling, for me there was a pervading sense of foreboding. That could be because I knew the story does not end well. An extraordinary film.
Thanks, James. Frau Kühn was indeed a remarkable character. Glad you got an opportunity to see the film.
Agreed James , as a Brit it’s an easy choice, film will now be added to the list 👍
The enemy of my enemy is my friend - until he or she is not. Very fascinating read. Thanks.
I liked Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada. It examined the complexity of resistance very well.
We have to remember, too, that many—perhaps most—of those who became communists in the 1920s and 1930s did so because they hated exploitation, not because they loved dictatorship. So the human and thee political are not that separate.
Communism and Fascism…….Marxism and Nazism……Stalinism and Hitlerism……
…….essentially the same thing.
p.s.
Today we have people calling Donald Trump a ‘fascist’………and those same people have been shouting ‘from the river to the sea’.
As a historian, I disagree. They are not the same thing and saying so usually stems from political motives rather than attempts to understand these historical ideologies. As you say, people call Trump a fascist to make a political point. The same is true for saying Marxism and Nazism are the same thing. Even Fascism and Nazism are different in important ways, notably on antisemitism.
This could open up some debate , I’ve never understood why communism in relation to nazism gets an easy ride , the murder rate with communist regimes wins hands down and there has been plenty of examples, is it a British thing that anyone against the nazis is a good thing ? Which is probably how I first learnt history, there is no definitive answer both systems were / are repugnant. Could the answer lay in Poland ? They had the worst of both worlds from 39 to 89 🙁
The rediscovery of Stalin in Putin's Russia is particularly disturbing.
Currently reading max Hastings Armageddon, the snippets from eyewitness from that last year related to the red army is particularly harrowing
At one point you write that Hans Coppi's opposition to the Nazis was political. Is it possible to apolitically oppose the Nazis, who were a political party? That seems odd to me.
I'm willing to give Thälmann his due for standing up to Gestapo abuse. I take his actions perhaps with a grain of salt that he would have replaced it with a nearly equally repressive communist regime (without the full-on genocidal dimension), like Honecker did.
On thing that colors my thinking on giving credit to the communists for fighting the Nazis was the fate of the resistance in France. The communists were stalwart opponents of the occupation, and fought hard for the resistance. They were largely forgotten after the war, colored by anticommunism of the Cold War. Meanwhile many collaborationist policy officials of the Vichy puppet regime were exonerated of any crimes, and went right back to running the police, sometimes with horrific results. Please note the case of Maurice Papon, who after being cleared of deportations of Jews, got involved with torture in the Algerian War of Independence, then random killings of Algerian protestors in Paris during the 1960s.
Vielen Dank 🙏 für Ihre aufschlussreiche Berichterstattung! Das war mir nicht bewusst und ich bin der Meinung das jedweder Widerstand gegen Diktatorische Gewalt anerkannt werden muss! Sie leisten wichtige Arbeit!!
Thälmann “worked towards a violent revolution during the years of Weimar democracy”. This to me means he wanted to replace what was in fact the only period of anything like democracy that the country had known with an ideology that was, as was well known by then, to be brutal, as brutal as the Nazi regime tuned out to be. He aligned himself and his party with Stalinism and would, presumably, have instituted a similar regime in Germany had he had his way. His resistance to the Nazis was was self-serving rather than about the people of Germany. If fate had swung slightly differently, he would have been the one doing the beating and torturing.
Sophie Scholl and Hilde Coppi on the other hand had nothing to gain personally, no future dictatorship for them, but still tried to raise public awareness of the dangers of Nazism. That they were executed says more about the regime at the time, and it is more than likely they would have suffered the same fate under a Thälmann dictatorship. There never has been nor never will be a successful Communist, in the true meaning of the word, government, largely because those that claim to be communist leaders are just over-ego’d individuals who delight in telling everyone else how to live.
Well said 👏
Thank you, Katja, for raising the important question how communist resistance to Nazism should be remembered. In the former GDR, the communists were presented as the most efficient and convinced fighters against Fascism and Nazism everywhere. Things were more complicated.
In his book “Homage to Catalonia” first published in 1938 George Orwell drew the conclusions from his time of fighting in the Spanish Civil War by describing “the temporary alliance that Fascism, in certain forms, forces upon the bourgeois and the worker. This alliance, known as the Popular Front, is in essential an alliance of enemies, and it seems probable that it must always end by one partner swallowing the other. The only unexpected feature in the Spanish Situation … is that among the parties on the Government side the Communists stood not upon the extreme Left, but upon the extreme Right. In reality this should cause no surprise, because the tactics of the Communist Party elsewhere, especially in France, have made it clear that Official Communism must be regarded, at any rate for the time being, as an anti-revolutionary force. The whole of Comintern policy is now subordinated (excusably, considering the world Situation) to the defence of U.S.S.R., which depends upon а system of military alliances. In particular, the U.S.S.R. is in alliance with France, a capitalist-imperialist country. The alliance is of little use to Russia unless French capitalism is strong, therefore Communist policy in France has got to be anti-revolutionary. This means not only that French Communists now march behind the tricolour and sing the Marseillaise, but, what is more important, that they have had to drop all effective agitation in the French colonies.”
On 23 August 1939, in Moscow the German Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression was signed, an important pre-condition for the German attack on Poland on 1 September 1939. Until 22 June 1941, the German attack on the Soviet Union, Communists all over the world were prohibited by the Comintern leadership in Moscow to engage in any resistance against Nazism. It is alleged that the Nazis offered to the Russian Communists to hand over Ernst Thälmann to them, but they were not interested. Hans and Hilde Coppi started their resistance activities dutifully only after 22 June 1941. Therefore, my answer to your question how communist resistance to Nazism should be remembered would be: No myths, please! Tell the full facts!
May I refer to another aspect of your article. You seem to distinguish “non-Jewish Germans who had a choice to keep their heads down and live quiet, compliant lives” and the very few of them who risked their lives by rendering active resistance. I wonder if this distinction is correct. When I was a student in West Berlin in 1967, West Berliners were not allowed to go to East Berlin. I could go there with my West German passport. My landlord asked me to visit a former work colleague of his in East Berlin and said that man had told him once at the time when the Wehrmacht went from victory to victory: “Die werden sich nochmal totsiegen.” (Approximate translation: They will win until they are all dead.) My landlord told me that if he had reported that statement of his colleague to the authorities, he would have been put into a concentration camp, but he didn’t report on him. Conclusion: Not all those who did not go into active resistance were compliant.
Hannah Arendt, in her essay “The Aftermath of Nazi Rule: Report from Germany” (1950) had this to say about the Berliners:
“Above all, there is Berlin, whose people, in the midst of the most horrible physical destruction, have remained intact. I do not know why this should be so, but customs, manners, speech, approaches to people, are in the smallest details so absolutely different from everything one sees and has to face in the rest of Germany that Berlin is almost like another country. There is hardly any resentment in Berlin against the victors and apparently never was; while the first saturation bombings from England were pulverizing the city, Berliners are reported to have crawled out of their cellars and, seeing one block after another gone, remarked: “Well, if the Tommies mean to keep this up, they’ll soon have Io bring their own houses with them." There is no embarrassment and no guilt-feeling, but frank and detailed recital of what happened to Berlin’s Jews at the beginning of the war. Most important of all, in Berlin the people still actively hate Hitler, and even though they have more reason than other Germans to feel themselves pawns in interna¬tional politics, they do not feel impotent but are convinced that their attitudes count for something; given half a chance, they will at least sell their lives dear.
The Berliners work just as hard as other people in Germany, but they are less busy, they will take time to show one around the ruins and will somewhat solemnly recite the names of the streets that are gone. It is hard to believe, but it seems there is something in the Berliners’ claim that Hitler never entirely succeeded in conquering them. They are remarkably well-informed and have kept their sense of humor and their characteristically ironical friendliness. The only change in the people—apart from their having become somewhat sadder and less ready lor laughter—is that "Red Berlin” is now violently anti-Communist. But here again there is an important difference between Berlin and the rest of Germany: only Berliners take the trouble to point out clearly the similarities between Hitler and Stalin, and only Berliners bother to tell you that they are of course not against the Russian people—a sentiment all the more remarkable if one remembers what happened to the Berliners, many of whom had welcomed the Red Army as the true liberator, during the first months of occupation, and what is still happening to them in the Eastern sector.”
Thanks, Gerfried! On the point of Germans compliance, it's of course complex. I didn't mean to suggest that everyone supported the Nazis. The point is that if you were German and not Jewish, you had a choice to be compliant. Some assimilated Jews though the same thing, pointed to their war service or contributions to communities. But for them, living a compliant life wasn't an option.
Thanks, Katja! Our discussion is more about the meaning of the term "compliance". According to Webster's it means "1. a complying, or giving in to a request, wish, demand, etc.; acquiescence 2. a tendency to give in readily to others." This was not the case for the great majority of working class Berliners. They did not have the choice to stay or to emigrate; their life conditions forced them to stay and go on working. But I agree with Hannah Arendt that "it seems there is something in the Berliners’ claim that Hitler never entirely succeeded in conquering them." That's why I would not call them compliant.