Germany: Jekyll and Hyde — An Eyewitness Analysis of Nazi Germany by Haffner Sebastian

Author:Haffner, Sebastian [Haffner, Sebastian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Published: 2012-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

~ Chapter Six ~

The Opposition

Let us, first of all, exclude every possibility of terminological misunderstanding. Under the term ‘Opposition’ we do not include every emotional distaste and hostility, however strong, to the Nazi regime. Of course, one can also use the word in this wider sense and designate as such all the hatred and abhorrence for the Nazi regime stored up in Germany. In this sense the Nazi regime has the strongest, largest, and most irreconcilable opposition of any government in Europe. But when we speak here of the ‘Opposition’ we mean only positive political counter-forces with a concrete programme of action and a concrete aim; political groups, however small, that contain, at least in the germ, a positive alternative to the present regime; people who can give a clear and reasonable answer to the question as to what they will do when the Nazis are overthrown and how they propose to overthrow them; people who have the will — not only the wish — to overthrow them. In this sense the opposition in Germany is dwindling, small, and unready. It cannot be said that they have made any visible advance during the seven years of the Nazi regime. As far as it is possible for man to judge, no practical result within a reasonable space of time can be expected from the Opposition — once more employing the word in its narrow and precise sense — in Germany.

It is impossible to live for a long time in the country without noticing the widespread disloyalty to the regime, the suffering, hatred, and rage, the individual resistance of millions. But it is indeed possible to live there for years without in the least perceiving the existence of the illegal Communists and Social Democrats, the German Freedom Party,[49] the Black Front, and the other even more microscopic illegal political organizations. All that is occasionally reported outside Germany as to the secret pamphlet-propaganda of these bodies, their organization of local strikes and acts of sabotage, is highly exaggerated. Such things do happen, but their radius of influence is so minute that they may almost be ignored in a general survey. It cannot be suggested that these underground activities play an effective part in normal everyday life. Who wishes to find them must search for them, so to speak, with a lantern; and even then they may elude him.

It is necessary clearly to realize this two-sided state of affairs. One must not deduce, as is often done, from the existence of widespread disloyalty, the existence of strong political opposition to the Nazis, or from its non-existence infer the non-existence of disloyal mass opinion. Both deductions are wrong to the point of peril. The fact is that the present German Government is undermined as is no other government. All the hatred that has accumulated under it is an explosive material that can blow up the entire State like tinder the moment the spark of a political idea alights upon it. But this spark is wanting.

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