Keep this in mind the next time you watch a WWII film.

Most of the early resistance came from the left: in particular Socialist and Communist groups.

In Germany,  Gestapo records reveal that approximately 800,000 Germans in a population of more than 66 million were jailed for active resistance during the Reich's 12-year reign. Indeed, the first concentration camps, notably Dachau, built near Munich in 1933, were meant for left-wing dissidents. In 1936, a typical year, 11,687 Germans were arrested for illegal socialist activity,

For your honor and conscience! Against Bolshevism the Waffen SS calls you.

according to Peter Hoffmann's standard 1977 study, ''The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945.''

A. J. P. Taylor, the respected British historian,  declared in the 1960's that German resistance to the Nazis was a myth, his was a widely held view. Even today many people in Germany and elsewhere believe there was little internal opposition to Hitler.  Archives from Eastern European state security agencies which have been disproving this belief.

France during occupation was in the words of Charles Maurras, the theorist of reactionary France, the 'triumph of the true France' over Socialists, Communists, Jews, Freemasons and all parliamentary, democratic traditions which were roundly accused not just of precipitating defeat but of leading France to decadence and catastrophe.

Initially almost all Resistance was urban-based: it was there that the German presence was strongest; it was there that printing facilities were available for tracts and newspapers, and it was there that the traditions of working-class solidarity, revolutionary politics, and the educational liberalisms of lycees and universities were most pronounced. 

The movement was originally driven by an ideological opposition to Nazism and Fascism, which brought individual Communists, Socialists and left-wing Catholics and Protestants into the ranks of the 'dissidents', as Resisters were initially known. They all felt they had to do something, however small or impractical, to mark their opposition to the inertia of Petainism which advised the French to return to their private lives and leave the big decisions to Petain and Laval.

The cold war left out the role of the Socialists and Communists in the fight against Fascism, but recent scholarship is beginning to put it back in its rightful place in the study of World War II resistance movements.

At Last, Recognition and Praise for the Resistance in Nazi Germany - New York Times
The Resistance in France | History Today

Quote of the Day

The spirit of National Socialism was one of manliness, and individual self-defense and self- reliance were central to the National Socialist view of the way a citizen should behave. The notion of banning firearms ownership was utterly alien to National Socialism. In the German universities, where National Socialism gained its earliest footholds and which later became its strongest bastions, dueling was an accepted practice. Although the liberal-Jewish governments in Germany after the First World War attempted to ban dueling, it persisted illegally until it was again legalized by the National Socialists. Fencing, target shooting, and other martial arts were immensely popular in Germany, and the National Socialists encouraged young Germans to become proficient in these activities, believing that they were important for the development of a man's character.

Source

see also:

•  Adolf Hitler And Gun Control: What Did Hitler Really Say, And Do, About Gun Rights?
•  The Hitler gun control lie - Salon.com

A day late...

I've mentioned this group before...
  
The White Rose, who were executed 70 years ago yesterday. True Heroes.

The White Rose, was formed by students at the University of Munich in 1941. It is believed that the group was formed after August von Galen, the Archbishop of Munster, spoke out in a sermon against the Nazi practice of euthanasia (the killing of those considered by the Nazis as genetically unsuitable).

Members of this anti-Nazi group included Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Inge Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf and Jugen Wittenstein. Kurt Huber, a philosophy teacher at the university, was also a member of the group.

The group decided to adopt the strategy of passive resistance that was being used by students fighting against racial discrimination in the United States. This included publishing leaflets calling for the restoration of democracy and social justice. These were distributed throughout central Germany and the Gestapo soon became aware of the group's activities.

Several members had served in the German Army before resuming their studies. This provided them with information about the atrocities being committed by the Schutz Staffeinel (SS). Willi Graf had served as a medical orderly in France and Yugoslavia in 1941 whereas Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell had seen Jews being murdered in Poland and the Soviet Union. When Scholl and Schmorell returned to Munich in November, 1942, they joined up with Graff and began publishing leaflets about what they had seen while in the army.

The leaflets were at first sent anonymously to people all over Germany. Taking the addresses from telephone directories, they tended to concentrate on mailing university lecturers and the owners of bars. In Passive Resistance to National Socialism , published in 1943 the group explained the reasons why they had formed the White Rose group: "We want to try and show them that everyone is in a position to contribute to the overthrow of the system. It can be done only by the cooperation of many convinced, energetic people - people who are agreed as to the means they must use. We have no great number of choices as to the means. The meaning and goal of passive resistance is to topple National Socialism, and in this struggle we must not recoil from our course, any action, whatever its nature. A victory of fascist Germany in this war would have immeasurable, frightful consequences."

The White Rose group believed that the young people of Germany had the potential to overthrow Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government. In one leaflet, Fellow Fighters in the Resistance, they wrote: "Germans! Do you and your children want to suffer the same fate that befell the Jews? Do you want to be judged by the same standards as your traducers? Are we do be forever the nation which is hated and rejected by all mankind? No. Dissociate yourselves from National Socialist gangsterism. Prove by your deeds that you think otherwise. A new war of liberation is about to begin." The group also began painting anti-Nazi slogans on the sides of houses. This included "Down With Hitler", "Hitler Mass Murderer" and "Freedom". They also painted crossed-out swastikas.

Members also began leaving piles of leaflets in public places. On 18th February, Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl began distributing the sixth leaflet produced by the White Rose group. It included the following: "The day of reckoning has come - the reckoning of German youth with the most abominable tyrant our people have ever been forced to endure. We grew up in a state in which all free expression of opinion is ruthlessly suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA, the SS, have tried to drug us, to regiment us in the most promising years of our lives. For us there is but one slogan: fight against the party! The name of Germany is dishonoured for all time if German youth does not finally rise, take revenge, smash its tormentors."

Jakob Schmidt, a member of the Nazi Party, saw them at the University of Munich, throwing leaflets from a window of the third floor into the courtyard below. He immediately told the Gestapo and they were both arrested. They were searched and the police found a handwritten draft of another leaflet. This they matched to a letter in Scholl's flat that had been signed by Christoph Probst.

The three members of the White Rose group appeared before the People's Court judge, Roland Friesler, on 20th February. Found guilty of sedition they were executed by guillotine a few hours later. Her cell-mate, Else Gebel, said Sophie's last words were: "It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted." Just before he was executed Hans Scholl shouted out: "Long live freedom!"

Inge Scholl and her parents were also arrested and imprisoned. Over the next few weeks Kurt Huber, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, Jugen Wittenstein and over eighty others suspected of being members of the White Rose group were taken into custody. Huber, Graff and Schmorell were all found guilty of sedition and were executed.

Copies of this leaflet made their way to Allied territory and were republished and dropped by airplane on Germany.

(BTW, I believe one of the White Rose members had a gun when he was arrested).

The Pro-Gun Lie about the Nazis Disarming the Jews

Guncite


A more farfetched question is the hypothetical proposition of armed Jewish resistance. First, they were not commonly armed even prior to the 1928 Law. Second, Jews had seen pogroms before and had survived them, though not without suffering. They would expect that this one would, as had the past ones, eventually subside and permit a return to normalcy. Many considered themselves "patriotic Germans" for their service in the first World War. These simply were not people prepared to stage violent resistance. Nor were they alone in this mode of appeasement. The defiance of "never again" is not so much a warning to potential oppressors as it is a challenge to Jews to reject the passive response to pogrom. Third, it hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided.

The simple conclusion is that there are no lessons about the efficacy of gun control to be learned from the Germany of the first half of this century. It is all too easy to forget the seductive allure that fascism presented to all the West, bogged down in economic and social morass. What must be remembered is that the Nazis were master manipulators of popular emotion and sentiment, and were disdainful of people thinking for themselves. There is the danger to which we should pay great heed. Not fanciful stories about Nazi's seizing guns.

Valuable Nazi Rifle Turned in at Gun Buy-Back

ABC News reports

Just like a scene out of “Antiques Roadshow,” a woman in Hartford, Conn., turned in an old rifle to her local police station’s gun buy-back,  only to discover the gun was worth anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000. The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, inherited the gun from her father who had brought it home with him from Europe as a memento from World War II.

The two officers conducting the gun buy-back, who are resident gun experts for the Hartford Police Department, informed the owner she was in possession of a Nazi Assault Rifle, the first of its kind, that dates back to 1944.

The unnamed owner of the gun has left the valuable artifact at the police station for safe keeping.
“We did not take the gun in for the gun buy-back program,” Crabtree said. “If we took it as part of the buy-back, we would have no choice but to destroy the gun. We don’t want to destroy that gun.”

The owner intends to sell the Sturmgewehr 44.

This is one of the complaints gun-rights folks have with gun buy-back programs. But, it seems the cops were on top of it.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

German Occupied Britain

In the spirit that no one ever went broke from underestimating the intelligence of the American People, I present you with actual photographs of German Occupied British Territory during World War II.

This is in violation of the Official Secrets Act that I present these photographs and reveal the truth behind them. Yes, they are actual photographs of German Occupied British Territory which are easily found on the internet.

The problem is that the truth behind them has been hidden by the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States since the reason Britain fell during World War II was gun control.

The United Kingdom was the First Country to institute gun control on a large scale, which left them undefended and allowed for German occupation.

The United Kingdom Government in exile on Newfoundland was able to keep this fact hidden all these years. In fact, the reason that the Royal Family made all their broadcasts on radio rather than Television was that they were living on Newfoundland--not Britain.

But, were it not for Churchill's skill in persuading the US to ally itself with the Allies and a false flag attack on Pearl Harbour by the RAF, the US would have allied itself with Germany as this picture shows.

Perhaps it was due to this fact that not even pro-gun apologists have raised the fact that Britain was occupied by the Germans during World War II because of gun control as they don't want to admit that this fact almost led to the US siding with the Nazis.

Anyway, here are pictures of Nazi Occupied Britain which provide the shocking proof of this fact:



The picture below advertises the film: Seig im Westen, or Victory in the West, about the fall of Great Britain:



Of course, these are indeed real pictures, but will the pro-gun side be stupid enough to go about repeating that the Nazis occupied Britain because of gun control?

Nazi Stuff For Sale

via Media Matters

As a result, the Kentucky machine gun shoot, which is credibly billed as the largest festival of its kind in the world, exhibits the gun show equivalent of a split personality. The rent-a-machine-gun portion of the event is family-oriented. Fathers pay 80 bucks for their young sons to churn up the water of a holler pond with 60 rounds from a Heckler & Koch MP-5. Meanwhile, under the pavilion awning a short walk away, vendors hawk Joseph Goebbels propaganda and SS lightning bolt sweatshirts.

This spring, one of the hottest selling t-shirts at the machine gun shoot read "Armed Infidel" on the front. On the back: "Everything I needed to know about Islam I learned on 9-11." The creator of the shirts, Lexington, Kentucky resident John Lang, told me that he was inspired to make them by watching cable news.

I guess Fat White Man hasn't made it down to Kentucky in a while. He was very clear that there's none of that Nazi crap at the gun shows he attends.

Is Fascism Coming to the United States?

According to Naomi Wolf it's already here, almost. In a thought-provoking article the Star News Online describes the dire situation as Wolf sees it. (h/t to Patrick in California)

Comparing coups from the Nazis' rise to power in Germany to the Pinochet regime in Chile, Wolf identified key 10 steps in the fall of democracy. Among these: the invoking of a terrifying external threat, the creation of secret prisons, a rise in domestic surveillance, the harassment of citizens' groups, a crackdown on the press and the treating of dissent as treason.

It would certainly be hard to deny the signals she cites, but does that mean we're headed down the path to the kind of government control described so forcefully in George Orwell's 1984? Even folks who break no laws and have never suffered harassment of any kind have noticed the frightening and ever-increasing video surveillance.

The first video talks about The List which is ostensibly maintained for airport security. The second video describes how Blackwater has been mandated for domestic security work.

Watching these from the vantage point of Europe makes me wonder if I should come home to the US, change my stance on personal weapons and prepare for the upcoming fight or if perhaps I should move even farther away. What would you do if you were me? Do you think this is paranoia? Isn't there too much money invested in America's capitalism to allow something like the government taking over? Is it a valid comparison to say the US today is like the Germany of 1931?