ABSTRACT
Organised German resistance can be conveniently separated into two camps: that of the conservatives or right wing, largely represented by leading members of the army and of the German elite; and that of the left wing in which the outlawed German Communist Party (KPD) dominated. The strength of communist opposition within the broader frame of left-wing resistance is demonstrated in the available statistics. In 1936, for example, some 11,700 were arrested as against only 1,400 for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and associate groups. The adjacent graph for 1938-9 replicates the pattern (Fig. 6.38). The conclusion of a Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939 naturally stemmed the force of communist opposition. But after the invasion of Russia in June 1941, it again gathered momentum, especially as reflected in the communist press (Fig. 6.39). Communist arrests in 1941 totalled over 11,000, almost a return to the level of 1936 (Fig. 6.40). Ultimately, though, the communists had limited success in uniting or mobilising the working classes at large in opposition to Nazism. In effect, the KPD became an opposition in waiting, its ambitions realised only when Stalin's armies had over-run large parts of Hitler's Reich.
