Slideshows about nonviolence and nonviolent resolution of conflicts, economic alternatives, ecology, social change, spirituality : www.irnc.org , Slideshows in english Non-armed resustance in Europ during 2nd World War Nonviolence towards Hitler ? Civil resistance in Genmany Norway, North Europe Reistance against Jew's arrest France Factors of vulnerability.

1. Étienne Godinot
Translation : Claudia McKenney Engström
17.03.2015
Series « Towards a nonviolent civil defence »
Diaporamas 2
Historical examples
of civil non-armed resistance
to a military assault

2. Diaporamas 2
Historical examples of civil non-armed resistance
to a military assault
Contents
- During the Second World War
- In Czechoslovakia 21-28th August 1968
*
For information, other specific slides deal with
- Nonviolent fights against communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe
- Nonviolent resistance against dictatorships, political coup and terrorism

3. Diaporamas 2
Historical examples of civil non-armed resistance
to a military assault
Non-armed civil resistance
in Europe
during the Second World War

4. Nonviolence towards Hitler * ?
It is often objected to partisans of nonviolence that “if
the French people had been conscientious objectors
during the Second World War, France would still be
occupied by Hitler’s soldiers!”
1. But if all French had refused to collaborate with
the Nazis by organising a nonviolent resistance and
disobeying the orders given by the Vichy
government, Hitler wouldn’t have been able to
impose his will on France.
Photo below : the Righteous are those who took the greatest risks
to protect Jews during the Second World War
*on the basis of Jean-Marie Muller in Le devoir de désobéissance
(The duty to disobey).

5. Nonviolence towards Hitler ?
2. And what would have happened in 1939 if the
German people had all been conscientious
objectors towards Hitler ?
Nazism was possible because German culture at
the time had not produced the anti-bodies that
would have made it immune to the violent ideology
incarnated in Nazi propaganda.
Germans at the time were overly obedient.
Photos :
- Hitler in Nurnberg, 1938
- The National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (NSDAP),
Nazi symbol.

6. Non-armed civil resistance in Europe
during the Second World War
The reference in the matter is a book written by
Jacques Sémelin, Facing Hitler Unarmed – Civil
Resistance in Europe 1939-1945 (Ed. Payots, 1989).
Jacques Sémelin, born in 1951, is psychologist, historian and political
theorist. He teaches as the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris and is
research director at the CNRS-CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de
Recherches Internationales).

7. Civil resistance in Germany
The Nazi regime survived because, in its majority, the
German people did not know how to resist to Hitler, who
acceded power according to law, and did not have, as
was said during the Nurnberg Trials, “the courage to
disobey” the Führer.
However, resistance did exist. The first concentration
camps were destined to incarcerate German dissidents.
Nonetheless, and even if they were significant,
resistance initiatives were unsufficient to change the
course of History.
Photos: the Shoah (in Hebrew = disaster); the “final solution”
implemented by thousands of obedient actors, rested on tight
organisation and division of tasks.

8. Civil resistance in Germany
Some examples :
- Franz Jägerstätter, Austrian farmer, refused to join the
German army and fight for the 3rd Reich. He was imprisoned
in Linz and Berlin before being executed by decapitation in
August 1943, after decision by military tribunal.
- The Weisse Rose (White Rose) movement distributed
between 1942 and 1943 thousands of flyers denouncing the
criminal Nazi ideology and the Shoah in Poland. These flyers
were sent by post or distributed in big cities and in the
University of Munich. 16 members of the movement were
executed or died in concentration camps.
Photos : Franz Jägerstätter (born 1907)
The book by Inge Scholl (born 1917).
Cf. See also the « Photograpical chart of nonviolence » on the IRNC
website.

9. The resistance of the Catholic Church in Germany
On 9th March 1941, Konrad von Preysing, Archbishop of
Berlin, criticised during a sermon the program of euthanasia
inflicted to mental patients and incurables.
On 3rd August 1941, Clemens August von Galen, Bishop of
Münster, denounced during a sermon, the “assassination of
the mentally alienated”. Hs sermon was diffused across the
country.
Bormann requested Von Galen’s physical elimination, but
Goebbels, fearing Westphalian population would be lost for
the rest of the war, refused.
On 24th August, the programme was stopped.
Photos : Konrad von Preysing
Clemens August Von Galen

10. A much too timid resistance
“I believe that if the bishops had chosen to stand together
publically, on a decided day and during their preaches, they could
have stopped much of what we know from happening. That did
not happen, and it cannot be forgiven.”
Konrad Adenauer (photo above), in a letter to Bernhard Custodis, minister in
Bonn and deposed by the Nazis, 23 February 1946.
Dietrich Boenhoeffer (photo below) publically denounced the
worshiping grounding the Nazi regime on the day Hitler acceded
power in January 1933. He was one of the founders of the
Confessing Church which opposed the majoritarian trends in
favour of an alliance with the Nazis, or neutrality towards them.
He was hanged on 9th April 1945.

11. If mass resistance had stood up to Hitler…
Between 27th February and 5th March 1943 in Berlin, when 6000
Jews were being arrested, their “Aryan” wives (not Jewish)
protested in front of the Rosenstrasse building where they were
being held. On 6th March, the Jews were released.
These few examples allow us to believe that if an important
resistance had stood up against Hitler in Germany, History would
have followed quite a different direction. If it is useless to try and
rewrite history, it is important to draw the consequences.
“The Weimar Republic fell not because there were too many Nazis,
but because there were too few democrats”. Richard von
Weiszäcker, President of German Republic.
- Poster for the film Rosenstrasse, by Margarethe von Trotta (2003)
- Thomas Mann (1875-1955), writer, Nobel Prize for literature in 1929, exiled in
Switzerland in 1933. Anti-Nazi, he lost his German nationality under Hitler rule.

12. « Civil resistance »
According to Jacques Sémelin, civil resistance can be
defined as “the spontaneous fighting process of civil
society, using non-armed means, either via the
mobilisation of its main institutions, or via the population
directly, or thanks to both simultaneously”.
This concept is more neutral and appropriate than the one
of nonviolent action, which should rather be used when
referring explicitly to a nonviolent philosophy or strategy.
Photos :
- A citizen of Prague pointing the “Heil Hitler” to soviet tanks in August
1968
- The People Power of the population in Manila, Philippines, 1968.

13. Why show examples of civil resistance in Europe
during Nazi rule ?
- This period is actually richer than one can think in
acts of civil resistance
- Our western mentality can connect with those
historical events
- The circumstances are those of exterior agression
- This exterior attack was committed by a totalitarian
regime deprived of any ethical sense

14. The handicaps
of non-armed civil resistance in 1939-1945
- Contrary to a nonviolent civil defence, which would have been
prepared and organised long ahead, civil resistance in this case
was completely improvisée (organised)
- The efforts of allied powers and main movements of resistance
where orientated at deploying an armed strategy
- Civil resistance appeared in traumatised societies, wounded
and demoralised , whose governments had lost the war
- The extent of collaboration, namely in France, limited the action
of a minority resistance
Photos :
- Louis Darquier du Pellepoix (1975-1955), General Secretary for Jewish Issues
under Vichy government
- Maurice Papon (1910-2007), Police Secretary General at the Préfecture de
Gironde in 1942-1945, was found guilty of crimes against humanity for the role he
played during the deportation.

15. Forms of civil resistance
Non-armed civil resistance can be :
- at the service of an armed fight : food, assistance,
information, logistics, etc. The maquis’s efficiency highly
depends on the local population’s support;
- combined with armed resistance (ex : strike supporting
urban guerrilla or conventional war),
- independent, with its own dynamics, spontaneously
and pragmatically, but without referring to an elaborate
nonviolent strategy.
Photos : - the Lorraine Cross and Jean Moulin, symbols of French
resistance during the Second World War
- Sabotage of a railroad

16. Civil resistance in Norway
On 12th December 1940, the judges of the Supreme
Court resigned, thus signing the illegitimacy of the new
regime.
In March-April 1942, Lutheran bishops and ministers
broke all links they had with the government and
renounced their wages, as act of denunciation of the
regime.
The civil disobedience of 8 000 to 10 000 Norwegian
teachers in 1942 stopped the pro-Nazi regime led by
Vidkun Quisling (photo), leader of the Nasjonal Samling
party, and its ideology from infiltrating education.

17. La résistance civile en Europe du Nord
- In 1941, almost the whole population of Denmark wears the
Jewish star in solidarity with the Danish Jewish community. In
1943, it protects Jews against arrest: 477 out of 7000 are
arrested. The others are transferred by fishermen to Sweden,
neutral country.
- In Finland, the population and authorities openly take the
side of the Jews. None are deported.
Photos :
- The Yellow Star Nazis forced Jews to wear. La première mesure de ce type a
été décidée par le canon 68 du 4ème
concile de Latran en 1215, réuni par le
pape Innocent III, qui imposait aux Juifs le port d’un habit distinctif.
- Europe under Nazi domination.

18. Resistance against Jews’ arrest in Europe
In 1943, whereas the Bulgarian government is openly pro-
Nazi, Bulgarians (MPs, associations, the Orthodox Church)
demonstrate against the project to throw out 20 000 out of
the 50000 Jews living in Bulgaria and well integrated. The
government must renounce the project and they are
released little by little. On 25th August 1944, all anti-
Semite texts are revoked.
In Belgium, the Comité de Défense des Juifs (Committee
for Defence of the Jews) helps 25 000 Jews escape the
genocide.
Photos : -Bolgan Filov (1883-1945), Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 1940-
1943 and pro-Nazi
- Post-stamp l’effigie du métropolite Kiril de Plovdiv. En 1943, il menace de
lancer une campagne de désobéissance civile impliquant l’action de se
coucher personnellement devant le train de déportation si le plan des
opérations était exécuté

19. Sectorial resistance in Europe
- Doctor’s resistance in the Netherlands: to not have to
become a member of the Nazi Professional Chamber, and
following the call by clandestine organisation Contact
Medical, they gave up their doctor’s title and practiced
illegally.
- In Poland, an underground society created groups for
clandestine education, the Komplety, or secret universities
(Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow). 100 000 students from all
ages up until university benefited from this clandestine
education.
Photos :
- The snake of Asclepius, symbol of Medicine
- Clandestine education in Warsaw ghetto

20. Symbolic demonstrations
- 28th October 1939 : commemorative demonstrations of
citizens in occupied Prague
- 29th June 1940 : the population of the Netherlands
demonstrates its attachment to Prince Bernard, exiled in
London
- 11th November 1940 : demonstrations in Belgian big cities
- 3rd August 1942 : Norwegian population wears flowers as
sign of loyalty to exiled King Haakon and his government
exiled in London
- 1st May 1942, 14th July 1942 and 1943 : mass
demonstrations in France at the call of the Général de Gaulle
on the BBC.
Photos : - Prague demonstration on 28th October 1939
- The flowers worn as symbol of support to Prince Bernard in Holland
and King Haakon in Norway.

21. Civil resistance in France :
the protection of Jews
Whereas, on 16-17th July 1942 at the Vel d’Hiv, 4500
French policemen arrested for deportation towards
concentration camps 12 884 Jews,
7 policemen of the Foreigners Service of Central Police
Station in Nancy, warned 350 Jews of their imminent
arrest on 18th July 1942. More than 90 % were saved.
Policemen in resistance were not arrested by the Nazis.
The most plausible explanation is that it would have
advertised disobedience initiatives.
Photos :
- The Vel d’Hiv
- The book written by Jean-Marie Muller on the policemen’s resistance in
Nancy.

22. Protecting the Jews in France
Thousands of Jews were also protected :
- by the protestant community in Chambon-sur-Lignon (Haute-
Loire), animated by André and Magda Trocmé (photo)
- by the Imam of the Great Mosk in Paris, Si Kaddour
Benghabrit (middle photo)
- by the Portuguese Consul in Bordeaux, Aristide de Souza
Mendes (photo below), etc.
The demonstration of French Bishops* in August 1942 and the
emotion of public opinion, reported by Renseignements
Généraux (Political Information Services), helped slow down the
arrests.
* Bishops Gerlier in Lyon, Delay in Marseille, Rémond in Nice, Chassaigne in
Tulle, etc. and especially Saliège in Toulouse.

23. Civil Resistance in France :
the protection of Jews
In occupied France, 75 % of Jews have escaped
extermination, whereas in Belgium they are only 55 %
and in the Netherlands 20 %.
The proportion of French Jews saved from the holocaust
is approximatively 90 %.
Jacques Sémelin paints a contrasted picture of France at
that time : a plural and changing society where
denunciation coexists with help, where anti-Semitism
does not hinder small gestures of solidarity.
Photos : -The book by
- and the author himself, Jacques Sémelin

24. Civil resistance in France
- Strikes in the Mines of Nord-Pas-de-Calais from 27th
May to 10th June 1941: they denounced the working
conditions imposed by the occupying power but were
also highly patriotic.
- Resistance to forced labour in Germany, established
by the law of 16th February 1943 Service du Travail
Obligatoire - STO): dissidents joined the maquis or left
the department or obtained fake identity cards from
accomplice civil servants.
Photos : - Minors in the North under Wehrmacht supervision
- STO propaganda

25. Civil resistance in administration
-The “Infiltration of Public Administration” (NAP) by French
resistance did the latter a number of services. The idea was to
encourage civil servants to work without collaborating, in other
words, to obtain support and information.
- Danish police refused to arrest Jews in 1943: Nazi police
forces had to come from Germany specially to that effect.
- Brussels Court of Appeal strikes on 12th December 1942,
supported by the Bar Council.
Photos :
- Claude Bourdet (1909-1996) created in 1942 and developed the NAP network
in order to support the resistance: Prefects, Police, food supplies, Electricity,
Postal services, Railroads.
- Albert Chambon (1909-2002), chief of the Super-NAP network active at the
highest levels of administrative.
- Brussels’ Court

26. A few lessons from civil resistance
during the Second World War
The principal factors of vulnerability of mass civil resistance are
- collaboration,
- social division,
- repression.
1. State collaboration is a decisive factor of citizens’
collaboration (for example, the French law on labour in
Germany (STO) and makes civil resistance more difficult
(ex. : files handed over to Germany by intelligence services
and mining companies to break up the strike in Nord-Pas-
de-Calais, 1941).
Photos : - Pierre Laval (1883-1945), main instigator of French State
collaboration with Nazi regime
- French Milice (Militia), paramilitary and political organisation created by
Vichy government in January 1943 to fight against the Resistance, and
directed by Joseph Darnand.

27. Civil resistance factors of vulnerability
The political terror exercised by a totalitarian regime only
functions when it is supported by the individuals of the
terrorised society themselves.
Ex. : the Militia in France, the Oustachis in Croatia, the Sonderkommandos,
prisoners of concentration camps forced to take part in the murderous
process.
No power can obtain the population’s obedience only thanks
to sanctioning. For individuals to accept to obey, they need
to be rewarded.
Mass resistance in Poland was due to the absence of risk of
being on one side or another, of being part of the resistance
or not.
Photos: - Illustration of a Sonderkommando
- Ante Pavelic (1889-1959) and symbol of the Oustachis

28. Necessary cohesion to face the aggressor
2. The capacity for civil resistance of a population highly
depends on its social cohesion.
Norway, where civil resistance was high, was also a country where
most workers belonged to trade unions;
The Dutch clandestine organisation Contact Medical gathered most
practitioners in the country.
A society in which cohesion is weak, divided, in which
communities are mishandled will be more prone to
repression.
The more a society tends to cohesion, the less it will let
grow collaborating elements and the more it can resist to
repression.
Photos : Two resisting church men :
- Eivind Berggrav, primate of the Lutheran Church in Norway
- Joseph-Ernest Van Roey, primate of the Catholic Church in Belgium.

29. Civil resistance’s weakening factors
A system of shortage planned by the occupant creates
division :
- by feeding jealousy and competition between
individuals;
- by generating collaboration for economic motives,
corruption and black markets;
- by obliging the population to spend a lot of time and
energy in order to survive rather than resist.
Hence the necessity, in civil defence strategies, to reach
maximal food or energy autonomy of populations.
Photos :
- Ration card
- Citroën Traction Avant car with gasifier.

30. Making repression unjustifiable
Agressor
Victims Public
opinion
3. Repression counts three actors : the persecutor (or
aggressor), his victims and public opinion.
Repression against those who resist unarmed appals,
outrages public opinion even more than against those who
resist weapon in hand. It isn’t as easy to justify such
repression with a “they deserved it”.
Public opinion Mobilisation against the repression of innocent
victims inevitably destroys the political unity of the aggressor.
Photo : The massacre of 80 inhabitants in the Saulx Valley (Meuse, here
Robert-Espagne) perpetrated by Wehrmacht soldiers (not SS, as in Oradour-
sur-Glane) on 29th August 1944, was the result of FTP maquis resistance
who sprayed with bullets and changed the course of Nazi convoy.

31. Repression : the testimony of a historian
Basil Liddell hart, one of the greatest military historians of
the 20th Century, was able to interrogate, during their
captivity in the UK, German generals who had commanded
troupes in Europe, on the different forms of resistance.
He writes: “The Generals’ declarations revealed the
efficiency of nonviolent resistance (…). According to their
own declarations, they were incapable of tackling them.
They were experts in violence, and had been trained to
meet adversaries who used violent methods..
../..

32. Basil Liddell Hart testimony
But other forms of resistance disconcerted them, and
even more so since the means used were subtle and
secret. They felt relieved when resistance became
violent and when guerrilla actions came to support
nonviolent methods.
Indeed, it was easier for them to apply severe
measures of repression against both forms of
resistance at the same time”(1).
(1) Adam Roberts, “Lessons from Resistance
Movements”, in The strategy of civilian defence, Ed.
Faber and Faber , London, 1967, p 205
Photo : Sir Basil Liddell Hart

33. Resistances
In the different European countries, there was not only
“National resistance”, but also social or professional
resistance. Total Mobilisation of civil society is only the
product of an articulation and coordination of various
sectorial resistances.
Resistance evolves with time and changes according to
events, it builds itself : it was first spontaneous, then
organised itself and finally, unified.
Photos :
- Guy Moquêt, communist activist shot at the age of 17 in the
Chateaubriand camp
- Raymond and Lucie Aubrac, members of the network Libération-Sud
- The Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxemburg, resistance activist.

34. Lessons from civil resistance
during the Second World War (II)
- An important factor encouraging resistance was the choice
of military or political figures incarnating the legitimate power,
be they in exile or clandestine.
- Reconquering the minds was a constant objective of
resistance : via flyers, posters, clandestine newspapers,
radios broadcasting from abroad (London, Moscow, Alger),
etc.
Photos : three figures of French resistance:
- The Général de Gaulle’s call on 18th June 1940
- General Jacques Pâris de Bolladière (1907-1986), co-founder in 1974 of the
Movement for a Nonviolent Alternative (MAN)
- Germaine Tillon (1907-2008), ethnologist, she fought her whole life against all
forms of oppression.

35. The 3 efficient ways of civil resistance
1) Direct efficiency : the occupying authority is forced
to stop this or that of its projects. Indeed, the effects of
resistance can be measured : number of Jews saved,
defiant to STO, decrease in coal production, etc.
2) Indirect efficiency : increase of clandestine press,
mobilisation of new segments of the population,
increasing number of members of the resistance, etc.
3) Dissuasive efficiency : mass civil resistance
dissuades the aggressor from reaching his goal.

36. The 3 efficient ways
of mass civil resistance
The efficiency of mass civil resistance mainly depends on :
- the organisation or not of resistance actions,
- the state of mind of the population, in favour or not of
the resistance,
- the enforcement of legitimate power, favourable or
not to the resistance.
Photo : French Assemblée Nationale

37. The 4 levels of efficiency of mass civil resistance
0 - Members of the resistance are not organised, they have
against them public opinion and political power.
1 - Resistance is organised, but has against it public opinion
and political power.
2 - Resistance is organised, it has the support of public
opinion but political power is still hostile to it.
3 - Resistance organisations, public opinion and political
power act together in non-cooperation with the aggressor.
• Photos : - Maréchal Philippe Pétain : the choice of collaboration
- King Christian X of Denmark : the choice of non-collaboration.
■