The German Resistance: Carl Goerdeler’s Struggle Against Tyranny

Carl Goerdeler was for a long time more than anyone else at the centre of the conspiracy against tyranny; he was in immediate personal contact with almost all of the groups and parties—and not only as a tirelessly active director and recruiting officer for the movement, but at the same time as its most productive mind when it came to working out comprehensive and mature plans dealing with both foreign and domestic problems. The German Resistance movement in its entirety can be surveyed very clearly from the vantage point of his biography. And conversely his biography is of historical significance only in the framework of this general setting. His work can be correctly estimated only when it is constantly compared with that of his colleagues. The history of the German resistance movement has hitherto been written predominantly in the form of a justification and defence against its critics, accusers, and apostates. Not infrequently it has acquired something of the flavour of a gallery of heroes or even of the lives of saints.

We are here attempting something else; namely, to attain, by a critical and sober study, a grasp of the historical truth, and beyond this to search our own hearts with a new understanding. For this purpose it was indispensable to depict the German Resistance movement against the background of international politics, so far as relevant sources are now available. Likewise, the development of the movement’s ideals of freedom and plans for reform had to be traced back into the time of the Weimar Republic. And finally, its development and the political attitude of its leaders needed to be appreciated in terms of the internal and external history of Hitler’s Reich.