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My intention in conducting this research endeavor is to satisfy the requirements of earning a Master of Art degree in the Department of History at the University of Central Florida. My research aim has been to examine literature written from the 1930's through 2006 which chronicles the lives of Jewish and Gentile German men, women, and children living under Nazism during the years 1933-1945. I was particularly interested and hopeful in discovering the various ways in which young German females were affected by the introduction and spread of Nazi ideology. My main goal was to sort through the features of everyday life to extricate the often subtle ways Germans rebuffed conformity to Nazism. And as the research commenced, it became increasingly necessary to acknowledge and distinguish the ongoing historical debate about what aspects of non-conformity are acceptably considered "resistance" among contemporary historians also analyzing this period. The original research questions I hoped to address and discuss were firstly these; Upon the arrival of Nazism on the heels of the Weimar Republic, how was Nazism received by German citizens; secondly, once Nazism gathered a contingent of strong support, what avenues existed for those opposed to Nazism?; and thirdly, in what ways did opposition, resistance, and non-conformance to Nazism manifest itself? This examination focused singly on efforts and motivations of German citizens within Germany, to illuminate reactions and actions of women and children; whether Jewish, Protestant, or Catholic because I feel their stories are often over-looked as being insignificant. This study further recognizes the contributions and great courage which manifest when faced with Hitler's totalitarian regime.

Adam von Trott zu Solz was a participant in the German resistance to Hitler and to the National Socialist government. This thesis will describe his early life, his education and his political formation. Trott's foreign policy initiatives in England and his efforts to reactivate plans for a coup d'etat during the summer of 1939 will be examined.

Kurt Gerstein entered the Waffen-SS in 1941 with the intention of working against the Nazi regime from the inside. Despite being required to participate in some of the criminal activities of the SS, Gerstein believed he could be most effective for the resistance if he remained in the SS. This thesis examines the evidence presented in and the results of three separate legal proceedings (a criminal trial, a Denazification hearing and a rehabilitation and compensation case) which took place in the 24 years following Gerstein's death in 1945. Each of the three proceedings was brought about for a different legal purpose, and therefore involved different laws and standards for judgment. However, all of the proceedings dealt with the problem of balancing the incriminating nature of Gerstein's means of resistance against what he had hoped to accomplish, or did accomplish, from that position.

This thesis examines the attempts made by Carl Goerdeler, Ludwig Beck, Ernst von Weizsacker and Adam von Trott zu Solz to obtain the support of the British government in their effort to overthrow the Nazi regime between 1937 and 1940. The circumstances surrounding each mission are detailed, including the degree of readiness on the part of the German opposition for a coup d'etat and the particular form of support sought from the British to increase the chance of success in each case. Consideration is given to the factors which conditioned the British reaction to the resistance emissaries, including the British foreign policy imperatives of the moment, important events in European relations and the attitude and degree of influence wielded by the statesmen to whom the German resistance emissaries addressed themselves.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

From 1938 to the outbreak of war in 1939, German opponents of Hitler made numerous contacts with the British government. While the information sent came from a variety of sources, most of the reports landed on the desk of Sir Robert Vansittart, the former Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office. His "internal-exile" to the position of Chief Diplomatic Advisor, as well as his personality conflicts with his successor, Sir Alexander Cadogan, and Lord Halifax, led to inefficient use of the information received from Germany. German warnings of Hitler's plans and ambitions, when listened to at all, were awkwardly and ineffectively incorporated into British foreign policy.

Thesis (doctoral)-Universität, Marburg, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 308-352).

Thesis (doctoral)--Freie Universität, Berlin, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 397-430).

This study provides a Benjaminian reading of Soviet Yiddish cultural and intellectual history from the 1920s to the 1980s and retrieves the legacy of Soviet Yiddish antifascist thought and activism as a constitutive element throughout its existence. The interconnected ideas of antifascism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism are introduced as important reading keys for Soviet Yiddish culture, for its ideas of ‘Jewishness’ and for its varied responses to the Holocaust and its memory – as represented in works of literature, film, theater and monuments. In attempting to ‘decolonize’ this antifascism and Holocaust memory in dialogue with postcolonial studies and critical race theory, this study makes sense of the Soviet and Yiddish cultural ecosystems with the help of Homi Bhabha’s notion of ‘cultural hybridity’ and posits not persecution and antisemitism as the ‘engine’ of Soviet Yiddish history – but its very intellectual engagement with, and activism against, those two forces in ‘rhizomatic’ fashion. As such, it contributes to the renaissance in research into antifascism in the longue durée and its links to communist internationalism. Besides illuminating a counter-memory of the Holocaust, this story about Soviet Yiddish activism and brave memory-work also uncovers the Cold-War-generated stakes of our postwar conception of ‘Jewishness.’ These conceptions have both needed Soviet Yidishkayt as their ‘other,’ and simultaneously silenced and forgotten it. Ultimately, this study hopes to reopen this archive of thought and memory as a repository of tools to be used in the current moment of rising transnational fascism as well.