German Resistance Against Hitler: The Search for Allies Abroad, 1938-1945

This book traces the many efforts of the German Resistance to forge alliances with Hitler's opponents outside Germany. The Allied agencies, notably the British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department, were ill-prepared to deal with the unorthodox approaches of the Widerstand. Ultimately, the Allies' policy of "absolute silence," the Grand Alliance with the Soviet Union, and the demand for "unconditional surrender" pushed the war to its final denouement, disregarding the German Resistance. Von Klemperer's scholarly and detailed study uncovers the activities and beliefs of numerous individuals who fought against Nazism within Germany. He explores the formation of their policy and analyzes the relations of the Resistance with the Vatican and the ecumenical movement, the intelligence agencies of the Allied powers, and the resistance movements outside Germany. Measured by the conventional standards of diplomacy, the German Resistance to Hitler was a failure. However, von Klemperer shows that many of the principles and strategies of the German Resistance, albeit ignored or overridden by the Allies during wartime, were to find their place in the concerns of international relations in the post-war period.