5 - From Reform to Resistance: Carl Goerdeler's 1938 Memorandum

Summary

Carl Goerdeler's attitude toward the National Socialist regime became increasingly critical after he resigned as mayor of Leipzig in April 1937. He recognized that his hopes for reforming the Nazi system from within were illusory, given the realities of that system. Especially when abroad, he did not hide his growing fears about the situation at home. Nevertheless, in the first year or so after his resignation he did not carry his criticism much beyond what he had repeatedly expressed in memoranda to Hitler since 1933. Goerdeler's critical comments abroad should not be mistaken for an attitude of fundamental opposition; rather, they echoed the spirit of those national-conservative circles who feared that a shift of power in favor of Nazi radicals like Himmler, Goebbels, and Heydrich was imminent - a development that might well mean the final defeat of Hitler's conservative critics.

The events of 1938 seemed to justify those fears. A wave of changes in personnel and organization within the government swept away the remnants of the regime's conservative and moderate facade and initiated a vigorous policy of foreign expansion. As a result, Goerdeler became even more disillusioned about the regime he had once hoped to channel onto a safely conservative path. So disenchanted was he that just before and during his second visit to England, in the spring of 1938, he even considered emigrating. Instead, he increased his efforts to secure foreign support for the opposition within the Wehrmacht command, a course of action upon which he and former chancellor Heinrich Brüning had agreed after a long talk in Brussels.