One Day University

The heroic accounts of Resistance movements in France and Holland during World War II have long been told in popular lore, books, and film. But what of resistance activities within Germany itself? Did such a movement exist? If so, was it at all successful? The popular view is that Germans were either enthralled by Hitler or acquiesced to his concentration of power. Contrary to popular belief, there was in fact a German resistance. One important, but little-known group was called the “Red Orchestra” by the Gestapo. It was a politically and religiously diverse network — including Catholics, Jews, and Lutherans — of anti-fascist artists and intellectuals in Berlin as well as some expatriate Americans. Many of them penetrated the highest reaches of the Nazi bureaucracy, but tragically most of their early overtures to the U.S. and Great Britain were ignored. However, they provided intelligence to the Allies, disseminated anti-Nazi literature, and aided persecuted Jews. Using photographs, movie stills, and art works from the period, this course sheds new light on a forgotten chapter of history.

Anne Nelson is an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and an award-winning, critically-acclaimed author. She won a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2003 McCloy Fellowship for her research on the German resistance. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a widely published journalist and playwright. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Harper’s, Macleans, and many other periodicals, as well as on the BBC, CBC, NPR and PBS. Nelson’s play, The Guys, was also adapted for film, and her writing has won six prestigious awards, including the Livingston Award for international reporting. Her book, Berlin Underground: The Red Orchestra and the Culture of Resistance in Nazi Germany is to be published by Random House.