Perspektiven auf widerständisches Argumentieren im ‚Dritten Reich‘

Resistance in the ‚Third Reich‘ was a mostly solitary and thus lonely struggle not only against the National Socialist regime, but also for being heard by the silent majority society. In addition to the various communicative practices of warning, admonishing, or calls to action, argumentation also played an important role. The task was not only to convince members of the majority society of the righteousness of their resistance goals and perspectives, but also to agree on goals and perspectives within the various resistance groups and in the exchange between these groups. This dual role of argumentation as a practice that is constitutive of both the group as well as the group’s identity makes this communicative practice an important phenomenon in capturing communicative conditions, circumstances, and paradigms of resistance to National Socialism. In this paper, these functional contexts are examined and the way in which arguments were used both to persuade members of the integrated society and to negotiate consensual principles and goals within resistance groups are discussed.