An Honourable Defeat

The numbers are small. Scattered across the landscape that was Nazi Germany, the Resistance looks puny: too little, too late. Yet, in the context of a police state, it assumes larger proportions. For those who have never known life under such a regime, it's hard to grasp the daily terror that makes an act of political graffiti a capital offense, that labels resistance treason. Now, drawing on archival materials above all, here are the only people who had any plausible chance at more than symbolic resistance: those in the Army, the Foreign Office, the Abwehr. For these, obeying the dictates of conscience meant betraying the demands of government, & every day brought the risk of denunciation & death. Not many survived. Seen in terms of numbers, this is a story of defeat. But in the larger moral universe, it must be acknowledged as an honorable defeat: against awful odds & in appalling circumstances, these men & women kept the faith--a tribute to the power of human conscience.