The Structure and Nature of the National Conservative Opposition in Germany up to 1940

The development of research into what is called 'the German resistance' or 'the German opposition' has gone through various phases.1 In the first of these phases research was centred on the proof of its factual existence, its activities, motives and political attitudes. This corresponded on the one hand to a politico-psychological need in respect of the view popularly held abroad of German collective guilt, and on the other to a need to legitimise the new state of the Federal Republic.