Resisting Empires During the Fascist Era

The era around the Second World War included resisting the Nazis in Europe nonviolently, as the Rosenstrasse protest in 1943, and violently, through the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt against Hitler by Count von Stauffenberg, although there were many other attempts. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer grappled with the morality of killing Hitler, and concluded that it was worthy of pursuing, although he died for his association with the effort. In India, Subhas Chandra Bose sought a similar path as Chatto had in the previous war, working with the Germans to undermine British rule, although Bose went a step further by partnering with the Japanese as well. Gandhi meanwhile spent much of the war in British prisons, though he had some maneuver room earlier in the war, and indirectly exchanged letters in 1938 with Martin Buber over meeting the challenge of Nazi persecution. African Americans were fighting a two-front war against fascism abroad and white supremacy at home. Violence inflicted by the Allied armies evicted fascism from power, although segregation remained in place in the United States. This status quo faced challenges as Gandhi theorized about a possible alternate model of nonviolent civil resistance in the future.