Circles of Resistance: Jewish Leftist and Youth Dissidence in Nazi Germany analyzes
resistance networks of young German Jews and other young dissidents during the Nazi
dictatorship. Young German-Jewish radicals created an intellectually and politically vibrant
subculture in Berlin the geographical focus of this study. The youths analyzed here were
reacting not only to Nazi oppression: they were also driven to develop new modes of action and
politics by their estrangement not only from German society but also from the traditional left
parties and their post-1933 underground organizations and even from large segments of Berlin's
Jewish community where radical activism was often regarded as counter-productive and
needlessly provocative. At the center of this study are the Herbert Baum groups led by members
of Germany's Communist Party (KPD). While the Baum groups were the largest they were but one
of several resistance operations that were situated partially within the milieu created by
Communists Socialists Trotskyists and radical Jewish youths. Based on archival research in
Germany Paris Amsterdam and Jerusalem and interviews with veterans of the anti-Nazi
resistance Circles of Resistance analyzes the overlap of these diverse social and political
dimensions among dissident circles and offers a reconsideration of traditional thinking on
leftist and Jewish resistance and youth subcultures of the Third Reich. Circles of Resistance
will be useful for undergraduate as well as graduate courses on Jewish history Nazi Germany
and the Holocaust as well as courses devoted to the history of European socialism.
