German Work (TA)

The German Resistance is an organization made up of German-speaking underground fighters, mainly from Central Europe, as well as anti-Nazi Germans and Austrians.

Many of them sought refuge in France because, since Hitler came to power in 1933, Germans—including artists, scientists, political opponents, and Jews—had been leaving their country. After Germany’s Occupation of France in 1940, these émigrés found themselves in grave danger. Many of them went underground and joined the Resistance.

As early as April 1941, Artur London, a member of the M.O.I.’s leadership triumvirate, was tasked with establishing the TA alongside Otto Niebergall (a member of the Communist Party of Germany, the KPD) and Leo Langer, a member of the Austrian Communist Party. After his arrest in 1942, Artur London was replaced by Otto Niebergall, and later by Leo Langer and Franz Marek.

TA activists produce propaganda materials—leaflets, newspapers, and flyers—in which they denounce Nazi ideology and the absurdity of war. These materials are written in German and distributed in places frequented by German soldiers.

The TA’s second mission was carried out primarily by young Jews who sought to make contact with German soldiers and make them aware of the horrors of war. They encouraged the soldiers to spread anti-Hitler propaganda in the barracks and to provide intelligence. They also infiltrated Nazi agencies by getting hired as interpreters.

While it is difficult to provide a precise assessment of this “work,” it is clear that it has made it possible to gather valuable information—and in some cases, even weapons.

The TA, a particularly dangerous form of the Resistance that claimed the lives of many activists, stands as a testament to the fight against Nazism.