here clearly resistance fighters; I wonder how you read that text.
I read it as common criminal activity.
Do you think that stealing, blackmarketeering and murder are not criminal activities?
They are crimes in any society, no matter what its political system.
I will list the items in the article that indicate criminality.
Steinbrück, who escaped from a concentration subcamp in Cologne in July 1943
Professional criminals were sent to concentration camps. The fact that Steinbrück had been sent to a concentration camp inicates that he was probably a hardened criminal with a long record, not just a juvenile delinquent.
The activities of the group began to gain momentum. They stole food and vehicles and sold goods on the black market. Later, they bought guns.[1] As the group expanded, so did the number and scope of the thefts. One particular heist was the Butterraub, the butter robbery. The first time, they stole a few quintals of butter, selling it afterward on the black market for 12,000 reichmarks, at a time when the average wage was 50 reichmarks a week. The second time, they stole 26 quintals of butter and got 123,000 marks for it.[1] Several people, mostly Communists, but also some young people, left Steinbrück over this because the activity drew attention and they felt Steinbrück's behavior was reckless, increasing the risk of arrest.
The criminal activities names in the above passage are:
- stealing food and vehicles
- selling goods on the black market
- illegal possession of firearms
- stealing butter and selling it on the black market at exorbitant prices for the purpose of self-enrichment.
It is noteworthy that members of Steinbrück's gang who may have been genuine political opponents of the National Socialist regime, eg Communists, left the gang because of its blatant criminality and psychopathic nature.
On the run, Steinbrück met a deserter, Roland Lorent, who had just killed a local Nazi leader and was also looking to hide. The two teamed up and conceived a plan to go on a "Nazi hunt". They stole bicycles and gathered weapons.
The criminal activities here are murder and conspiracy to murder. Killing a person because of that person's membership of a political party, regardless of whether or not that person has committed any wrongdoing, is murder under the law of any civilised country.
When they got there, they found a police guard. Both Steinbrück and Lorent opened fire, seriously injuring the guard. A member of the SA, riding toward them on a bicycle was also killed, as was a man wearing boots, whom they assumed was a Nazi. Later, they went to an embankment by the train tracks to wait. While there, they fired into a group of people, killing a member of the Hitler Youth.
The crimes here are grievous bodily harm of a policeman and murder of three people, one of them a juvenile.
In any civilised country, it is a serious crime to fire on and wound a member of the police force on duty.
In addition, killing persons because they belong to particular political organisations, or are thought to belong to them, is considered a hate crime in many countries, and attracts a harsher penalty than normal.
Note that the police captured a total of 63 persons, including 19 teenagers. Of these, they executed only 13, or about one in five. Obviously they executed only the worst offenders, the ones who had committed the murders.
It took much more guts for Edelweiss Piraten ( not or not mainly the Cologne group here)to resist the HJ and other aspects of the system - much higher stakes.
It takes even more guts to be a suicide bomber.
But suicide bombers are considered criminal in civilised societies, even though they sacrifice their own lives. What counts is the fact that they have killed other people.
by Helge on 31 Dec 2011 07:10 
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Depends on your recent history, ol chap... Any special reason for going 'off topic"?