Authors Merilyn Moos and Steve Cushion kindly agreed to be
interviewed for A Trumpet of Sedition blog about their new book Anti Nazi
Germans which came out in 2020.
Q.Tell me a bit about how you and Merilyn came to write the
book. Why did you decide to write it?
Merilyn:
Both of us were involved in writing articles for a Socialist
History publication: Treason: Rebel Warriors and Internationalist Traitors, but
I kept complaining to Steve I needed more words. So he suggested we write a
book! This is a topic which also grew out of my family history: my father was
an active and socialist German anti-Nazi who fled and lived. But many of his
comrades did not, and I wanted to draw attention to the reality of grass-roots
German resistance to Nazism.
Steve:
On a cycling holiday in France, 20 years ago, I visited the
Resistance Museum in Tulle in the Coreze. There I saw a picture of a young
German communist who had fought in the local maquis. The more I looked into it,
the more German antifascists in the French resistance I came across. They do
not fit the standard nationalist received wisdom and I felt their story needed
to be told, particularly today when we are seeing an upsurge of very nasty
nationalism. I think we need to big up those courageous militants who put
socialist politics before the nation of their birth.
Q.The book completely cuts across current historiography
regarding Fascism and the Holocaust could you elaborate your opinion on current
historiography. I am thinking about books like Hilter's willing executioners-
by Daniel Goldhagen.
Merilyn:
The historiography of the Nazi period has shifted many times
since 1945. But the Eichmann trial and the increasing domination by Israel
overt the Middle East legitimated a new take on Nazism: that it was the Jews
who were the Nazis' main target and moreover, that most Germans, if not
perpetrators, were 'bystanders'. But even superficial research into the early
years of the Nazi Party reveals that from the very beginning their main target
was the organised working class.
Moreover, Steve and I unearthed a myriad of stories of what
can loosely be called the 'resistance', almost all of whom were killed, Their
stories were rarely told because the West German historians got sucked into a
Cold War narrative and the East German historians needed to follow a line which
did not always support the level of local autonomy of the anti-Nazi KPD members.
There has been a further shift towards seeing Jews as
'victims' which justified any crimes that Israel committed. In fact, with
minute exceptions, the many 'historical Jews' who were involved in the struggle
against Nazism did so as part of, generally, a Communist movement, and
sometimes, as anarchists etc, not primarily as Jews. The old adage that Jews
went like sheep to the slaughter is as false as that most Germans were
bystanders.
Steve:
Nationalism and an assumption of patriotism have always
dominated historical writing, but it seems to have got worse lately. This has
led to an irritating, sloppy style of writing that conflates the country, the
state and the population as one entity. Thus "Germany invaded
Poland", rather than "The German army invaded Poland on the
instructions of the Nazi government". I would argue for the need to
reassert the division of any country into classes with separate economic and
political interests.
Modern mainstream historical writing, when it is not just
old wine in new, post-modernist bottles, is still very much concerned with the
doings of great men; the only recent change has been to include a few great
women. I am much influenced by Howard Zinn's concept of People's History. Most
historians use the study of history to reinforce the status quo, Zinn's
approach is aimed at undermining the system by promoting the activities of
ordinary people who have chosen to resist the rich and powerful as well as
fighting for their rights.
Zinn warned of "attempts, through politics and culture,
to ensnare ordinary people in a giant web of nationhood pretending to a common
interest". Looking at those who opposed their own nation-state in times of
war seemed a good way to undermine the pernicious effects of nationalism and
patriotism. Such is the ideological power of nationalism that most people feel
uncomfortable with such treason, even when the country they betrayed was Nazi
Germany. My section of the book chronicles how German refugees contributed to
fighting the Nazis in France. From spreading anti-Nazi propaganda in the German Army and attempting to organise mutiny and desertion, through to extensive involvement in
urban terrorism and the rural guerrilla struggle. This is history from below
that primarily looks at active resistance originating within the workers'
movement, looking at the actual activities of the rank and file anti-Nazi
militants and in the process rescuing the memory of some heroic fighters who
otherwise risk being lost from history. An important part of people's history
is the history of ordinary people.
For example, Mendel Langer, a Roumanian immigrant worker,
was the leader of the 35th Brigade of a communist resistance organisation, the
FTP-MOI, which operated in the area around Toulouse in the South of France. He
was captured in February 1943. At his trial, the prosecutor, Pierre Lespinasse
said: "You are a Jew, a foreigner and a communist, three reasons for you
to be executed". Langer was guillotined in July 1943 but, on 10 October,
as avocat-général Pierre Lespinasse was on his way to Mass, he was gunned down
in the street by Enzo Lorenzi, one of Langer's comrades. The Vichy government
had set up special anti-terrorism courts in 1941, but Norbert Kugler, a German
communist exile of Jewish heritage, who commanded all the foreign fighters in
Southern France, developed the tactic of shooting the magistrates who condemned
their comrades to death, which had the effect of making it much more difficult
to find lawyers willing to serve on these sections spéciales. Such people are
an inspiration to me.
Q.The collaboration between the KPD and SA I knew a little
about it but could you expand a bit more on this?
Merilyn:
One has to be very careful here. Some rightish historians
use this 'collaboration' to suggest that there was little difference between
the Nazi Party and the KPD, a position we reject.. This is not an area I
specialise in but there are two levels at which there was some sort of collaboration: at the level of the Party
leadership and at a membership level. Remember that both organisations were in
general drawing from the same pool of people, especially the unemployed (though
the SA drew from the petty-bourgeoisie more than did the KPD). The KPD
leadership became frightened of their members or those close to them being
attracted by the Nazis and adopted policies to try to collaborate with them eg
over the Berlin transport strike. But it went right down to the level of the
membership and community organisations where, occasionally, pre-1933, Nazi and
KPD members would be working together. members of the KPD would join the Nazi
party just to be on the safe side (not against Party rules) and would pull out
the relevant party card depending on circumstance. In practice, this allowed a
slow slide towards the victorious, SA/Nazi side. As my father would remind me: 'Always
remember Nazism stands for National Socialism', a perspective which is proving
rather too relevant presently. Even after the Nazi take-over in 1933, the KPD
line was to enter the Nazi trade unions. Needless to say, this line of
cooperation was bitterly opposed by many KPD members.
Steve:
If we write off workers who are currently attracted to
nationalist ideas as lost to us, we are ourselves lost. We have to find a way
of winning these workers to adopt a class-first position. To me, collaborating
with right-wing nationalist, racist and fascist organisations is a road to
disaster. The attitude of the German Communist Party to the SA was a very
serious error, but the problem still remains - How do we win patriotic workers
to a socialist, internationalist position? By writing about the errors of the
past, we can hopefully not make the same mistake again. We shall obviously make
new mistakes, but let us not repeat the old ones.
As you write at the end of the book, we are once again
confronted with the rise of fascism in Germany today. Please tell me about your
analysis.
Merilyn:
Two years ago, I was invited to speak at a commemoration at
Brandenburg for the victims of euthanasia (T4) who were gassed there in 1940
(including my aunt). It was held on a patch of ground next to where the gassing
had taken place before an invited and very respectable gathering and I could
not make out why it was quite so subdued. Then I gathered that there were two
members of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) present, who had been invited
because they were on the local council.
The organisers were however upset with three uninvited
people who were standing on the edge of the gathering with their banner which
read something like 'Down with the AfD' and called over the local police to
move them away. So the two people I was staying with and I walked up to the
demonstrators. I had been the main speaker, so carried some 'weight' and the
police, observing me walking up and
standing right next to them, swerved away. I then confronted the organiser as
to why the AfD had been invited. The organiser shrugged and said something
like: 'All councillors were invited. What was I supposed to do?'
I tell this story because of what it reveals: it is not just
that the AfD was elected councillors, able to pose as 'mourners (and yes, they
did lay a wreath though it was their political predecessors who had murdered
the people we were commemorating) but that the organisers saw them as
legitimate, unlike the antifascists. Now, what period of twentieth-century
German history does this remind me of?
Steve:
The rise of PEGIDA and the Alternative für Deutschland is
very worrying. It is part of a worldwide pattern whereby authoritarian
politicians use racism, nationalism and islamophobia to secure their position.
These are often mass movements, although, at present, they differ from the
classic fascism of the 30s and 40s by, generally speaking, not relying on
organised gangs of thugs, at least not to the extent of the Nazis or the
Italian Fascists. But this is only because the working-class movement is
relatively weaker and the bourgeoisie has not been thoroughly scared by
something like the Russian revolution.
Of course, when they feel threatened they do not hesitate,
witness Narendra Modi's use of the fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
to smash up Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in January of this year.
In Germany, a combination of anti-refugee, anti-immigrant
and Islamophobic politics has given a considerable boost to the extreme right,
while the hand wringing of the social democrats has done little to turn the
tide.
Q.I know the book was published this year have you had much
feedback or reviews. Has there been any response in academia?
Merilyn:
This was a book written by socialists for socialists. We
need to remind comrades that even struggling against Nazism was possible and
that we must stop anything like Nazism ever happening again. We've had lots of
reviews in a variety of leftish publications, almost all glowing.
Steve:
Yes, the left press has been very kind. Given that the
bookshops are shut, this has been very useful to us. We had a series of
meetings planned, some of them organised by radical history groups, others in
higher or further education institutions. The virus has put a stop to these,
but we shall go for a relaunch when the current public health emergency is
over. Meanwhile, we are most grateful for the publicity provided by comrades
writing blogs and recommending it on social media.
Moreover, when the public health situation allows, it is my
intention to write to as many German and French university departments as I can
find to see if they are interested in the book and offering to speak at their
institutions. We are interested in taking the debate into the academic
community, let us see if there is a response.
Q.What are you working on next? Also, could you tell me a bit
about your political background?
Merilyn:
I am doing a short book on the anti-Nazis who got out of
Germany and came to the UK. My focus is on rank and file activists not left
bureaucrats. And not on the people who became famous. They have enough
publicity. But the rank and file anti-Nazis who lived here have almost all been
ignored. I have started to put a series of short biographies on the website of
our book "Anti-Nazi Germans".
http://community-languages.org.uk/?cat=3.
My parents never talked of their pasts, and I had to piece
it together for myself but I knew my father had been an anti-Nazi activist and
I was very proud of that. I joined IS soon after university and stayed in for
about 20 years.I also was very active in the further and higher education
union: Branch Secretary for ages, plus on varying committees up to the national
level. I was almost thrown out for running an anti-racist campaign for a
victimised black lecturer. Since retirement, I've been free-floating, though,
insofar as health allows, active in the UCU Retired Members Branch and around
anti-racism.
Steve:
I am currently writing a pamphlet on the miners' strikes in
Northern France and Belgium in 1941. French historiography spills a lot of ink
asking is these strikes count as "resistance". This is not my
perspective. I am looking at the class struggle in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais from
the perspective of the miners, engineers and textile workers of the region, the
history of their militancy in the face of German army occupation, French
fascist collaborators and skinflint, greedy employers. This is working-class
resistance.
I joined the International Socialists in 1971 but managed to
get myself expelled by 1975. Since then, I have been a trade union militant,
for 20 years on the London buses and for 10 in NATFHE. I am currently Branch
Secretary of UCU London Retired Members and delegate to Waltham Forest Trades
Union Council. I am on the executive of Caribbean Labour Solidarity and on the
committee of the Socialist History Society. I am a member of the Palestine
Solidarity Campaign and Unite against Fascism.
Copies of the book can be purchased post-free from the
authors. £10 – more details from s.cushion23@gmail.com
