"We examine at the actual activities of the rank and
file anti-Nazi militants, and in the process, we shall be rescuing the memory
of some heroic fighters who otherwise risk being lost from history".
Marilyn Moos & Steve Cushion
"Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands,
millions, you cannot leave for anywhere; there are not enough passports for
you. Should Fascism achieve power, it will ride over your skulls and spines
like a frightful tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only
unity in a struggle with the social-democratic workers can bring victory. Make
haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left".
Leon Trotsky
There is a common theme in most of the historiography of the
Nazi era, in that there was little or no resistance in Germany to the Nazis. A politically
led amnesia made it comfortable for the British historian A. J. P. Taylor to
agree with this lie safe in the knowledge that his extraordinarily inaccurate statement
made in the 1960s would go unchallenged.
There are some exceptions to this rule. The bourgeois media
now and again find politically acceptable examples of bravery and resistance. Hans
Fallada's novel Every Man Dies Alone, which was published
posthumously in 1947 is one such example. The novel was republished again as
recently as 2009 and reviews were generally favourable.
The novel is about a working-class Berlin couple who in a
series of handwritten postcards call for resistance to the Nazis during the Second
World War. The book has been adapted several times for film and television (in
both East and West Germany during the 1960s and 1970s).
Another example is that of Sophie Scholl. Scholl and her friends
opposed the Nazis, and when they thought that Hitler could not survive much
longer in office, they acted in the only manner open to them, they carried out secret
but directed action. Their goal was the mass movement of workers against the
regime.
Despite the limitations of their first protest, only 100
leaflets were distributed they reached thousands with their views. The state
reacted with a show trial, death sentences, and abrupt and immediate executions
as a public deterrent. Both Scholl and Fallada are not mentioned in the above book.
Both these examples reflect a strong interest in the era of Fascism
and a craving for the truth about history. However, any general reader
interested in this subject will have to search very hard for material that
counters the lie that there was no working-class opposition to Hitler after
1933.
Moos and Cushion's book should be placed high on the
reader's list of publications on the subject of opposition to the Nazis. The
book systematically records the extraordinary skill, bravery and selflessness
of millions of men and women who opposed Fascism in Germany and elsewhere.
Close to one million Communists and Social Democrats were jailed in Germany
between 1933 and 1945, of whom 200,000 were killed.
This book examines that resistance in two parts, one of the
clearly stated aims of the book is to counter the current historiography that
holds that not only was there no opposition to the fascists but according to
the right-wing historian Daniel Goldhagen the working class were "Hitlers
Willing Executioners".[1]
As David North explains in his critique of Goldhagen's book:"
The principal theme of Goldhagen's book is easily summarised. The cause of the
Holocaust is to be found in the mindset and beliefs of the Germans. A vast
national collective, the German people, motivated by a uniquely German
anti-Semitic ideology, carried out a Germanic enterprise, the Holocaust. The
systematic killing of Jews became a national pastime, in which all Germans who
were given the opportunity gladly and enthusiastically participated".[2]
Given that Goldhagen in a clear and calculated way went out
of his way not to mention to socialist opposition to the Fascists, you would
have thought Moos and Cushion would have said something about this in the book,
or other examples of right-wing historiography such as Hitler's Beneficiaries
by Gotz Aly.
It would be not very difficult to expose the lies and the
right-wing nature of this historiography as As North does in his critique of
Goldhagen he writes:" In Goldhagen's book, the socialist movement is all
but invisible. Not a single reference is to be found, in the course of this
622-page book, to Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Ferdinand Lassalle, August Bebel
or Wilhelm Liebknecht. Not a word is to be found about the anti-socialist laws
of 1878-90 implemented by the regime of Bismarck.
The Social Democratic Party, the first mass party in
history, which by 1912 held the largest number of seats in the German
Reichstag, is mentioned only in passing. There is no reference to the 1918
revolution or the uprising of the Spartacus League. These omissions cannot be
explained as an oversight. Goldhagen simply cannot deal with the German
socialist movement because its historical existence represents a refutation of
his entire theory. Yet without an examination of the emergence of the German
socialist workers movement, it is impossible to understand the nature and
significance of modern antisemitism".
Another strange absentee from the book is the leader of the
Red Orchestra Leopold Trepper. Despite mentioning the RedOrchestra very briefly
next to nothing is said of Trepper. Trepper despite the attacks of the Nazi's
and the Stalinist's remained sympathetic to the Trotskyists. Trepper expressed
his viewpoint very eloquently in his book he writes:" The glow of October
was being extinguished in the shadows of underground chambers. The revolution
had degenerated into a system of terror and horror; the ideals of socialism
were ridiculed in the name of a fossilised dogma which the executioners still
had the effrontery to call Marxism.
And yet we went along, sick at heart, but passive, caught up
in machinery we had set in motion with our own hands. Mere cogs in the
apparatus terrorised to the point of madness, we became the instruments of our
subjugation. All those who did not rise against the Stalinist machine are
responsible, collectively responsible. I am no exception to this verdict. But
who did protest at that time? Who rose to voice his outrage?. The Trotskyites
can lay claim to this honour. Following the example of their leader, who was
rewarded for his obstinacy with the end of an ice-axe, they fought Stalinism to
the death, and they were the only ones who did.
By the time of the great
purges, they could only shout their rebellion in the freezing wastelands where
they had been dragged in order to be exterminated. In the camps, their conduct
was admirable. But their voices were lost in the tundra. Today, the Trotskyites
have a right to accuse those who once howled along with the wolves. Let them
not forget, however, that they had the enormous advantage over us of having a
coherent political system capable of replacing Stalinism. They had something to
cling to in the midst of their profound distress at seeing the revolution
betrayed. They did not "confess," for they knew that their confession
would serve neither the party nor socialism.[3]
During the period covered in Treppers book Germany was
closer to revolution than it was to Fascism. It was only through the betrayal
of both the KPD and SPD that enabled Hitler to come to power without a shot
being fired. The criminal slogan put out by the Comintern was "After
Hitler, Our Turn!". The logic of this perspective was to lead the Stalinist
to secure the Nazi-soviet pact leading one of the main architects of this pact
Walter Ulbricht to defend it saying "the main enemy in Germany is not
Hitler but the anti-Fascist opponents of this Pact".[4]
The Hitler-Stalin pact was the high point of Stalinist's
treachery. During the early part of the 1930s, the Stalinists defended their
treachery and criticised Trotsky's call for a United Front. In May 1932, the
British Daily Worker "condemn" the Trotskyists for their policy in
Germany thus: "Significantly, Trotsky has come out in defence of a united
front between the Communist and Social Democratic Parties against Fascism. No
more disruptive and counter-revolutionary class lead could have been given at a
time like the present."
Trotsky countered this treachery and cowardice warning the
working class "Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions,
you cannot leave for anywhere; there are not enough passports for you. Should
Fascism achieve power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a frightful
tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only unity in the struggle
with the social-democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste,
worker-Communists, you have very little time left.[5]
Leon Trotsky was one of only a handful of writers who sought
to mobilise a still significant section of the German population who remained
deeply opposed to Hitler and all his policies. Another notable writer is Daniel
Guérin. Guerin published detailed work based on his visit to Nazi Germany.[6]
The book does not spend an inordinate amount of space
discussing the political issues arising from the rise of Fascism. However, it
is very good at what happened to the communists and Socialists who were in
opposition to the Nazi's.
The book catalogues numerous examples of the result of betrayal of The German Communist Party and the SPD. Thousands of German
Communist and Social democratic workers who opposed Hitlerite Fascism ended up
in the concentration camps or were murdered upon capture.
According to Gestapo records close to 800,000 Germans out of a population of more
than 66 million were imprisoned for active resistance during the Nazi's 12-year
rule. In 1936, on one day alone 11,687 Germans were arrested for illegal
socialist activity.[7]
While the state murder of six million Jews was a crime
against humanity, the Jews were not the first to be put in the concentration
camps. In order to carry out the destruction of European Jewry, the Fascists
had to destroy the worker's movement. While antisemitism was there from the
start, it only became the Nazi's central priority after the invasion of the
USSR.
As Moos shows, the resistance would take on a different form
from jokes, a satire to outright sabotage.
The most important and politically guided opposition came from the
Trotskyists. One example is the Dresden Trotskyists who passed themselves off
as an organisation of mountaineers in order to smuggle political literature into
Germany.
The Trotskyists played an important role in the
distribution of the paper Arbeiter und Soldat which agitated
for the fraternisation between French citizens and German soldiers. Martin
Monath was a founding member of the paper. In the 1930s he was an important
member of the socialist Zionist youth organisation Hashomer Hatzair in Germany.
When things became too dangerous for him to stay in Berlin, he moved to Brussels
in 1939. It was in Brussels that he joined the underground Trotskyist party led
by Abraham Leon. He went on to be a leading member of the Fourth International
in Europe. He was murdered by the Nazi's in 1944.[8]
One more important Trotskyist mentioned in the book is that
of Oscar Hippe. Hippe participated in the German revolution of 1919 and the
mass struggles in the years which followed. The events of the 1920s made Hippe
grow up very quickly from a political standpoint.
He quickly understood the treacherous role of the Social
Democracy and the increasingly Stalinist Communist Party of Germany. Hippe was
always on the lookout for continuity of political thought and found his way to Trotsky
and the Left Opposition.[9]
While the Trotskyists had a clear and correct perspective
with which to fight the Nazi's, the same cannot be said of the rank and file
workers of the KPD and SPD who were in many instances, going against the leadership
of their party.
Moos correctly condemns the KPD's and SPD's disastrous policies
during the rise of Hitler. Examining the actions of the Social Democrat Party (SPD)
and the German Communist Party (KPD) In
What Next Leon Trotsky said of the SPD: The present crisis that is convulsing
capitalism obliged the Social Democracy to sacrifice the fruits achieved after
protracted economic and political struggles and thus to reduce the German
workers to the level of existence of their fathers, grandfathers, and
great-grandfathers. There is no historical spectacle more tragic and at the
same time more repulsive than the fetid disintegration of reformism amid the
wreckage of all its conquests and hopes. The theatre is rabid in its straining
for modernism. Let it stage more often Hauptmann's The Weavers: this most
modern of modern dramas. And let the director of the theatre also remember to
reserve the front rows for the leaders of the Social Democracy.[10]
From the same book, he had this to say on the KPD: "The
errors of the leadership of the Comintern and consequently the errors of the
German Communist Party pertain, in the familiar terminology of Lenin, to the
category of "ultraleft stupidities." Even wise men are capable of
stupidities, especially when young. But, as Heine counselled, this privilege
should not be abused. When, however, political stupidities of a given type are
repeated systematically in the course of a lengthy period, and in the sphere of
the most important questions, then they cease being simply stupidities and
become tendencies. What sort of a tendency is this? What historical necessities
does it meet? What are its social roots? Ultraleftism has a different social
foundation in different countries and at different periods. The most
thoroughgoing expressions of ultra-leftism were to be found in anarchism and
Blanquism, and in their different combinations, among them the latest one,
anarcho-syndicalism".
There is no denying the importance of this book. It will
however not win any major literary prizes, not because it is not well written
or extremely well researched but because it does not fit in with the current
right-wing historiography that dominates current historiography on the subject
of the Nazi era.
Praise for the book should not blind us to some significant
weaknesses. You would have thought that given Cushion's political history, he
would have presented his account of events from a Trotskyist perspective he
does not.
While not openly glorifying acts of individual of
assignation and other acts of individual terrorism Cushion is not critical of
them either. He does not take on board the position of the French Trotskyists
during the war which concluded that "the terrorist act creates a barrier
between French workers and German soldiers, but no victory is possible without
unity between them.[11]
Another area that could have been better is the Some
Concluding Thoughts on page 305, instead of concentrating on Britain which at
the moment while not downplaying the threat of fascistic elements does not have
the same level of Germany. The threat of Fascism rising again in Germany is
real and should not be underestimated.
In the recent publication by Mehring-Verlag entitled Why Are
They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy And The Return Of
Fascism In Germany Christoph Vandreier explained "Among the masses, the
neo-Nazis are hated," Vandreier stated, pointing to the mass anti-fascist
demonstration taking place in Berlin that same day. "The fact the extreme
right can act so provocatively can only be explained by the support it receives
from the political establishment."
To conclude, this book deserves to be widely read. The research
is excellent, and the scholarship is groundbreaking. The book rescues from obscurity
the thousands of workers who opposed Fascism. The book should be read by anyone
interested in opposing Fascism today.
Published by (London: Community Languages in association with the Socialist History Society. Copies of the book can be purchased post-free from the
authors. £10 – more details from s.cushion23@gmail.com
[1] Hitler's Willing
Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust – 3 Mar. 1997-by Daniel
Goldhagen
[2] A critical review of
Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners
By David North-17 April 1997-wsws.org
[3] Leopold Trepper, The Great
Game (1977)
[4] Weimar in Exile: The
Antifascist Emigration in Europe and America
By Jean-Michel Palmier
[5] The Impending Danger-of
Fascism in Germany-A Letter to a German Communist Worker-on the United Front
Against Hitler-(December 1931)
[6] The Brown Plague: Travels
in Late Weimar and Early Nazi Germany-Daniel Guerin
[7] See-Peter Hoffmann's
standard 1977 study, ''The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945.''
[8] See- Martin Monath: A
Jewish Resistance Fighter Among Nazi Soldiers (Revolutionary Lives) – 20 Oct.
2019
[9] See - Oskar Hippe - ...And
Red is the Colour of Our Flag-Mehring Books
[10] What Next?-www.Marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1932-ger/index.htm
[11] La Verité, 15 March 1942,
cited in: Yvan Craipeau, Contre vents et marées:
1938–1945 (Paris: Savelli, 1977), p. 120.
