Hate campaign against German people¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter from Socialist Appeal (October 1944) argues that Allied policy is deliberately engineered to prolong German resistance, thereby providing a pretext for a punitive, imperialist peace. The core contention is that the Allies—far from seeking to liberate the German masses from Nazism—want the German workers to fight desperately, even at the cost of tens of thousands of British, American, and Russian lives. The text identifies a vicious circle: Allied threats of dismemberment, indefinite occupation, and colonial subjugation (citing plans to hand the Rhineland to France, East Prussia and Silesia to Poland, and bits to Holland, Belgium, and Denmark) drive the German population into the arms of Hitler, which is then used to justify those very threats.
The chapter draws on contemporary press reports to substantiate its claims. A Daily Express article from March 1944 is quoted, noting that six million Germans were already homeless and that Allied pronouncements “huddle them together and deprive them of their last alibi,” leaving the population no alternative but the Nazis. Despite this, the text insists that working-class resistance inside Germany is growing. Evidence is marshalled from the Daily Telegraph (a revolt in Dresden, bodies left in the streets), the Journal de Genève (executions of civilians in southern Germany three times a week), and the Evening Standard (a strike by Saarbrücken miners on 23 September 1944). The murder of Thälmann and Breitscheid is cited as sparking strikes in Austrian factories, and Himmler is reported to have kept 2,000 planes in reserve for the home front.
The polemic is multi-directional. It attacks Allied imperialism directly, accusing it of establishing “Hitlerism without Hitler” through decrees imposing curfews, banning gatherings, and suppressing all publications—measures that protect the Nazi bureaucracy rather than destroy it. The Manchester Guardian is quoted cynically asking who else the occupying armies would turn to for administration. The chapter also excoriates the British Labour and Communist Party leaders as “smooth-tongued traitors” who slander the German masses and prepare to support imperialist repression. Stalin comes in for particular venom: Moscow radio is quoted declaring that the distinction between Nazis and Germans “will soon disappear completely,” and the text charges Stalin with going “the whole hog” in reducing Germany to colonial servitude, surpassing even Versailles. The chapter concludes by asserting that class solidarity will break through the imposed racialism, predicting fraternisation between Allied and German workers despite official orders, and calling for a socialist Germany, Britain, and Europe.