Why Hitler came to power¶
Core Argument¶
Why Hitler came to power
The imminent defeat of Hitler forces the ruling classes of Britain and America, alongside the Stalinist bureaucracy, to confront their deepest fear: not German militarism, but the socialist revolution maturing within Germany. The Quebec conference revealed that Anglo-American imperialism regards the problem of post-war Germany as almost as grave as the destruction of German power itself. Their response has been a virulent hate campaign against the German people as a whole, led shamelessly by the Communist Party leadership and echoed more cautiously by Labour leaders, all of whom emulate the racial doctrines they claim to oppose. The real purpose of the unconditional surrender formula is to prevent the explosion that will inevitably follow the removal of Gestapo and SS repression.
Every German worker knows that the trusts, monopolies and big capitalists organised Hitler and placed him in power. Rauschning, the ex-Nazi Gauleiter of Danzig, recognised that the expropriation of the Jews leads inexorably to the posing of the question of expropriating all capitalists. Hitler’s demagogic “socialist” coloration reflects the aspirations not merely of the German workers but of the overwhelming majority of the German population. All forms of capitalist exploitation and political rule have been tried and found wanting. With Hitler’s fall, the socialist revolution will be posed automatically.
The ruling class, profiting from the experience of the last world war when occupying armies fraternised with German masses, now attempts to prevent its recurrence through strict non-fraternisation orders and a chauvinist ideological campaign. The attitude of British and American workers to German workers can decide the fate of the coming German revolution, and thereby whether there will be a new version of fascism and a third imperialist war.
The Stalinists, who now cynically invoke Thälmann’s martyrdom, bear historic responsibility for Hitler’s victory. They devoted their main energy to ridiculing the Nazi danger and fighting the social democrats as the “main enemy”. They viciously opposed Trotsky’s proposal for a united front as the only means of smashing Hitler. Thälmann himself denounced Trotsky for demanding negotiations between the German Communist and Social Democratic parties. The Stalinists openly incited communist workers to beat up socialist workers, break up their meetings, and chase “social fascists” from their jobs and trade unions. The Young Communist organ The Young Guard propagated the slogan: “Chase the social fascists from the plants, the employment exchanges, and the apprentice schools.” The children’s paper The Drum urged: “Strike the little Zoergiebels in the schools and the playgrounds.” This fratricidal line, not the German workers, delivered Germany to Hitler.