German Exile Politics [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520345911

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German Exile Politics

German Exile Politics The Social Democratic

Executive

Committee

in the Nazi Era

L E W I S J. EDINGER

Berkeley and Los Angeles U N I V E R S I T Y

OF

: 1956 C A L I F O R N I A

P R E S S

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS B E R K E L E Y AND LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, ENGLAND

COPYRIGHT, I95Ö B Y THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD N U M B E R

56-8473

PRINTED I N THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To My Mother

Preface

The figure of the political exile is an ancient one. Driven from his home by personal convictions or physical compulsion, he is neither an ordinary emigrant nor necessarily a refugee. Exile may be selfimposed or forced upon an individual by a hostile government, it may be due to foreign conquest or domestic upheavals.1 Whether a voluntary or involuntary exile, whether driven out by a native ruler or an alien invader, what distinguishes the exile from the ordinary refugee and voluntary emigrant is, above all, a state of mind. Hunted revolutionary or banished monarch, dissident intellectual or fugitive politician, the exile does not seek a new life and a new home in a foreign land. He considers his residence abroad strictly temporary and will not and cannot assimilate to a new environment. His thoughts and actions remain orientated toward the land he continues to call his own as he waits impatiently for the day when altered conditions will permit him to return home. His emotional and intellectual roots remain firmly imbedded among his own people—frequently to a greater degree than before his departure. In this sense, he ceases to be an exile as soon as he resolves to break the bonds that tie him to his native land and endeavors to start life anew beyond its borders. "Flowing over the frontiers, now in drops, now in streams, in various humours of fear, petulance, rage and hope,"2 political exiles are usually tragic figures. The history of ancient Greece and Rome abounds with tales of hapless outcasts, condemned to wander restlessly among alien peoples. The fuorusciti of Renaissance Italy, the Jacobites, the émigrés of the French Revolution—long is the list of the famous and the infamous condemned to live the bitter life of the exile. Names like Marx, Bakunin, and Kossuth remind us of the many would-be reformers and frustrated revolutionaries of

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nineteenth-century Europe who were compelled to live out their days as unhappy exiles in foreign lands. Relatively few exiles have lived to return home in triumph. Frustration, failure, and ultimate oblivion has been the fate of most. National struggles for self-determination and the rise and aggressive expansion of totalitarian dictatorships have given new significance to the role of the exiles in modern politics. Not only may they constitute the sole organized opposition to a totalitarian rule in their country, but it has been suggested by James Burnham and others that political exiles may constitute a succession elite for a nation denuded of native alternative leaders by totalitarian purges. Political exiles are usually the defeated, the victims of a more or less drastic convulsion in their homeland or a foreign conquest. In this age of democratic dogma and nationalism exiles opposing a native ruler—no less than those fighting an alien conqueror—denounced as traitors and cowardly fugitives by the government in power, tend to assert vehemently their claim to speak and represent the "true" will of their people. The element of legitimism has always played an important role in exile movements. While in the past exiles might claim to represent their people by virtue of divine sanction, the modern exile usually considers himself a patriot fighting for the liberation of his country from those he considers its unlawful oppressors. He endeavors to identify his cause with the national interest, not only to gain support at home and abroad, but to give himself the psychological support to survive the constant political and socioeconomic pressures pushing him to abdicate his exile status. Whether organized into governments-in-exile, national liberation committees, or "foreign representations" of suppressed political parties, modern exiles tend to insist that they represent their people's legitimate interests—as against the counterclaims of the government in power at home, "quislings," and rival exile groups. When I began work on the following investigation, I was struck by the lack of systematic studies of political exiles and exile movements. These recurrent phenomena appear to have been singularly neglected by students of political and social behavior. Most literature on these subjects is of a highly impressionistic

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Ix

nature, often disguised as "history." Exiles and former exiles have here and there sought to defend and chronicle their activities for the sake of posterity, but usually such works have been polemical tracts written by embittered men, full of recriminations and personal quarrels. They afford a valuable insight into exile life, but fall far short of objective analysis. Those fortunate few who returned home to resume positions of prominence in the political life of their country have tended to erase or obscure in their writings the more disagreeable aspects of their life in exile. With a few notable exceptions, biographical studies of the exile phase in the lives of prominent men have treated it as a relatively unimportant prelude, interlude, or postlude. As for that vast majority of unhappy exiles who never achieved prominence, history-as-written has assigned them to oblivion. Unassimilated strangers in the countries of their refuge, they were vilified, scorned, and eventually forgotten. They were the losers and failures who attracted the attention of few writers. If they did not survive as diabolical schemers in propaganda tracts dictated by their victorious opponents at home, they were not long remembered. Ending their days as tragic-comic characters, the ghosts of the past, their dreams and ideals went to their graves with them. This neglect of the subject of political exiles is particularly noticeable in the writings of American and British social scientists. No doubt, this limited interest may in part be traced to the fact that the phenomenon is outside the modern political experience of the Anglo-Saxon countries. But even those scholars investigating political behavior in areas where political exiles have played a more prominent role in recent times—not only the European nations, but Latin America and Asia as well—have shown little interest in the subject. Admittedly, the complexities of factional disputes and ideological differences among political exiles, the all too frequent hopelessness of their cause, the petty bickering and personal vendettas tend to discourage objective investigation. It is not a pleasant subject, yet it would seem to be worthy of more scholarly consideration than it has received heretofore. The following case study endeavors to describe the activities of a group of modern political exiles. It traces the attempt of the

PREFACE

exiled remnants of the leadership of a once powerful and disciplined mass party to organize from abroad a revolutionary movement against a totalitarian dictatorship. A secondary objective is to make a contribution to the political history of modern Germany in general and that of the German Social Democratic party in particular. Recognizing the unique aspects of this particular case study, it is my hope that it may constitute a contribution to a more systematic investigation of the anatomy of exile movements and the sociopolitical behavior of modern exiles. Incidentally, it may also suggest further studies concerning the role of exiles as alternative and succession leaders in this age of totalitarian dictatorships. The character of the Nazi dictatorship largely determined the character of the anti-Nazi exile movement. In accordance with our definition of political exile, the overwhelming number of refugees from the Third Reich did not fall into this category. The majority were "non-Aryan" refugees from anti-Semitic persecution seeking permanent settlement in other countries. N o more than about onesixth of the so-called anti-Nazi emigration, at most 50,000 persons, were "exiles," in the true sense of the word. In terms of numbers as well as organized activities against the Third Reich the exiled remnants of the German labor movement constituted the most important element within this latter group. Former functionaries and journalists of the Social Democratic and Communist parties and their various splinter groups, they represented largely an elite of the labor movement of the Weimar Republic. In addition to parliamentary deputies and prominent leaders of the two major labor parties, the anti-Nazi exile movement included "activists" and lower functionaries of these as well as minor components of the left wing of the German political configuration prior to the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship. Most of them were involuntary refugees who crossed the frontiers in order to evade arrest and death at the hands of the vengeful Nazis. Even where exile was initially self-imposed, it sooner or later became involuntary. As Thomas Mann wrote in his famous letter to the Dean of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn in December, 1936, his had become "an exile which it would be euphemistic to call voluntary since if I had remained in Germany or gone back there I should probably not be alive today." 3 Apart from a few

PREFACE

prominent writers and intellectuals, such as Mann and the theologian Paul Tillich, exiles not belonging to the left-wing groups played a very minor role in the anti-Nazi exile movement. That relatively small minority formerly affiliated with center and rightwing groups contributed little or nothing to the organized activities of the political exile movement. A few persons, such as Otto Strasser, took an active part, but there were no political organizations on the right and center to compare with those on the left. 4 The political life of the anti-Nazi exile movement thus revolved primarily around the various left-wing groups. Among the most important of these was the exiled executive committee of the German Social Democratic party, the activities of which form the core around which the following study has been built. T o appreciate the importance which ideological considerations played in the activities of anti-Nazi exiles, it should be remembered that these have always occupied a far more significant role in German, and particularly left-wing German politics than in the United States. T o attain some perspective among the welter of doctrinal and ideological arguments and to allow the forest to be distinguished from the trees, individual views, which sometimes differed in degree, have been grouped together as representative of some particular faction or school of thought. Also, inadequate or unreliable data have sometimes made it difficult, if not impossible, to be always as accurate and definitive as I would liked to have been. Thus, it proved impossible to ascertain the exact size of the various groups and the extent of their support both inside and outside Germany. Such claims as were made for propagandistic reasons proved to be quite untrustworthy, while the true figures—if known—were never made public. As I have indicated in a bibliographical note at the end of this study, my source material has not been as adequate as I would have wished it to be. Many of the covert and overt publications of the exiles were lost or destroyed in the course of their repeated migrations. Other data, poorly preserved by their custodians, have not survived the ravages of time. T o my knowledge, none of the leading participants in the German anti-Nazi exile movement has published an account of his experiences. An understandable desire to forgive and forget the disputes of the past has apparently silenced

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PREFACE

many survivors, particularly those who are today once again active in the German Social Democratic party. Whenever and wherever I could secure the cooperation of former anti-Nazi exiles I sought to supplement information gathered from other sources through lengthy and repeated interviews. I made every effort to check against other sources the information I was given and to eliminate such as I believed unreliable. For their invaluable help, I am particularly indebted to Friedrich Stampfer, Paul Hertz, Paul Hagen, Erich Rinner, Marie Juchacz, Hans Hirschfeld, Gerhart H. Seger, Rudolf Katz, Rudolf Leeb, Otto Bauer, and Hilde Walter. I remember with special gratitude the assistance of three men who have since passed away: Emil Kirschmann, Wilhelm Sollmann, and Alexander Stein. I am also indebted to Erich Matthias, whose excellent study Sozialdemokratie und Nation provided me with some data not previously available. This work, published as I was about to conclude my own investigation, uses a good deal of the same material, but for a different purpose. Matthias is primarily concerned with the evolution of German Socialist thought in exile, with particular reference to the concepts of state and nation. His is primarily an Ideengeschichte in the tradition of the German historian Friedrich Meinecke, while I have sought to examine the sociopolitical aspects of the exile movement and to study its anatomy. In conclusion I would like to thank all those who assisted me in the preparation of this study, particularly Joseph Buttinger, who permitted me the use of his excellent library; Boris Nikolaevski of the Labor Archives of the Rand School for the Social Sciences; Mr. Maurice Goldbloom of the American Association for a Democratic Germany, and Mrs. Agnes F. Peterson of the Hoover Library. For their careful reading of the manuscript in various stages of its development and for their trenchant criticism I am immensely indebted to Professors John H. Wuorinen and Henry L. Roberts of Columbia University, Professor Carl Landauer of the University of California, Dr. Edith Muir Link, and my editor, Maxwell E. Knight. Mere acknowledgment barely does justice to my wife's yeoman service. I am also grateful for permission to make use of an article I wrote for the April, 1953, issue of World Politics and to quote several verses from Heinrich Heine's, Germany, A Winter's Tale.

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xiii

(English version by Herman Salinger, copyright 1944 by A. A. Wyn, Inc. [formerly L. B. Fischer Publishing Corp.], New York, N. Y.) L. J . E . Montgomery, Alabama November, 1955

Contents

Chapter i

Prologue

i

FIRST PHASE Chapter 2

Organization

37

SECOND PHASE Chapter 3

Reorientation

65

THIRD PHASE Chapter 4

The Kyffhäuser

123

Chapter 5

The "United Front" Episode

145

FOURTH PHASE Chapter 6

Generals Without An Army

181

Chapter 7

Finale

205

Chapter 8

Epilogue

231

CONCLUSION Chapter 9

Revolution by Remote Control

247

Appendixes

261

Notes

265

Bibliography

301

Index

317

Ha! banishment? be merciful, say—death. For exile hath more terror in its look, Much more than death: do not say—banishment. # # # There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence—banished is banish'd from the world, And world's exile is death—then banished Is death mis-term'd.... SHAKESPEARE

Chapter i Prologue

In this historical hour w e German Social Democrats solemnly pledge our allegiances to the principles of humanitarianism and justice, freedom, and socialism. N o enabling law gives you the might to destroy ideas that are eternal. . . . W e salute the persecuted and the oppressed, we salute our friends throughout the Reich. Their constancy and loyalty call forth admiration. T h e courage of their conviction, their unbroken confidence assure a brighter future.—Otto W e l s in the German Reichstag, March 23, 1933.

The Legacy On June 23, 1933, the government of Adolf Hitler outlawed the German Social Democratic party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), the S.P.D. With a single blow, willed the leader of the "New Germany," its seventy-year existence was to come to an end. Hereafter it was to be remembered only as a loathsome cancer that had threatened to destroy the nation, but had been removed in the nick of time in the "national revolution." For four decades, until 1932, Germany's largest party, and for fourteen years the principal advocate and defender of the democratic Weimar Republic, the S.P.D. had been the most powerful and prominent representative of evolutionary socialism in the world. Marxism, which in the first few years after the founding of the party in 1875 had been of relatively minor importance, became official doctrine as a result of Bismarck's endeavors to suppress the growing movement betweeen 1878 and 1890. The determinist, eschatological doctrine of the class struggle provided the party leaders with the psychological cement to weld their supporters into

2

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a solid, militant opposition, deaf to the threats as well as the bribes of the "Iron Chancellor." When in 1890 the S.P.D. emerged from semilegality as the largest German party, its leaders credited Marxism with the greatest share in their victory over Bismarck. Economic determinism, the class struggle, and the inevitable proletarian revolution became the central elements of the party programs before 1914, and the efforts of the leading Social Democratic theorists were directed toward reconciling Marxist theory with the tactics employed by the strategists in building the S.P.D. into a mass reform party. For more than two decades the Social Democrats sought to reconcile their social-revolutionary and internationalist professions with their drive for political power and reform in imperial Germany. The outbreak of the First World War seemed to resolve this dichotomy between theory and tactics as the S.P.D. split into a patriotic social reform faction, the Majority Social Democrats, and a minority of pacifists and Marxists, the Independent Social Democrats, who opposed the "imperialist" war. However, after the war the new cleavage in the German labor movement between totalitarian communism and democratic socialism led to the breakup of the Independents and the return of the so-called Centrist Marxists to the S.P.D. Once more, the party strove to reconcile the Marxism of its official theory with its reformist activities, a task which seemed entirely feasible to the postwar leadership of the S.P.D. After the S.P.D. had emerged from its "heroic age" of suppression under Bismarck, a new type of functionary replaced the veterans of that period. The party no longer needed daring heroes, but capable officials, trustworthy treasurers, skilled parliamentarians, and clever journalists. Solid, dependable, and efficient negotiators, sensitive far more to the sentiments of the broad voting public than of the Marxist theorists, this new generation of leaders gradually moved from minor posts in party and trade unions into the Reichstag and the all-powerful executive committee. The party split in the First World War placed these men in complete control of the S.P.D., and the collapse of the imperial system in 1918 unexpectedly put them at the head of their defeated country. Their plans for a gradual reformation of the monarchy were shattered as power was thrust into their inexperienced hands. Uncertain regarding its own course of action, but determined to preserve order until a

PROLOGUE

3

popularly elected assembly could express the will of the people, the Social Democratic leadership refused to sanction a "proletarian revolution" and crushed its radical advocates by force. When the elections of 1919 yielded the S.P.D. only 38 per cent of the popular vote, its leaders formed a coalition government with the nonSocialist parties. This "Weimar Coalition" drafted an ultrademocratic constitution and made peace at Versailles. Though complete power had been theirs for only a few weeks, these Social Democratic leaders considered themselves the principal founding fathers and guardians of the new democratic state. This claim was accepted by its opponents who made the S.P.D. the principal target of their attacks. Throughout the fourteen years of the Weimar Republic, social democracy had to contend with the undying hostility of the Communists, who accused it of treason to the proletariat, as well as extreme nationalists, who charged that it had betrayed the fatherland. At the same time, repeated threats against the republican state led the Social Democratic leadership on numerous occasions to agree to political as well as economic actions by non-Socialist governments which were fundamentally distasteful to the leaders, yet seemed justifiable to them as the "lesser evil" in comparison with a dictatorship of the extreme right or left. In foreign affairs, the S.P.D. leaders loyally supported a policy of peace and reconciliation with Germany's former enemies and claimed as their own Stresemann's policy of "fulfilling" the terms of Versailles in order to achieve their eventual revision. This "Realpolitik" came under increasingly severe attack, not only from Nazis and Communists, but from critics within the ranks of the S.P.D. itself. But the national leadership insisted to the end that such sacrifices as they agreed to make in the name of the S.P.D. were necessary to save the Weimar state. The Social Democratic leaders maintained that the democratic Weimar Republic formed the essential basis for the Socialist reconstruction of German society. The trend toward increasing state control of social and economic life was welcomed by them as a development in the right direction. The same was said of a series of social-welfare measures, such as the Old Age Pension Act of 1923 and the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1927, which were passed under Social Democratic pressure or auspices on the national, state,

4

PROLOGUE

and municipal level. As before the war, the party theorists sought to reconcile reformist practice with Marxist theory. The emergence of the German Communist party (K.P.D.), with its claim to a monopoly on Marxist ideology, as a rather successful rival for the support of the workers, compelled the S.P.D. to adhere to its Marxist heritage, though many Marxist revolutionary tenets no longer fitted the party's changed role in the state. While the party leaders accepted and defended a state which was not Socialist, the party theorists supported this position by claiming that the democratic republic was the only possible framework for a peaceful "class struggle" at the polls which eventually would bring a "proletarian" majority to power in accordance with the laws of dialectical materialism. Though the role of the party had changed drastically after the war, the seasoned trade-union secretaries and party functionaries who led it during the Weimar period retained the outlook and practices which they had come to esteem in prewar days. Accustomed to peaceful bargaining for political and economic advantages, they were convinced that Social Democrats owed their gains under the empire to "realistic," but law-abiding tactics. The Weimar Constitution expressed their faith in liberal democracy and the innate rationality and goodness of man. The emasculated Marxism of Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, and Rudolf Hilferding seemed to the leaders of the Social Democratic party entirely reconcilable with liberal humanism. Firm believers in the perfectibility of man and unlimited progress, they credited the "mature" German with sufficient good sense and social consciousness to understand, once properly enlightened, that capitalism was not only economically inefficient, but morally repugnant and the source of insecurity and irrationality. Germany, as an "advanced civilization," would show the evolutionary socialist way to universal peace and happiness. Within the framework of the democratic state the Social Democratic leaders expected to gather around disciplined and socially conscious workers a "proletarian" majority. The assumption of power by this "proletariat" would be a democratic process and would come in time in accordance with the laws of economic determinism. The peaceful "class struggle" was believed to be a matter of educating the electorate to support the Social Demo-

PROLOGUE

5

cratic party and extending economic and social democracy through the welfare state until a Social Democratic government could supervise the "transition" to the "classless" millennium.1 The administrators and parliamentarians who led the S.P.D. considered collegial leadership by a little-known executive committee more democratic than the monocratic rule which August Bebel had exercised before the war. Mature, reasonable, and sober men were declared to be of greater value to the movement than charismatic leaders and spellbinders who appealed to the irrational man. Thus Hermann Miiller, party chairman from 1919 to 1930 and twice German chancellor, was approvingly characterized by one of his close associates as a "fanatical anti-illusionist."2 The cause, not personalities, was thought to be of principal importance. The proportional-representation list system assured such leaders safe seats in the Reichstag where it was believed that experts in parliamentary maneuvering and social and economic legislation were needed more than brilliant orators. However, the postwar generation of German voters failed to live up to the optimistic expectations of the Social Democratic leaders who had insisted in 1919 that the voting age be lowered from 25 to 20 years. A growing number of German youths rejected liberal humanism and democratic socialism as old-fashioned and incapable of curing what they conceived to be a "sick" society. From the early turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, through inflation and into the depression, a romantic and collectivist rejection of what they called "the tyranny of materialism" and the conflict of "selfish" interest parties ruled by machine bosses, led these young Germans to the extremist movements. Nazis and Communists wooed them with the image of a new, collectivist order, free of the misery, exploitation, and injustice which was attributed to the "Weimar System." T o the Social Democratic leaders, men in their fifties who had grown up in an entirely different intellectual and social climate, these sentiments appeared to be "irrational" and childish, and they did their best to discourage and disparage them. Preferring the backing of men and women who shared their own outlook on life, the Social Democratic leaders were not overly disturbed by their failure to find favor with the younger generation.3 Until 1930, the overwhelming majority of the latter did not express their views at

6

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the polls. That year, the postwar generation of German voters turned out in force to vote for the extremists and give Hitler his first great electoral victory.4 The economic and political crisis of the early 'thirties led certain elements in the S.P.D., most of them intellectual, to demand changes in its strategy and tactics. A left wing of radical Marxists wanted the party to wage a militant class struggle, possibly in league with the Communists, and bitterly denounced the party leaders for cooperating with the "bourgeoisie."5 On the other hand, a number of young reformists rejected revolutionary Marxism as well as the democratic liberalism of the party leadership. They demanded that the party appeal to youth and to the truly "national Socialist" elements among the Nazis by "capturing their imagination" with a dynamic, democratic, patriotic, Socialist program of its own. They proposed to outdo Hitler in the realm of propaganda by substituting emotional appeals and manipulative techniques for the logical and rational approach of the party leaders. The leadership was declared to be superannuated and asked to yield to "new forces that have not yet been worn out." 6 The party leaders refused to make any concessions. They were contemptuous of the extremists' propaganda techniques which they held might be of interest to psychiatrists, but not to politicians. The left wingers were thought to skirt dangerously close to the party's bitterest enemies, the Communists. Suggestions that Social Democrats yield to the nationalist and irrational passions which gripped the distracted supporters of the Nazis only alarmed the older party leaders. The young reformists were told that they placed far too much importance on youth, emotions, and irrational appeals. Like the rest of the younger generation, they were considered rather erratic and unstable, all too eager to seize the helm and do away with ideas and tactics which had stood the test of time.7 In complete control of the powerful party organization, the leadership succeeded in denying to its critics the more important posts and silenced them by enforcing party discipline or expelling them. The principal party positions did not change hands throughout the Republican era. Younger men who aspired to them were told to follow in their elders' footsteps, gradually working their way up the hierarchy by loyal service to the party and its leaders.8

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7

The leaders of the S.P.D. attributed the Nazi and Communist electoral gains of the early 'thirties to mass unemployment and general misery caused by the economic crisis which had begun in 1930. Their hopes were fixed upon world economic recovery, the upturn of the business cycle in Germany, and therewith a return to political sanity and stability. The party leadership conceived its task, in the words of Otto Braun, as helping to "steer the heavily listing ship of state between the Scylla of fascism and the Charybdis of bolshevism into the calm sea of economic reconstruction and political reform."9 Accordingly, the S.P.D. "tolerated" the "reactionary" Briining government as the "lesser evil" and supported Field Marshal von Hindenburg in his contest for the presidency with Hitler in 1932. "It was no love match for either partner," wrote Friedrich Stampfer, "but a marriage of convenience."10 This temporizing "Realpolitik" was dealt a tremendous blow when, soon after his reelection, von Hindenburg dismissed Chancellor Briining and replaced him with von Papen, who, in a bloodless coup, immediately seized control of the S.P.D. stronghold, Prussia. The state's government, led by the Social Democrats Braun and Severing, yielded under protest and took its case into court. The S.P.D. leaders declared that they could not sanction overt resistance to the so-called Rape of Prussia since such action would lead to a blood bath among their followers and the annihilation of the last mainstay of German democracy, a million-member Social Democratic movement, supported by seven million voters. When later there were some signs of an approaching upturn in the business cycle and when, moreover, the election of November, 1932, brought a decline in Nazi strength, a majority of the S.P.D. leaders apparently gained new hope that "reason" was about to return to the political scene and assure the survival of the democratic system.11 The Road into Exile The appointment of Adolf Hitler to the German chancellorship on January 30, 1933, presented the leaders of social democracy with a grave challenge as the new Nationalist and National Socialist coalition ministry consisted of avowed enemies of the Weimar Republic and its defenders. Apparently they did not quite know

8

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what to expect next.12 Rudolf Breitscheid, leader of the S.P.D. Reichstag delegation told a meeting of the party leaders that the Hitler government represented the last vain effort of "monopoly capitalism" to stave off the inevitable victory of democratic socialism. "The reactionaries have played their last card by calling out their fascist mercenaries," he maintained.1® A manifesto drafted at the meeting appeared over the signature of the principal party leaders on the front pages of all Social Democratic papers throughout Germany the following morning. "The enemies of the working class . . . have united in a cartel of reactionary big capitalist and agrarian interests to wage joint battle against the working class," it announced. "We stand ready to use every means to ward off any attack upon the political and social rights of the people, guaranteed to them by the Constitution and by law. Any attempt by the government to pervert or violate the Constitution will be met by the utmost resistance of the working class and all liberty-loving people." 14 The leaders of the General Confederation of Labor and the Reichsbanner, the Republican paramilitary organization, informed the S.P.D. leaders, "If you call upon us we shall be ready." "The working class," announced Franz Kiinstler, leader of the Berlin S.P.D., "is ready to mount the barricades to defend its constitutional rights."15 However, Hermann Goring assured his cabinet colleagues that the Social Democrats would mount nothing more than the rostrum of the Reichstag.18 "The majority of our supporters expected overt resistance," Paul Lobe was to recall, "but the leaders were convinced that the blood bath which was certain to follow would be utterly futile." 17 Their efforts to receive assurances from the army leadership that it would resist a Hitler dictatorship "by force of arms" were unsuccessful.18 The party leaders feared that Hitler was only waiting for a "legal" pretext to use the power of the state to crush the S.P.D. He had been appointed legitimately and constitutionally by the chief of state as the leader of the largest party in the legislature; "to rise against him on the first night would make the rebels the technical violators of the Constitution they wanted to defend."19 Not only did the S.P.D. leaders expect to be beaten in such a contest, but, as Stampfer wrote later, "a yearning for bloody adventures was completely alien to them. The Social Democratic party had

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for decades believed in peaceful evolution, rational judgment, [and] non-violent compromise," and extraparliamentary action would have been a denial of its true nature.20 The S.P.D. leadership announced that it would leave to the new government "all responsibility for starting a conflict in which both sides would abandon the normal weapons of political action." It refused to be the first to discard constitutional and legal means. A Communist call for "united proletarian action" and a general strike against the government were promptly rejected. The party and trade-union leaders recalled that the Communists had sought many times to use a "united front" to take over the S.P.D. and the General Confederation of Labor and received the appeal with utter distrust, product of bitter experience of years of conflict between the two "proletarian" parties. They feared that either the Communists or the Nazis would assume control of the Social Democratic workers as soon as a general strike was declared. Undiminished Communist attacks upon the "social fascist" leaders did not help to dispel their suspicions. Utmost restraint despite Nazi provocations appeared essential. The leadership conceded that a general strike would be a legal weapon and "a hundred times justified to defend the liberties of the people and the social and political rights of the working class," but maintained that tactical common sense advised keeping this weapon in reserve "so that the decisive moment will not find the workers already exhausted." Both S.P.D. and trade-union leaders warned that "a general strike at this moment would simply be firing the ammunition of the working class foolishly into the air," and asked their followers not to allow themselves to be misled into "precipitate and, therefore, harmful, isolated actions." Coolness, resolution, discipline, and, above all, unity, were declared to be the watchwords of the hour.21 On February i the government announced that it would seek a legitimate majority in the Reichstag where it now controlled only 35 per cent of the seats. The chamber was dissolved and new elections ordered for March 5, the earliest possible date. At the outset of the electoral campaign the Vorwärts, the leading Social Democratic daily, stressed that it did not expect Germany to become another Italy. The coalition government appeared to many to be but slightly more to the right than its immediate prede-

10

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cessors, those of Papen and Schleicher, which had been labeled "fascist" by the Communists and "reactionary" by the Social Democrats. The three-to-one preponderance of conservative Nationalists in the cabinet, their close connection with Hindenburg, incumbent of the powerful presidency, and with the kingpin in German politics, the army, the oaths which the ministers had taken to uphold the Weimar Constitution, and the contempt which army and president were believed to feel for the Nazis, all reassured the Social Democratic leaders. Internal friction within the government were thought to be working against Hitler. They were expecting a strong conservative reaction, not a "national revolution."22 The "reactionary capitalist" Hugenberg was depicted in the Vovwarts as the real master of a shaky coalition. The campaign was described as a class struggle between the Social Democratic workers, and monopoly capitalism and reactionary feudalism. By a generous use of Marxist symbols and slogans a strong effort was made to encourage the faint of heart who feared a Nazi victory and to prevent the defection of the impatient to the Communists. On February 2 the Social Democratic election manifesto proclaimed: Defend yourselves, defend your independence as citizens against your oppressors, against the Upper Ten, against the miserable minority of barons, against the capitalists; break their economic and political power! Fight with us for the expropriation of the landowner and the division of the land among the peasants and the agricultural laborers! Fight with us for the socialization of heavy industry, for the construction of a Socialistplanned economy.23

This "seditious" manifesto brought a three-day suspension of the Social Democratic press in Prussia, the state which comprised three-fourths of the population. It was the opening gun of the Nazi campaign, which was to give Germany a taste of the sugar-coated terror which was later to become familiar to the entire world. In the face of tremendous government propaganda, supported by every means of modern mass appeal, the strength of the opposition was sapped by keeping it in a constant state of insecurity and alarm. The radio, monopolized by the government, the vast Hugenberg press-and-film combine, and the Nazi press, handbills, and speakers bombarded the public with reassuring promises of stability and security if the coalition got its majority. Simultaneously, the "un-

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11

official" terrorism of the storm troopers sought to increase fear and insecurity and to intimate what might happen if Hitler did not win. The "Marxist parties" were its particular targets. Not a day passed without murderous attacks upon their supporters. Social Democratic rallies were broken up, printing plants and campaign headquarters wrecked in an effort to intimidate the S.P.D. and the voters.24 "Officially," the government professed ignorance of these acts and limited itself strictly to "constitutional and lawful means" to further its cause. Under a series of presidential decrees to maintain the "public order and safety" in accordance with the Constitution, it banned all criticism of its members by the press, prohibited or dissolved opposition rallies, raided the homes of anti-Nazis without warrant, and generally infringed upon constitutional liberties. On February 6 a decree "for the restoration of normal conditions of government in Prussia" stripped the legitimate government of that state, led by Social Democrats, of the few powers which the Supreme Court had left in its hands as a result of the court fight following Papen's seizure of Prussia in July, 1932. The Social Democrats declared that Hitler had flagrantly violated the Constitution by arrogating for the national government powers reserved to the state. But an intricate legal question "did not seem to present a good starting point for an uprising that could only be hopeless."25 The Prussian Braun-Severing government went to court, unsuccessfully trying to get a favorable decision before the election, to prove to the electorate that Hitler, and not the Social Democrats, had violated the Constitution. Meanwhile, Goring, placed in charge of the Prussian police, transformed it into a tool of the Nazi campaign. Assigning his lieutenants to all principal posts and creating an "auxiliary police" of storm troopers, he deprived the opposition of all protection, while he ordered the police to "support" the storm troopers.26 The "constitutional" actions of the government were a far greater handicap for the law-abiding Social Democrats than all "unofficial" terror in the streets. The Vorwarts promised to speak more softly after its first suspension, but within a few days it was prohibited once more for "treasonable" criticism of the government. The rest of the S.P.D. press suffered a similar fate. Constantly

12

PROLOGUE

harried by brief bans, the threat of suspension hung over it to guarantee compliant behavior during the short intervals it was allowed to appear. The consequent financial and emotional strain seriously limited the effectiveness of the principal medium of the Social Democratic campaign.27 The Social Democratic leaders conducted their campaign as best they could. Efforts to make a personal protest to President Hindenburg were in vain. The party chairman Otto Wels was "greatly disturbed by the manner in which Hitler had begun to treat the Social Democrats," but continued to look to the conservative nonNazis in the cabinet, particularly Papen and Hugenberg, to curb him. However, Wels sensed that worse was yet to come, despite Papen's efforts to reassure him.28 In order to provide Hitler with a minimum of opportunity to interfere in the name of law and order with the Social Democratic campaign, the S.P.D. leadership considerably toned down the belligerent tenor of its earlier appeals and called upon its followers to maintain discipline, sobriety, and courage in the face of Nazi provocation. However, militant Marxist slogans continued to assure the fainthearted that victory was inevitable. Conscious of a sentiment for greater "working class unity" among the rank and file, the Social Democratic leaders, though still highly suspicious of Communist intentions and moving exceedingly cautiously, called for unity in the "class struggle" against "monopoly capitalism" and its "fascist stooges." Simultaneously, they sought to defend the S.P.D. against Nazi charges that it had betrayed German national interests in pursuit of its internationalist, Marxist aims. "Gagging the press may suppress criticism," wrote the Vorwarts, but "nothing can stop us from showing the people the historical truth." 29 "Death rather than slavery," remained the defiant theme at party rallies, but gloom and pessimism were spreading among the party functionaries.80 On February 27, one week before the election, fire was set to the building of the German Reichstag. The government announced that a captured arsonist, Marinus van der Lubbe, had admitted acting on behalf of the Communist party and had implicated the S.P.D. in the abortive "Red" uprising for which the fire was to have been the signal. The Social Democratic national headquarters in Berlin was at once occupied by the police and all S.P.D. publica-

PROLOGUE

1J

tions in Prussia were prohibited until further notice. All over Germany hundreds of Social Democratic functionaries were arrested, along with Communists. "For the protection of people and state," a presidential emergency decree abrogated all constitutional liberties. Armed resistance by "enemies of the state" was to be punished with death.31 "Now is the time for action... . Goring has opened a campaign against the Red parties in Prussia: it will end with their complete destruction," wrote Joseph Goebbels in his diary. " N o resistance anywhere. The enemy camp seems completely surprised."32 The Social Democrats were indeed stunned. That the president of the Reichstag had a hand in setting the fire himself did not seem possible.33 The S.P.D. executive committee protested indignantly that the actions of the government were unconstitutional and charges of complicity by the S.P.D. in setting the fire, or planning an uprising with the Communists, completely unwarranted. Pleading that the ban on the Social Democratic press in Prussia be rescinded, Wels, the party chairman, wrote Vice-chancellor Papen that the entire history of his party bore witness that acts of terrorism had never been sanctioned.34 Though the charge implicating the S.P.D. in the fire was quietly dropped, the party was nonetheless practically immobilized during the critical five days preceding the election. Most of its newspapers were silenced, its headquarters closed, and some of its most militant and energetic functionaries in prison or in hiding. Nazi propaganda went into high gear, while Social Democratic posters were ripped down and printing presses turning out leaflets smashed. Some of the leaflets, surreptitiously distributed in Berlin, maintained that "our party has always gained fresh vigor from persecution." But the Social Democrats felt keenly that they were powerless to reply to a "flood of monstrous accusations."35 A few hours after the polls opened on March 5 it was announced that Otto Braun, Social Democratic leader of Prussia and "legally" still prime minister, had gone to Switzerland. The Nazis broadcast throughout the day that the Social Democrats had already given up and taken to their heels.36 Despite the nature of the campaign and the mobilization of the greatest reservoir of Nazi strength—the politically indifferent who

14

PROLOGUE

ordinarily abstained—the returns failed to provide the Nazis with a majority, and their bare 44 per cent appeared to give them no more a democratic mandate to make fundamental changes in the state than had 46 per cent given to the two Social Democratic parties in 1919. The entire government coalition received 52 per cent, a majority of 33 in the Reichstag. The S.P.D. retained practically all its supporters and with 7,181,600 votes (18 per cent) remained the second largest party, followed by the Center and its allies with 5,498,500 (14 per cent) and the outlawed Communists with 4,848,100 (12 per cent). REICHSTAG

Date

Eligible voters casting valid ballots

Votes cast Nazis

Nationalists

Mil- Per Mil- Per Per cent lions cent lions cent July, 1932 November, 1932 March, 1933

83 80 88

ELECTIONS

13.7 11.7 17.3

37 33 44

2.2 2.96 3.1

6 8 8

Minor parties

Communists

S.P.D.

Center

Mil- Per Mil- Per Mil- Per lions cent lions cent lions cent

Mil- Per lions cent

1.9 2.1 1.4

5.8 5.3 5.5

S 6 3

5.3 5.98 4.8

14 17 12

7.96 7.2 7.2

22 20 18

16 15 14

SOURCE: Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, 1933

Before the election Otto Wels had reminded his followers of the old German proverb: "Strict masters do not rule for long." 37 N o w that it was over, the majority of the party leaders believed that parliamentary life would go on and "legality would be restored as soon as the first onslaught had spent itself." 38 Accordingly, they told their supporters: The party remains unbroken, tried in battle, still ready for the fray. Your ranks are steadier than ever. The near future will make still greater demands upon the Social Democrats of Germany. W e are equal to them. The fight to reconquer the liberties of the working class movement and its political rights still goes on. The election does not represent the will of the people. The special court for the trial of election petitions will have to decide whether the conditions for a free election were fulfilled.39

Nevertheless, Friedrich Stampfer, editor in chief of the Vorwarts, announced that the S.P.D. was prepared to accept the outcome of the election and assume the role of a loyal opposition. "They have only to act as a legal government, and it will follow naturally that we shall be a legal opposition," he wrote on March II. "If they choose to use their majority for measures that remain

PROLOGUE

IS

within the framework of the Constitution, we shall confine ourselves to the role of fair critics until such time as the nation calls upon us to play another part." Everything seemed to him to point to such a development, not only the oaths which the president and the ministers had taken to uphold the Weimar Constitution, but even more political "considerations of a severely practical character." The unexpected accession to power of men who had made no secret of their revisionist, even expansionist, ambitions in the past had caused fear and alarm throughout Europe. Stampfer apparently believed that the government would endeavor to appease these sentiments to strengthen its position in pending delicate negotiations at the Geneva Disarmament Conference and would follow a relatively moderate domestic policy to unite the nation behind its claims for equal rights.40 In the eyes of the Social Democratic leadership a very direct relationship existed between the reaction of foreign powers to the Hitler government and the immediate future of the S.P.D. Pressure from more conservative elements at home, particularly the army, together with diplomatic pressure from abroad, was expected to check Hitler's ambitions and the excesses of his supporters. At worst, the S.P.D. was believed to be facing a period of semilegality, much like the political twilight conditions which prevailed during its suppression by Bismarck.41 For twelve years the "Iron Chancellor" had sought to extinguish the growing movement as a political factor in Germany by prohibiting its publications, jailing many of its members, driving others into exile, and severely curtailing its organizational activities. "No one has ever employed greater means of force or acted in a manner more unscrupulous," according to Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the principal party leaders of that period. "And the result?" he exulted after Bismarck's fall. "What has become of him? He had at his disposal... the police, the army, the money, the power of the state, in short all the means of physical force, while we could oppose him only with our good right, our conviction, our naked breasts—and we have conquered. Our arms have been better." Disavowing violence, the party had appealed to the electorate. Its vote had jumped from 312,000 in 1881 to 1,427,000 in 1890, when the Reichstag refused to renew the anti-Socialist legislation. "In time brute force must yield to moral factors, to the logic of events," Liebknecht had maintained.42

16

PROLOGUE

That had been the "heroic age" of the Social Democratic movement, which on festive occasions was recalled in glowing colors by party orators. Every party member knew the story, the smuggling of illegal literature across the borders, the clandestine meetings in the fields and woods. And he also knew the outcome. The party leadership had been nurtured on this tradition; some had themselves participated in the fight, and, when, in 1933, they believed their movement to be facing a similar experience, they fell back upon the strategy which had then brought victory. Once again, it was hoped, the party would be in a position to battle it out at the ballot box. Once more it would profit from persecution to emerge victorious when reason would triumph and the mass support of the Nazis would disintegrate. And once again it would reassure itself of its "inevitable" victory and boost the morale of its supporters by relying on Marxist determinism, while stressing its peaceful, democratic, and humanitarian character for the non-Marxist voters. A close friend of Marx and Engels and the most esteemed theorist among Social Democrats, Karl Kautsky, then almost eighty, predicted after the election that Hitler would be abandoned by his supporters as soon as his inability and unwillingness to live up to his demagogic promises became evident. While he would preside over the final collapse of German capitalism, the masses would flock to social democracy as their last and only salvation from political and economic chaos. Ignorant fools, who knew only "how to pose as Nordic knights," could never attain the totalitarian power of the Fascists and Bolshevists. The S.P.D. was to conserve its strength until the regime would spontaneously disintegrate and, therefore, Kautsky insisted, "the maintenance of our organization and propaganda /work is the most important task facing us" (His italics.) However, he warned, "as long as the dictatorship has the mass support of the population behind it, trials of strength by illegal mass action are certain to lead to defeat." Not until "all the weary and oppressed will come streaming back . . . [and] the majority will once more be on our side," could the S.P.D. lead this proletarian majority against its capitalist oppressors. "The vision of this splendid future" was the eschatological sustenance which Kautsky offered the Social Democrats for the difficult "days of trial" ahead.43 The party, wrote Stampfer, was as "unbreakable as a rock" and its supporters, another Social Democrat added, "a firm, unbreakable

PROLOGUE

17

nucleus of resistance [which would] wait and endure" until its hour arrived.44 Hitler soon made it clear that he would not be satisfied to rule with a scant majority in the Reichstag. The chamber was summoned for March 23 to consider an enabling bill which would give the government constitutional power to rule by executive decree. Such legislation required the presence of two-thirds of the members and a two-thirds majority. Strong and on the whole successful pressure was exerted to assure its passage. Hitler intimated he could not be responsible for the actions of his supporters unless he received the desired power. The Communists had been outlawed and would not be there to vote. All parties but the Social Democrats were won over, more than enough to pass the bill.45 However, the Nazis hoped to make this the first great demonstration of German unity behind Hitler and made every effort to persuade the Social Democrats to vote, if not for the bill, at least not against it.46 Only 94 of 120 elected Social Democrats could take their seats on March 23. The rest had fled or were under arrest. A mob of howling Nazis raged outside, threatening fire and murder if the bill were not passed. Armed storm troopers lined the chamber. Hitler declared that to overcome the economic crisis and to obtain the status of a great power for Germany he needed a free hand and asked the parties to demonstrate the unity of the country behind his government by passing the enabling bill. One after another the various party spokesmen pledged their support—with one exception. Amidst the hooting of the Nazis, the defiant applause of his own party, and the stunned silence of the others, Wels announced that the S.P.D. would not vote to eliminate parliamentary control over the government. It had enough votes in the Reichstag to govern "strictly according to the letter and spirit of the Constitution." Every "positive proposal" in the realm of domestic as well as foreign affairs would have the support of the Social Democratic deputies. Speaking to the country rather than the Reichstag, Wels recalled his party's victory over Bismarck, its achievements on behalf of the nation, and pleaded for popular support in defense of the democratic system. Addressing the government, he declared: T h e attempt to turn back the wheel of history will fail. . . . W e recognize that in terms of power politics you possess for the moment a preponderance of force. But the people's sense of justice is a political force as well, and

18

PROLOGUE

we shall not cease to appeal to it. . . . In this historic hour, we German Social Democrats solemnly pledge our allegiance to the principles of humanity and justice, freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible. . . . The antiSocialist law could not destroy social democracy. From new persecutions social democracy can once again gather new strength. W e salute the persecuted and oppressed . . . our friends throughout the country. Their constancy and loyalty . . . the courage of their convictions, their unbroken confidence, promise a brighter future. 47

As Wels resumed his seat, Hitler rushed forward. "You weep too much, and are not fit for this day and age if you already complain of persecution," he shouted at the Social Democrats. "You are no longer wanted . . . do not take ours for a middle-class world. . . . You maintain that the anti-Socialist law did not break you. But that was a time when the German workers saw in you something different from what you represent today. . . . Your hour has . . . struck." 48 The cowed gathering then voted 441 against 94 to grant the government "limited" dictatorial powers.49 Hitler's new powers sufficed for the moment to enable him to carry out the next step in his "national revolution." A "coordinating drive" during the following weeks strengthened his control over the civil service, the state governments, and numerous other aspects of political and economic life. However, there were no new moves against the opposition. The relative optimism of the Social Democratic leaders seemed to be borne out. Unlike the Communists, the S.P.D. was permitted to retain its parliamentary seats and to engage in a limited amount of intraparty activity, though its press—with the exception of a few newsletters—remained prohibited and a scheduled party congress had to be canceled. "Unlawful" violence and mass arrests directed against Social Democrats diminished considerably. The elections had shown that Hitler still did not have the support of a majority of the people, and the enabling act gave him an opportunity to consolidate his power in a manner less offensive to those elements in Germany who thought they agreed with many of his aims, but disapproved of the lawless tactics associated with the Nazi movement in the past. Particularly for the benefit of the conservative elements entrenched in the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and the army, Hitler had to prove himself fit to receive their support as leader of the nation by conforming to

PROLOGUE

19

the principles of the "Rechtsstaat." While these considerations undoubtedly accounted in part for somewhat more law-abiding and moderate tactics in the establishment of the totalitarian state, diplomatic considerations were probably even more important. Goring provided a clue when on March 25 he complained to representatives of the foreign press about fantastic rumors of a reign of terror in Germany which, he said, "Marxist elements" were spreading abroad.50 As the Social Democratic leaders had noted with satisfaction, Hitler's accession came as a shock to the world. His ruthless and brutal methods aroused indignation as well as apprehension throughout Europe. Particularly for France and her antirevisionist allies, a resurgent Germany under the leadership of the Nazis appeared as a threat to peace and the status quo, and their vigilance was, therefore, immediately aroused. This was the very moment when at Geneva the Disarmament Conference was considering German demands for abolition of the military limitations of the Versailles treaty. On March 18 Mussolini proposed a four-power pact between Italy, Germany, France, and Britain which aimed at revision in Germany's favor and the substitution of a concert of the four powers for the League to settle the affairs of Europe. In view of the expansionist principles of the Nazis, these proposals met with strong opposition from the antirevisionist states. While there was probably never a question of armed intervention in German affairs, the Hitler government encountered considerable antagonism abroad, a situation which was not improved by the belligerent pronouncements of its spokesmen.51 In order to overcome fear and hostility both at home and abroad, Hitler had to demonstrate that he was not intent on war, but sought only a peaceful modification of certain "unjust" clauses in the peace treaty. If he could do this, he might unite Germany behind his foreign policy, subordinating domestic problems to the primacy of foreign affairs, while showing the world that, whether it liked it or not, he expressed the will of his people. For that he needed the Social Democrats. They were to remain in the wings, ready for the ignominious role reserved for them as their last action on the German political stage.52 T o achieve this objective, the Nazis, while ceasing their frontal attacks on the S.P.D. leaders, strove to isolate

20

PROLOGUE

them from their supporters. The Nazis realized that the power of the leadership rested almost entirely upon the monolithic party organization. The banning of the S.P.D. press and the murder, arrest, and flight of many secondary functionaries—vital media of communications to and control of the rank and file—had already greatly weakened the authority of the leadership. The Nazis hoped that once the links between leaders and followers were completely severed, they would have little trouble in taking control of the Social Democratic masses, while the national leadership would be at their mercy. 53 Simultaneously, the majority of the Social Democratic leaders continued to believe that the tactics which had worked against Bismarck would enable the party to survive its present eclipse until dissatisfaction at home and strong pressure from abroad would see it triumph over Hitler. Wels's speech to the Reichstag was thought to have laid the groundwork for a future counteroffensive.54 Intimately connected with these plans was the conviction that, as the traditional major source of Social Democratic strength, the party organization had at all cost to be preserved.8® Kautsky supported this contention by invoking the doctrine of economic determinism. Under present conditions, he declared, it was incumbent upon rational Marxists to employ dilatory tactics. Support for Hitler was "a passing fancy," he reiterated, particularly among "politically and economically uneducated youth," and the collapse of his government was inevitable because it could only bring economic chaos and paralysis to its climax. Therefore, he wrote, Avoiding a decisive battle under unfavorable circumstances is by no means a surrender. If evasive tactics permit the continuation of the struggle, the ability to carry on the fight will be weakened far less by them than by a catastrophic defeat. . . . A strategy of attrition is mandatory for an army if its temporary position in a conflict happens to be disadvantageous, but an improvement may be expected if the conflict is drawn out. . . . The Social Democratic army is far superior to the Brown Shirts in this strategy of attrition. Hitler's mercenaries can only be kept together by a continuous series of quick and easy spoliative successes. At the least resistance they will melt away.

And Kautsky was absolutely certain that such resistance would come sooner or later from inside and outside Germany. 56 T o preserve peace, it was "the duty of the civilized world to stop these

PROLOGUE

21

adventurers," insisted Philipp Scheidemann, who in 1918 had proclaimed the Republic. However, he, like Wels and others, rejected armed intervention.57 In accordance with these strategic concepts, the party leaders welcomed the apparent breathing space which followed the passage of the enabling act. For the time being the conservation and rallying of their organization appeared to be their chief task. But the means were lacking. Not only had mass arrests and flight removed many of the most important functionaries of the movement, but the party press, the other principal medium of communication and control for the leadership, was still prohibited. Moreover, there was no way of replying to charges in the government press against the S.P.D. and particularly its international connections, which party leaders believed to be doing real damage to their cause. Wels had insisted on March 23 that claims in the Nazi press, that the S.P.D. had sent "exaggerated" accounts of conditions in Germany abroad, were not true. Then "your party with its international connections should have no trouble in establishing the truth," Hitler had replied, "no one prevents you . . . from making public your knowledge of the true situation. I shall be curious to see how effective your international connections will prove to be." 58 Goring, as noted, had amplified this complaint two days later when he met the foreign press. But there seemed to be no way for the S.P.D. to answer, now that the Reichstag had adjourned and its publications continued to be banned. Paul Löbe went to see Goring to ask him to lift the ban on the Social Democratic newspapers in Prussia. He was assured that the government would release a certain number of Social Democratic papers eventually, but you must be patient just a little longer. What good will it do you if you print the Vorwärts now and your delivery boys are attacked by storm troopers and the papers are burned? 5 9

In the meantime, it was intimated to the Social Democratic leaders, they might help to calm tempers and thus speed the reappearance of their papers. They could convince their associates in foreign lands that it was against the interests of the S.P.D. if they published "atrocity stories" about conditions in Germany. Accordingly, Otto Wels requested the Labor and Socialist International not to print "false" reports about persecution in Germany. Paul

22

PROLOGUE

Hertz, Friedrich Stampfer, and other emissaries of the party executive traveled about Europe, pleading with Socialists to discontinue the publication of "incorrect" statements about German conditions. But the International and the European Socialist press insisted on their right to print "authentic reports." Thereupon, Otto Wels withdrew on March 30 as the representative of German labor in the Labor and Socialist International.60 While, in accordance with Hitler's strategy, the Nazis left the top of the Social Democratic organizational pyramid relatively unmolested, they were hard at work undermining the base. The party's supporters had proven loyal to their leaders in the election, but Nazi propaganda and intimidation were undoubtedly having an effect. The flight of prominent leaders, such as Braun, Hilferding, and Breitscheid, and the mass arrests and "unofficial" terror preceding the passage of the enabling act, had not improved morale among them. Now, in April, civil servants who had in the past supported the S.P.D. were either dismissed or compelled to pledge their allegiance to the "national revolution" in order to retain a precarious hold on their jobs. Employers were ordered to discharge workers who gave evidence of hostility to the regime. Opportunist collaborators began to appear among the Social Democrats. Thus, a certain Henning Duderstadt, formerly a reporter for the Vorwärts, emerged from temporary detention by the Nazis as self-appointed leader of the "generation of front-line veterans" in the S.P.D. Endeavoring to align the rank and file "voluntarily" behind Hitler, he testified that he "worked within every group I had any contact with . . . for some sort of armed coup against the party executive committee." Simultaneously he recommended himself to "certain influential connections . . . as editor in chief of the Vorwärts and leader of the party." 61 While Duderstadt was unsuccessful, collaborators in the General Confederation of Labor (A.D.G.B.), since 1906 the mainstay of the S.P.D., accomplished more. Under their influence the leaders of the Confederation severed their once intimate ties to the S.P.D. on March 21. Early in April they began to negotiate for a merger of all German trade unions under Nazi leadership, dismissed those of their functionaries labeled politically or racially objectionable by the Nazis, and agreed to recall union funds deposited abroad for safekeeping.

PROLOGUE

23

On April 19 the leadership of the Confederation called upon its members to participate in a "Day of German Labor" which the Nazis planned as a "Germanic" substitute for the Socialist traditional First of May celebration. On May 1 the former Social Democratic trade unions marched behind the swastika. German labor, the Nazis proclaimed, united and free from the influence of "international Marxism," had demonstrated its support for Hitler.62 These developments upset the dilatory strategy of the S.P.D. leaders. Moreover, apart from demoralization and defection among Social Democrats as a result of Nazi activities, they were faced with elements in the lower echelons of the party who denounced the cautious and law-abiding tactics of the leadership and demanded the immediate transformation of its organization into a revolutionary underground movement. Early in April a number of Socialist youths were expelled from the S.P.D. for violating the express orders of the leadership by engaging in "unlawful" activities against the government. T o overcome their growing isolation from the rank and file and to avert further dissident activities in the party, which threatened its disintegration regardless of Nazi action, the leaders summoned a "national conference" of party functionaries. The conference met on April 27 in the undestroyed part of the Reichstag in Berlin. Indicative of their attitude, the party leaders deliberately chose to meet at this conspicuous place, expecting protection from the president of the Reichstag, Goring. Indeed, neither "official" nor "unofficial" Nazi quarters made any move to interfere. Wels in his keynote address attributed Hitler's accession to the temporary political situation created by the economic crisis. Echoing Kautsky, he blamed insufficient "scientific knowledge" among the masses for lack of enthusiasm for the "reasonable and practical" program of the Social Democrats. Wels and other speakers denounced the collaborationist activities of the trade unions, but declared that the S.P.D. would survive its present ordeal as "the spirit which lives in the masses of organized workers cannot be killed and will in time become active again."63 A new executive committee was chosen "to rejuvenate the party and make it more active." The older leaders, in the interest of greater unity, but also to silence criticism of the leadership and to prevent the formation of dissident splinter groups, agreed to

24

PROLOGUE

broaden the representative character of the party leadership. Three trusted party functionaries, aged 45, 32, and 31, were to represent the "younger generation." Together with four representatives of the left wing and two of the most prominent leaders of the right wing, Paul Lobe and Wilhelm Sollmann, they replaced the leaders who had fled abroad. Eleven incumbents were reelected, since "it was felt that the older generation o u g h t . . . to have an opportunity to work alongside the younger," according to the report to the Socialist press abroad. With the "older generation" still in complete control of the party leadership, the conference adjourned on April 28, directing the party leaders to carry on the "legal" fight against Hitler.64 In the wake of the national conference, which was to have produced unity, differences developed within the executive committee S.P.D. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTED APRIL 23, 1933

Born

Entered Reichstag

Reelected: 1873 1879 1892 1879 1893 1873 ?

Vogel} C o-chairmen Crummenerl—Treasurer Juchacz Litke Nemitz Ryneck Stahl Stampfer Stelling Westphal

? 1874 1878 ?

not

not not not

1912 1920 a member 1920 1928 1920 a member a member 1920 1920 a member

New members: [Hertz' To represent "Youth" s Rinner b LOllenhauer" ("Bochel J Dietrich To represent the "Left" | Künstler lAufhäuser T o represent the "Right"

; ; ;

1888 1902 1901 ? 1888 1888 1884 1875 1881

1920 not a member not a member not a member 1924 1920 1921 1920 1920

SOURCE: Compiled from materials and data cited in note 65. • Hertz, a member of the Reichstag since 1920, was secretary of the S.P.D. representation in that chamber. b Rinner was a functionary in the office of the S.P.D. Reichstag delegation. 0 Ollenhauer, since 1920 a functionary of the Social Democratic Workers Youth organization, had been its chairman since 1928.

PROLOGUE

25

which threatened to split the ranks of the older leaders themselves. The dispute concerned tactics and not fundamental ideology. After Bismarck had outlawed the Social Democrats in 1878 and only the deputies could represent the party legally in the country, its leaders had established a center at Zürich which, in fact, became their headquarters until the party had recovered sufficient strength to conduct the campaign against Bismarck from Germany itself. From Switzerland a newspaper, Der Sozialdemokrat, a weekly journal, Die Rote Feldpost, and a host of pamphlets were smuggled into the country and distributed to Social Democrats and their sympathizers. All efforts of the German police to cripple this extensive propaganda system had been of no avail. At first many parliamentary deputies, who still legitimately represented the party in Germany, had opposed the activities of the center, fearing new persecution which would handicap their own attempts to win support among the voters and in the Reichstag. But after the anti-Socialist laws had expired in r 890, it became an accepted party tradition that the victory had to a large extent been a result of the work of the "representation abroad" (Auslandszentrum). Its publications were credited with checking the influence of radical elements in the party who called for violent, revolutionary tactics in opposition to the moderate policy of the leadership. The center's work was believed to have unified and encouraged an initially demoralized movement and won much of the support which increased the Social Democratic vote considerably during those years. In 1914, when the party leaders feared a new prohibition of the party and the arrest of its functionaries if war broke out, Friedrich Ebert and Otto Braun had been sent to Switzerland by the S.P.D. executive to represent the party if it should be outlawed.68 Friedrich Stampfer, one of the most prominent of the older leaders and editor of the Vorwärts, had tentatively arranged as early as February to use the facilities of a Sudeten German Socialist publishing house just across the Czech border if the Social Democratic press in Germany should be outlawed, as it had been under Bismarck. After the prohibition of the press, following the Reichstag Fire, between one and two million Reichsmarks from the party treasury were deposited abroad. Stampfer had been urging the use of these funds for the establishment of a "Representation

26

PROLOGUE

Abroad" of the S.P.D. for some time, placing little credence in Goring's assurances that the press would be released. Now, late in April, he and his supporters in the leadership predicted further restrictions on the party's activities and, therefore, urged strongly that a number of the leaders be authorized to go abroad to establish such a center, to publish literature in support of the campaign being waged inside the country, and, if necessary, to speak for the party if and when the leadership in Germany should no longer be free to do so. This plan seemed too drastic to another faction which, much as in the Bismarckian days, consisted largely of deputies. They believed that the party should not, under any circumstances, provoke the Nazis into further repressions. This group hoped that the party's press might be released, its functionaries freed, and the organization preserved relatively intact, if extreme caution were exercised in dealing with the Nazis. Paul Lobe—former president of the Reichstag—who would not believe that the government was as much of a threat to the party as the Stampfer group argued, repeatedly went to see Goring and the chief of the new secret police, hoping to persuade them to release the party's functionaries and lift the prohibition on its publications.87 Moreover, this faction felt very strongly that, particularly after the unfavorable publicity attendant to the departure of Otto Braun during the election of March 5, the remaining leaders were duty bound to remain under all circumstances in the country, regardless of personal consequences. "Emigration is no solution," they maintained. "The working class and the rank and file must remain in Germany. They have to man the front-line trenches in the battle to preserve the party, and they want to see their leaders fighting alongside them."68 The moderate attitude of the Nazis during April seemed to support the optimism of this faction. But on May 2 the Nazis seized the leaders and property of the General Confederation of Labor, only a few hours after it had demonstrated its "political neutrality" by participating in the "Day of German Labor." At an emergency meeting of the S.P.D. executive committee on May 4 this ominous sign led to the decision that "the persecuted party must have a representation abroad." Under arrest or in hiding, the party leaders would be in no position to continue to lead what-

PROLOGUE

27

ever would be left to lead. Therefore, six of them, Wels, Vogel, Crummenerl, Stampfer, Hertz, and Ollenhauer, were delegated to establish a center outside Germany, but it was agreed that Berlin remained the seat of the party executive.69 Hitler's announcement on May 7 that "the hour of reckoning had arrived," was followed on May 10 by the confiscation of the party's funds and property. Numerous district officials of the S.P.D. hastily resigned their posts.70 The isolation of the leadership in Berlin was now complete; the breathing spell, such as there had been, was over. In the interval, Germany's relations with the rest of the world had gone from bad to worse. Her representatives at the Disarmament Conference refused to accept anything but complete equality in armaments with other major powers, while Mussolini's fourpower-pact proposal had produced violent opposition in France, the Little Entente, and Poland. Negotiations in Geneva were close to a breakdown as, early in May, British and French spokesmen declared that continuing German intransigeance would end any further considerations of revising the Versailles treaty. They refused to agree even to a greatly emasculated version of the four-power pact. At this point the Reichstag was summoned for May 17 to receive a major foreign-policy declaration from Hitler. Diplomatic activity remained suspended as Germany and the rest of the world awaited his speech.71 The Representation Abroad, temporarily established in the Saar, dispatched Stampfer and Vogel to Berlin to prevent attendance of the Social Democrats. A few days abroad had sufficed to convince the delegates abroad that the S.P.D. could not rely upon diplomatic pressure from foreign powers to weaken Hitler's position. While there was widespread moral condemnation of the Nazis throughout Europe, there was no inclination to interfere in any way with what were considered internal German affairs. The Social Democratic party would have to go underground in order to remain an active opposition, the emissaries advised, and if the deputies would as much as attend the coming Reichstag meeting, they would be too compromised to take the helm of a revolutionary movement. Not only would Social Democrats inside Germany refuse to follow them, but they would forfeit the support of the international Socialist movement. Already, the delegates warned, some spokesmen for dissident elements in the party, claiming to represent

28

PROLOGUE

the "real" revolutionary sentiments of German labor, were gaining support among European Socialists who strongly condemned the present tactics of the official party leadership. These arguments found some support in the caucus preceding the Reichstag meeting of May 17, and it was proposed that the party explain its reasons for absenting itself in a public manifesto. However, others asked just how the party was going to answer the certain Nazi charge that the S.P.D. had deserted the nation in its hour of need. Its press was still proscribed, and there was only the tribune of the Reichstag if the party wanted to appeal to Germany and the world. Moreover, it was argued, could the Social Democrats afford to oppose a government declaration which was expected to be conciliatory, asking only "justice" for Germany, a demand which the party had always endorsed? Hitler's popularity was regarded as proof that social democracy had made a mistake to underestimate the potency of nationalistic appeals. T o recover its lost prestige and gain the ear of the people, it had to give a clear demonstration of its patriotism. Support for Hitler's declaration would conciliate the Nazis and gain time to prepare for a comeback. In many ways the stormy caucus was reminiscent of that of August 3, 1914, which had decided to vote for war credits. But now, quite apart from patriotic and strategic considerations, party members who were hostages of the Nazis in concentration camps and Gestapo cellars weighed heavily upon the minds of those present and probably proved decisive in the end. A majority voted to attend the meeting and endorse Hitler's declaration in an explanatory statement from the rostrum.72 However, shortly before the start of the session, Frick, Nazi minister of the interior, announced that no other speeches would be in order, only unanimous approval. When the future of Germany was at stake, he pointedly remarked, individual lives were unimportant, a thinly veiled threat against the Social Democrats. The S.P.D. deputies thereupon decided to approve the speech without comment.73 In a dignified speech, "carefully calculated to depict him as a chief of government filled with moderate and lofty views," Hitler pleaded on May 17 for "justice" and "equality" for his people.74 B y a rising vote the deputies present, including less than half of the Social Democrats, approved his declaration. The "vote" of the S.P.D. was exploited to the fullest.75 "The world has been shown

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29

that the German people are as one when their national existence is at stake," proclaimed Goring, the presiding officer.76 FrançoisPoncet, then French ambassador in Berlin, concluded that "at home . . . Hitler appeared to even the malcontent as a wise, reasonable man. Abroad . . . the speech left foreign opinion with the impression that an understanding was still possible."77 It was followed at once by a more conciliatory attitude of the German delegates in Geneva. The threatened breakdown of the Disarmament Conference was averted and international tension relaxed sufficiently for the four-power pact to be initialed.78 In the absence of reliable data, it is difficult to tell how the Social Democratic rank and file responded to the action of their deputies. Émigré writers claimed that, while it caused strong resentment among some, others were completely demoralized. Abroad, however, particularly in Socialist circles, it was widely interpreted as a collaborationist move. The deputies had walked into an "obvious trap," wrote Raphael Abramovitch in the Menshevist exile paper, Socialistichesky Viestnik. To survive this debacle, the party must at once abandon "the tradition of legality and parliamentary democracy which has become an anachronism," dissolve its legal organization, repudiate its mandates in "bogus parliaments," and go underground, Abramovitch advised. Only a complete break with Hitler would now permit its leaders to organize the "illegal revolutionary struggle" which alone could free Germany. 79 Others reminded the Social Democrats that Italian, Hungarian, and Polish Socialists had accepted persecution rather than submit. They were asked to follow these examples or at least voluntarily surrender the mandates of a party "which could no longer be called Social Democratic, if it made its peace with Hitler." 80 The Berlin leaders defended their action on May 17 as having not been a vote of confidence for Hitler, "but an endorsement of a peaceful foreign policy for Germany." 81 That it had not been lack of courage which had moved them was indicated only a day later when the Social Democrats defied Nazi threats and alone refused to support an enabling bill in the Prussian Diet. It was their persistent hope that the imprisoned functionaries might be freed and the party remain legal, if it followed a cautious and wise policy until reason returned to German politics.82 The six party leaders who had been authorized to represent

30

PROLOGUE

the party abroad, concluded under pressure from foreign Socialists that their comrades in Berlin had hopelessly compromised themselves. The six were advised that it was their duty to save the party by assuming its leadership. "The body of the party is helpless without its head in another country," Friedrich Adler, secretary general of the Labor and Socialist International, told them.83 The émigré leaders decided that only by breaking immediately and conclusively with the Berlin group and claiming the leadership of a "revolutionary" Social Democratic movement, could they prevent the complete disintegration of the party and the drift of its supporters into the Nazi or underground Communist and Socialist movements. They knowingly staked the lives of their comrades in Berlin, but maintained that they had to take that chance in the interests of their party and their country.84 On May 29 the Social Democratic Representation Abroad announced that "between these deputies and those of the party who see their duty in waging a determined war against. . . Hitler, there is a yawning gulf." The action of May 17 was termed "a futile and politically absurd sentimentality on the part of combatants in a war," which had "raised a serious obstacle in the way of the transformation of the German Social Democrats into a fighting organization against the Hitlerite despotism." The Social Democratic cause was said to be "of far more importance than the organization, which must be adapted to the altered conditions of the struggle" and transformed into "the instrument and the vehicle of the idea." The party was to sacrifice its present "body" so that its "soul" might remain immortal.85 Otto Wels repudiated his previous resignation from the International and informed it formally of the establishment of a new headquarter for the S.P.D. in Prague. There a paper was to be published to represent the views of the members of the executive of the German Social Democratic party active abroad.86 "The period in which we could hope to save something by avoiding [any] pretext for . . . [Nazi] violence has passed," stated Wels in his letter to Friedrich Adler, published June 10, 1933,87 The drama in Berlin now came to a rapid conclusion. The usefulness of the Social Democrats for the Nazis was gone, and they prepared to ring down the curtain. Inevitably the actions of the

PROLOGUE

31

Representation Abroad were to compel the functionaries in Berlin to endeavor to dissociate themselves from the "revolutionary leadership" in Prague. The short, but bitter conflict which now developed between former comrades over the right to represent the Social Democratic rank and file became all the more desperate in view of the immediate increase of Nazi pressure on the Berlin group as soon as the statement of the Representation Abroad became known. A violent press campaign sought to fan the resentment among the Berlin group against the émigrés and to suggest to it certain courses of action. "In what manner the Social Democrats in Berlin will defend themselves . . . remains to be seen. . . . The action of Prague . . . has greatly increased the difficulties of the party leaders who have remained in Germany," wrote the Frankfurter Xeitung. "It seems that they will be held responsible for every future action of the emigrants." It quoted the Volkische Beobachter, which had declared that the S.P.D. leadership was evidently playing a double game, here collaborationist, there revolutionary, which could fool no one; "or was Herr Lobe prepared to denounce Wels, Breitscheid, and company publicly as vicious traitors of their nation?"88 Goebbels announced that the "Marxists" in Germany were hostages for the good behavior of their associates in Prague. Rudolf Kircher, in the Frankfurter Zeitung, sought somewhat more subtly to drive a wedge between Prague and Berlin. In view of the already difficult position of the leaders in Berlin, he wrote, the exiles who were safely abroad, might at least refrain from aggravating the situation further. By their departure they had voluntarily resigned as leaders of the S.P.D. not only because their party still exists (though its future is uncertain) . . . but also because the workers and other supporters of the S.P.D. expected different things from their leaders. But if those who have gone abroad . . . still imagine that they have a real or even moral claim to the party leadership, if they imagine that the Social Democratic workers and functionaries have any intentions of permitting Prague . . . to dictate thoughts or actions to them, then they are so sadly misinformed about the true state of affairs that we consider it our duty (other voices being silent) to call it to their attention, and particularly to that of our foreign readers.89

In view of this campaign—hearing the threats uttered against them—the functionaries in Berlin were bound to feel that they

32

PROLOGUE

had been stabbed in the back by their former associates. Prague's action had evidently furnished the Nazis with the last pretext, if any was still wanted, to outlaw the S.P.D. Like a drowning man clutching for a straw, the Berlin leadership sought desperately to dissociate itself from the exiles in Prague. Löbe publicly notified the Prussian government that Stampfer's statement in Prague that the vote on May 17 had been forced upon the deputies by Nazi threats, was absolutely untrue, that, on the contrary, it had been a voluntary endorsement of a policy of peace, equality, and disarmament. On June 8 the Social Democratic deputies of the Prussian Landtag, joined the next day by the Reichstag deputies and the remaining members of the executive committee, declared that the party leadership was in Berlin and only in Berlin, expressing at the same time the hope that the government might soon release the imprisoned functionaries and lift its restrictions upon the activities of the S.P.D.90 On June 14 began a new wave of terror against the Social Democrats. On June 15 the Berlin members of the executive committee publicly renounced all declarations made abroad in the name of the party. No one abroad was declared to have the right to represent the party; the problem was to be further dealt with within the next few days. "There is . . . a sentiment for expelling Wels, Breitscheid, Stampfer, and Vogel from the S.P.D.," wrote the Frankfurter Zeitung. "The leadership of the S.P.D., with headquarters in Berlin, would . . . go to Löbe, who . . . for some time now has been conducting the affairs of the party." The Berlin leaders were reported to hope for permission to publish the Vorwärts again.91 On June 17 all remaining Social Democratic functionaries in Hamburg were placed under arrest. On June 18 appeared the first issue of the Neuer Vorwärts in Prague. On its front page it carried a manifesto addressed to the German workers, declaring open war on the Nazis and signed by the "Representation Abroad of the German Social Democratic Party." Bristling with revolutionary Marxist slogans and militant language, it promised the working class a "revolutionary" struggle for a Social Democratic Germany: "The defeated of today will be the victors of tomorrow. . . . Break the Chains! Forward!" 92 Although the signers of the manifesto claimed sole responsibility

PROLOGUE

33

for their actions and absolved anyone in Germany from any complicity, the consequences for their colleagues in Berlin were now a foregone conclusion. On June 19 the Berlin leaders and deputies met in emergency session, repudiated Prague and elected a new party executive committee consisting of Westphal, Stelling, Rinner, and Kiinstler, with Lobe and Szillat, chairman of the Social Democrats in the Prussian Diet, as their official mentors. "The newly elected party executive committee is the only responsible leadership of the party," they announced. "German party members who have gone abroad are not authorized to make any declarations in the name of the party. The party declines any responsibility for any of their statements."93 If this new leadership and those who had chosen it still nourished hopes that the government would recognize it and negotiate for the release of imprisoned Social Democrats, such illusions were quickly destroyed. "Lobe and his associates should not delude themselves to think that the government would fall for their hypocritical maneuvers," Goebbels declared at once, according to the Frankfurter Zeitung. He ominously announced that "what Wels and his associates are doing in Prague was nothing less than high treason" and that "everything done by them would be credited to the account of Herr Lobe."94 Although Goebbels still assured his listeners on June 20 that the government had no intention of prohibiting the S.P.D.—it was already dead and you couldn't keep a corpse from stinking—two days later the minister of the interior, Frick, banned any further activities of the party, ostensibly because of its association with the "treasonable activities" of the exiles in Prague, whom it had failed to expel. Lobe and other prominent leaders who had not escaped were arrested, all Social Democratic parliamentary mandates invalidated, and membership in the party declared to be illegal and subversive. Every other party, except the National Socialist, quickly dissolved under pressure, and on July 14 Hitler could announce that the "national revolution" had been concluded; Germany had become a one-party state.95

Chapter 2 Organization

T h e executive committee of the German Social Democratic party sounds the alarm! For an enslaved people it is now the only visible and effective center for resistance and attack! Germans on both sides of the borders, workers, liberty-loving men of the entire world, arise! T h e choice—perhaps for centuries—is one between culture and barbarism! T h e victory of freedom and socialism alone can prevent the collapse of civilized humanity. If you will fight, you must fight with us!—Underground edition of the Vorwärts, July 30, 1933. W h e n you drive truth underground, it grows and gathers so great an explosive force that, when it finally does burst forth it carries everything before it. —Emile Zola.

The Executive Committee in Exile The curtain having been rung down in Berlin on June 22, 1933, the scene was now to shift to Prague. From there the "fighting Social Democrats, gathered around the Neuer Vorwärts," the paper of the S.P.D. Representation Abroad, announced on June 25 that the outlawing of their party and the arrest of its leaders in Germany had removed the last brakes, which consideration for the safety of the Berlin functionaries had until then imposed upon their determination to wage a "revolutionary," militant struggle against the Third Reich. "Confronted by depotism, social democracy can now live on only as a revolutionary party," declared Friedrich Stampfer, one of the six Representatives Abroad, who professed to have "left Germany not to find security and peace, but to fight."1 By July 3 the Representation Abroad had become "the members of the party

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ORGANIZATION

executive still at liberty" and on July 30 signed a call to battle to all "who can fight and will fight for the liberation of Germany," as the "Executive of the German Social Democratic Party." 2 This unilateral assumption of the authority and title of the S.P.D. executive by its Representation Abroad was one more step by the exiled party leaders in Prague to salvage the prestige of the old party leadership for the struggle ahead. It climaxed their efforts to draw a clear distinction between the "activist" wing of the party leadership and the "passivists," who were believed to have severely compromised the cause of the Social Democratic party and its "activist" leaders through their endeavors to find a modus vivendi with nazism during May and June. The name by which this exiled leadership now sought to become known throughout the world, "Sopade" (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), was to represent "a repudiation of the spirit of capitulation in our ranks which the desperation of defeat had induced." It was to be "a symbol that the old Social Democratic labor movement could never be entirely destroyed by its enemies."3 The original Representation Abroad chosen by the S.P.D. executive in its meeting of May 4, consisted of six men, all of them seasoned veterans of the party leadership: Otto Wels, who upon Friedrich Ebert's election to the presidency of the Weimar Republic in 1919 had become cochairman of S.P.D., was the leader of the group. A man of undisputed courage, he had risked the wrath of the Nazis by his defiant speech in the Reichstag on March 23, 1933. Born in Berlin in 1873 and apprenticed to be a paper hanger, Wels had joined the Social Democratic movement at the age of fourteen during its suppression by Bismarck and had been deeply impressed by the party's successful campaign against the "Iron Chancellor." Originally a member of the radical Marxist left wing, the young Wels had moved into the reformist camp around 1900 and began his ascent in the party hierarchy as one of its most expert organizers. Starting as a union functionary, he became district secretary of the S.P.D. for the province of Brandenburg in 1907, entered the Reichstag in 1912 and the party's executive committee in 1913. A leading Majority Social Democrat during the First World War, Wels became commandant of Berlin during the revolution of 1918 and was bitterly blamed by the radi-

ORGANIZATION

39

cal Social Democrats and Communists f o r a good part of the repressive actions which squelched the radical Marxist attempts to establish a soviet Germany during that period. His name became anathema in these quarters. As one of the leaders of his party in the Constitutional Assembly of 1919 which drafted the Weimar Constitution, as a member of the S.P.D. faction in the Reichstag, and as the party's cochairman from 1919 on, Otto Wels typified the solid, deliberate party functionaries which ran the S.P.D. in the Weimar era.4 Hans Vogel, elected in 1931 as the party's cochairman with Wels, had a very similar background. Described b y Wenzel Jaksch as "one of the skilled workers who entered upon the German political stage around the turn of the century," Vogel had been born in a small Bavarian village in 1881. Trained to be a wood carver, he had become a member of the executive committee of the wood-carvers' union at the age of twenty-four and in 1908 a functionary of the S.P.D. Characterized by his biographer as a man of the people, Vogel had excelled as a popular orator, rather than as a journalist or theoretician. Elected to the Bavarian Diet in 1 9 1 2 , to the Constitutional Assembly in 1919, and the Reichstag in 1920, Vogel joined the executive committee of the S.P.D. in 1927. A devoted functionary, he never held a ministerial post nor in any other w a y distinguished himself in the political life of the Weimar R e public. Rather, he functioned, according to Jaksch, as "one of the heavy work horses which every democratic party needs to advance over a rocky road." In 1919 one of the minority in the S.P.D. which f o r patriotic reasons opposed the signing of the Versailles treaty, Vogel, like Wels, had been one of the leaders of the reformist right wing of his party. 5 T h e third member of this trio of typical S.P.D. functionaries was Sigmund Crummenerl, the national treasurer of the S.P.D. H e had started his career in the party as an official of its youth organization in Westphalia, later became district secretary in Magdeburg, and, with his election as national treasurer, joined the executive committee. T h e most obscure of the three, Crummenerl, as f a r as could be ascertained, never held a public office during the Weimar era. He, too, had been one of the right-wing reformists in the party's national leadership.6

40

ORGANIZATION

Friedrich Stampfer was a totally different person. Editor in chief of the party's leading newspaper, the Vorwärts, until its prohibition, Stampfer was described even by his enemies as "a man of unusual intellect and a first-class writer," the "leading journalist" of the S.P.D.7 Born in 1874 in Brno, Moravia—then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire—Stampfer as a young man studied Staatswissenschaft at the universities of Vienna and Leipzig and was one of the many intellectuals of Jewish middle-class background who joined the S.P.D. in the nineties. Though he never was an orthodox Marxist and sided with ethical Socialists and Revisionists in their disputes with the dominant Marxist theoreticians around the turn of the century, Stampfer's skill as a journalist and his intellectual brilliance gained him unusually rapid promotion in the party hierarchy nonetheless. Having worked on the Leipziger Volkszeitung, he quit the organ of the radical Marxists after a quarrel with its mentors, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring and, at the age of twenty-eight, was appointed director of the party's important national news service. A prominent "social patriot" during the First World War, Stampfer became editor in chief of the Vorwärts when in 1916 the right-wing majority wrested control of the party organ from the pacifist minority which opposed the "imperialist war" and later formed the Independent Social Democratic party. He automatically became an ex officio member of the executive committee. Immediately after the First World War, Stampfer had been one of the principal authors of the Majority Social Democrats' Görlitz Program of 1921, which temporarily all but eliminated Marxism from the party's doctrines. As a prominent member of the executive committee, a leader of the Reichstag Fraktion, and mentor of many of the party's publications, Stampfer had represented the extreme right wing of social democracy, the patriotic reformists, who wished to see the S.P.D. become a "democratic people's party" based on ethical-Socialist, rather than materialist-Marxist foundations. Though always emphatic about his patriotism, Stampfer opposed the "irrational-emotional" nationalism of the extreme right in German politics as strongly as the radical Marxism of the extreme left. He subscribed wholeheartedly to the liberal humanist "realistic" and "rational" tendencies which he identified with the leadership of his party in the Weimar Republic.8

ORGANIZATION

41

While the two remaining members of the Sopade had been elected to the S.P.D. executive only recently, at the Reichskonferenz of April, 1933, they, too, had for many years served the party loyally in leading positions: Like Stampfer one of the prominent Jewish intellectuals in the S.P.D. leadership, Paul Hertz had, however, started his career in the left wing of the Social Democratic movement. Born in Worms in 1888, he had been a functionary of the central committee of the German sales-clerks' union from 1906 to 1910. A student of political economy he had received his doctorate of philosophy sometime before the First World War. Hertz, too, had worked on the radical Marxist Leipziger Volkszeitung but, unlike Stampfer, remained loyal to the left wing of the movement and joined the Independent Social Democratic party during the war, in which he saw service. During the revolution of 1918-1919 Hertz was one of the editors of that party's paper, the Freiheit, and in 1920 was sent to the Reichstag. After the Independents' demise in 1922, along with most of that party's leaders, he returned to the S.P.D. and continued to serve in the Reichstag as an expert on financial and welfare problems. He became secretary of the Fraktion and served as adjutant to its leader, Rudolf Breitscheid, another ex-Independent, and wrote a number of works on social-welfare and tradeunion matters. In April, 1933, Paul Hertz was placed on the executive committee, at the age of forty-three, as a representative of the "younger generation." Unlike Wels, Vogel, Crummenerl, and Stampfer, he had not been a member of the reformist right wing but was affiliated with the so-called Marxist Center in the S.P.D., led by such other former Independent Social Democrats as Karl Kautsky, Rudolf Hilferding, and Breitscheid.9 Youngest of the group was thirty-two-year-old Erich Ollenhauer, since 1928 the chairman of the Association of Socialist Workers' Youth of Germany, and brought into the executive committee in April, 1933, as a representative of the "younger generation." The son of a stone mason, Ollenhauer had been born in Magdeburg where he had received a public-school education and was apprenticed to be a sales clerk. His career as a party functionary began when in 1916 he joined the Socialist Workers' Youth Organization and in 1918 the S.P.D. itself, becoming one of the chief organizers of the Social Democratic youth organizations dur-

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ORGANIZATION

ing the Weimar Republic. Prominent as an anti-Communist in the organization of the Socialist Workers' Youth International after the war, Ollenhauer had been the secretary general of that organization since 1923, and his intimate associations with many of the younger European Socialist leaders was expected to stand the exiled executive committee in good stead. As one of the leading younger party functionaries Ollenhauer had made a name for himself as an efficient organizer and skilled negotiator and was esteemed by the older leaders as a loyal, levelheaded, and temperate young man.10 This group of seasoned party functionaries of working class origin and Jewish intellectuals of middle-class antecedents may be said to have reflected quite faithfully the composition of the old Social Democratic leadership. In terms of age, background, and experience, they constituted a fair cross section of the men who had guided the S.P.D. through the Weimer era, though the rightwing elements were perhaps somewhat more strongly represented than in the leadership of the preexile period.11 "Revolutionary"

Social Democracy

The first attempt of the exiled leaders in Prague to define the character of the "revolutionary" movement they proposed to lead against the Third Reich had been the manifesto which they placed on the front page of the first issue of the Neuer Vorwärts on June 18, and which had provided the Nazis with the pretext to forbid the S.P.D. in Germany. Entitled, "Break the Chains" and following closely the model of the Communist Manifesto, this appeal was primarily addressed to the German workers. In the language of revolutionary Marxism, it pledged the exiled leaders to fight against the reactionary dictatorship of monopoly capitalism and its Nazi cohorts and for the establishment of the rule of the working class in Germany. 12 Otto Wels, however, in his letter to the International of June 2 had qualified these "revolutionary" aims, when he declared that "our struggle is as before for an order of society which will bring the German working class work and food, and the German people peace and liberty." 13 In the light of later developments, this Break the Chains manifesto of June 18 appears as an extension of the previous efforts of the S.P.D. leadership to control

ORGANIZATION

43

their own dissatisfied left wingers and combat the Communist efforts to capture the Social Democratic rank and file by putting increasing stress on the "proletarian" nature of their own fight against "capitalism." What the "activist" leaders in exile termed the "unfortunate behavior" of the Lobe group in Berlin during May and June, reported repercussions among the rank and file, and practically universal condemnation in international Socialist circles, made it extremely desirable for the Representatives Abroad, who sought the allegiance of the Social Democrats in Germany and the support of international labor, to give plain evidence of their own "revolutionary" determination. The manifesto of June 18 was an attempt to go as far as possible in view of the precarious position of their comrades in Germany, to show that the Representatives Abroad would have none of what appeared to be Social Democratic efforts in Berlin to "appease" the Nazis, but were unalterably committed to a "revolutionary" fight. The exiles feared that those men opposed to their brand of socialism and their leadership might exploit a situation which threatened to discredit the old ideology as well as the old leadership permanently and draw large numbers of disillusioned Social Democrats into the camp of the Nazis, the Communists, or rival left-wing revolutionary Socialist groups. They were, therefore, willing to risk the immediate consequences for the party and its functionaries in Germany, though they tried—unsuccessfully as it developed—to assume sole responsibility for the authorship and absolve the Berlin group from any complicity.14 According to Paul Hertz, the prospect of a new wave of terrorism against Social Democrats in Germany, and particularly the Berlin group, had prevented the Representatives Abroad from freely proclaiming their entire "revolutionary" program. However, "with the prohibition of the party and the arrest of several thousand functionaries, the obstacles originating from the functionaries in Germany were gone," he wrote, and the exiles felt at liberty to present their program for "revolutionary" social democracy.15 This was the pamphlet, Revolution against Hitler, published in late June or early July, 1933. In this, their first more definitive program, the old leaders in exile announced they would abandon reformism and seek new "revolutionary" means to express their intransigeant opposition to the Third Reich.16

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ORGANIZATION

In their manifesto of June 18 the exiles had declared that the Nazi system could "live only as long as it can suppress the truth, as it lives by the lie," and that, therefore, the major objective of its Social Democratic opponents would be "to tell the truth to the world and to blast for truth a path into Germany." 17 This was the theme which, as the basis of their new "revolutionary" tactics, the exiled party leaders now developed in greater detail in their program, Revolution against Hitler. They maintained that the most important part of "the new combat strategy of social democracy" was to "reawaken the forces of freedom and righteousness and to encourage their growth." By enlightening the German people regarding the reactionary and highly dangerous nature and deeds of the rulers of the Third Reich, the Sopade hoped to "undermine the regime spiritually and to lay the spiritual foundations for its collapse among the masses." 18 "Germany is . . . a political outcast," the Sopade warned, "an iron ring . . . of enemies surrounds Germany, increasing the possibility of a new war." 19 But the exiled Social Democratic leaders did not desire to encourage the neighbors of Germany to intervene with armed force. "Nothing could be more mistaken," declared Rudolf Breitscheid, the Sopade emissary in Paris, "than to attempt to oppose the Hitler government by force." 20 The German propaganda machine was working overtime to convince the people that the exiles were "treasonably" conspiring with the enemies of the country for their armed intervention. In the age before modern nationalism had become a vital factor in the life of European nations, political exiles, like the English Jacobites and the French aristocratic émigrés of 1789, might call upon foreign governments to restore them to power by force of arms. In the modern "age of nationalism" such "entangling alliances" could only do immeasurable damage to the cause of the exiles. "It was the misfortune of the Republic that it did not spring from the desire of the German people, but was a child of defeat," Otto Wels had declared at the Reichskonferenz of April 27, 1933. In the struggle against Hitler the German people would "never receive their liberty on the tips of foreign bayonettes"; he had continued, "they must want it and fight for it themselves."21 It was the constant endeavor of the exiles in Prague to refute the Nazi charge of

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treason against themselves by maintaining that by opposing Hitler they were patriots seeking to save their country from the certain economic chaos and war toward which its rulers were leading it. Revolution against Hitler was, therefore, a national duty. Vehemently disputing the Nazi claim that the "national revolution" of 1933 had made Hitler the spokesman, nay, the embodiment of the national will of the German people, the exiles for their part claimed to represent the real interests and desires of their fettered nation, in opposition to the "imperialist designs" of its government. Maintaining that they spoke for the silenced millions yearning to be liberated from the oppression of a small, criminally insane minority, the Social Democratic leaders appointed themselves the representatives of "the other Germany," the real nation of the democratic masses and not the useful myth of a privileged few. This other Germany, which was said to stand for culture and justice, for liberal humanism and democratic socialism, for peace and international understanding, this, to them, was the only Germany. Therefore, the fight against Hitler, was indeed a fight for Germany. 22 A real revolution in Germany, in the opinion of the Sopade, could come about only "through the evolution of oppositional forces inside the country." It was to be the duty of revolutionary social democracy to assist, sponsor, and direct this process; perception of the truth about the Third Reich would awaken revolutionary sentiments among the people; the "Socialist-schooled workers" to whom "this reactionary bourgeois socialism has nothing to offer" would become the core of a revolutionary movement; as "a tremendous ideological disappointment" would spread to other sectors of German society, it would fuse with a general urge for liberty, and coalesce into a movement of the people against the small group of Nazis and monopoly capitalists who, according to the Sopade, were for their own selfish gains exploiting the nation and leading it toward chaos and war. Thus, it was said, "out of a comprehension of the external and economic dangers threatening the nation, forces of opposition can evolve among the people. They will then fuse with those groups who, because they cherish freedom and justice, have been the mortal opponents of the regime from the start." "Among a great people like the German people," proclaimed the Sopade's program, "love of liberty never dies but always reawakens to rise

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against depotism." Enlightenment of the people was, therefore, the major task ahead.23 The second great task of "revolutionary" social democracy was to be "the collection and organization of the forces who, at the critical moment in the life of the regime, can effect its overthrow." In the opinion of the Sopade, the leader of a coming "revolution against Hitler" could only be social democracy, for freedom and socialism were inseparable. "Anyone who would sever that bond," it was stated categorically, "represents only a bastard form of socialism." In entirely different terms from the Break the Chains appeal to the German workers of June 18, the exiled leaders now declared that it would be a grave tactical error to conceive the popular liberation movement in terms of a class struggle and the coming democratic revolution as a revolution of the proletariat. " T h e Hitler regime must be overthrown through the mobilization of the widest coalition of all strata of society," they declared. And further: Only blind Marxist vulgarism [ Vulgarmarxismus] could abandon itself to the illusion that the majority of the German people belong to the proletariat [and] that, therefore, the regime can be overthrown by simply arousing the class consciousness of this majority and providing it with proletarian slogans. Such blindness regarding the true nature of the German class structure, regarding the varying social and ideological beliefs of the different classes of the population, such complete miscalculations regarding their real strength and its limitations, as well as of the actualities of a given historical situation, is the source of one of the major fallacies of Communist thought.

Bolshevist tactics were categorically rejected by the "revolutionary" Social Democrats. "The existence of the Communist party, its unteachable clinging to a false doctrine" were viewed as a grave danger for the ultimate success of a revolution against Hitler. It would be necessary for "the new Social Democratic combat strategy" to draw a sharp distinction between its own and Communist ambitions; the aim of the great liberation movement could not be the ambition "to substitute for a fascist a Bolshevist workers' penitentiary." "It would be stupid . . ." claimed the Sopade, "to bind the middle classes artificially to the Hitler regime with loud demands for revenge and with visions of a [future] Bolshevist regime"

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for Germany; such Communist propaganda would simply arouse among the middle classes a great fear "that the overthrow of the Hitler regime . . . would result in their own liquidation along the Bolshevist pattern" and would, therefore, become a strong counterweight to the spread of disillusionment and desperation resulting from Nazi policies among them, which the Sopade hoped to convert into a popular democratic liberation movement.24 The immediate aims of a Social Democratic liberation movement as conceived by the Sopade in the summer of 1933, was not to be the substitution of a dictatorship of the proletariat for a dictatorship of capitalism, but "a strong, genuine people's government which will suppress with a strong arm all supporters of despotism and all who plot to do violence to liberty"; a government which would protect, not deny the rights and liberties of the individual. The revolution against Hitler called for by these exiles was, therefore, not the proletarian revolution against a bourgeois dictatorship, which social democracy had always rejected, but an uprising, in the spirit of the liberal democratic revolutionaries of 1848, against a reactionary autocracy. As the spiritual heirs of the nineteenth-century democratic revolutionaries, these exiled Social Democratic leaders conceived the desire for liberty and justice, and their ultimate fusion in the form of a social democracy, as a universal permanent want which, despite temporary setbacks such as had occurred in Germany, could never be kept suppressed for long. The rational and ethical qualities imbedded within the souls of the German people were expected to stir, coalesce around social democracy and the ideals for which it stood, and finally as a mass movement of the angry people, arise and overthrow the despotic Nazicapitalist dictatorship. "We call upon the people, upon all classes," concluded the Sopade's pamphlet Revolution against Hitler. "Reconquer your rights and your freedom! Liberate yourselves from the oppressive depotism! Restore liberty to Germany in order that the German people may once more stand with their heads raised high among the free peoples of the world!" 25 Whether the end of the despotism would come as a consequence of external catastrophe or as a result of the evolution of domestic counter-currents, the collapse of the depotism was going to be unavoidable in the near future, according to the Neuer Vorwarts

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of August 22, 1933. "This second revolution will come," declared Otto Wels at the August conference of the Labor and Socialist International. "We can hope that the day is not far off when we shall once more meet in a free Germany." 26 The Strategy of Revolution: The as Propagandist and Organizer

Newspaper

The Sopade leaders thus believed that the two most important and urgent tasks which confronted the exiles in Prague were the enlightenment of the German people regarding the true nature of the Third Reich and the danger inherent in its survival, and the organization of an anti-Nazi underground movement under the leadership of Social Democrats. Both of these objects they hoped to achieve primarily through the medium of the printed word emanating from their Prague center. The press, as Sombart has pointed out, traditionally constituted in the Social Democratic party the most important medium of liaison between the party leaders and the German masses. Lacking access to the institutions of the imperial state—the bureaucracy, the army, the court—which provided parties close to the government with media of influence and unable to use the pulpit to reach existing and potential supporters, the S.P.D. had been forced during the greater part of its development to rely almost exclusively upon the medium of the printed word to make its voice heard. "It was," Sombart writes of it, "the first great movement to develop in the age of a free press."27 The extremely important part played by its newspapers in the growth and development of the S.P.D. before 1918 accounted for the fact that most of the party functionaries at one time or another had edited or at least been regular contributors to the Social Democratic press and that the chief journalists—men like Friedrich Stampfer—had occupied important positions in the party leadership. It also accounted for the hothouse growth of Social Democratic newspapers and journals before the First World War and for the large number of middle-class intellectuals who, as writers and journalists, became, alongside the trade unionists, very influential in the prewar S.P.D. As social democracy became a tremen-

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dous mass movement and its leaders found it more and more difficult to maintain personal contact with their supporters, the party press became increasingly the major medium through which the leaders could speak directly to the membership and constituents of the S.P.D. At the same time, this significance of the press for the Social Democratic movement made the central leadership all the more anxious to control it through loyal editors and through its national news service which supplied all party papers with their lead articles and major news items.28 During the Weimar Republic such factors as the tremendous expansion of the scope of their activities and proportional representation, made it even more difficult for the Social Democratic leaders to preserve any sort of direct contact with the membership and the electorate, and the party press, therefore, more than ever, served as the major medium of liaison between S.P.D. leaders and supporters. Social Democratic newspapers not only reported and interpreted the actions and speeches of the leaders; they endeavored also to maintain connection between the Marxist theoretical heritage of the party and the reformist activities of its leaders. However, the readership was on the whole limited to the members and sympathizers of the S.P.D., and these papers tended to be principally house organs of the party. The Social Democratic press rarely resorted to the journalese banner headlines and sensationalism of the yellow press or to the oversimplified slogans and appeals of the extremist papers, but preferred to present and interpret the news "rationally" and "scientifically" with charts, tables, and frequently difficult Marxist analyses. The general public, unschooled in Marxist dialectics and impatient with this presentation of the news, relied upon the so-called Generalctnzeiger press, the radio, and newsreels for its news so far as it did not get it from the tabloid press and the extremist Nazi and Communist papers.29 In view of this important role of the party press as a medium of liaison and control, its loss after the Reichstag Fire was a particularly severe blow for the leadership. Along with the mass arrest of Social Democratic functionaries, the effect was to break almost every link between the central party leadership and the lower echelons of the movement. This situation explains, partially at least, the desperate attempts made in spring, 1933, by Lobe and other

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Social Democratic leaders to regain the use of the press, and, subsequently, the reluctant decision of the S.P.D. executive of May 4, authorizing the publication of a newspaper abroad. The Representatives Abroad, thus commissioned, saw themselves "first of all confronted by the fact that any counterweight to the propaganda avalanche launched by the dictatorship and to the complete subjugation of the press and literature was lacking." There was thought to be in Germany a strong desire for "independent literature," which, the Sopade feared, might flow into "the wrong channels," unless it met this need.30 The truth was to be made known to the German people and the core of an organized resistance movement activated. In the opinion of the leaders in Prague, only the immediate publication of a Social Democratic underground newspaper could meet these urgent problems. They hoped that the appearance of a Vorwärts in Germany might at one and the same time reveal to the German people as a whole, through "a merciless critical exposure . . . the nature and acts of the regime . . . the reactionary character of the government, the ruin it will bring upon the entire nation," while demonstrating to the atomized remnants of the Social Democratic movement that the old party and its leadership lived on in spite of all persecution. A paper of this sort might "undermine the regime spiritually and lay the ideological foundations for its collapse among the masses," and show at the same time that a center of resistance to lead the fight against the Third Reich already existed, the Sopade. Like the Sozialdemokrat during the Bismarckian persecution of the 'eighties, a Vorwärts, appearing as regularly as possible inside Germany, was to demonstrate, in defiance of all Nazi efforts of suppression, that social democracy lived, and fought on; it would serve, as the Sozialdemokrat had, to rally the supporters of social democracy and overcome their temporary discouragement, as well as to align behind the flag that had been raised in Prague what was expected to be a growing opposition to the National Socialist despotism, leading the German people toward revolution against Hitler. 31 Revolutionary leaders, wrote Henri de Man, "are like actors who, when improvising a piece, cannot emancipate themselves from the memories of a familiar text." 32 In the formulation and organization of their tactics for the fight against Hitlerism, the German

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Social Democratic exiles naturally were strongly influenced by historical precedents for their own situation. "Every Socialist emigration has in the past sought to show to its nation and its people the way to freedom and endeavored to become the ideological and organizational backbone of a movement fighting inside the country," wrote Paul Hertz in justification of the claims and activities of the Sopade.33 Marx, Engels, and other nineteenth-century exiles had directed the activities of their followers from abroad "where they could serve their ideas best," the Neuer Vorwärts reminded its readers.34 The bitter foe of Napoleon III, Henri de Rochefort, through the medium of his Lantern, had helped to organize and rally the opponents of the Second Empire from Brussels; de Rochefort, the Neuer Vorwärts recalled, became a member of the French government after that empire had collapsed.35 But more vividly inscribed in the memory of German Socialists were the two classic examples of political exiles using the press to fight despotism at home which had actually occurred within the lifetime of most of the exiled leaders. One was the activities of the brilliant group of exiles which edited the Sozialdemokrat for the S.P.D. during the antiSocialist law of the 'eighties. "The most important weapon of German social democracy in its fight against Bismarck," some twelve thousand copies of the paper, printed abroad and smuggled to Germany, were believed to have kept the party alive, to have rallied its temporarily demoralized supporters, and to have served as an effective propaganda instrument against the imperial government.36 The other example was Lenin's Iskra, the newspaper which the exiled leader of the Russian Bolshevists sought to make the "collective propagandist" as well as the "collective organizer" of the revolutionary opposition against the Tsarist regime.37 The Social Democratic leaders of the 'eighties had considered their newspaper as one of the chief weapons in their campaign to defeat Bismarck through the "enlightenment" of the German public; the fall of their foe and the subsequent advances of the Social Democratic movement had convinced them that this strategy had been right. On the other hand, Lenin's conception of the role of a newspaper was based on his fundamental disbelief in the ability of the Russian masses to effect their own liberation "spontaneously," regardless of how much they might be "enlightened." A tightly

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knit, autocratically directed organization of small cadres of professional revolutionaries, led by the exiled editors of his newspaper, was to "guide" the Russian masses toward revolution. As for the German Social Democrats, a party which already had a functioning organization in the country—though temporarily restricted—had simply moved its propaganda center out of the reach of the German police. The activities of this Representation Abroad and the contents of the publications turned out by the exiles were continuously and closely controlled by the leaders who had remained in Germany and periodically reexamined by the representatives of the entire party at conferences held abroad. Conversely, in the Bolshevist example, it had been sought, with some success, to use Iskra to create a new party inside Russia; particularly in the early stages of the development of the Bolshevist movement the exiles had quite autocratically directed the activities of their followers inside the country.38 Superficially it might appear that the position of the exiled Social Democratic leaders was closer to that of the Iskra editors than to those of the Sozialdemokrat. The destruction of the legal party and the arrest of its leaders seemed to them to leave the organization of the Social Democratic opposition to Hitler in their hands. Unlike in Russia in 1902, however, there still existed in Germany the remnants of the old Social Democratic movement, since a seventy-year-old, powerful party organization could not be wiped out overnight. Of the millions of Social Democratic followers, a large number, however cruelly persecuted and threatened, was presumed still loyal to the old party and its leaders. Moreover, the majority of the leaders in Prague did not share Lenin's pessimistic philosophy concerning the revolutionary spontaneity of the masses and firmly believed that the German people would overthrow the dictatorship as soon as its true nature became clearly evident. They organized their activities accordingly. The first step was the publication of the Neuer Vorwärts, a weekly edited by Stampfer. In one of the first issues, Karl Kautsky, who had been one of the editors of the Sozialdemokrat, reminded the exiled S.P.D. leaders of that paper's success in the fight against Bismarck's anti-Socialist law, predicting that "the Neuer Vorwärts will be a similar weapon during the existence of the Third Reich,

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which, let us hope, will not last as long." 39 In appearance as well as content the paper, originally intended primarily for German readers, sought to resemble the old Vorwärts as closely as possible. The exiles would have preferred to give their paper the familiar name, but legal and political complications stood in the way since there already existed a Communist Vorwärts in Czechoslovakia. The Neuer Vorwärts was to symbolize the continuity between the old Social Democratic movement and the new revolutionary underground movement, between the old S.P.D. leadership and the "revolutionary" Sopade in Prague.40 "Fascism . . . leaves us but few means to help freedom and truth to emerge victorious; therefore, we must use the few weapons at our disposal all the more vigorously," announced the Sopade; "the distribution of the Neuer Vorwärts in Germany and in the entire world [came] before everything else." 41 The campaign against the Third Reich was to be based on the principle that Social democracy lives and continues t o follow its old leaders in its underground existence too. T h e basis of its activities remains its old organizations; although these organizations have been forced underground, although a part of the old party membership must b e expected t o withdraw f r o m all active participation in its activities and struggle, certain comrades will remain loyal and active in every one of the old organizations. A s in the period of the anti-Socialist law the distribution of the Sozialdemokrat, published abroad, constituted the major task of a party organization gone underground, s o now the distribution of a newspaper published b y the Sopade, and its pamphlets, will be the major weapons of the old organization working underground. 4 2

The secondary task of the Sozialdemokrat, and the primary object of Iskra, had been the organization of oppositional elements into a hard core. The Sopade, too, did not limit the object of its paper merely to arousing revolutionary sentiment through the "enlightenment" of the people, but wanted it "to collect and organize the forces who at the decisive moment [might] intervene actively to overthrow the regime." 43 And as there appeared to the Sopade to be no other "visible and effective center for resistance and attack," it believed that it was incumbent upon it to collect, organize, and direct the anti-Nazi forces, who, it hoped, would soon emerge as a result of economic and international developments

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adversely affecting the hold exercised by the Nazis over Germany. The core of the resistance was to be formed from the remnants of the old S.P.D. organizations and, as Paul Hertz explained, the desire "to link the underground movement to the mass organization of the old Socialist movement naturally influenced our tactical plans." The Sopade "did not expect foreign powers to overthrow the dictatorship, nor would it rely simply on fortuitous luck" and, therefore, it "always considered the rallying and reactivation of the workers the most important initial condition for overthrowing the dictatorship."44 All attempts by isolated anti-Nazi elements during the first months to print literature, to conduct whispering campaigns, and somehow to organize resistance groups without outside help, proved to be highly dangerous as well as inadequate, according to Hertz. "Experience soon showed," he wrote, "that contact with larger groups of individuals was impossible without the use of the printed word" prepared abroad.45 The Neuer Vorwärts was, therefore, believed to constitute a vital link in the organization of the anti-Nazi movement in Germany. However, "as soon as the first issue . . . had appeared, it was at once apparent that a large size newspaper was simply not adapted for underground distribution." After consulting Russian Menshevists, who were similarly trying to produce a revolution in their homeland, the Sopade substituted a miniature edition of the Neuer Vorwärts, printed on tissue paper. This edition, again according to Hertz, became increasingly popular among the Social Democrats working underground in Germany, "as the realization spread that its technique and contents were so far superior to any illegal literature produced inside Germany, that the sacrifices connected with its distribution had to be assumed."46 Very soon this miniature Neuer Vorwärts was succeeded by the Sozialistische Aktion, edited by Paul Hertz. As the executive's underground publication, it was addressed solely to readers in Germany, while the Neuer Vorwärts became the Sopade organ for fellow exiles and the general public outside Germany. The Sozialistische Aktion was photostated in minute print, barely readable with the naked eye, on eight closely printed pages of tissue paper. This permitted thousands of copies, each containing about 25,000 words, to be smuggled across the borders into Germany. Hertz

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claimed that in the first year of its publication about two million copies of the paper were sent to Germany.47 Besides the Sozialistische Aktion, thousands of camouflaged pamphlets were printed by the exiles. Hidden in innocent-looking sample packages of some popular brands of foods, shampoos, shaving soap, or tea; disguised as dime novels, cheap editions of the classics, primers for language studies; as manuals for sports, games, health exercises, first aid—or perhaps as an appeal for the Nazi winter relief campaign—anti-Nazi literature was smuggled into Germany. A routine check by a German customs guard of the knapsacks of a group of students returning from a hike through the Bohemian Forest might yield a few innocent-looking pocket editions of Caesar's Gallic War or other classics, perhaps one of the popular editions of a work by Schopenhauer or a religious tract. He might leaf through an advertisement pamphlet called, The Art of Shaving, praising some new razor, handing it back with a jocular remark, or—if it was a publication of one of the Nazi organizations—with a smart Hitler salute. Had he taken the trouble of reading on for a page or two in what appeared to be a tedious booklet, he might have found himself suddenly—without a typographical break— reading the Sopade's Revolution against Hitler or a reprint from one of its journals, outlawed as seditious literature in Germany. One S.S. man borrowed a cigarette from a young "tourist" and unsuspectingly smoked it—along with the minute leaflet concealed inside of it.48 The "Offensive of Truth" The Sopade chose the Czechoslovak capital for a headquarters for several reasons. In the first place, the very tentative plans which had been made by Stampfer and others in the spring of 1933 for the publication of a paper abroad, had produced an offer by the SudetenGerman Social Democrats for the use of the plant of the Karlsbad Volkswille, and it was there that the Sopade established "Graphia," its publishing house, in May, 1933. The one to two million marks from the S.P.D. treasury, which had been taken abroad for safekeeping by Wels, Crummenerl, Ollenhauer, and Hertz in March and April, now financed the work of the exile center.49 From

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Prague liaison could be maintained with friendly Socialist patties throughout Europe. An appeal to other German Social Democratic exiles throughout Europe requested that they assist the Social Democratic leaders in Prague and help make the Sopade the center of the anti-Nazi fight against the Third Reich. Even more important for the "truth campaign" of the Sopade was the favorable geographical position of the Czechoslovak Republic. A densely wooded, mountainous frontier jutted into Germany between the districts of Silesia, Saxony, and Bavaria, the former two traditionally Social Democratic strongholds which could be expected to facilitate the transportation of literature into the country. On the Bohemian side of the border the 300,000 members of the Sudeten-German Social Democratic party (S.S.D.P.) led by Wenzel Jaksch and Siegfried Taub, pledged their "uttermost" support and indeed did everything to assist the exiles in their struggle. Hidden trails, known only to natives of the border regions, became the first avenues of ingress for Sopade literature into Germany. The Sudeten-German Social Democrats were members of the Benes cabinet and, as Wenzel Jaksch pointed out, as a government party considered themselves in a position to lend considerable support to the Social Democratic resistance in Germany.50 Wenzel Horn was legally responsible for the Neuer Vorivarts; necessary passports and permits for the exiles were procured; and in later years the S.S.D.P. even provided financial assistance. Moreover, the Czechoslovak Social Democratic party, a fellow member of the Labor and Socialist International, was the second strongest party in the country and shared the leadership of the government with Dr. Benes's National Socialists, a liberal democratic group. The Sopade leaders called a press conference as soon as they had settled down in Prague to reassure those citizens who had voiced fears that the exiles might cause unpleasant foreign entanglements for the republic. Wels promised that the Sopade would engage in no "conspiracies" which might infringe upon the laws of their hosts. In general the reception accorded to the exiles in the republic was friendly and sympathetic. Austria and the Alsace, which had been considered as alternative headquarters by the exiles, were dismissed for different reasons: the former because of the anti-Socialist temper of its government, the latter because it lacked strongly organized German Social Democratic elements to support the Sopade.®1

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Prague quickly became the capital of the political exiles from Nazi Germany. Penniless former editors and functionaries of the S.P.D. arrived almost daily and the Sopade had no trouble recruiting a staff of perhaps twenty paid and numerous part-time employees for its headquarters; contributors for its journals were not wanting and the appeal to former functionaries who had fled to other countries soon provided the Sopade with another fifty to a hundred paid employees scattered throughout Europe.52 This staff, with the assistance of numerous volunteers—fellow exiles, foreign Socialists, migrant workers, tourists, and others—within a few months established an elaborate and carefully organized underground railway to carry "the truth" into Germany, to assist in the organization of an underground movement and to keep the exiles informed of developments inside the country. Around the borders of Germany was thrown a network of primary border stations (Grenzsekretariate) staffed by salaried border secretaries (Grenzsekretare) each of whom in turn supervised a number of smaller border stations (Grenzstiitzpunkte), situated as closely as possible to the German border which were to assist incoming and outgoing "couriers," facilitate the transport of Sopade literature into the country and so forth. Each primary border station was responsible for one or more German districts nearest to the borders where it was located, and the staff usually consisted of reliable former party functionaries from these German districts who knew both the territory and its people well. The major primary border stations and the areas covered by them were as follows (see front end-paper map): Gdynia (Poland), later transferred to Warsaw: Pomerania, parts of border districts Posen-West Prussia, occasional connections with East Prussia. Krakow (Poland): Upper Silesia. Trautenau (Czechoslovakia): Central Silesia, some connections with Berlin and parts of Brandenburg. Reichenberg (Czechoslovakia): Lower Silesia and parts of Brandenburg. Bodenbach (Czechoslovakia): Eastern Saxony. Karlsbad (Czechoslovakia): Western Saxony, Central Germany. Pilsen (Czechoslovakia): Northern Bavaria.

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Böhmisch-Eisenstein (Czechoslovakia): Southern Bavaria. Austrian-Swiss Border (St. Gallen, Basel): In Austria and Switzerland there were no regular paid agents because of legal restrictions, but contacts with Bavaria and Württemberg, nevertheless, were maintained by German Socialists resident in these countries. Mulhouse (Alsace): Southern Baden, Württemberg. Forbach (Alsace): Rhine-Pfalz. Luxembourg: Baden, Hesse, parts of Württemberg. Brussels (Belgium): Parts of Rhineland and Westphalia. Antwerp (Belgium): Parts of Westphalia, Hanover. Copenhagen (Denmark): Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and occasional connections to Mecklenburg. Over the years there would be certain shifts; for instance, a border station at Saarbrücken had to be given up after the plebiscite of 1935. Berlin maintained direct contacts with Prague, and the organizational and propaganda work in the Berlin region was directed from that city, rather than by any border stations.63 A typical border secretary was Georg Reinbold, before 1933 a member of the Diet of Baden and a leading Social Democratic functionary of that state, who was stationed by the Sopade in Luxembourg. Local labor organizations assisted him in his work by providing their facilities, offices, etc., whenever needed. Reinbold himself lived inconspicuously in a local hotel. Occasionally he would be visited by "tourists" from Germany to whom he would hand the material sent to him by mail—usually through Germany— from the Sopade headquarters in Prague. Some of his visitors would be notified that typewriters were waiting for them in a secluded place and would write out reports on political, social, and economic conditions, about morale in their particular city or district, on corruption, mismanagement, terror, and other matters of interest to the Sopade. T h e y would then quietly return to Germany. Other "tourists"—or "skiers" in mountainous districts—would return with knapsacks filled with underground literature. Back home, they might go to a swimming pool, take a locker, and leave the knapsacks there. Later someone else, unknown to the courier, would somehow receive the key and pick up the clandestine material. Usually no more than three persons in this chain would know each other, thus reducing the risks of arrests and betrayals. The report-

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ers, particularly in the early period, were usually not couriers— many border secretaries sought to keep the two groups separate, because the couriers were more liable to be caught and the reporters were too valuable to be risked, as they frequently occupied important positions in state and industry. In later years, however, loss of personnel required both functions to be performed by the same persons. In this manner the Sopade gradually found contact with Social Democrats in Germany who, in their turn, might be seeking financial support, literature, and information for their underground activities. There might be three underground Social Democratic groups in one city, each numbering from one to three dozen members. One group might consist of former party and trade-union functionaries, meeting ostensibly as old friends over a glass of beer; another might be composed of former Reichsbanner members;54 the third of former members of the Socialist Workers' Youth. They would have no contact with one another—or even know of one another's existence—but each group individually would maintain liaison with a Sopade contact across the border, from whom they would receive material for their own information or for distribution, orally or in pamphlets, at their places of work or at other opportune locations. The Sozialistische Aktion, Sopade pamphlets, or just printed anti-Nazi slogans would thus be scattered within a periphery centered on the above groups, but, as a rule, unaware of the identity of its members, reminding the masses, particularly the workers, that a central leadership of the Social Democratic movement still existed, leading the fight against the Nazi regime and preparing for the day of revolution.55 The Appeal to the World The Sopade, however, did not only wish to be heard in Germany, but wanted the world to accept it as the voice of "millions of German workers condemned to silence by incredible terror"; as the voice of "the silenced party"; and above all, as spokesman for that other Germany which, the exiles maintained, existed in spite of all Nazi claims that Hitler's will and that of the German people were now one and indivisible. The exiles endeavored to carry their mes-

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sage and warnings to the world outside Germany and sought to convince that world that their struggle was not simply that of a group of exiled politicians endeavoring to regain power, nor even alone that of a group of anti-Nazi patriots endeavoring to liberate their homeland. The corallary to their thesis that Hitler did not represent the German people was the denationalization of nazism. German fascism, like its Italian counterpart, was said to be not a national phenomenon due to peculiarities of national character, but a European problem. Therefore, the Sopade's campaign against the Third Reich was claimed to be a fight for European civilization and world peace as well. The Neuer Vorwärts declared that anyone who is aware of the interconnection between the various European nationalisms cannot fail to see that the whirling forces of a great fascist power in the center of the continent will lead to another 1914 and will perforce drag its neighbors along with it into the sea of chaos. 56

The Social Democratic exiles, therefore, believed it to be the duty of the civilized world, above all the European democracies, to assist their fight—not by invading and occupying Nazi Germany, but primarily by resisting the expansionist claims and demands for political and military concessions made by the German government. Foreign nations were called upon to deny Hitler the diplomatic successes which he would seek in order to overcome the inevitable internal dissatisfaction with his rule. The beginnings of the collapse of the Third Reich, explained the Sopade, might be initiated by a catastrophic German defeat in the realm of foreign affairs. Firmness, political and moral isolation, economic boycotts and unofficial blockades would increase dissatisfaction inside Germany and thus prepare the way for the revolution against Hitler that would save world peace. The responsible statesmen of the world were called upon by the Sopade to help to demolish the wall of ignorance behind which Hitler was endeavoring to keep the German people imprisoned and to "let the German people know that in case of a [Nazi] war of revenge, they would find no friends anywhere, but only enemies"; "that such a war could only end with the destruction of Germany." The Sopade declared: "We German Social Democrats watch with horror as the German people are being led to the slaughterhouse with their eyes closed." " T o enlighten the

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German people is for us a national duty, but it is also the duty of the entire world. . . . Lies will lead to war, the truth to peace. Therefore, we call for the great offensive of truth into Germany— not against Germany, but for Germany." 5 7

The Appeal to International Labor "The Socialist interests in the preservation of peace, and no less in the weakening of the [Italian and German] dictatorships [was] an absolute interest," declared Rudolf Hilferding, the Social Democratic exiles' chief theorist, in November, 1933. He, therefore, considered it the duty of world socialism to give its wholehearted support to the Sopade's battle against the German dictatorship and against war. 58 The Sopade, in its continuous efforts to enlist the statesmen and public opinion of the world in its struggle against Hitlerism, sought above all to solicit the moral and financial support of the Labor and Socialist International and the parties affiliated therewith. Just as the exiles' influence in Germany depended upon their ability to tie a Social Democratic underground movement to the Sopade in Prague, their efforts to gain the support of world opinion depended upon their ability to persuade the International to throw its support behind them. Support of the underground movement in Germany and of the international Socialist labor movement were thought to be the two elements which were essential to the existence of the Sopade, if its campaign against the Third Reich was to have even a chance of succeeding. "Our fight is your fight, and your aims are our aims," Otto Wels had declared in his appeal for assistance announcing the establishment of the Sopade.59 The parties of the Labor and Socialist International met in Paris on August 21-25 t o consider "the strategy and tactics of the international labor movement during the period of fascist reaction." The Sopade delegation was permitted to represent the German Social Democratic party, the earlier repudiation by Wels of his "resignation" of the previous March being recognized. Appealing for support, Wels told the delegates that the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the defeat of his party could not be attributed to any "failure" on part of the republican leadership, nor to the S.P.D., nor

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even primarily to the inflation or depression. The victory of the Nazis in Germany, claimed Wels, was first and foremost the consequence of insufficient support given to the Republic and to social democracy by the victors of 1918 in general, and by European labor in particular. The Versailles treaty and the subsequent reluctance of the powers to strengthen the republicans through a more conciliatory treatment of Germany's claims when the crisis came, had permitted the Nazis to ride to power upon the crest of a wave of nationalism. The International and the Socialist parties affiliated with it responded by pledging their support to the fight of the Sopade, calling upon the German people to heed its call for revolution against Hitler. 60

Chapter 5 "Reorientation"

Now the flag must be raised anew for the fighters in Germany. Millions look for leadership from Prague. Will it become the new ideological center which will designate the new road that must be followed? Will it succeed in uniting all the divergent ideological groups for the common fight against their mortal enemy?—A left-wing Social Democrat in the Neuer Vorwärts of July 3, 1933. For a party which has to keep up with a real evolution, criticism is indispensable and tradition can become an oppressive burden, a restraining fetter.— Eduard Bernstein. Freedom of criticism implies not the substitution of one theory by another, but freedom from every complete and thought-out theory; it implies eclecticism and absence of principle.—V. I. Lenin.

Germany—Summer

1933

Fundamental to the aims and strategy which the exiled leaders in Prague formulated for their war against Hitlerism was the assumption that the core of the resistance in Germany would be made up of old-time Social Democrats who had remained loyal to their leadership and the traditional principles which it still represented. Because of the complete disintegration of the old organizational structure, the Sopade was only slowly able to reestablish contacts with scattered groups inside Germany, and it took several weeks after the flag had been raised in Prague until stock could be taken of the situation in Germany and the size and nature of the resist-

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anee movement which the exiles aspired to lead. Thus the immensity of the defeat which the party had suffered and the complete disorganization of its supporters became only gradually evident. The vast majority of the old Social Democratic rank and file, left leaderless by mass arrests, murders, and flights of their former functionaries, deprived with one stroke of the protection of once powerful trade unions and their seventy-year-old party—institutions which had seemed to be indestructible and which had sheltered millions of German workers for decades—were thoroughly bewildered and demoralized as a result of the events of the spring and early summer of 1933. The collaborationist activities of the trade-union leadership and the participation of Social Democratic deputies in the Reichstag vote of May 17, after three years of continuous retreat in the political as well as economic realms, left the majority of the rank and file of these organizations enveloped in a stupor of defeat. Overnight all power appeared to have passed into the hands of the victorious National Socialists, who now brought every possible pressure to bear upon the Social Democratic supporters to convince them that further resistance would be useless and suicidal, cooperation with the new "German people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft), however, reasonable and patriotic. Terror was wedded to propaganda to discourage any efforts to organize resistance to the Nazi regime; "rumors about kidnappings, beatings, murders, reports about spies and traitors, helped to create an atmosphere of insecurity and paralyzing fear" among their former opponents.1 All of the better-known leaders of the S.P.D. and its affiliate organizations, who had either somehow escaped arrest or had been released again after an initial period of incarceration and mistreatment, were kept under close surveillance; anyone suspected of so much as contemplating any resistance work quickly disappeared into one of the many concentration camps without due process of law, while the courts meted out severe penalties to all found guilty of violating the law prohibiting the reorganization of political parties. Above all, liaison and collaboration with exiled "traitors" abroad, distribution of their "seditious" publications or any other kind of assistance for their "counterrevolutionary" activities, were stiffly penalized. The more prominent among the exiles were branded dangerous outlaws, their citizenship was taken

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away from them, their property confiscated, and their friends and relatives in Germany threatened with retaliatory measures unless they could persuade the exiles to cease their "treasonable" activities; it was clearly indicated by the government that it was highly dangerous so much as to know any of the "traitors."2 Until 1933 it had been one of the major tenets of Nazi propaganda to single out in their attacks the leaders rather than the rank and file of their opponents, for they believed that "to the same extent to which supporters of the Marxist organizations lost faith in their former leaders, National Socialist propaganda was able to penetrate into their ranks."3 This principle they now employed again in the campaign against the exiles. The controlled press, led by the Völkischer Beobachter, charged that the Hetzzentrale in Prague was frantically trying to persuade the foreign enemies of the German people to invade and occupy the country in order that the beaten leaders might regain their former state. One-time Social Democratic functionaries, particularly former adherents of the right wing of the S.P.D., were threatened as well as wooed to induce them to denounce publicly the "treason" of the exiled leaders and to recommend to their former supporters wholehearted participation in the Third Reich. A few proved willing, but "the great majority of all party and trade union functionaries remained either aloof or in opposition."4 The Social Democratic Resistance Nevertheless, in spite of disorganization, terror, and propaganda, scattered opposition groups emerged among the remnants of the old Social Democratic party and affiliated organizations. Far from being anything like a centrally organized movement, these small isolated groups gathered about former Socialist youth leaders, Reichsbanner leaders, intellectuals, students, in small discussion groups, willing to fight back, but still groping for a way. It appears that many of the "old-timers" of the Social Democratic movement remained anti-Nazi, although, in the late summer and fall of 1933 at least, mostly without actively participating in any underground activities against the government. Many of them were already suspect and frequently carefully watched as former

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active Social Democrats or trade unionists; they lacked experience in revolutionary underground work; moreover, the shock of their defeat combined with the traditional sense of caution which the S.P.D. had always encouraged among them, kept the old-timers more or less inactive in the first months after the prohibition of the S.P.D. However, though deprived of their former positions as leaders of the workers, many of them continued to exercise a strong, though purely unorganized personal influence over the men and women they had once led in party or trade union. T h e y cautiously participated in discussions at workbenches and lathes, in the offices and around the Stammtisch of the neighborhood inn. T h e y took part in funerals of former "comrades," and organized secret collections for the families of murdered or imprisoned Social Democrats.® The small activist groups that wished to strike back as quickly as possible were primarily composed of men and women who had been in Social Democratic youth groups, athletic organizations, hiking clubs, and student groups, none of them prominent enough to be caught in the first great arrest waves. T h e y were particularly those younger Social Democrats who, because of their youth or their deviationist views, had not yet advanced very far up the ladder of the S.P.D. leadership, but had held only minor positions, or none at all; young militants who had supported pre-1933 endeavors to "modernize" party tactics; and supporters of the former left wing that had demanded more revolutionary Marxist ideology and tactics, and closer cooperation with the Communists as the only means of forging a united "proletarian" front to stop "capitalist reaction." The character and composition of these isolated small resistance groups was thus not at all representative of the membership of the old party. The rank and file of the old membership was neither ideologically nor organizationally prepared for underground work. "Organization of underground activities against a totalitarian dictatorship," as Jaksch has pointed out, "involves exposing individuals to the possibility of a most horrible martyr's death. Often the life, liberty, and domestic happiness of one's closest friends must be staked." 6 It was not the type of activity which an older man, perhaps the responsible head of a large family, could easily adjust to. Moreover, the older generation of Social Democrats had been taught by their leaders that resort to violence—particularly in the

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face of overwhelming odds—and civil disobedience were irrational and irresponsible.7 Gripped by stupor of defeat and trained to weigh all risks most carefully and rationally, the remnants of the older Social Democratic membership—even if they remained passively loyal—could not suddenly, after the collapse of their legal party organization, switch from evolutionary concepts to revolutionary concepts directed against the "capitalist state." T o the younger activist groups of the Social Democratic underground of late summer and fall 1933 the old democratic-reformist ideology seemed thoroughly discredited. The leaders of the younger right-wing opposition to the party leadership—men like Kurt Schumacher, Julius Leber, and Carl MierendorfT—were under arrest and, therefore, in no position to influence the character of the first resistance groups.8 Collaboration by some Social Democrats and the desperate, yet fruitless and highly compromising efforts of the Lobe group shortly before the prohibition of the S.P.D., had destroyed what prestige right-wing Social Democrats might still have had among the younger elements. Overwhelmed by sentiments of frustration, rage, and impotence, they were now filled with a desire for revenge, for fighting fire with fire, for a strong rule of their own to even the score with the Nazis and to wipe out for good the forces of German "capitalism" and "reaction." The consequence was a mighty renaissance of revolutionary Marxist sentiments among the resistance groups. "Never before," stated Jansen and Weil, "were the 'MilitaryPolitical Lessons' of Lenin studied in greater numbers than in 1933." 9 The young activists accepted Lenin's dictum that "without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement," and found in the principles of Marxist-Leninism the ideological foundation for their struggle against nazism.10 T h e y shared their generation's contempt for the liberal-democratic and rationalisthumanist concepts of the founders of the Weimar Republic and believed, because these principles had proven themselves unequal in the struggle with the authoritarian extremists creeds, they were decadent and largely to blame for Hitler's victory. However, unlike those young Germans who gave their allegiance to the Nazi movement as an alternative, they saw in its "national revolution" only the quintessence of capitalist exploitation and turned instead to the principles of the militant, revolutionary, proletarian class

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struggle. The revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat ^ere thought to be the only solution, and the Bolshevist conspiratorial methods the only feasible form of organization for "revolutionary Marxists" fighting to overthrow a ruthless "capitalist dictatorship." Endeavoring to organize a resistance movement along the Bolshevist pattern and groping for information, explanations, contacts, and instructions, many of these small activist groups came under the influence of "revolutionary" left-wing Social Democrats, former Communists, and members of the small Socialist and Communist dissident groups, such as the Socialist Workers' party (S.A.P.), International Socialist Militant League (I.S.K.), Communist Party Opposition (K.P.O.), and Trotzkyites. Because of their very insignificance before 1933, these small groups had managed to survive the first great arrest waves more successfully than the larger labor parties. Moreover, in order to infiltrate into the larger labor parties, they had even before 1933 organized themselves into small conspiratorial cells, united primarily by a common ideology and selfimposed, strict discipline, which now stood them in good stead. Their small organizations were much better prepared and adaptable to the sort of underground warfare which most activists believed necessary to fight against Hitler than the old Social Democratic organization, a democratic mass party operating in the open and, therefore, all the more easily smashed by the dictatorship. The organizational and ideological ideas which these revolutionary Socialist groups had taken from Lenin and the Bolshevist experience in Tsarist Russia, attracted the leaderless Social Democratic activist remnants, who were seeking a revolutionary theory as well as a revolutionary organization, to fight the despotic government of Germany. The Communists, who for years had claimed to be the only true heirs of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary ideology, and who had retained much of the original Bolshevist organization and strategy, though they had lost as many if not more of their prominent functionaries as the S.P.D., were, nevertheless, much better prepared than the latter to go underground in 1933. Moreover, they enjoyed an immense advantage over all other anti-Nazi groups, because they could claim the support of a major power, and a large part of the Socialist resistance looked for assistance to the Soviet Union. In this period the K.P.D. made a tremendous effort to turn to its own

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benefit the widespread disillusionment among Social Democrats in Germany as well as in exile with "bourgeois democracy," evolutionary socialism, and the political maturity of Germans; German Communists made a strong bid for the allegiance of the Social Democratic resistance groups in the name of a "united front" of all revolutionary Socialist anti-Nazis, fully awake to the widespread desire for unity which existed among the scattered, disillusioned "activists." 11 The remnants of the German Social Democratic movement after the prohibition of the party thus consisted of three more or less distinct elements, each for the moment isolated from the others: ( i ) the majority of the old S.P.D. and Socialist trade union members who, so far as they escaped death, prison, concentration camp, and exile, were for the time being paralyzed by the stupor of defeat. These old-timers, though most of them remained secretly loyal, were on the whole adverse to immediate underground resistance. (2) The scattered small activist groups whose needs and sentiments were impelling them toward revolutionary MarxistLeninism. (3) The exiled executive committee in Prague, the old party leaders who conceived a revolution against Hitler more or less in terms of the rationalist-humanist, liberal-democratic beliefs which had been fundamental to all their actions since the turn of the century. It was their ambition to collect, organize, and direct the scattered resistance groups in accordance with the strategy which they had developed in their first program, Revolution against Hitler; these, in turn, were to become the Social Democratic nucleus of the popular revolutionary movement that was to restore a democratic form of government in Germany. The old leaders were to discover, however, that aside from the determination of the Nazis to prevent the formation of a resistance movement, their bid for the leadership of a Socialist underground movement, was challenged by three competitors in particular: the Communists, members of the former left wing of the S.P.D. (the Old Left), and, finally, a third group which shall be called the New Left. The Communist Challenge: United Front from Below The exiled K.P.D. leader Wilhelm Pieck declared that social democracy was disintegrating, but warned his followers that it would

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be false to assume that it has ceased to exist; it remained " f o r us Communists to destroy it." It was the Communist contention that the Social Democratic executive in Prague was only assuming a social-revolutionary pose, while actually it was appealing to the bourgeoisie that social democracy alone could prevent G e r m a n y from falling into Bolshevist chaos. T h e exiled K . P . D . leader maintained that it was, therefore, "our task to expose the role of these agencies of fascism before the Social Democratic workers," to "liberate them from the remnants of Social Democratic tradition and draw them . . . into the Communist fighting front." 1 2 T h e accession of Hitler had caused no fundamental change in Soviet policy toward Germany. A s before, Stalin was prepared for closer collaboration between the t w o countries, and until 1934 the U.S.S.R. officially went along with Hitler's assurance that his fight against communism at home need not stand in the w a y of friendly relations with Russia. For an entire year, until the threatening implications of the German-Polish nonaggression pact of 1934 became clear to Stalin, official Russian spokesmen professed to desire nothing better than genuine friendship with the T h i r d Reich. 1 3 Meanwhile, the unofficial arm of Soviet foreign policy, the Comintern, operated on the assumption that the N a z i dictatorship was ephemeral and that the strategy employed b y the German Communist party, the K.P.D., against the reactionary dictatorship of the bourgeoisie before 1933 warranted but slight modification for the final battle of the German proletariat against what was n o w said to be a fascist dictatorship of that bourgeoisie. T h e "Social Democratic collaborationist tactics with the bourgeoisie," and sabotage of Communist efforts to unite the proletariat b y the "corrupt bureaucratic leaders" of "social fascism," had resulted in this last desperate effort of capitalism to stave off the coming victory of the working class; the Comintern, however, was fully confident in 1933 that in spite of the Racist terror, revolutionary in Germany.

The

defensive

•will inevitably increase. The

establishment

which has put an end to all democratic the masses from

the influence

of the development

sentiment

countermeasures

of Germany

will inevitably

mount

of the masses against fascism

of the naked fascist

dictatorship

illusions of the masses and liberated

of social democracy,

accelerates

toward the proletarian

the

revolution,14

speed

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73

Lauded by the Comintern for faithfully executing its directives, the German Communist leaders in exile based their strategy on this optimistic analysis of internal developments in their country. In innumerable speeches and underground pamphlets addressed to the Social Democratic worker the K.P.D. repeated over and over again that "the sole force which could have prevented the fascist dictatorship or which can defeat it" was the German proletariat united in the revolutionary class struggle against capitalism. Now, as before, the Social Democratic leaders were the chief obstacle, as Pieck declared in December, 1933: T h e Communist Party has unceasingly straggled to bring about this unity. . . . But the Social Democratic Party and trade union leaders have not only split the workers by their counter-revolutionary policy and their united front with the bourgeoisie; they desire also to maintain their [sic] split in order to prevent a united struggle, to prevent the victory of the working class. . . . The unity of the German working class can, therefore, only be brought about by the liquidation of the mass influence of Social Democracy.15

"The dissolution of the Social Democratic party by the fascist dictatorship" was said to have changed "the forms and methods of the betrayal of the workers by the social fascists," but by no means ended it.16 The exiled leaders in Prague were pictured as trying to hold the masses back from the revolutionary path which was their only salvation.17 Intent upon absorbing the disorganized and scattered activist Social Democratic groups, the K.P.D. leaders hammered away at the idea of unity. In an "open letter" to German Social Democrats the central committee of the K.P.D. declared on June 20, 1933, that "through democracy to socialism" had been one of the wiliest suggestions ever used by capitalism to lead the workers astray. Warning the Social Democratic resistance groups of new trickery by the old Social Democratic leaders—"the same Wels" and his associates, safely in exile, speculating "on your stupidity" —the exiled central committee maintained that the time is [sic] come when you must . . . turn aside from the wrong path . . . join up your ranks with us and march on to Socialism and Freedom. . . . T o d a y there is only one task—to concentrate our joint strength against a common enemy. . . . W e Communists know—you, too, want revolution, you, too, want Socialism. . . . W e offer you our hands in brotherhood. . . .

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T h e Central Committee appeals to the whole German working class to show itself worthy of the tradition of Marx and Engels, to show that Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and tens of thousands other slaughtered workers did not die in vain, to show that the G e r m a n working class knows how t o learn f r o m its own experience and f r o m the magnificent policy of Bolshevik Russia. . . . W e know the w a y and w e know the aim. . . . Join up with the Communist Party of Germany/ 18

As the Communist leadership was convinced that "a new upsurge of the revolutionary mass movement" was imminent in Germany, it directed its own underground agents to do their utmost and to take any risk necessary to bring about a "united front from below," "the prerequisite for the overthrow of fascism and for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat." That, as Pieck pointed out, is the path along which the proletariat of ex-Tsarist Russia has gone, in alliance with the toilers and the exploited peasants, under the leadership of the Bolshevik party of Lenin. T h i s path has led to socialism, t o the national liberation of hundreds of nations, t o the economic and political independence of the mighty Soviet state in the struggle against international imperialism.

However, "comrades [who] misconceiving our policy of the united front, have helped the Social Democratic workers to form the S.P.G.'s [Social Democratic Party of Germany] own illegal organizations," were advised that a united front from below meant that Social Democrats were to join individually "the sole revolutionary party," which would teach them to become good Communists. "It goes without saying," stated Pieck in December at the thirteenth plenum of the Comintern, "that we must insure firm Communist leadership in our organization and in all our actions. . . . Our slogan must be: Every Communist a leader of . . . five Social Democratic workers." 19 The Comintern plenum reaffirmed the Communist determination to destroy social democracy, "the main prop of the bourgeoisie." 20 The exiled leadership of the K.P.D. gave every indication, even after the victory of Hitler, that it feared the "class-dividing" activities of the exiled "social fascist" leaders in Prague as much, if not more, than the terror and propaganda of the Nazis. Apparently as firmly convinced as they had been since the start of the depression that the German revolution of the proletariat was close at hand, the

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Communist leaders—under Comintern direction—spared no effort to accelerate this development through the creation of "proletarian unity." They looked forward to a date in the near future when popular dissatisfaction, arising from increasing misery and suppression, would allow a determined and ruthless Communist "vanguard" to take advantage of the inevitable disintegration of the capitalist dictatorship to "push" a unified German working class and an aroused people into a revolution. The time was proclaimed near for a German dictatorship of the proletariat, modeled after that of the "vanguard of the world proletariat, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with its Bolshevik Central Committee under the leadership of Comrade Stalin." 21 Clearly the Communist leaders not only challenged the claim of the exiled executive committee in Prague for control of the Social Democratic resistance, but the entire program which the latter group proposed for a revolution against Hitler. The sole object of the "social fascist" leaders in Prague, claimed the Communists, was to deny the German working class its otherwise inevitable victory and just revenge; they charged that the exiles sought to prevent the unification of working-class resistance in order to placate the bourgeoisie; they insisted that the aim of the Sopade's revolution was to return to the old discredited democratic illusions, reformist tactics, and bourgeois dictatorship of the Weimar days. Finally, adhering to their Leninist-Bolshevist beliefs, the Communists lacked the faith of the Social Democratic leaders in the "spontaneous" rebellion of the German people against nazism. Only an authoritarian Communist "vanguard" of the proletariat was believed able to put into effect the Communist Program of Salvation. Legacy of the Past: Social Democratic Opposition to the Exiled Executive Probably never before during the entire history of the German Social Democratic movement had ideological considerations been as important to the survival of the movement as after its prohibition in 1933. The once highly organized and centralized party organization had been smashed, its old leaders were dead, imprisoned, hiding, and in exile. Factors which heretofore had played an im-

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portant part in uniting Social Democrats—ambiguous compromise programs, patronage, party discipline, and perhaps above all, the centripetal magnetism of a great party—were no more. A new "revolutionary" organization had to be built from scratch, and this could only be accomplished with the aid of a generally acceptable ideological program, a common creed which would firmly unite a voluntary community of believers pursued by relentless foes. N o w the supporter of social democracy could expect no immediate reward except prison, banishment, or death. The prohibition of his party put every Social Democrat on his own; each one had to question himself what social democracy meant to him, how much he was willing to suffer for it, whether, in view of all that had happened, it was not better to discard it, forget it, join another faith—national socialism or communism—or simply become a political agnostic, drifting with the prevailing currents. This process of "reorientation" was bound to be no easy one—and while in Germany it could only take the form of self-searching introspection or of furtive discussions in small, conspiratorial circles— in exile no such external compulsion to speak softly existed. Small and scattered remnants of the old Social Democratic movement had managed to survive the determined efforts of the Nazis and their collaborators on the one hand, the Communists on the other, to eradicate the last vestiges of social democracy. Seeking ways and means to organize a strong resistance movement of their own, they soon discovered by bitter experience that their primitive methods of organization and operation were totally inadequate to cope with the police apparatus of the Third Reich. The typed and mimeographed leaflets and instructions which they turned out were easily traced, and organizational unity and cooperation proved to be impossible without the aid of a liaison center which, because of conditions in Germany, had to be outside the country; as in other resistance movements, technical and financial assistance had to come from a headquarter abroad which was free to provide essential information, funds, instructions, and advice. As has already been noted, many of these isolated units of the Social Democratic resistance sought and found contact with the couriers and border secretaries of the executive committee in Prague, which for its part was making every effort to bring the

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underground movement under its control. By the late summer of 1933 these contacts had become sufficiently extensive for both of these active resistance components of the old Social Democratic movement to realize that their respective concepts of a revolution against Hitler were decidedly at variance. Individuals and groups who claimed to represent the "new" Social Democratic movement inside Germany appeared in Prague and called upon the old leaders to surrender their sizable funds, their organization, and their authority to them. The storm of criticism which now broke from every direction over the heads of the old leaders in Prague was largely only the inevitable result of the Nazi victory and the defeat of the principles of democratic liberalism symbolized by the Republic and defended over the years by a Social Democratic leadership, including the members of the exiled executive. The collapse and the final ignominious tactics of the passivist section of the leadership in Germany were bound to be held against the activist leaders in Prague despite all their efforts to dissociate themselves from them. But furthermore, the criticism and bitter denunciations of policies pursued by the exiled leaders before 1933 were, in fact, verbalizations of a challenge to them and to the ideology which they represented, by their rivals for the leadership of the new movement. Now, that means of control and disciplining were gone, the resentment and intraparty criticism which the leadership had managed to control before 1933 broke over the Sopade like long-overdue thunder after a sultry summer's day. Demanding a complete reorientation of the party, forces of dissent and opposition to the old leadership arose to deny loudly the right or ability of the exiled executive to maintain its leadership of German social democracy. Verbalizing their challenge to the leadership of the Sopade in the form of the revolutionary Marxist component of the Social Democratic heritage, they called upon the old reformist leaders— to paraphrase Emperor Henry IV's challenge to Pope Gregory VII—to descend, to let others, who could teach the "true" doctrine of the church, ascend the throne. These developments, taken together with Nazi endeavors to discredit the exiled leaders as fugitive "traitors" and Communist efforts to deny any Social Democrat the right to lead a revolutionary movement, endangered the efforts

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of the Sopade to organize a resistance movement from the very start.22 The Challenge of the Old Left: Back to Revolutionary Marxism Most of the more prominent left-wing leaders of pre-193 3 social democracy, if not arrested, had been forced to flee as soon as the Nazis came to power. They had been outspoken advocates of class warfare, and many of them had once belonged to the Independent Social Democrats or the Communist party and were therefore singled out by the Nazis as leading actors in the "stab in the back" of 1918. These exiled remnants of the Old Left who turned up in Prague to challenge the claims of the Sopade leadership, held a particularly strong position vis-à-vis the old reformist leaders, because they enjoyed the support of a number of resistance groups in Germany with which the Sopade initially established contact. During the first few months after the arrival of the executive in Prague, the border secretariat at Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia, was its most important liaison with organized Social Democratic remnants inside Germany. The Karlsbad border secretary, Willi Lange, independently commanded considerable funds and also extensive contacts with resistance groups in the old Social Democratic strongholds of Saxony and Thuringia—particularly in the city of Chemnitz. The Sopade, just beginning to develop an organization and contacts of its own, depended very heavily on his support in its endeavors to establish liaison with these groups in Central Germany. Industrial Saxony and Thuringia, traditionally centers of the extreme left wing of the German labor movement, were geographically closest to the exile center in Prague of all the old Social Democratic strongholds.23 Willi Lange represented a number of left-wing resistance groups in these districts and the Sopade wanted their allegiance. It was particularly this situation which enabled the Old Left to exert powerful pressure upon the exiled leaders in Prague during the latter half of 1933.24 The representatives of the Old Left based their contention that the members of the executive in Prague had neither the moral right nor the proper qualifications to retain the leadership of the Social Democratic movement on three points:

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First, it was maintained that the "disastrous" policy of the old party leaders had wrecked the party and brought about "the present collapse." "It seems as if the pious maxim that one should not mention the rope in the house of the hanged is to be followed," observed one left winger, while another maintained that it was "our duty to expose with the sharp knife of criticism [the] illusions and mistakes" which had led the movement to its present plight; pitiless criticism would "prepare the way for the new leadership which will emerge out of the struggle for the survival of the movement [and teach it to] avoid these mistakes in the future." 25 Second, since the victorious fascist counterrevolution was declared to have produced a complete change in the fundaments and conditions of Socialist activity in Germany, it was "entirely out of the question" that the old tactics could still be used to fight Hitler. It was the contention of the Old Left that the fascist dictatorship and the capitalist system were now in Germany for better or worse inseparably joined together and that, therefore, revolution against Hitler could only be a revolution against capitalism, and the task of revolutionary social democracy nothing but a class struggle with a proletarian revolution as its aim.26 Since this was not professed the opinion of the old leaders in exile, they were declared to be unfit to lead on this second point too. Third, it was stated that "what we are witnessing in Germany today" was "the beginning of a new [Social Democratic] movement" which no longer adhered to either the organizational and strategic concepts of the old movement or to its ideology. At the same time it was thought self-evident that the polarization of German society was nearing its climax with a rapidly expanding proletariat confronting the despotic rule of a few large capitalists. T h e militant revolutionary Socialist "cadres" of the resistance and the proletarian masses—as yet lacking direction and only instinctively longing for liberation from capitalist exploitation and oppression— were declared to need and want a program that would provide them with a definite revolutionary Socialist aim.27 The Old Left maintained that "to assure the revolutionary future of social democracy," the entire ideological and tactical matrix represented by the leaders of the Sopade had to be once and for all liquidated, and the organization of the battle against

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the Third Reich based solely upon the social-revolutionary Marxist traditions which they claimed to represent. "What is at stake," they said, was the question upon which of the traditions of its heritage it [social democracy] will base its fight. . . . One leads from Marx and Engels . . . to Luxemburg . . . and the U.S.P.D. The other leads from Lassalle and Schweitzer through Vollmar and David to Ebert and Leipart. The former tradition lives, the latter is done for. 2 8

Thus alone might social democracy survive the present situation. "The patriotic link which for decades formed the basis for German reformism and determined its ideology has been broken," claimed Alexander Schifrin. "Today the proletariat stands outside the counter-revolutionary nation."29 Therefore, the principles for which the Old Left had fought against the reformist leaders in the past were now to become "the fundament upon which the new, militant party" was to arise.30 On the basis of the record of the past, of ideological and strategic considerations, the representatives of the Old Left denied that the six members of the exiled executive in Prague were the men to lead social democracy in the future. "The comrades . . . in Prague" were advised that they had to "face the fact that the preservation of the P.V. [Parteivorstand (executive) ] in its present form was impossible"; it was the remnant of a time when the German proletariat had followed the "bourgeois ideals of progress"; now, as it was passing into a period of revolutionary expansion under the impact of the capitalist dictatorship, the proletariat needed altogether different leaders, ideals, and tactics.31 "To endeavor to reconstitute the party, after the catastrophic defeat which it has suffered, by simply resurrecting in exile and in the Reich the remnants of the collapsed party organization . . . without replacing the party leadership . . . without revolutionizing it too," was termed "plain political suicide for social democracy."32 According to the spokesmen of the Old Left, the new movement could neither retain the old tactics, nor the old ideology, nor the old organization. If social democracy was to defeat the Third Reich, "militant cadres . . . armed with a new ideology, a new organization, new revolutionary tactics" were required. These would eventually become the new

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leaders who would deliberately and wisely lead toward true socialism the masses that had blindly followed the Nazis. Therefore, was the contention of these spokesmen, the principal duty of the exile center organizing the Social Democratic resistance was not the publication of newspapers and pamphlets for the enlightenment of the German people as a whole, but "the training of fighters" and the dispatch of "apostles into Germany"; and the new leadership had to be chosen on that basis.33 In August, 1933, the pressure of the Old Left forced the Sopade to yield to the extent of admitting two of the left-wing leaders to membership in the exiled executive. Karl Bochel, former editor of the Chemnitzer Volksstimme, had been prominent in the leadership of left-wing social democracy before 1933. Immediately after the appointment of Hitler as German chancellor, denouncing the national leadership and its strategy, he had demanded a proletarian united front with the Communists for the purpose of seizing control of Germany through extraparliamentary methods. At the national conference of April 27, Bochel was included in the expanded executive of the S.P.D. as one of the representatives of the left wing, but when the executive chose six of its members on May 4 to establish the Representation Abroad, he was not one of them. When the latter group reconstituted itself as the exiled executive after the prohibition of the party in June, Bochel—supported by the Karlsbad border secretariat—claimed, and finally received, a seat in this body.34 The other new member, Siegfried Aufhauser, also had a long record as leader of the left wing in the S.P.D. Born in Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1884 he joined the dissident Independent Social Democrats during the First World War, having previously been active in a progressive liberal middle-class group and the tradeunion movement. Elected to the Reichstag in 1921, where he remained until 1933, Aufhauser was, as national chairman of the Confederation of Employees (A.F.A.), one of the most prominent trade-union functionaries of Weimar Germany. Both in the Social Democratic trade-union movement and in the party—to which he returned after the disintegration of the Independent Social Democrats—he led the left wingers. During the critical months that preceded the accession of the Nazis and immediately after that event he also had called for militant action and a general strike in

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cooperation with the K.P.D. to overthrow the government. Like Bochel, he was chosen in April, 1933, to represent the left wingers on the executive and, though he too had not been one of the original six Representatives Abroad, he was admitted to the Sopade in August, 193 3.35 Both Aufhauser and Bochel attended the conference of the Labor and Socialist International in August, 1933, as official delegates of the Sopade along with Wels, Stampfer, and Ollenhauer, and the existing dichotomy between their views and those of the Sopade majority was clearly evident in the speeches they delivered. While Wels represented and justified the tactics and ideology of the old reformist leaders, Aufhauser demanded a complete break with the evolutionary Socialist-democratic tradition, which, he claimed, had been responsible for the German catastrophe—granting the German people democracy before they were capable of exercising it—and called for a class war of the united German proletariat. In the "magnificent youth fighting today in Germany without fear, despite death and torture and danger," he saw the nucleus for a unified proletarian party. Aufhauser categorically rejected the liberal democratic goals of the majority, as presented in Revolution against Hitler, for, as he stated, "in the midst of this great decisive struggle, little understanding for democracy as an immediate objective can be expected by the fighting proletariat." Instead, he advocated as the goal of the "revolutionary" Social Democratic struggle against the bourgeoisie and the Nazis: n o t . . . a permanent dictatorship, b u t . . . an educational dictatorship which may gradually prepare the w a y back to democracy in Germany also. W e need not fear that thereby the indifferent middle classes will be repelled. If large portions of the middle classes have followed Hitler, it is because he has displayed this vigorous activity and self-assertion

which in the past social democracy had lacked.36 The experiences of the Weimar Republic were cited by Aufhauser to prove that "bourgeois masses" when suddenly presented with full democratic liberties only abused them; "the object of educating the masses not belonging to us" through the "educational dictatorship" of the united party of the proletariat was to make "fighters for true socialism out of followers of a pseudo-socialism."37

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The Challenge of the New Left: A "New Beginning'' The exiled leaders of German socialism had long enough sought to convey the impression that their views represented those of the Socialist underground movement in their country. The time had come to hear from "the Socialists who are carrying on the struggle in Germany itself," heretofore prevented from advocating their views abroad and getting them accepted by their intensive participation in that struggle. With this statement a "new leadership" of the German labor movement in the late summer of 1933 demanded that "the old officials of the party abroad . . . make room for the fighters of the present... knocking at the door." In a pamphlet called New Beginning a certain "Miles" (Soldier) threw the gauntlet to the Sopade. He claimed to speak for the younger elements in the party who had predicted the danger of fascist development and who had accordingly been prepared to organize an effective resistance movement when Hitler came to power. Miles, demanding a complete break with "a past that has been outlived," claimed that these younger energetic elements alone could form the basis for the renewed existence of the party, especially if this effort was not hampered, but supported, by the party members in exile.38 The appearance of the New Beginning pamphlet created a considerable stir, reaching beyond the German exile colonies into the international labor movement. French, British, and American editions appeared soon after the original German. Left wingers throughout the world had been shocked by the so-called failure of the old leadership of the German labor movement to prevent the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship. Miles, they were told, spoke for the members of small conspiratorial underground groups, for men and women who were too young to wield any influence in the parties that allowed themselves to be destroyed without a blow, who were now trying to live down the suicidal quarrel that separated Socialists from Communists by drawing their "soldiers" from both camps.39 Representatives of the organization known for a time as the "Miles group" and later as "New Beginning," had appeared at the exile center in Prague during the summer of 1933 and soon after the Sopade published their program. The group had been founded

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in 1931 as a secret organization of dissident Communists and leftwing members of the Social Democratic youth groups by Walter Lowenheim, a former Communist, who under the pseudonym Miles set forth its objectives in the 1933 pamphlet New Beginning.40 Before the accession of Hitler, the small group had sought to bring about the reunification of the two wings of the German labor movement by working covertly inside the K.P.D. and S.P.D. for unity on the basis of revolutionary Marxism.41 Since its origin and challenge differed considerably from the faction labeled as the Old Left, whose differences with the Sopade were rooted in the traditional left-wing right-wing cleavages within the German labor movement, the group has been designated here as the New Left. Too small and unimportant—also too well concealed—to attract the attention of the leadership of the two large labor parties and, for the same reasons, left more or less intact by the first terror wave of the Hitler government, the influence of the Miles group— like that of other small dissident revolutionary Socialist factions— was suddenly greatly enhanced when the K.P.D. and S.P.D. were outlawed. One of its American supporters went so far as to claim that when the [Social Democratic] party collapsed . . . there existed within it, unknown to its leaders, a skeleton organization of intelligent and active members who were able to take up revolutionary activity at once. T h e y had what social democracy lacked—an underground network of members in important sections of the Reich, a network that represented a living embryo in the dying body of Germany's labor movement. 42

Actually, it appears that the organization at no time counted more than three hundred members.43 What attracted international attention to the New Beginning pamphlet in the fall of 1933 was not only the well-publicized claim that Miles represented an effective underground movement —and not merely discredited exiled leaders—but that he appeared to offer a third, Socialist, alternative to the Social Democratic and Communist roads to power and the variations of their various splinter groups. Particularly such European Socialists as had been frightened by the fate of the older labor parties in Germany and were searching for the ideological and strategic shortcomings which had brought it about, were interested in the new revisionism of Miles.

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Though Miles wished to return to the revolutionary Marxist heritage of German socialism, he declared that that tradition had to be brought up-to-date in the light of contemporary developments. Marx and Engels were said to have been proven wrong with regard to their prediction "that the revolutionary spontaneity of the proletariat sprang exclusively from its class position and that, consequently, with the sharpening of capitalist contradictions, social development was bound inevitably to lead towards proletarian revolution and socialism, just as bourgeois development inevitably led to bourgeois revolution." The validity of the traditional Marxist theory of economic determinism in the modern world was denied. According to the New Beginning pamphlet, the deterministic view of the coming of socialism—which was declared to be fundamental to all other varieties of Marxism, including Leninism—had been entirely disproven by recent developments; spontaneous revolutionary action by the proletariat was neither inevitable nor even feasible. Miles maintained: "In reality, Socialist revolution and Socialist modeling of society are not historically inevitable, but are rather a great historical opportunity placed within the reach of the human race. It is for us to use it." 44 The world was definitely seen as having entered the era of capitalist decline, but the sole alternative to universal fascist chaos—which otherwise was expected inevitably to follow the collapse of capitalism—could only be the deliberate intervention of a "revolutionary Marxist organization of the proletariat"; a determined elite, because it understood the laws and forces of history, could prepare to strike at the right moment, saving humanity by taking over control of the state and steering the history of mankind toward socialism.45 As for Germany, Miles and his group did not agree with the other revolutionary Marxist opponents of the exiled reformist leaders that social democracy had at any time in its history been a revolutionary Marxist party, and that the reformists had betrayed this heritage; they maintained that the S.P.D. had always been reformist. They believed, however, that it might have been possible for the revolutionary Marxists to have taken over control of the entire German labor movement, had it not been for the Communists who, clinging to tactics dictated by their blind faith in Marxist determinism, had been "fundamentally creatures of bour-

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geois democracy" governed by "pathological delusions," "subjective idealism," and dogmatism. The victory of fascism would not have been possible in Germany, in the opinion of Miles, "but for [the] . . . disastrous and absurd policy of the Communist party" which had perpetuated the split in the German labor movement while at the same time weakening the genuinely revolutionary Marxist forces within the S.P.D. Since, however, that policy had been directed from Moscow on the basis of Bolshevist experiences and interests, he concluded that without the existence of the Comintern there would have been no split in the German labor movement, and Hitler, opposed by a united labor movement, would never have been victorious.46 As for the Old Left, it too was accused of having contributed to the collapse of the German labor movement by dogmatically clinging to the false theory of spontaneous development based on economic determinism. The small dissident factions which had chosen to break away from the larger labor parties, according to Miles, had failed to realize the isolation and insignificance of their own sects in the whole proletarian movement. They had—so far as they survived—merely increased the cleavages in the German labor movement and, like the Communists, by the formation of separate groups, shifted the center of gravity in the Social Democratic party further to the right, strengthening the "conservative elements" in the leadership; they had never succeeded in suggesting any new alternative roads to socialism, but had remained merely negative sects of critics.47 While Miles thus lashed out at the other social-revolutionary opponents of the Sopade, his "political aim after the overthrow of fascism" was not dissimilar. He, too, rejected a new edition of the Weimar Republic and called for a future German state dominated solely and exclusively by a Socialist party on a centralized basis48 The New Left insisted, however, that this common objective could not be obtained unless all revolutionary Socialists abandoned a strategy based upon the deterministic fallacy in favor of truly revolutionary Marxism dependent upon the free will of dedicated elite "cadres." Above all, the New Left expressed far greater pessimism concerning the immediate future than practically all other groups.

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Miles warned that "the relative lack of development of the fascist machinery for suppressing Socialist activity, which the miserable remnants of the old Socialist parties and groups still have to thank for their existence," should not lead to acceptance of the "absurd illusion . . . that the Nazi seizure of power was merely an episode"; it was a political revolution, growing out of the contradictions of capitalism in the period of its decline; the Nazis could be expected to concentrate all their energies on eliminating their remaining opponents. "The overthrow of fascism in favor of a Socialist revolution will be hard work of many years of sacrifice and struggle," he prophesied, "and . . . during these years of oppression . . . the Socialist fighters must be mobilized and trained." 49 Miles predicted that the years ahead would witness increasing economic misery and subsequent acceleration of the polarization of society for Germany—where the proletariat, in his estimate, already included nearly two-thirds of the population. But increasing economic crises, growth of the proletariat, and the aggravation of the misery of the workers—said to be inherent in fascism—would neither lead to the automatic collapse of that system nor to a spontaneous uprising of the proletarian masses. Miles further contended that the overthrow of the Hitler dictatorship could only be organized by a force which, like the Nazi party, benefited from centralization and careful, deliberate planning by qualified leaders. Such a "hardened, resolute, experienced, and well trained antifascist organization," he claimed, could some day, not in the near future, strike at the heart of the fascist system "when the fascist regime, weakened by internal and external difficulties, presents a sufficiently vulnerable surface for attack, when the fascist party has been disorganized and weakened by its internal differences and factional quarrels, and when the masses have been stirred to antifascist action by a crisis of the fascist system."50 The New Left proposed the unification of "all those German organizations which are working for the class struggle" with the aim of mobilizing the workers against the Nazi regime in a single revolutionary Marxist organization. However, Miles denied that either the Communist party, as presently constituted, or the various left-wing Social Democratic groups, could be admitted to this union. Participation of the former was termed highly desirable,

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but the K.P.D. was advised that it would first have to sever its close links to the Comintern—or better yet, the Comintern was to liquidate itself.51 For the time being he hoped to draw from the K.P.D. opposition groups and factions, critical of the old official party policy; "for, if we can succeed in recruiting them into the ranks of the antifascist Socialist militant proletariat, the best, the most courageous, critical, and devoted members of these groups will constitute the most valuable sections of our force." 52 This, of course, was a bold challenge to the K.P.D. leadership which, in turn, labeled Miles as "one of the right agents of the [Social Democratic] party leadership in 'left' disguise."83 As for the Old Left and the smaller Socialist left-wing dissident groups who, due to "the peculiar nature of recent developments, acquired the appearance of a certain strength [and] a significance which they do not deserve," Miles predicted their disappearance. This would happen as soon as the reservoir of the declining Socialist mass organizations from which they drew their increased strength would be exhausted, and they themselves would "become quite as much the object of the fascist policy of suppression as the large Socialist organizations of the period of legality . . . with regard to the destruction of which they now feel something like satisfaction." But Miles was unwilling to wait for this development, for he saw in the competitive struggle between the various resistance groups great risks for the entire revolutionary movement. He held that the proponents of Socialist unification had to find immediate ways and means to eliminate this danger.54 Turning finally to the exiled remnants of the old Social Democratic leadership, Miles too maintained that they were politically and spiritually bankrupt; Hitler had shattered the myth of democratic socialism. "Nothing would be more fatal than for the shaken émigré labor parties [sic] of the International and their miserable remnants in Germany to proceed as though no fundamental change had taken place," he warned; like the Communists, the Social Democratic refugees . . . expect that a spontaneous uprising of the masses will put an end to fascism. They too believe that they can accelerate the natural end of this 'unnatural' barbarian rule by means of democratic propaganda. The only difference between them and the Communists is that they carry on this propaganda exclusively from outside the frontiers of

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Germany. . . . The Social Democratic refugees . . . look forward to a new Weimar Republic as the objective of this spontaneity . . . the Communists believe that it is bound to result in a Soviet Republic.55 T h e N e w L e f t declared categorically that the comrades abroad, b y reason both of their previous experiences and their present fundamental political convictions, were "entirely incapable of securing the existence and the revolutionary work of the party in Germany itself under the fascist regime, let alone of organizing the struggle for the overthrow of fascism." 56 If the old leadership remained, Miles wrote, the party would suffer final and complete liquidation. T h e exiled executive was informed that it would be an absurd illusion to believe that the same people who led the party from August 4, 1914, to May 17, 1933, are capable of developing and carrying out the extraordinarily complicated and difficult policy demanded by the period of illegality and the epoch of fascism. The leaders who, from 1914 to 1918, approved of the empire of Wilhelm II, who, from 1919 to 1933, worshipped the bourgeois republic, who either founded or supported the White Guardist movement, who elected Hindenburg and tolerated Brüning, who, under Hitler, placed a veto on the preparations for illegal work, and later even tolerated Hitler—such leaders cannot suddenly be converted into revolutionary fighters against the fascist state, and at one stroke produce from nowhere the virtues, the experience, the understanding, and the knowledge which this fight so fully demands.57 The future leadership of the party, insisted this N e w Left, must consist of those comrades who are developing and applying, amidst the serious perils of the fight itself, the forms and methods of the antifascist proletarian class movement, and who have expertly and opportunely prepared this work. For it is not the old democratic, but the new conspiratorial work which will, from now on, be necessary and all important for our movement. The future leadership must not only represent the practical experience gained in the struggle, but must also organize and protect it. It can, therefore, be recruited only from the ranks of those comrades who have remained in Germany, whose activities are in accordance with the ideas expressed in this pamphlet, and who possess the confidence of the active Socialists in Germany.58 T h e old leaders who had gone abroad were not expected to return to Germany and incur the dangers faced by the members of the Socialist resistance movement. T h e y might even be of some use abroad. It would do no harm, said Miles, if they spread infor-

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mation abroad about the fascist terror. However, even such limited anti-Nazi activities would be in the interest of the struggle in Germany only so far as they conformed to the principles and strategy of revolutionary Marxism and the needs of Socialist revolutionary activity in Germany. If the exiled leaders of the old party wanted to be considered members of a revived German Socialist movement, they would not only have to subscribe to its program, insisted Miles, but would have to acknowledge "that . . . the comrades who are carrying on the fight in Germany and comrades authorized to act for them and the German party organization [abroad] are alone empowered to determine the policy and the organization of the party." 59 The Fundamental Nature of the Challenge In his keynote address to the Social Democratic Reichskonferenz of April 27, 1933, Otto Wels, who a few days later was to become the leader of the Representation Abroad, reaffirmed emphatically the rationalist liberal-democratic beliefs of the old party leaders: "We do not consider those among us who are now calling for a totalitarian state and speak of anachronistic liberal convictions, particularly wise." He told the critics of the party leadership, What are called anachronistic liberal convictions are the teachings of the great German philosophers who . . . are as much the fathers of the German labor movement as the great Utopian Socialists. True socialism is the realization of the ideals of humanism, it is inconceivable without spiritual freedom and a party which would cease . . . to fight for the equality of all citizens would no longer be entitled to bear the name of the Social Democratic party of Germany.60

It was these liberal convictions—which the Social Democratic leaders had taken over from the nineteenth century—with their firm faith in the fundamental rationality of men and the potency of enlightenment, which had led Wels to conclude in his speech that a turn for the better in Germany could fundamentally come neither through economic nor through diplomatic developments, but only through the awakening of the "spiritual and ethical forces which exist within the German people." 61 Despite certain concessions to economic determinism, these

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principles still formed the basis of the Sopade's conception of the coming "revolution against Hitler." It was to be a democraticliberal revolution in the tradition of the popular uprisings of 1848, in the spirit of Michelet and Mazzini. A popular and democratic liberation movement to include all classes and all sections of society, was to overthrow the dictatorship and restore liberty and democracy to Germany. The social-revolutionary opponents of Wels and his associates, on the other hand, did not trust the German "masses" to effect the social revolution they sought, in contrast to the Sopade's political restoration. T o them, the average German had proven himself to be politically immature, guided by irrational motives, and incapable of giving himself the kind of government which could truly "liberate" and "democratize" Germany. The fundamental faith in the rationality of Germans of the exiled Social Democratic leaders, most of whom were not intellectuals, was rejected by the social revolutionaries, among whom, in contrast, intellectuals predominated. The bitterness of defeat contributed to their basic contempt for the liberal-democratic principles and their distrust of the "masses," who had "failed" them. "What made Hitler so irresistible," wrote one of them, "was . . . his appeal to . . . basic emotions.... In all its absurdity, baseness and deliberate falsehood, the Hitler creed seemed to millions like a revelation." "They followed him because politically they were not sufficiently mature . . . and because misery and despair had reduced their reasoning power to a state in which they could become easy prey of unscrupulous demagogy, which set deliberately out to confuse." 62 It was in this spirit that they turned to the example of the classic proletarian revolution, the Bolshevist revolution, and to the Leninist principles of revolutionary organization and proletarian dictatorship. Sincere ideological and tactical differences undoubtedly were partly to blame for the conflict. But these casuistic disputes over the proper interpretation and application of Marxist theory to the struggle against Hitler were also verbalizations of conflicting claims for the leadership of the as yet practically nonexistent revolutionary Socialist underground movement in Germany and its representation —and funds—abroad. While to the detached outsider this conflict might in retrospect appear as a tempest in a teapot, at the time it

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seemed to the individuals concerned a matter affecting not only the future of the German labor movement, but that of Germany. It was a struggle for power—the apparent power to give shape to the revolutionary movement and the order which was to succeed the Third Reich, in which each of the contending faction marshaled doctrinaire Marxist arguments in defense of its claim. According to the Marxist interpretation, the course of history was subject to: ( i ) the subjective factor—acts of individuals making history; and (2) the objective factor—contemporary economic, social, and political developments and the "spontaneous" reaction of society thereto, both determined by the technological and economic substructure of a given society. The great quarrel among the orthodox followers of Marx—as opposed to Bernstein's so-called Revisionists—which began shortly after 1900, concerned the relative importance of each of these two factors and, consequently, the strategy of "revolutionary" Marxist parties and groups. The democratic school, led by Karl Kautsky and Rudolf Hilferding, stressed the objective factor. They insisted that the course of the class struggle, the polarization of a society, and ultimately the "revolution of the proletariat" in the form of the democratic seizure of power by the proletarian majority taking over from a collapsing capitalist minority, was a predetermined process. In spite of temporary setbacks and occasional poor leadership—the subjective factors—this "revolution of the proletariat" was inevitable. "The times are past in which a small minority, by sudden energetic action, can overthrow a government and erect a new one in its place," Kautsky had stated in 1909. Revolutions were not simply made at will, but came "with inevitable necessity when the conditions that render them necessary arise."63 The Bolshevist school of Lenin took strong exception to this spontaneity theory— which placed primary emphasis on the external conditions and minimized the importance of individual leaders—and put much greater stress on the subjective factor. Lenin declared that the spontaneous struggle of the proletariat could never become a genuine class struggle until it was led by a strong organization of revolutionists who would "push" the masses into the proletarian revolution.64 Kautsky's interpretation of Marxism had become the basis for

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the conceptual scheme of evolutionary-democratic socialism, which, during the Weimar Republic, constituted the rationale for the S.P.D. leaders' reformist tactics. Determinist Marxism had played an important part in the tactics which the S.P.D. leadership followed in spring of 1933. And, after the establishment of the Sopade, those of the old leaders of the Social Democratic party who now were its exiled executive, defended their past activities by placing the blame for the "collapse" squarely on the objective factor. "We were at the mercy of events," as Otto Wels maintained.65 "After an unsuccessful war or a revolution has miscarried, the losing side always becomes the subject of criticism as well as self-criticism," wrote Kautsky in reply to attacks on the exiled leaders. Such criticism, he warned, was "fruitless and of no avail if the only purpose it serves is to find scapegoats over whom the man indulging in self-criticism can assert his superiority with pharisaical conceit."66 The objective factor—the political situation in Germany caused by the Versailles treaty, the world economic crisis, and other developments—was responsible for the "irresistible advance of National Socialist ideas and sentiments among the masses of the people that rendered ineffective the fighting spirit of the class-conscious proletariat." The subjective factor—the S.P.D. leadership—"without a Socialist majority naturally could not terminate the crisis," though the leaders had, nevertheless, done their best to avert it. Therefore, it would be petty, Kautsky declared, to seek to blame the incidental actions of individuals for what happened.67 Otto Bauer, the leader and mentor of the Austrian Socialists, went so far as to admit that the old leaders of the S.P.D. had made "fatal mistakes," but added that "anyone who has no further explanation for as world-shaking an event as the victory of fascism" than the past mistakes of the German Social Democratic leaders, "overestimates in a most un-Marxian fashion the influence of prominent individuals over the course of history." Bauer agreed with Kautsky that the decisive reason for the defeat of the German Social Democrats had not been the actions of their leaders, but the nature of the objective factors which had influenced developments in Germany, above all the postwar policy of the Allies and the economic crisis of the early 'thirties. That defeated generals might not be the men to lead the new revolutionary movement, Bauer

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would concede, but as he could as yet see no new leaders emerging from the underground movement to take the place of the old leaders in exile, he maintained that—for the present at least—it was the duty of the latter "to sponsor the illegal work in Germany until they can surrender their mandate to a leadership which will emerge from the underground movement in Germany." 68 The opponents of the Sopade replied that it was exactly this sort of pseudo-Marxism that had overemphasized in Germany the determined inevitable evolution toward socialism and underrated personal initiative which was responsible for the mediocre leadership of the Weimar S.P.D. Hitler had triumphed over the German labor movement not because objective conditions had been stronger than human will, but because the drive for power had been lacking among the S.P.D. leaders. All the more important, therefore, that after the catastrophe the responsibility of these leaders for what had transpired be fully exposed.69 Regardless of their intramural differences, the challengers to the exiled leadership based their attacks upon the Leninist theory which stressed the subjective factor, the action of the leaders, in history. Differences between the various groups nonetheless precluded a united attack upon the Sopade. Both the Communists and the Old Left identified themselves with the revolutionary Marxist tradition in the German labor movement in order to place their challenge to the exiled leaders of the S.P.D. within the traditional evolutionary-revolutionary conflict. Each claimed to be heir to the revolutionary tradition which they insisted was now the only possible course for a proletarian Marxist movement, in view of the "proven" failure of the evolutionary reformist tradition and the men who had represented it. Both the Communists and the Old Left attributed to the subjective factor— the right-wing Social Democratic leadership—the "failure" of a "proletarian" German revolution in 1918 and, therefore, the ultimate victory of the "capitalist" counterrevolution. In general, their differences with the exiled leaders followed the ideological and tactical line which had already separated them from the reformist leaders before 1933. However, when it came to predicting the future course against nazism, the objective factor—economic and social conditions in the Third Reich—determined the confident analysis of the Communist and the Old Left leaders that the collapse

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of capitalism in Germany was imminent and a proletarian revolution near at hand. For both nazism was the last and most extreme stage of the polarization process of German society. The German class struggle was believed to be approaching a crucial stage, when the intervention of the subjective factor—the trained and determined "vanguard of the proletariat"—would, as in Russia, transform the "spontaneous ferment of the masses" into a "proletarian struggle for emancipation," leading to a revolution of the proletariat and ultimately the dictatorship of that class, placed in the hands of the vanguard.70 The organizational concepts of both the Communists and the Old L e f t visualized the nature of the revolution against Hitler in terms of a projection in time and space of Lenin's theory of an elite organization of professional revolutionaries—the subjective factor—exploiting the "spontaneous ferment of the masses" arising out of the objective factor, the miserable condition of the German people caused by the decline of capitalism and the polarization of society. Both groups, therefore, claimed that an organization of efficient revolutionary cadres was the major task of a truly revolutionary Socialist leadership. These cadres, in turn, were to influence, organize, and direct the discontented masses and establish a proletarian dictatorship in Germany. The Old Left was, as its name implies, an extension into exile of the old left-wing of German social democracy. Demanding that the party return to the revolutionary Marxist heritage which, it charged, had been abandoned in 1914, and that the breach in the "proletariat" stemming therefrom be healed, its partisans were after the prohibition of the S.P.D. in a much more powerful position to press for the resignation or deposition of the remaining old party leaders in the exiled executive committee, their places to be taken by members of the Old Left. Though there were no longer any fundamental disagreements between the Old L e f t and the K.P.D., the major difference which had kept the Old Left and the Communists apart in the past, still prevented their union in 1933. While the Old Left agreed both ideologically and tactically with bolshevism, it continued to object—as before—to the absolute control Moscow maintained over the German Communists and to the insistence of the K.P.D. that a united front meant the admission

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of the Old Left as individuals into their party and the acceptance of Communist leadership. The remnants of the old radical Socialist groups wanted a united front and an eventual merger only on the basis of equality of all members of a new, unified German revolutionary Socialist party, fraternally, but not paternally, linked to the U.S.S.R. As for the New Left, not only did Miles severely castigate all other "social-revolutionary" groups for their failures in the past, along with the reformists, but above all—unlike any of the other Socialist groups—he completely discarded the Marxist theory of economic determinism and denied that the objective factor—the evolution and crisis of capitalism—would sooner or later lead to socialism. Miles accused Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and Lenin also, of having clung to a false theory of spontaneous development toward socialism based on the determined disintegration of capitalism, the objective factor. He endeavored in his theory to go even beyond Lenin's attempt to "revise" Kautsky's deterministic Marxism in favor of greater emphasis on the subjective factor—the action of individuals—by making the free will of resolute revolutionary Socialists the sole determining factor of whether humanity would be saved through socialism or damned through fascism. The New Left deliberately isolated itself from the other groups, when it insisted that all the old leaders of the old labor parties— right-wing, left-wing, Communist, and dissidents—had led their supporters along the wrong road to socialism and, therefore, jointly bore responsibility for the collapse of 1933. Miles contended that a social-revolutionary Marxist resistance movement had to start anew, without any of the old leaders and functionaries, under the leadership of the critical younger elements drawn from the older groups who rejected the men and the concepts which represented to them the "disastrous" policy of the past. The representatives of this New Left had to learn, however, that their claims for leadership were disputed by the exiled remnants of the older parties, who either refused to acknowledge any past mistakes on their part or blamed the objective factor, events beyond their control, for decisions which they had been forced to make. Moreover, these exiled leaders sought to reassert their leadership over the activist Socialist and Communist remnants in Germany and to direct these along the

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same deterministic lines which Miles claimed had been their downfall in the past. It appeared to Miles and his group that the objective factor—events shaping history—was serving the old leaders, with whom they fought for the leadership of the resistance, both to excuse their "mistakes" of the past, as well as to continue these mistakes in the future, by basing their tactics on this same theory of spontaneity. As a result, Miles attacked the entire concept upon which "determinism," "spontaneity," and the continued claim of the exiles for leadership was based—the objective factor in Marxist theory—denying that it had any significance in bringing about socialism. As Otto Bauer indicated, in order to get at the leaders of the past, Miles had to remove the objective factor behind which he believed they were endeavoring to take refuge. The Miles theory, as Bauer suggested, was above all a verbalization of the challenge by the New Beginners for the leadership of the German underground movement in the form of a free-will revision of Marxist determinism.71 An analysis of the age structure of the New Left suggests, moreover, that the conflict of generations, which had existed in Germany and in the Social Democratic party before 1933, now reappeared in these new disputes. Of the few leaders of the New Left whose age could be ascertained, one, Karl Frank, originally a psychologist, was forty in 1933; Waldemar von Knoeringen, a librarian, twenty-seven; Erwin Schoettle, thirty-four; Richard Lowenthal, twenty-five; and Erich Schmidt, twenty-three. It may be safely presumed that these men were certainly not younger than most of their followers; from what could be learned about the Miles group, most of its supporters were drawn from the Socialist youth movement and student groups. While ideologically the New Left's challenge to the old Social Democratic leaders in exile was related in many respects to that of the Old Left and the Communists, sociologically it was akin rather to the former opposition of the young right-wing Social Democrats around Mierendorff, Schumacher, and Leber which, before 1933, had demanded that the older generation of party leaders yield to younger forces not yet "worn out." 72 The problems which confronted the old were thus not only the consequence of the traditional dichotomy leaders of the S.P.D. in their Prague exile center in the fall of 1933

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between democratic and authoritarian Marxism, but also a legacy of the sociological conflict of generations, which had been waged in the days of the Republic between extremist and moderate parties— as well as within the Social Democratic party. 73 Repercussions to the Challenge In the fall and winter of 1933-34 the Sopade staggered under the bitter attacks which were directed at the old party leaders in exile from every direction. The German government, with the support of its increasingly efficient propaganda and police organizations, made every effort to prevent a reorganization of a Social Democratic movement directed by the "traitors" in Prague. The Communist leaders, certain of the imminent collapse of "capitalism" in Germany, strained to bring Social Democratic "activists" in Germany under their control. As for the activist remnants of the Social Democratic movement in Germany, according to the Old and N e w Left, they entirely rejected the ideological and tactical concepts, as well as the leadership, which the Sopade offered them for revolution against Hitler. "As a consequence of the prevalent psychological aftereffects of the catastrophe of 1933," stated Curt Geyer, a member of the Sopade, later, "this type of criticism made a considerable impression." 74 The available evidence seems to indicate that the activist Social Democratic resistance—in so far as it did not join the Communists —sympathized with the general criticism directed at democratic socialism and the exiled reformist leaders by the Old and N e w Left. The formal question of whether the Sopade could legitimately claim to be the executive committee of the S.P.D. was debatable. The executive committee was supposed to be chosen by a party congress, but none had met since 1931. The emergency Reichskonferenz of April, 1933, had assumed this prerogative and chosen a new executive committee. A minority of the members of that committee—the original six Representatives Abroad—had, in turn, assumed for themselves in June, 1933, the name and formal privileges of the party's supreme leadership under the pressure of the events preceding and immediately following the prohibition of the S.P.D. The membership of the Sopade was expanded in the

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following months by the inclusion of the two representatives of the Old Left, elected to the executive in April—Bochel and Aufhauser—and of Erich Rinner, also elected in April, 1933.75 Three more members of the executive committee, chosen in April —Juchacz, Sollmann, and Dietrich—had managed to leave Germany, but did not reside in Czechoslovakia and were unable to exercise their mandates. The Sopade, therefore, was at best a rump executive, consisting at first of six, then of nine, members of the executive committee of twenty elected in April. Nevertheless, the formal claim of the Sopade to represent the executive committee of the S.P.D. was recognized by the International, as well as by the opponents of the Sopade, who stressed the continuity which existed between the exiled leadership and the pre-1933 reformist leadership of the S.P.D. Rather, the latter attacked the old leaders as representing men and principles which the "new" movement inside Germany would not follow; democratic reformism and its proponents were responsible for what had happened, and the resistance wanted a new leadership, a changed ideology, and a strategy which would insure it victory. This crisis of democratic socialism within the German labor movement and the renaissance of Marxist social revolutionary traditions had repercussions throughout the international Socialist movement. In the Labor and Socialist International, and among the parties affiliated with it, the old problem of whether evolution or revolution, democracy or dictatorship of the proletariat were the right way to socialism, was debated with renewed fervor as a consequence of the developments in Germany.76 The opponents of the exiled representatives of democratic socialism in the German Socialist movement, Aufhauser, Bochel, Miles, found support in the International for their opposition to the attempts of the old leaders to maintain their position of leadership and to continue to represent German social democracy. Members of the International demanded to know "whether . . . fugitive generals still had the right to represent the German working class in the Council of the International."77 The British Socialist writer, H. N. Brailsford, introducing the Miles pamphlet, Socialism's New Beginning, to the English-speaking public declared: "An organization of exiles not only loses touch with reality; it forfeits the con-

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fidence of those who remained behind." Therefore, the leadership of the revolutionary Socialist movement in Germany, in his opinion, had to come not from the outside, but from within.78 And in the introduction to the American edition of the Miles challenge to the Sopade, Norman Thomas, leader of the American Socialist party, agreed that "exiles from their home country, least of all . . . men who made no more successful resistance to fascism when they were at home," could not lead the fight against Hitler; "it is to the younger generation in Germany that we must look."79 The Swiss Volksrecht of Zurich demanded in the name of German as well as foreign Socialists that the International select a new executive committee to replace the Sopade, or itself assume a trusteeship for German social democracy until a party conference meeting abroad could designate a new leadership for the movement.80 In view of the support which their opponents seemed to receive both from the underground movement in Germany and from large sections of the international Socialist labor movement, the exiled leaders in Prague—dependent as they were upon the support of both the resistance in Germany and the Labor and Socialist International and having difficulty enough to cope with Nazi and Communist attacks—were forced to modify their earlier position considerably. This retreat was to take them away from their liberal-democratic beliefs and far toward the revolutionary Marxist tradition of Social Democratic heritage. Soul Searching in the Sopade The exiled leaders had no intention of evading a thorough investigation of the reasons for the collapse of social democracy, announced Friedrich Stampfer.81 "It will be necessary that all of us who witnessed or took part in the evolution of our party as participants and leaders or as observers, must now judge ourselves in the hour of defeat," declared Curt Geyer in the first issue of the Sopade's Zeitschrift fur Sozialismus. "This is not the time for apologies, but the time to work for the rejuvenation and improvement of our strategy. W e have to learn from our defeat. W e can, however, learn only if we firmly put our fingers on the mistakes that were made."82

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The bitter attacks against them had made it evident to the exiles in Prague that their concepts of the previous summer—or Revolution against Hitler—were untenable in view of the sentiment prevailing among the Social Democratic resistance as well as within the International. The claim of the Sopade for leadership of the anti-Nazi opposition had encountered serious obstacles, which for a time threatened its very existence. Under pressure from the Karlsbad border secretariat, upon which the Sopade had for the present to rely very heavily for liaison contacts in Germany, the leaders of the Old Left opposition, Aufhauser and Bochel, were taken into the Sopade. The Sopade was quite aware of the fact that its own initial program was only a starting point for the urgently necessary ideological and tactical reorientation of a "revolutionary" Social Democratic movement, according to Paul Hertz. It was, therefore, declared only logical that it published New Beginning by Miles as a contribution to this ideological reorientation.83 Others, however, including Friedrich Adler, then secretary general of the International, later maintained that the exiled leaders were more or less compelled by the International to print the pamphlet and to extend generous financial aid to the New Beginners.84 The bitter diatribe which Miles aimed at the exiled executive became the second of a series of pamphlets entitled, Problems of Socialism, which the Sopade began publishing in fall, 1933, its own Revolution against Hitler being the first. However, the exiled leaders were careful to state that sponsorship of the Miles work was to be in no way interpreted as acceptance of his theories and claims for leadership.86 The Sopade's professed desire to allow every opportunity for "self-criticism" and reorientation also induced it to publish a new journal in October, 1933, according to Hertz.86 At first calling it Sozialistische Revolution, the Sopade was compelled by the Czech authorities, after the appearance of the first issue, to change the name to the less militant, Zeitschrift fur Sozialismus. The editor of the new journal was Rudolf Hilferding, the leading theorist of the S.P.D. in the Weimar period. Born in Vienna in 1877 and a trained doctor of medicine, Hilferding had already before the First World War come to be looked upon as a second Kautsky and the older man's natural successor as the leading in-

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terpreter of Marxism, principally on the strength of his Finanzkapital (1910), a volume considered one of the most significant postMarxian economic works. During the First World War he broke with the majority of his party and became one of the founders and leaders of the dissident Independents. He returned when the capture of most Independent Social Democrats by Lenin and the Comintern dashed his hopes for a powerful independent Marxist party, occupying a position somewhere midway between the "social patriots" of the S.P.D. and the Communists. A convinced anti-Bolshevist, Hilferding applied himself to providing the theoretical Marxist foundations for the reformist activities of the party leadership in the Weimar era; according to his theory of "organized capitalism" German social democracy stood for a gradual and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism within the framework of the as yet "bourgeois" democratic state. Twice German minister of finance and a leading member of his party in both its executive committee and the Reichstag, Hilferding was considered by the Nazis one of the leading "November criminals," who had "stabbed the nation in the back" in 1918, and had to flee for his life as soon as Hitler came to power. After a brief period of political inactivity in his Swiss exile, he evidently conquered his initial depression over the defeat of the Social Democrats and established close contacts with the Sopade in Prague. Though formally no longer a member of the executive committee—not having been reelected in April, 1933—Hilferding became at once one of the leading advisers of the Sopade and its representative at numerous international labor conferences. As the former editor of the theoretical journal, Die Gesellschaft, he was an obvious choice for his new position.87 In introducing the new Sopade journal, Hilferding announced that it was to be a "revolutionary publication" in more than one sense—not only in terms of the future of social democracy, but also in reexamining the past for "shortcomings" and "backwardness." An effort was to be made to "understand what happened by means of a truly Marxist methodology" in order to fix a new course. In this spirit Hilferding opened the pages to the "freest and most thorough self-criticism—not merely for the sake of criticism, but as an essential prerequisite if the lessons of the past are to be of use in planning for the future." 88

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"Self-criticism" was a Bolshevist term heretofore alien to the vocabulary of German socialism; its appearance among the exiled leaders was indicative of the climate of opinion which now led to a general soul-searching process. Friedrich Stampfer, the leading publicist of the Sopade and its most vocal member, was the first to rush forward with "a contribution to self-criticism." "The old generation of leaders is dying and there is, therefore, room enough for a new one," he advised the critics of the Sopade. No doubt, he conceded, there had been among the old leaders men who had failed to provide the best possible leadership in the past, and he expressed his conviction that the new leaders who would emerge from the underground struggle in Germany would be "very unlike the old ones"; to those of the old generation who had managed to preserve their liberty and freedom of action, his advice was to give to the best of their ability loyal and complete support to the younger generation in its present battles. "I must admit that the events of recent months have provided the opponents of my own views with considerable arguments in their favor," confessed Stampfer, every position won by the working class through its positive attitude toward the State has been lost again. . . . Social Democrats who fought at the front between 1914 and 1918 have been murdered, imprisoned, hounded out of the country by individuals who largely exercised their 'super-nationalist' convictions during the W a r either in a nursery or behind the lines. Never before has it been more brutally demonstrated that all the talk about the gratitude of the fatherland and about German loyalty cannot obscure the reality of the class struggle.

Perhaps there had been too many, rather than too few, highly intelligent, rational, and humanitarian individuals among the leaders of the S.P.D., Stampfer granted; perhaps their approach to socialism had been wrong, for their efforts to protect the democratic rights of all Germans against the extremists of the right and left "could not prevent the turning of the tools of democracy against democracy once they were in the hands of its enemies [nor] that . . . a majority of the German people voted to surrender their liberty"; the expectation of the fathers of the Weimar Constitution that it would assure tranquillity in domestic development had proven to be an illusion. Stampfer admitted: "We overestimated the significance of reason and humanitarianism in political life,

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we «»^estimated the significance of force and brutality. We failed—despite the high-sounding speeches that were so often made —to recruit from among our mass following real revolutionary soldiers for the fight against fascism."89 "It may have been a fault of social democracy," echoed the Neuer Vorwärts, . . that it placed too much reliance upon ideological maturing and despised the use of force too much." 90 N o longer did the Third Reich seem just another Bismackian persecution. The Sopade organ admitted: "Today this time appears to us as having been relatively liberal; not only were there no murders, no ill treatment, and no concentration camps, but Social Democratic deputies were protected by their parliamentary immunity, [and] the legal limits [to persecution] permitted a certain amount of open opposition and an oppositional press."91 The process of reorienting the strategy and tactics of the Sopade was catalyzed by the arrival of two younger men who in recent months had been attempting to rally an underground movement in Germany behind the leadership of the exiles. Thirty-one-year-old Erich Rinner had been a functionary in the office of the Social Democratic Reichstag delegation when, in April, 1933, he was suddenly elevated to membership in the party executive committee as one of the three representatives of the "younger generation." A few weeks later, on June 19, the party leaders who had remained in Berlin had placed Rinner on the fourmen emergency executive committee of the S.P.D., that was to prove to the Nazi authorities that the party leadership was in Germany and not abroad. When this device proved unsuccessful and the party was outlawed three days later, Rinner managed to escape arrest and for the next months played hide-and-seek with the Nazi police. Moving about Germany as an emissary of the exiled leaders, he endeavored to enlist the old party members and functionaries in an underground resistance movement against Hitler. Finally forced to leave Germany entirely, Rinner became, in October, 1933, the ninth member of the exiled executive in Prague.92 The other arrival was forty-two-year-old Curt Geyer, who had been the Sopade's chief underground representative in Berlin. Son of a prominent member of the prewar S.P.D., Geyer—like the younger Liebknecht—had been a leader of its radical left wing in

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the period leading to the wartime split of the Social Democratic movement and one of the founding fathers of the Independent Socialist party. He had played a prominent role in Lenin's 1920 coup which split the latter group and brought the majority of its members into the new Communist party. From 1921 to 1924 one of the few Communists in the Reichstag, Geyer had become disillusioned and returned to the S.P.D. An able writer, he joined the Vorwärts staff and in 1933 was the managing editor of the party organ, second only to the editor in chief, Friedrich Stampfer. As soon as he came to Prague, Geyer joined his old chief in editing the Neuer Vorwärts and within a few months became the editor of the paper and ex officio member of the exiled executive.93 Fresh from their rather unsuccessful organizational efforts on behalf of the Sopade in Germany, both men insisted that the exiles needed a "new program" to provide the cement for fusing the shattered Social Democratic movement into a unified revolutionary underground under the leadership of the Sopade. Writing under the nom de guerre of Ernst Anders, Rinner declared that in view of the sentiment and temper of the youthful resistance groups in Germany, the aspiring leadership of a new revolutionary Social Democratic movement had to proclaim its determination to do better than in 1918 and wage a ruthless battle for the annihilation of all reactionary forces in Germany. For it had now become evident to the young resistance fighters what the older generation of Social Democrats was said not to have realized when the imperial system collapsed: Once a revolutionary minority got power, it could and should use its position to assure itself a popular majority before restoring democratic processes. A new Sopade program along these lines, said Rinner, would not alone strengthen the determination and self-assurance of the anti-Nazi resistance, but unite it. A "revolutionary" Social Democratic leadership, such was the tenor of his advice, had to assure the actual and potential Socialist opposition at home that, if victorious, it would destroy the large Junker estates, socialize key industries, and ruthlessly carry out all reforms of the "capitalist state" necessary to provide a favorable climate for the development of a democratic, Socialist society.94 Geyer, like Rinner, echoed some of the charges of the Old Left against the exiled leaders when he blamed the "disastrous defeat" of

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1933 on their failure to give Germany social as well as political democracy in 1918-1919. Using the nom de guerre Max Klinger, he claimed that, contented with the outward trappings of political democracy, they had neglected to destroy democracy's irreconcilable enemies; preoccupied with the pursuit of superficial economic and political gains after the revolution, they had allowed the spirit of democratic socialism to become anemic and abstract, incapable of arousing the enthusiasm of the younger generation for the battle for freedom and socialism. Consequently, charged Geyer, the old, reactionary ideals had witnessed a revival in the form of nazism, attracting the support of German youth, and finally triumphing with the establishment of a "dictatorship of monopoly capitalism" in 1933. Beaten, social democracy could only be resuscitated if its leaders relearned "to think both historically and methodologically as Marxists." Thus alone, held Geyer, could the German working class recapture its revolutionary élan and an awareness of the great historical mission assigned to it by Marx. The message of a "revolutionary" Social Democratic leadership to the "proletarian" resistance movement which it sought to lead could only be framed, under present circumstances, in terms of a militant class struggle. It must, advised Geyer, impress upon the German workers that behind the ideology of the totalitarian state and its "petty bourgeois leaders" was hidden "the social dictatorship of monopoly capitalism."95 Powerful voices in the Labor and Socialist International joined the chorus demanding that the exiled leaders radicalize their position in their battle against Hitler. Speaking with the authority of the leader of a party which, temporarily, had inherited the mantle of the German Social Democrats as the leading Socialist party in Central Europe, Otto Bauer declared that "bourgeois democracy" was no longer feasible in Germany. The aim of the coming proletarian revolution, he told the exiles, could not merely be a political revolution, but the Socialist reconstruction of society. Since the Third Reich could only be overthrown by a bloody revolution and civil war, the victorious class would not be able to restore universal democratic liberties at once, for its defeated opponents might once again abuse this privilege to prepare a counterrevolution. "Should the revolutionary crisis give us power," he maintained, "we shall

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use our power not only to disarm fascism, but also to destroy with a few daring strokes its economic foundation, the control of monopoly capitalism over the German places of work [Arbeitsstätten] and the rule of the Junkers over German soil, in order to give the revolutionary state control of economic life." Only then could the Socialist foundations of the coming German democracy be considered assured and self-government be restored to the people by the revolutionary government of the Social Democratic party. In effect, therefore, Bauer advocated that "transition period" which Marx and Lenin before him had called the "dictatorship of the proletariat." He admitted as much, but pointed out that "if we speak today of the dictatorship of the proletariat, everybody thinks of Russia. . . . If the German Social Democrats . . . would announce that the aim of their fight was the dictatorship of the proletariat, the broad masses of the German people would interpret this to mean . . . merely the substitution of one authoritarian government for another." For tactical reasons Bauer thought it unwise to antagonize large sections of the population—particularly the middle classes—which would be needed to overthrow Hitler. "The German revolution will succeed only if the middle classes can be mobilized against the fascist dictatorship and around the revolutionary working class," Bauer explained. "The slogan of the revolution of the proletariat, however, would isolate the German working class and permit fascism to retain the support of the middle classes." While Bauer, therefore, advised "revolutionary" social democracy to prepare itself to exercise at least a "temporary" dictatorship in order to give Germany permanent liberty, democracy, and equality, he counseled that for strategic reasons this aim of the coming revolution be obscured and the popular slogans of liberty and democracy advanced as the goal of the fight against Nazism and capitalism in Germany for the benefit of nonproletarian groups.96 As experienced political tacticians, the representatives of the old leadership of the S.P.D. were beginning to stage a strategic retreat before their adversaries and critics, but refused to be routed. On the contrary, the radical proposals of their opponents made them all the more determined to assume the leadership of the coming "revolution against Hitler" and thus assure the preservation of

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the type of socialism which they stood for. The old leaders conceded that they had made mistakes, but they had no intention of abandoning the field to the representatives of either the Old or New Left. At issue, it seemed to them, was not merely the question over who was to lead the revolutionary movement, but the preservation of the traditional principles of German social democracy. The fact that in the light of developments in Germany the issues at stake in the "great debate" were rather academic was not apparent at the time. Among the partisans of the old leaders the authoritarian proposals from the left were anathema. The suggestion of Aufhauser that revolutionary Socialists had to establish an "educational dictatorship" after the overthrow of Hitler was characterized as but most extreme verbalization of the Old Left's criticism of the old democratic leaders and tactics. While it was conceded that many Germans had deserted social democracy because they lacked faith in democratic socialism, this was in no way seen as an indication that they preferred authoritarianism. T o the partisans of the old leaders it meant simply that, in the future, democratic socialism had to be made more attractive and the fight for it to be waged with greater determination than in the past.97 The New Beginning program was variously traced either to fascist or Bolshevist origins and rejected as such. On tactical grounds, it was considered a mistake to ask the anti-Nazi underground fighters to die for nothing more than what was described as a mere change in the ruling elite of an authoritarian party state. However, the Miles plan of organizing the core of the anti-Nazi resistance in small cadres of professional revolutionaries—borrowed from Lenin—was considered by some worthy of consideration.98 "Where Lenin failed, Hitler succeeded," complained the venerable dean of democratic Marxism, Karl Kautsky: "He has caused many a Social Democrat to despair of democratic methods and to conclude that the only road to a socialist order is through a dictatorship, as in Russia." 99 As he had warned Lenin before the Bolshevist revolution, Kautsky thought it a dangerous illusion to believe that a movement rooted in a given set of circumstances could be destroyed by violence, an idea which he felt had made a profound impression on some Social Democrats due to the unrestrained vio-

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lence of the Nazis. Being an orthodox economic determinist, he insisted: "In a period of continuous development, such as is represented by capitalism, and especially in a period of constant disturbances and insecurity . . . dictatorships cannot maintain themselves indefinitely and must end in catastrophe." Kautsky pleaded with the German Social Democrats not to follow the physical defeat with an ideological one, and, because of Hitler's "temporary" victory, abandon their traditional democratic and humanitarian beliefs in order to survive as a "revolutionary" movement in competition with other so-called revolutionary movements. 100 He wrote: Dictators may torture or kill us, but they shall not succeed in demoralizing the soul of our movement, in bringing it to a state where for the sake of saving its life, it is willing to renounce its ideal. Our cause will conquer in spite of everything for . . . free men . . . will far outstrip . . . every organization that is built on compulsion and . . . brute force. . . . The victory of Hitlerism for the moment does not in the slightest provide the occasion for us to become ruthless in our methods, as we are now frequently urged to become, if by becoming ruthless is meant to become bloodthirsty and unscrupulous, to adopt the Nazi methods of lying, intriguing, and torturing and slaughtering political opponents. The brown barbarians may arrest us, may throw us into concentration camps, may shoot us 'in flight,' but they shall not succeed in making us prisoners of their depravity. Under all circumstances we shall remain the champions of democracy and humanity. W e reject as senseless and cruel and ruinous to both our cause and our nation the suggestions that we strive to arrive at humanity by the methods of brutality. . . . The circumstances which have made Hitlerism are temporary. The German working class, however, remains basically the same as it was before the World War and will again do its duty when circumstances change and make possible the overthrow of the Hitler regime.101 W e r e it true that Germans—particularly their youth—were incapable of rational action, "we can let ourselves be buried along with our programs, old and new," Kautsky declared. But the traditional principles of democratic socialism—the products of centuries of cultural development—were, according to him, as sound as ever and he saw no reason to cast them aside simply because of recent developments in Germany. There was no cause to imitate the extremist movements' appeal to the susceptibility and impressionableness of youth; on the contrary, young Germans had to be taught to think rationally again.102 If Miles were right, Kautsky acknowl-

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edged, "all the props upon which up to now our confident expectations for the final victory of the proletariat have rested, would collapse." But he was wrong! Such "limited and transitory diversions of the working masses from social democratic ideology" as had occurred in Germany and Italy, were nothing new in the long history of the battle for a Socialist society and proved always transitory, for demagogues could never create the conditions which would satisfy the proletariat. According to Kautsky, the fight against German fascism could never be won by adopting its philosophy and techniques, but only by adhering to the time-honored Social Democratic methods, by enlisting all democratic Germans in the battle for the restoration of liberty and democracy. The proponents of an exclusive proletarian class struggle were advised that "the very fact that social democracy represents not merely the special interests of the proletariat, but the general interests of society as well, made it a great movement." Kautsky confidently looked forward to the inevitable resumption of a peaceful and democratic evolution toward a Socialist society in Germany. "Our theoretical beliefs are not as superficial as that a few months of Hitler's rule would suffice to make us doubt the teachings of Marx," he insisted.103 The January Manifesto of 1934. Before 1933, the executive committee of the German Social Democratic party had frequently been compared to the general staff of a highly disciplined army. In fact, August Bebel, the principal architect of the prewar mass party, had deliberately fashioned its monolithic organization in the image of the famed Prussian army. Traditionally, the decisions of the executive were supposed to express the collective will of the party membership and the latter was expected to obey them loyally. In the Weimar era the power of the executive had grown even greater, because of the great expansion in the activities of the party, increased patronage at the disposal of its leaders, and the proportional-representation-list system for electing all German legislators. That power had vanished with the destruction of the party by Hitler. The remnants of the Social Democratic general staff no

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longer had the means and the membership support which in the past had enabled them to maintain unity and discipline in the movement. Their claim to continue to represent the leadership of a party which, they said, had been driven underground but not destroyed, was seriously challenged by rival claimants who identified themselves with revolutionary socialism—the old leaders with "discredited" evolutionary socialism. The unexpected force of these attacks and the accumulating evidence of the upsurge of radical Marxism among Socialists both inside and outside Germany was to induce the Sopade to reformulate its program for the coming "revolution against Hitler" in the hope of thus retaining the support of both German and international labor. This decision to restate the objectives of "revolutionary" social democracy was tactical. T o counteract the challenge that the old party leadership in exile was incapable of leading the "revolutionary proletarian class struggle" against the Third Reich, the Sopade took the advice of Rinner, Geyer, and others to demonstrate that it was determined to lead a united working class against German "monopoly capitalism." Its objective was to "restore confidence in the Socialist movement," meaning the traditional Social Democratic movement, among the underground fighters who were threatening to follow other leaders; to instill new confidence in the ranks of the scattered remnants of the old movement; and, above all, to demonstrate that leadership of the S.P.D. had made a clean break with the past and was determined to fight to the finish the "revolutionary" struggle for the destruction of "monopoly capitalism" and "feudalism" and for the Socialist reorganization of German society.104 T o counteract the challenge of their rivals and to unite the Socialist anti-Nazi movement behind their leadership, the exiled representatives of the old party leadership were prepared to make at least a superficial break with the principles of Weimar social democracy. Once more, as during Bismarck's suppression of the Social Democrats, the party leaders sought to resort to the symbols and slogans of revolutionary Marxism in order to maintain their leadership, unite the opposition, and defeat the oppressor. The Marxist concepts of the class struggle, the proletarian revolution, and the eschatological image of the classless society, to a large ex-

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tent abandoned by the Social Democrats during the Weimar Republic, were now to be resurrected. In December, 1933, the exiled executive commissioned the most vocal of its autocritics, Stampfer, Geyer, and Rinner, with drafting a new program. The tactical objectives of the Stampfer-Geyer-Rinner group were spelled out rather clearly by Geyer in a series of articles prior to the publication of the new manifesto. Answering Kautsky's plea for adherence to the principles of Weimar social democracy, Geyer pointed out that, in the eyes of the young underground fighters now clamoring for bloody revenge and a proletarian dictatorship, democratic socialism had been thoroughly discredited. Their reactions were emotional and irrational, Geyer agreed, but they were leading these young activists into the Communist camp. Fundamentally, Stampfer, Rinner, Geyer, and the majority of the Sopade concurred with Kautsky's claim that socialism and liberty were inseparable. But they could not agree with him that the "masses" would instinctively drift back to the old Social Democratic leadership, once disillusioned with Hitler—simply because the exiled executive would appear to be the only feasible "center of opposition and attack." Not for the first time, Kautsky had to learn that orthodox Marxist doctrine was of lesser importance than tactical considerations for the political strategists. Belief was too widespread that the Sopade was merely an exiled remnant of a discredited and powerless former party leadership, Geyer said, and the "confused masses" needed to be told "who we are, what we do, what we want." The distrust prevailing among the scattered resistance groups toward the old Social Democratic leadership and the existing confusion between the Social Democratic and the Bolshevist concepts of revolutionary socialism demanded a new and clear statement of principles from the Sopade, lest the "confused masses" follow other, false, leaders in the fight against Hitler. To rally the Socialist opposition behind the Sopade's leadership it was necessary not only to tell the "old-timers" that it symbolized the continuity and permanence of the old Socialist tradition, but to inform the embittered activists that the exiled executive had broken with the old reformist tactics and now stood for "revolutionary" social democracy.105 Since the Stampfer-Geyer-Rinner draft failed to win majority

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approval when it was submitted to the entire exiled executive— including the Old Left leaders, Aufhauser and Bochel—it was given to Hilferding for further synthesizing of conflicting viewpoints. Hilferding had outlined his position when he introduced the Zeitschrift fur Sozialismus.106 Like his mentor, Kautsky, he conceived Hitler's accession as a historical development brought about by the "crisis of capitalism" and the diversion of the natural anticapitalist sentiment of the German masses into the pseudo-Socialist Nazi and Communist movements. But Hitler's victory was to him "but a transformation within bourgeois capitalist society, undermined and shaken by economic crisis" which could not end the class struggle. It was, in fact, itself an expression of the tremendous accentuation of class differences within the capitalist system in time of crisis, according to Hilferding. He predicted that the Third Reich would "fall victim to these [internal capitalist] class differences and class struggles which it . . . cannot master in the long run." Like Kautsky, Hilferding expected that Hitler's actions would soon lose him the support of the "anticapitalist masses" who made up the gross of his supporters, because he would not satisfy their expectations for material improvement. In the end, the crisis of capitalism which had put Hitler in power would cause his downfall, as he could only intensify, and never alleviate, class conflicts. Expected attempts to overcome economic problems by nationalist and expansionist actions would inevitably be blocked by the great powers, and the masses would be thoroughly disillusioned. Hilferding, therefore, freely predicted that with mounting disillusionment, increasing difficulties, and the disappearance of mass support, opposition to the dictatorship would increase and become more successful. He conceded, however, that dissatisfaction would not lead to a spontaneous uprising, that mass movements need guidance. Hilferding agreed with the left-wing critics of the Sopade that an organization of revolutionary Socialist cadres would be needed which would prepare, organize, and ultimately lead the masses when the hour of the Third Reich struck. In Hilferding's hands the "political considerations" which, according to Geyer, were the basis of the forthcoming proclamation, assumed the form of a radical break with reformism.107 His re-

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vised version of the original draft was finally accepted by a majority of the nine voting members of the Sopade—probably by all but the left-wing representatives Aufhauser and Bochel. On January 28, 1933, the newspapers of the Sopade proclaimed the new " T a c tics and Aim of Revolutionary Socialism" over the signature of the executive committee of the German Social Democratic party. 108 "German workers, you have nothing to lose but the chains of your enslavement, you have a world of freedom and socialism to win." With these words the January manifesto of 1934 clearly indicated its intellectual ancestry. The victory of the "counterrevolution" in Germany was said to have completely altered the character and aims of the German labor movement. In the struggle against the National Socialist dictatorship, it was proclaimed, compromise was impossible and reformism and legality had no place. The old ways were forever gone and the new strategy of "revolutionary social democracy" was to be determined exclusively by the unalterable resolve of its "revolutionary" leaders to seize and maintain control of the state in order to turn Germany into a Socialist commonwealth. The tactics of "revolutionary socialism" were to be based upon an orthodox, though flexible Marxist analysis of future developments. Such a strategy, as Hilferding pointed out, would alone really strengthen the determination and certainty of victory of the Socialist resistance.109 His and Kautsky's analysis of the nature of the Third Reich clearly provided the underlying orthodox Marxist assumptions of the manifesto. The establishment of the Hitler dictatorship had caused an unprecedented intensification of social conflicts in Germany, according to the document, for monopoly capitalism had removed the democratic safety valves which heretofore had eased the tensions produced by the crisis of German capitalism. Contemporary developments in the capitalist system were said to carry within them the seeds of its destruction and the very completeness of the temporary defeat of the German working class was declared to make the latter's ultimate victory all the more certain. For the misery of the proletariat could only be intensified by the present government and the "working masses" would be compelled to resort to revolutionary and violent means in order to rid themselves of their oppressors.

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"The details of the tactics in the revolutionary fight cannot be ascertained in advance," Geyer asserted, and, therefore, the document remained rather vague in this respect. Nevertheless, as Geyer frankly admitted, the influence of the tactical program of the New Left was strongly evidenced, as were—indirectly—the Leninist organizational concepts—in spite of Hilferding's assertion to the contrary.110 The "spontaneous" revolutionary sentiments which the nature and actions of the Third Reich were expected to create in Germany would require, according to the manifesto, a "revolutionary elite organization" to direct these sentiments along Marxist principles; it would explain to the masses that their miserable condition was due to the nature of capitalism, thus intensifying their class consciousness. As "class differences" approached the boiling point, this "revolutionary organization" was to mobilize the Socialist mass movement and lead it in overthrowing the "monopoly capitalist" dictatorship. Toward this end "every group possessing the kind of revolutionary sentiment which gives guarantee that its activities are aimed at the overthrow of the National Socialist dictatorship by a united working class" was promised the support of the Sopade. The intention of "the leadership of German social democracy," the manifesto announced, was to forge a united front of all "antifascist groups"— including peasants, artisans, merchants, and intellectuals—around the core of a united revolutionary working class party led by its elite leadership. Its new strategy and aims, declared the Sopade, eliminated all reasons for a divided working class movement: "Whether Social Democrat, Communist, or supporter of one of the numerous splinter groups, any opponent of the dictatorship must be transformed into a revolutionary Socialist by the very nature of the struggle [,for] historical necessity" was compelling "the unification of the working class." Anyone and any groups sincerely fighting against the dictatorship and not against other parties of the working class were invited to use the newspapers and publications of the Sopade to assist in achieving the unity of the revolutionary working class. The Sopade excepted, however, such groups and individuals as would seek to take advantage of this offer for aid and cooperation to perpetuate the old cleavages—thus weakening the opposition and strengthening the rule of the Nazi dictatorship.

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In view of the fact that, for the time being at least, terror, the absolute control of the German government over the state, and the complete disorganization of all opposition groups inside Germany forced the resistance to form small conspiratorial decentralized cells, the Sopade—taking its cue from Lenin—declared that the activities of these groups would have to be directed and coordinated from a center outside Germany. This task—with the "constant participation and advice" of the leaders of all anti-Nazi groups —the exiled executive wished to assume. The function of the "revolutionary leadership" abroad, explained Hilferding, was to sponsor and coordinate the activities of the underground cells inside the country and, on the basis of a combination of Marxist theory and an analysis of developments inside Germany as reported by its agents, fix and steer the course of the opposition. Together, the exile center and the scattered underground groups would forge the determined and radical Socialist elite party which, when the "fascist system" had been properly weakened and the masses sufficiently disillusioned, would organize, mobilize, and lead the violent and "total" revolution against the "total" capitalist dictatorship.111 The violent nature of the revolution would automatically determine the character of the revolutionary government which it would put in power, according to the January, 1934, manifesto. It was frankly conceded by the Sopade that grave omissions had occurred when the Social Democrats in 1918 suddenly gained control over the German state. In view of the violent and radical character of the coming revolution, a victorious Social Democratic movement could not and would not repeat these "mistakes." Repeating, practically literally, recommendations for the "revolutionary government" which Geyer had made previously, the manifesto announced that the defeat of the National Socialist enemy by the revolutionary mass party of the working class would be succeeded by a strong revolutionary government, which would proceed to take drastic action to assure for itself complete control of the state, crush any potential opposition in the roots, and proceed to take all necessary steps to transform the state into an instrument of the will of the people. 112 All participants and benefactors of the defeated regime were to be tried by a revolutionary tribunal; the judiciary, civil service, army, and police would be purged, and the

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most important positions given to reliable supporters of the revolutionary government. The power of the old ruling class was to be eliminated forever by the immediate expropriation of large landed estates, key industries, and large banks and all "counterrevolutionary agitation" wiped out. "Only after the consolidation of the power of the revolution and the complete destruction of the capitalist, feudalist, and political strongholds of the counterrevolutionaries" would the temporary regime be able to permit the election of a "people's parliament" by universal, equal, and direct suffrage, which then might choose a new government. Even then, it was assumed that the working class would continue to exercise predominant control over the state, and it was to use its power to push for the complete democratization of society through the socialization of all phases of economic and social life. The nature of this "transition period"—which Marx had called "dictatorship of the proletariat"—was permitted to remain rather obscure in the manifesto. Geyer and Hilferding had previously endeavored to avoid the implication that the executive committee sought to establish a dictatorship in Germany, in contrast to its Communist, Old and New Left rivals. Yet, they evidently considered it necessary at this time to satisfy the cry for a future strong rule of revolutionary social democracy and the widespread belief that the absence of such a rule in 1918-1919 had permitted "reaction" and "capitalism" to stage a comeback and erect their own dictatorship. The manifesto hinted at the sort of compromise between a liberal democratic government and a revolutionary party dictatorship which the Independent Social Democrats, guided by Hilferding, had sought in 1919. While it told the radicalized underground groups that the Social Democrats would establish a dictatorship when they came to power, it sought at the same time to assure the middle classes whose support was sought, that they would not be wiped out and that democratic government would be reestablished as soon as victory was assured, for which purpose a temporary dictatorship would be necessary. Hilferding insisted that neither an "educational" nor a Bolshevist party dictatorship was intended, but only a transitional rule which would first create the basis for a true democracy. He apparently realized the difficult problem of avoiding the implication that in fact this sort of transi-

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tional rule was a highly flexible concept—as Lenin had demonstrated—but like Otto Bauer, he could offer no satisfactory solution. Geyer, on the other hand, admitted the purely opportunistic purpose of a manifesto which sought to provide a common meeting ground for the opposition. H e explained that the question was left deliberately vague, "because it seems senseless to speculate about it" in view of the dynamic nature of the fight against Hitler. 1 1 3 Finally, the manifesto coupled its bid for support in Germany with an appeal to other nations, and particularly to the international labor movement. It maintained that the continued existence of the Hitler regime was not merely of concern to the German people, but constituted a threat to the liberty and civilization of the entire world. T h e Hitler government, the manifesto warned, would without the least hesitation break all international agreements in pursuit of the nationalist, expansionist ambitions with which it would be obliged to endeavor to overcome its internal difficulties. N o t that the executive committee wanted to see the regime overthrown b y a new war, on the contrary, it seeks to prevent war. For that very reason it opposes all military concessions to Nazi Germany. It warns the labor parties of all countries not to underestimate the danger of German nationalism. . . . However, should this war, which the resolution and vigilant determination of the democracies, prompted by their labor parties, can still prevent, come nevertheless, then the German Social Democrats will remain the same, irreconcilable opponents of despotism114 because the unity and liberty of the German nation could only be saved b y the defeat of German fascism. Probably Hilferding's particular contribution, this was a most important statement in the light of subsequent developments. Significantly, however, the manifesto went on to state that the German Social Democrats would never recognize a peace treaty that would dismember Germany and thus stifle the full development of its political and economic potentialities—meaning the socialization of German society. T h e exiled executive of the S.P.D. committed itself to oppose any such policy with all its strength, in the name of the German people. 115 Thus, with the publication of the January, 1934, manifesto, ended the second, the "reorientation" phase in the evolution of the Sopade. Under the pressure of a renaissance of revolutionary Marx-

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ism inside and outside Germany, the statement of the exiled leaders of the old S.P.D. had gone further in the direction of a MarxistLeninist strategy than any previous official pronouncement in the history of the German Social Democratic movement. In an effort to silence their critics, the old reformist leaders seemed to have agreed to a complete reversal of the policy which their party had followed at least since 1914, if not since its founding in 1875. Not only appeared these leaders to have returned to the prewar policy of committing the Social Democrats to fight an anticapitalist class struggle against the ruling powers in Germany, but they seemed to have gone even further by accepting a large share of the Leninist organizational pattern for their "revolutionary socialism." The manifesto was to demonstrate to the underground movement in Germany and to the international labor movement, the two elements whose support the Sopade needed if it was to survive, that the old leaders in exile had altered their ideas and should, therefore, be trusted with the leadership of the Socialist opposition against nazism. It remained to be seen whether they had succeeded. (See end paper at back for full text of 1934 manifesto.)

Chapter 4 The

With bated breath I hearkened to her when my nurse, looking gentler and wiser, of Barbarossa began to speak of our ancient secret Kaiser And she assured me he is not dead, as maintained by well-known savants, he dwells in secret inside a hill, with many a spear and lance. Kyffhauser is the mountain's name. Within a cavern capacious; the hanging lamps throw an eerie light and the halls are valuted and spacious. # # # # Is he deep in sleep or deep in thought? The riddle is hard to unravel; but when the rightful hour strikes he will stir, he will rise and travel.

The Theory

of the

Kyffhiiuser

He will sweep the good old standard up, shouting: "To horse! To horse, men!" His riders all will spring from the ground with unexpected force then. Each and every one will swing to his horse and the horses will trample and neigh. They will ride out into the echoing world and loud the trumpets will play. It's well they ride and well they fight. They have slept their sleep to the finish. The Kaiser will hold a judgment high— the murderers he will punish. Heinrich Heine

"Mandate."

T h e majority of the members of the exiled S.P.D. executive believed that with the publication of the January, 1934, manifesto they had gone as far as possible—probably too far—to maintain unity in the camp of the Social Democratic opposition to Hitlerism. T h e y now expected all loyal supporters of the Social Democratic fight against the Third Reich to rally behind the Sopade and to put their trust in the leadership of the exiled executive, or rather that of its right-wing majority. This was made clear by Sigmund Crummenerl within a few

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days of the appearance of the manifesto. A strong and secure center abroad, to plan, coordinate, and direct the activities of the scattered underground groups was what the latter needed and wanted, he wrote in the Neuer Vorwärts on February 4, 1934. Strategic considerations demanded this type of revolutionary organizational structure and the preservation of the present leadership in exile. Sudden decisions to alter either the traditional principles of social democracy or the composition of its leadership would only have disastrous consequences for the resistance movement. Eventually, said Crummenerl, when the underground movement had achieved greater strength and cohesion and present hasty demands for an immediate, radical change in the leadership, ideology, and tactics of the movement had "matured," a reorganization of the executive would receive the earnest consideration of its present members. In the name of unity behind the Sopade's leadership, the rightwing majority of the executive and its supporters began their counterattack against the challenge of the left wingers. The latter were viewed with increasingly undisguised hostility as wilful and dangerous saboteurs of the anti-Nazi fight, more interested in overthrowing the leadership of the present executive majority than in a revolution against Hitler. The radical opposition to the exiled leaders was attempting to use a "convenient and cheap formula" to identify itself with "revolutionary radicalism"—supposedly the only road to salvation—and the majority of the Sopade with "reformism" and therefore to be damned, claimed Victor Schiff, a former editor on Stampfer's Vorwärts. "Let us not have any illusions about the true nature of this discussion," he wrote. "It is no longer a question of specific phraseology, but a clash of personalities. The opposition is simply against any kind of political action directed by leaders which it considers discredited." But this was sabotaging the anti-Nazi fight, for the underground movement wanted unity and action against Hitler and not "self-mutilating" debates, the theorizing and programmatizing which Victor Schiff termed a characteristic activity of émigrés} In support of its claim for retention of the leadership of the Social Democratic movement inside and outside Germany, the Sopade majority maintained that the six original members had been chosen by the entire party executive committee at its emergency

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meeting of May 4, 1933, to carry on as "trustees" for the party in case it were to be forced underground. Therefore, it was claimed, the exiled executive, held a "mandate" which entrusted it with control over "all aspects of the organizational as well as political activities of the movement," with the administration of the salvaged party funds, and with responsibility for the continuity of the organizational remnants of the party. The Sopade, Paul Hertz stated, felt itself bound under the terms of its mandate to exercise strongest discretion with regard to decisions affecting the future of German social democracy; it could not make such decisions on its own authority, but had to wait until conditions would permit it to consult the entire membership of the movement in Germany and to subject the party leadership once more to the democratic control of a reconstituted party organization. "This," wrote Hertz, was "the basis and the character of the 'trusteeship' which has become the fundamental concept governing all our actions;" the executive would continue to represent the traditional Social Democratic point of view "in so far as it is still applicable," and would maintain a "trusteeship" over the "spiritual and material possessions" which it had received from the party, until its members were free to elect a new leadership.2 "Exiles Feed on Hope" With but few exceptions the political exiles who fled Germany during the first year or two of Hitler's rule confidently believed that their exile would soon be terminated by the collapse of the Third Reich.3 Harold Lasswell has attributed to "Marxists" in general a tendency to project their personal feelings of insecurity and weakness unto the "capitalist" system they would like to see come to an end and to view that system as weak, vulnerable, and decaying.4 If such is the case, this tendency probably found expression in an aggravated form among most exiled German Socialists and Communists who, like all émigrés, naturally longed to see their opponents at home lose power as quickly as possible. T o a large extent the exiled Social Democratic leaders were the victims of what has been termed "a form of disease to which Marxism seems inevitably prone in periods of reaction: the delusion that

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the process of history will automatically do the Marxist's work without his direct intervention."6 While they did not necessarily expect the automatic collapse of the Nazi system, they found great cause for optimism on the basis of their orthodox Marxist analysis of political and economic developments in Germany. Thus Hilferding, their chief theoretician, believed that unsurmountable economic difficulties for the Nazis at home and expected firm resistance by foreign powers to nationalist-expansionist moves abroad would soon lead to the disintegration of the Third Reich.6 The publications of the exiled executive—particularly the Neuer Vorwärts— evidenced a strong tendency to interpret the course of developments in Germany in terms of a gradual, but inevitable process of disintegration. Underlying the articles and comments of many analysts and commentators was the theory that events in Germany were falling into the pattern of an intensifying class struggle between an unholy coalition at the top—vaguely called monopoly capitalism and its fascist stooges—and the exploited working masses at the bottom. Reports of mounting economic misery, food riots, illegal strikes, and rising dissatisfaction among the people on the one hand, supposed friction, purges, and conflicts within the ruling groups on the other, were taken as evidence that the "objective" situation in Germany was approaching the revolutionary conditions which would prompt the exploited masses, under the leadership of the Social Democrats, to overthrow the Nazi regime. Therefore, the task of the Social Democratic underground was not to use the Bolshevist tactics of simply "pushing" the masses into revolution, the Sozialistische Aktion noted, but to adjust its actions to the "historical process" in Germany, preparing itself for the day when the material as well as spiritual condition of the masses had reached the revolutionary stage, and they would follow the resistance leadership in giving a moribund government the last push to send it to its doom.7 Thus, the earlier state of shock, caused by the events of 1933, yielded in the third phase of the evolution of the exiled executive to a strong optimism which made itself felt even before the year had ended. In the first Nazi plebiscite in November, 1933—on Germany's withdrawal from the League—2,000,000 out of some 43,000,000 voting, reportedly disapproved of Hitler's foreign policy

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and another 2,000,000 eligible voters were said to have abstained or invalidated their ballots. The Neuer Vorwärts claimed that here was an army of 4,000,000 anti-Nazis, "a cadre for the coming Socialist revolution."8 T w o months later the Sopade concluded from the reports of its underground agents that the German people were definitely turning against the Nazis and that as a consequence the Social Democratic resistance was gaining in strength and support.9 Numerous and severe penalties handed out by German courts for the distribution of Sopade publications and for other "illegal" activities against the government, were merely taken to show that the Social Democratic movement once more enjoyed the support of thousands of active followers who, by their courageous activities, were giving proof that their loyalty to the old movement and its leadership was as strong as ever. " A movement which possesses such heroes cannot perish," wrote the Neuer Vorwärts; the terror through which the frightened Nazis sought to stop them, would merely swell their numbers and increase the sympathies of the people for them and their cause.10 The reported defeat of the official Nazi slate in the shop-steward elections in German factories in March, 1934, was taken as new evidence of the growing unpopularity of the government among the workers. Faced with seemingly unsurmountable economic difficulties, with an increasingly vigorous opposition to its bellicose nationalism from abroad, supposedly torn by internal feuds between the more radical "National Socialist" elements of the Nazi party, the army, and the conservative capitalist supporters of the dictatorship, the Third Reich was believed to be approaching its end. "Today," wrote the Neuer Vorwärts on May 6, 1934, "the system is weaker than before . . . it is disintegrating with great rapidity." The anti-Semitic and chauvinistic appeals of the Nazi leaders were taken to be frantic efforts of a desperate government to overcome through diversionary tactics the growing antagonism of the people as well as increasing dissention within its own ranks. 11 On June 30, 1934, a number of radical Nazi leaders as well as certain prominent conservatives were executed in the so-called Blood Purge. "The system has been shaken," rejoiced the Netter Vorwärts, seeing these events as the first clear indication of disintegration within the ruling groups—caused by the growth of popular

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dissatisfaction and opposition; the purge of the "National Socialist" wing of the Nazi party was believed to be a victory of the outright reactionary monopoly capitalist elements in the regime whose undisputed stooge Hitler had become; a general wave of fear and panic now was said to have seized the remaining heterogeneous components supporting the dictatorship—each one mortally afraid and distrustful of the intentions of the others. The prospect of a further increase in resentment against the Nazis with the coming winter, mounting misery, and unemployment, were believed to contain the promise of the early advent of revolutionary possibilities. The Neuer Vorwärts continued to speak of "the resurrection of the Social Democratic labor movement, the resuscitation of what so many had thought forever lost" and looked upon it as the nucleus of the coming revolutionary movement. The organized opposition was expected to grow stronger as economic crisis and the threat of allied intervention would further reduce the number of supporters of the regime; disillusioned, sincere "National Socialists" would, as a result of the Blood Purge, join the fight against the "fascist-capitalist dictatorship." "The alliance between Hitler and the ruling class paves the road toward the day of revenge," predicted the Neuer Vorwärts, professing to see in the "unbearable tension," in the restlessness and dissatisfaction of the people, in the panic of the government as manifested by increased persecution of its opponents, many similarities to conditions before the revolution of 1918. 12 When in the plebiscite of August, 1934, following President Hindenburg's death, 38,400,000 Germans approved Hitler's assumption of the office of chief of state, while 4,300,000 reportedly opposed it and almost 1,000,000 invalidated their ballots, the Neuer Vorwärts announced that a life and death struggle for the survival of the Third Reich had started. The thought of these 5,000,000 "mortal opponents" was supposed to be giving Hitler no rest; the readers of the Neuer Vorwärts were reminded that within a few months after the imperial plebiscite of 1870 the empire of Napoleon III was no more. "Not Hitler, but rather his opponents have been strengthened by this vote," declared Paul Hertz. He claimed that five million determined anti-Nazis had proven by their vote "that the supporters of Socialist and libertarian ideals are stronger . . . than

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. . . many among us had believed;" the dictatorship had been greatly weakened, the actual opposition was probably even stronger than the official returns would indicate. It was, therefore, in Hertz's opinion, not "overoptimism to expect that the old [Social Democratic] organizations could be quickly resurrected," as the grip of the weakening regime on the people would further relax.13 As the year 1934 drew to a close, the belief that economic conditions in the Third Reich were hopeless led to high hopes among the exiles in Prague. The entire atmosphere inside Germany was loaded with tension, according to the Neuer Vorwärts, a catastrophe generally anticipated. In the light of these observations, the paper asked: "Should we consider the regime more secure than it does itself? Right now its existence is no longer based upon its own strength, but solely on the prevailing weakness of its opponents. If the latter can grow stronger at the same rate at which the regime is losing strength, the end will not be far off." The belligerent speeches of the Nazi leaders and the terror against their opponents were taken as indicative of the fear and panic which had seized a "decaying" government; the exiled leaders professed to be comforted by their confident conviction that the day was dawning when revolution would smash the dungeon door and bring the real criminals to justice. A great transformation was said to be taking place in the minds of the people. "Our battle has not been in vain," exulted the Neuer Vorwärts at year's end, "social democracy could not be destroyed and is recovering its strength. . . . It lives and will outlive the Brown System."14 Transformation in the Social Democratic Resistance Movement The expectation of the majority of the Sopade members that their return to Germany in a coming revolution was no longer far off constituted one of the significant factors that were responsible for the process of internal retrenchment and ideological reaction which characterized the third phase of the history of the Sopade. A second important factor in this development was an apparent change in the size as well as the character of the Social Democratic resistance movement in 1934. It appears that for a number of reasons overt opposition to the

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Nazi regime was on the increase in 1934; the regime was apparently preoccupied for a time with consolidating its position by purging and "coordinating" its own ranks; the stiffening of foreign powers to German demands—for example, the Stresa Front and the admission of the Soviet Union to the League—seemingly caused considerable disquiet in Germany, and undoubted dissatisfaction was caused by the high economic price being paid for the Nazi gunsfor-butter rearmament program. Even radical Socialist and Communist enemies of the Sopade conceded that a definite change took place in the character of the Social Democratic resistance movement during this period, which strengthened the position of the former reformist leaders in Prague. "While heretofore the resistance movement had primarily consisted of younger elements," observed Hauser, for instance, "now the former functionaries of the old party reentered the active movement." Many of the oldtimers who, as has been noted, had remained loyal but aloof from the resistance movement during the first period of its development, evidently became more overtly active in the opposition during the spring and summer of 1934. T h e y established contact with the agents of the Sopade, received and distributed its publications in Germany, and—perhaps most important of all for this analysis— influenced the Sopade by their views regarding the course of developments and the most opportune tactics in the fight against the dictatorship. The injection of these new elements into the Social Democratic resistance movement produced in it a change in temperament as well as composition which almost at once caused repercussions in Prague. 15 Simultaneously, as Wilhelm Pieck later admitted, the Communist attempt to absorb the Social Democratic resistance through a "united front from below" had clearly failed; many of the original small, scattered independent Social Democratic activist groups, which at first had refused to cooperate with the Sopade and instead had sought to work with the Communists, had either been wiped out or had come to the conclusion that cooperation with the latter was impossible, and turned to the Sopade for information, guidance, literature, and financial assistance.16 On the other hand, certain among the old-timers who now joined the resistance, sought and advocated closer cooperation with potential or active oppositional

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elements to the right of the Social Democrats, with former Catholic trade unionists, and one-time members of the nationalist veterans organization, Stahlhelm. Their views became known in Prague through reports received by the Sopade border secretaries, selections from which the Sopade, in turn, early in 1934, began to make public in its Deutschlandberichte der Sopade, edited by Erich Rinner.17 It may well have been, as has been claimed, that the change in the character as well as the size of the Social Democratic underground movement gave the Sopade an exaggerated notion of the extent of opposition and overt illegal activity in Germany. 18 There seems no questioning, however, the very pronounced impact which this development had upon the internal development of the exile center in Prague. Together with the optimistic appraisal of German developments and certain developments in the international labor movement—to be discussed below—the change in the character of the underground contributed to swing the Sopade sharply away from the "revolutionary" position to which it had seemingly committed itself in its January, 1934, manifesto. Reaction to the Defeat of "Militant" Socialism in Austria and Spain During 1934 armed Socialist units in both Catalonia and Austria were defeated by government forces. The impact of these events on the international Socialist movement produced a reaction antithetical to that which the nonviolent defeat of the German Social Democrats had caused previously. Then, the left wingers in the parties belonging to the Labor and Socialist International had demanded that because of the German experience, Socialists abandon reformism and engage in a militant, aggressive class struggle against all capitalist governments. Now, the events in Austria and Spain led the more moderate, reformist elements to conclude that this very policy advocated by the left wingers had led in these countries to an armed clash with the overwhelming military power of the state, and, consequently, to the annihilation of the Socialist movements. Particularly the Socialist militants of Austria were believed to have allowed themselves to be drawn into a hopeless battle for which

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neither their armed elite cadres nor the workers in general were prepared.19 In view of the criticism which the leaders of German social democracy had encountered following their "bloodless surrender" of 1933, and because of the continued bitter debates between the various exile groups concerning the proper tactics to be employed by "revolutionary" social democracy in its fight against Hitler, the Sopade took great interest in the Catalonian and Austrian events and the discussions which their outcome produced in the European labor movements. The strong defense of evolutionary, reformist socialism—of tactics similar to those pursued by the S.P.D. leadership in Germany before 1933—which the Socialist parties of Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries advanced as a consequence of these developments, gave the representatives of the old leadership of German social democracy renewed confidence in their own inherent convictions. The Neuer Vorwärts expressed regrets over the outcome of the clashes in Austria and Spain, praised the Socialists who had participated in them, but maintained that in an encounter with the military might of a modern state, it had been shown that armed Socialist cadres—particularly if they lacked the support of the vast majority of the working people—were bound to be beaten.20 From Barcelona Victor Schiff wrote that the Catalonian developments should teach German Socialists that before trying to tackle the Nazis, their first and foremost revolutionary task was to seek the neutralization of the Reichswehr; other methods of revolutionary action, Schiff labeled useless and senseless.21 Three of the some dozen volumes published by the Sopade in the series, Problems of Socialism, dealt with the issues raised by the collapse of the armed resistance of Austrian Socialists against the Dollfuss government. The organizer and commander of the beaten Schutzbund, Julius Deutsch, concluded that the Austrian experiences had shown that if revolutionary action was to succeed, the army had to be neutral— or better yet, won over—and active mass support from the majority of the population be certain; moreover, the ruling powers would have to be already on the brink of collapse and, therefore, in no position to offer serious resistance. The Neuer Vorwärts interpreted Deutsch's analysis as vindicating the democratic determinist strategy which, it maintained, had been followed by the S.P.D. in

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Weimar Germany.22 The aged Kautsky saw the Austrian experience as justifying the democratic and pacific tactics which he had consistently advocated, and condemned once more the suggestion that German Socialists should by means of armed revolutionary elites attempt to set up a dictatorship of their own; both the idea of civil war and of a subsequent revolutionary dictatorship were utterly repugnant to him. He reiterated that the German "proletarian revolution" would come only when the economic and social situation had created sufficient dissatisfaction and misery to throw the support of the overwhelming majority behind the Social Democratic leaders. In modern times revolutionary action by small and militant elites was expected by Kautsky to fail inevitably; he insisted, therefore, that the task of German Social Democrats was not to concentrate their efforts on the training of such cadres, but to take advantage of growing dissatisfaction and tension to educate German soldiers and civilians that their salvation lay in following social democracy. The Neuer Vorwärts concluded that Kautsky approved a strategy which would seek the broadest popular support for a revolution against Hitler, and that the foremost elder statesman of international socialism condemned the tactics advocated by the left-wing rivals of the Sopade.23 "Revolutionary Social Democracy" Redefined In 1934 and 1935 the majority of the exiled executive committee in Prague fell back upon the principles which had first been stated in summer, 1933, in the Revolution against Hitler program. This reaction to the manifesto of January, 1934, was all the stronger because the exiled reformist leaders found support for their own inclinations in their optimistic interpretation of developments in the Third Reich, in the changed character of the Social Democratic resistance, and finally in the renewed confidence which, as a result of the failure of militant revolutionary socialism in Spain and Austria, evolutionary and democratic socialism once more enjoyed in the international Socialist movement. The issues which had been so heatedly debated during the second—"reorientation"— phase before the January, 1934, manifesto, were now settled by the majority of the Sopade in favor of the concepts traditionally dear to the old leaders.24

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T o begin with, sentiment in the Sopade swung to the view that the training of cadres should not replace solicitation of mass support, in contrast to the scorn with which Miles had viewed the spontaneity of the masses. "Without mass support," Paul Hertz maintained, "the overthrow of the dictatorship will be impossible"; Georg Decker [Georg Denicke], a former trade-union leader, expressed similar sentiments; Victor Schiff warned that the S.P.D. in the past had concentrated its efforts too much—not too little as the leftists charged—on the urban proletariat, repulsing possible sympathizers from the middle class and the peasantry. In the present conflict, Schiff insisted, "radicalism" would be sure to alienate those groups whose support would be essential in the revolution, presenting them with what he termed the dubious choice between Nazi or Bolshevist slavery. 25 At the same time, despite the underlying orthodox Marxism in the Sopade's interpretation of German developments, economic determinism came under attack. Curt Geyer, one of the authors of the January manifesto, now criticized that document for its alleged overemphasis of economic issues and its neglect of what he termed the vital problem of the spiritual regeneration of the German people. This latter problem he declared to be as essential in preparing any future revolution as the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century had been for the French Revolution of 1789. In a similar vein Georg Decker maintained that "many of our comrades, in a sincere effort to make a new beginning, make the old . . . mistake . . . of accepting as 'true Marxism' the overly mechanistic interpretation of life and political activity which in the past proved to be our undoing." " I cannot escape the impression," he wrote, "that all of our discussions suffer from the fact that most of us seek to understand current developments in Germany not as they really are, but in terms of a ready made [Marxist] pattern." Developments in Germany had shown, he maintained, that Social Democrats had made the basic methodological mistake of overemphasizing in their tactics the significance of economic relationships and problems and underestimating the importance of spiritual values in the life of men. A t least part of the reasons for the failure of social democracy under the Republic he attributed to its utter neglect of "the daily uncompromising battle for those values which must be esteemed as superior [to material considerations] by a people . . . if it is to learn to cherish

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its liberty;" therefore, the German people had remained a nation of subjects in spite of the generous democratic forms which the Republican constitution had given them.26 "The spirit of liberty must be roused among a nation of subjects," Decker proclaimed, and it was the duty of social democracy to show the German people the way to freedom; it was to teach them what they had never understood, but what the French, the British, and other Western peoples had learned, and what any Kulturvolk should know, that their present way of life was incompatible with human dignity. Now that disillusionment was growing—even among Nazis—and dissatisfaction was rife in Germany everything depended on "whether and in what manner these sentiments of the masses [could] be transformed into a conscious political determination . . . to fight against the dictatorship." According to Decker the desire for freedom and human rights had more than once in history proven themselves capable of inflaming a will to fight. He called upon Social Democrats to carry a passionate appeal to conscience and dignity, for liberty and democracy, "into the hearts of the people." Thus alone—and not by preaching "a new type of enslavement" in the form of a proletarian dictatorship—would they create the "revolutionary people's army" which would conquer its own liberty.27 Once more the exiled leaders were to place primary importance upon the effective dissemination of their literature inside Germany; it was considered all-important to the educational campaign which was to enlighten the Germans about the "true" nature and implications of the Third Reich. "Every last cent they can scrape up," reported the New York Times, "goes into propaganda for the day when the pendulum will swing back and German democracy will have a chance to regain its old estate."28 Writing in an Argentinian German-language paper, Hertz stated that Prague was the center of the fight against Hitler; for the most important weapon, in the endeavor to enlighten the German people, was the printed word, the leaflet, the newspaper, the pamphlet.29 Late in 1934 Hertz declared: At first we had to contend with enormous difficulties. . . . It seemed as if fascism had not only managed to destroy our organization, but also the spiritual and ideological possessions of social democracy. It appeared to be our fate, as the last remnants of a once great, but now utterly destroyed

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party, to be forced to wage an indeterminable and for a long time hopeless struggle which, without response from inside Germany, would serve only to keep alive the memory of the great past of social democracy.

This gloomy prospect had been dispelled, he noted with great satisfaction; Prague had succeeded beyond its own expectations in reorganizing the Social Democratic movement as a counterforce to the Nazi dictatorship. This accomplishment he attributed above all to the successful literary activities of the Sopade; its publications, particularly his own Sozialistische Aktion, had provided the necessary and—under present conditions—only possible link between the scattered remnants of the movement in Germany and the Sopade in Prague; in Hertz's opinion the press had proven itself as the best and—for the moment—the only feasible way to recruit the mass support without which the coming revolution could not succeed.30 The International Information claimed that the Sozialistische Aktion had become the intellectual guide of hundreds of thousands and at the same time covered Germany with a close network of channels of communication.31 Smuggling Sopade publications into Germany and their dissemination there had been organized and was functioning "with typically German thoroughness," reported Gerhart Seger, after his escape from a Nazi concentration camp. H e maintained it could be claimed "without exaggeration that the history of revolutionary struggles knows nothing that could be compared to the gigantic propaganda work which is now being risked by our comrades in Germany." 32 The faithful functionaries of the old Social Democratic organization were now to be the core of the popular insurrection movement of workers, peasants, small tradesmen, and intellectuals. Hertz considered these old-timers the best leadership material; he told other aspirants that the "qualities that are needed in leading masses and the essential feeling of confidence that goes with them, are most readily possessed by men who acquired and proved their abilities as leaders in the [old] movement;" there were already "among the German workers . . . so many intellectually and morally superior individuals that any other selection would merely produce dangerous friction." 33 In the name of humanity, of German culture, and of human progress Germans who valued law and liberty were urged to rally around this core for the "restoration of a German fatherland in which liberty and law will emerge triumphant

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over slavery, barbarism, and tyranny." German workers, intellectuals, petty bourgeois, and peasants were told that they had taken "enough, more than enough," and asked to speak out openly against the Nazis to "put an end to this system of brute force and suppression," to "fight against... the enslavement of an entire people."34 The Sopade professed itself well satisfied with the results of its educational campaign. It declared that the increasing number of arrests and mass trials of its agents in Germany proved the extent of its activities as well as that the Nazis were badly frightened. The Neuer Vorwärts claimed that the exiles were being looked upon with increasing confidence by the German people, because they were the positive promise of a better future. "The great return to common sense is progressing, and we shall do our utmost to assist it," wrote the Sopade organ; neither Nazi terror nor propaganda could prevent this "slow, but irresistible awakening of the masses;" the day when they would "throw themselves with clenched fists upon their deceivers" was near.35 The resistance movement, threatened by the extended activities of the Nazi police, was admonished to refrain from all overt manifestations of opposition, to conserve its energies, and to assist in the educational campaign by furnishing the Sopade with information about conditions in Germany and distributing its literature.36 " A people is impressionable and can be educated, it can suffer and be suppressed, it can rise and be spurned on to the greatest accomplishment if the spirit and the determination exist which will embrace it and carry it along," stated the Neuer Vorwärts. It explained that "the reason and the justification for our battle against the Hitler regime [was] our determination to snatch the German people out of the clutches of the political despotism as well as to bring them out of the spiritual crisis in which they are caught." The Sopade was certain that its fight "to make liberty as dear as food and air to all of them" would lead to victory, because the old leaders were convinced that the inherent rational and decent qualities of human nature might be temporarily suppressed, but never entirely wiped out.37 A "Conservative-Military

Solution

Leon Trotzky had told his judges after the unsuccessful Russian revolution in 1905, that, above all, the army had to be won, the

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masses did not have nor could they have, weapons in great numbers.38 Thirty years later, particularly in view of the great technological advances which had taken place in military power, the position of the army in any revolution in Germany loomed even more important in the minds of the Social Democratic exiles. The failure of the Socialist military actions against the army in Austria and Catalonia in 1934 strengthened the belief among many that the army would have to be neutralized, or if possible, won over to the anti-Nazi cause, if the revolution against Hitler was to escape a similar fate. The prominent position which the Reichswehr had occupied in the political life of the Weimar Republic evidently led to the hope and expectation among some exiles that it would play an equally decisive role in the disposition of the Nazi regime; liberty and democracy might have to be reconquered gradually by way of a transition stage of a military-conservative regime. Stampfer had already in July, 1933, expressed the opinion that the Reichswehr might play an important part in a return to law and order.39 "Once genuinely reactionary elements ruled again," declared Gerhart Seger two years later, the opportunities for a Social Democratic comeback would be immeasurably improved. For, "a Bismarck was more successfully and easily fought against than a Hitler with his pseudo-Socialist ideology. Under these conditions the old traditional combat tactics [of social democracy] could be used again."40 The Sopade publications, particularly the Neuer Vorwärts, eagerly snatched at every reported sign of friction between the army and Nazis. Writing about a supposedly anti-Nazi article in one of the army publications, the Neuer Vorwärts claimed in December, 1934, that this was "the offensive of the Reichswehr. Today still merely sarcastic cannon shots against the regime, tomorrow, perhaps, real ones . . . the day after tomorrow, however, definitely real ones if we want to regain our freedom." 41 In January, 1935, the Deutschlandberichte declared that as a result of the Blood Purge of June, 1934, the Reichswehr had achieved an autonomous position in a supposedly totalitarian state; the Nazis had thus far been of great help in its rearmament program, the report observed, it was, however, "another question . . . whether the commanders of the Reichswehr . . . will in the long run get along with the Na-

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tional Socialist upstarts . . . and will not prefer to return to a conservative-monarchical government which would assure them their undisputed position at the apex of the societal hierarchy." But there was yet another question to be considered, said this report, that of the Reichsivehr attitude, "if a genuine revolutionary wave against the Hitler regime were to arise, which would ideologically undermine it and deprive it of its power of resistance;" it was hinted that certain political possibilities for the Social Democrats were developing, in view of the growing power of the army vis-a-vis the Nazis.42 Victor Schiff, who seems to have favored a rapprochement with anti-Nazi army officers, cautioned against antagonizing possible allies "who perhaps at the present moment are pioneering for us and who command today greater means of action than we do." 43 In the late summer of 1934 the Manchester Guardian reported that the exiled executive, particularly Wels, had begun to negotiate with quarters close to the German government for a "conservativemilitary" solution along the lines of the labor-military alliance which General von Schleicher had reportedly contemplated just before Hitler became his successor as German chancellor in January, 1933. The report, which was probably planted by opponents of the Sopade, was categorically denied by the exiled group, but the Communist press immediately seized upon it as new evidence of the "social-fascist" nature of the exiled executive.44 Certainly, members of the Sopade interviewed later denied any knowledge of such negotiations, though it is possible that contacts to the army were sought without success and that a "conservative-military" transition regime was discussed by Sopade emissaries with such fellow exiles as the former Chancellor Briining, the former Nationalist leader Treviranus, and the dissident Nazi leader Otto Strasser. After his release from the concentration camp in 1935, Wilhelm Leuschner, the former trade-union leader, may have urged the exiled executive to seek the alliance with army officers which he himself was to conclude after the beginning of the war, and which led to the unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Hitler in 1944.45 However, the right-wing Social Democrats who later allied themselves with such generals as Beck evidently had no direct contacts with the army before the war and Leuschner himself appears to have hoped for a popular uprising against Hitler, rather than a

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revolution from above in cooperation with the army, until 1940. There was, in fact, no significant opposition in the army before 1938 at the earliest, and such faith as "many members of the resistance movement" may have put in the generals was definitely misplaced at the time.46 The Fissures Deepen There could be no reconciliation between irreconcilables, as developments in the Social Democratic exile camp in 1934 and 1935 were to demonstrate only too vividly. The majority of the executive committee, convinced that the Third Reich was only a passing condition and that Hitler's downfall would come "soon and inevitably," staged a rapid retreat from the manifesto to which it had affixed its signature in January, 1934.47 In subsequent pronouncements—above all in the Neuer Vorwärts—this majority fell back upon the ambiguous dichotomy of Marxists theory and reformist tactics, which had characterized the party's position before 1933; the stupor of defeat which had enveloped these leaders during the second phase of 1933, was dispelled by a wave of optimism caused by an orthodox, determinist Marxist analysis of developments in Nazi Germany; a general reaction both in the resistance and in the international Socialist labor movement against the revolutionary Socialist upsurge of 1933 aided the old reformists in falling back upon their "traditional fighting methods." Consequently, they addressed themselves more and more to the entire German people rather than to the proletariat, and gradually the familiar liberal democratic aims replaced the revolutionary Socialist ones. That the old ideas were coming to the fore again was clearly demonstrated by the increasing stress which was placed upon the primary necessity of educating the German people to reject nazism and to desire the return of liberty and democracy; the activities of the Sopade, its border secretaries, its couriers and underground agents, and the contents of its publications were almost exclusively dedicated to this mission; the best trained resistance cadres were declared to be unable to accomplish anything unless they had the support of the majority of the people—all strata of society, including nonproletarian and non-Socialist elements.

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Feeling that it had weathered the "crisis" which had shaken the Social Democratic movement in the latter half of 1933 and regaining confidence in itself, its aims, and tactics, the reformist majority became naturally more truculent toward its left-wing critics. The position of the latter was definitely weakened by the reaction against revolutionary socialism in both the German resistance and the international Socialist movement. Their efforts to dislodge the old reformists as the recognized leaders of the outlawed Social Democrats failed: the exiled executive was accepted as the sole representative of German labor by the International and its affiliated Socialist parties, and an increasing number of the resistance groups apparently looked to the Sopade for assistance. The left wingers depended upon the reformists, whom they detested, for a share of the salvaged party funds which the executive administered and upon the publications of the Sopade to make themselves heard in Germany and in the international labor movement. On the other hand, with the expansion and development of their own underground network the reformists considered themselves no longer dependent upon the assistance of the radicals. The reaction of the left wingers was to attack the old reformists with new vehemence. Neither the Old nor the New Left was reconciled by the manifesto of 1934 and neither would recognize the mandate which the majority of the executive claimed for itself. But aside from jointly renouncing the "discredited" leaders, the two components of the left wing agreed on little else. The partisans of the New Left, the Miles faction, continued to wish a plague upon reformists, Communists, and Old Leftists alike. They continued to insist that all the old discredited leaders should yield the leadership of the German proletarian resistance to the youthful "elite of revolutionary Marxists" represented by them; it alone was capable of making the "entirely new beginning" which might permit the German proletariat at some date in the distant future to replace the Nazi dictatorship with that of the revolutionary Socialists.48 A "foreign delegation" of the group was established at Neuen, Czechoslovakia, in the vicinity of the German border and began to operate an independent courier system with Berlin and the Rhineland in competition with the other groups. On the basis of the data gathered by its agents, this Foreign Delegation undertook to interpret the situation in its Reports on Conditions

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Inside Germany—at first with financial assistance from the Sopade —radically differently from the other Socialist and Communist groups. The Miles group insisted that, despite a certain amount of grumbling, Germans overwhelmingly supported the Nazi regime. A great deal of skepticism was shown regarding reports of growing opposition, and it was claimed that in fact even the overwhelming majority of the proletariat remained at best inactive, lethargic, and intimidated. The old labor organizations were said to be as good as dead and active resistance strictly limited to a few German youths, who alone might become "the core of a new generation which may overthrow the fascist system."49 "Fascist dictatorships are governed by laws of development different from those in nonfascist countries," the Miles group insisted; the Third Reich would be more flexible in dealing with crises than democratic governments; optimists were warned that a centralized government like that of the Nazis could more easily and more readily crush scattered, poorly organized and even unorganized resistance than a democratic regime. It would take a long time to train the "proper" leaders and to organize an effective underground organization of the Socialist "elite." The New Left maintained that this type of resistance was nonexistent and could not be created overnight: "We must face reality rather than follow the dictates of our wishful thinking."50 In view of this analysis of German developments, the New Left refused to share the optimism with which the other exiles received the news of the Blood Purge of June 1934; far from seeing here a "National Socialist Thermidor" or a desperate blood bath by a frantic regime that was feeling power slipping from its hands, it maintained that Hitler had, in fact, been strengthened, as he had gotten rid of his last conservative opponents and purged his party of bothersome dissidents. Consequently, the group glumly predicted, the work of the Socialist revolutionaries was going to be more arduous and take even longer than it had seemed previously.51 The Old Left was as irreconciled to the reformist leadership as the New, but this was about as far as the two groups could agree. Aufhauser and Bochel, its representatives on the executive, had reportedly been against the publication of the manifesto of 1934 in the form in which it was finally released, but had been out-

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voted.52 This was the signal for the partisans of the Old Left to renew their attacks upon the majority of the Sopade. "K. B. Neuendorf"—probably Karl Bochel—complained that the manifesto had failed to acknowledge the mistakes committed by the reformists in the past, that the left wingers had been right after all. "A defeated leadership which . . . pursued the wrong road to the bitter end," he wrote, "cannot simply ignore this period, if it sincerely seeks to make a new start." 53 "It was a serious political, organizational, and psychological mistake that the publication of the manifesto was not accompanied by a reorganization of the party and the creation of a new leadership," declared Schifrin. He and Aufhauser agreed that the exiled executive neither held a mandate to issue a new program nor, for that matter, to retain the leadership. "The signature of the old leadership diminishes the political value of the . . . document," wrote Schifrin, while Aufhauser went further and maintained that no octroyed program of any kind— however revolutionary it might be—could restore the confidence of the Socialist resistance in a thoroughly discredited, reformist leadership. "The present Prague center received its mandate of April, 1933, from a party membership which was unlike the present one," Schifrin told the defenders of the mandate theory, calling anew for the immediate institution of a new leadership which could command the support of the resistance movement.54 As for the Miles group, it was informed by the Old Left that the rise of facism had contributed nothing that might in any sense warrant a revision of basic Marxist concepts; "mystical doctrines" about the destiny of youth as leaders of the future revolution were condemned as much as supposed schemes by reformists to adjust the theory and tactics of the class struggle to the prejudices of the middle class, to salvage a dying liberalism, or to go even so far as to consider working with a benevolent conservatism.55 Unlike the Miles group, the Old Left shared the optimism of the other exiles concerning German developments. The "crisis" in the Third Reich was believed to be becoming ever more widespread, increasing the "chances for the revolutionary Socialist fight." As a result of the Blood Purge the Nazis were thought to have lost their popular support for good, easing the task of their opponents; for, this presumed crack in the dictatorship had "cleared

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the way for the conversion of the proletarized middle strata, which the fascists misled, to proletarian Marxian socialism."56 However, much as the partisans of the Old Left believed objective conditions to have improved their chances, they did not think that the Third Reich would simply collapse or automatically destroy itself. Only the action of a united proletariat, led by its "revolutionary vanguard," would assure the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship, as Max Seydewitz, former leader of the left-wing dissident group, the Socialist Workers' party declared. Not until the proletarized middle strata accepted the leadership of the proletariat, declared Schifrin, would they find the "only road" out of the current economic crisis of capitalism. The distinction between the Old Left and the Communists grew constantly smaller. The former expressed unlimited admiration for the accomplishments of the "proletarian dictatorship" in Russia and considered it a model for the future government of Germany—with the qualification that in the more industrialized Germany the Stalinist modification of the Leninist doctrine might be avoided.87 By the end of 1934 it had become evident that the January manifesto had failed to create the unity in the anti-Nazi opposition movement which was its stated aim. While the challenge from the left continued with undiminished verbal vigor, it no longer had the previous effect upon the old leaders in Prague. On the contrary, highly optimistic concerning the possibility of their early return home and daily more confident that loyal old-timers were rapidly replacing the radical elements in the underground resistance movement, the controlling majority in the Sopade apparently was persuaded that the conditions which had previously favored its opponents were disappearing and the left-wing groups could be expected to disintegrate before long. Accordingly, the Sopade began to withdraw the financial assistance which it had reluctantly extended to the left-wing groups in the second phase and to purge their partisans from its organization.58 The consequence was a further widening of the gulf between the various Socialist exile groups as each, in fierce competition with the others, sought to raise funds and maintain an independent organization inside and outside Germany.

Chapter $ The United-Front

Episode

T h e petty-bourgeois democrats . . . invariably vacillate between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between bourgeois democracy and the Soviet system, between reformism and revolutionariness, between love for the worker and fear of the proletarian dictatorship. . . . T h e proper tactics for the Communists to adopt is to utilize these vacillations and not to ignore them; and utilizing them calls for concessions to those elements which are turning toward the proletariat in accordance with the time and extent they turn toward the proletariat—while simultaneously fighting those who turn toward the bourgeoisie.—V. I. Lenin

The "United Front From Above" On February 12, 1934—the same day on which the Austrian Social Democrats were crushed by the Dollfuss government—Communists and Socialists in France joined in a general strike against what they claimed was the rising threat of fascism in their own country. Within a few months this new spirit of collaboration between the two parties led to a "unity of action" agreement, inaugurating the period of cooperation which was to culminate in the Popular Front government of 1936. In June, 1934, after the Saar Plebiscite was scheduled for January, 1935, Communists and Social Democrats in the territory agreed to wage a joint campaign for maintenance of the League of Nations administration. In August the representatives of the Socialist and Communist underground parties of Italy and Austria concluded unity-of-action agreements along the French lines; so did leaders of the underground Polish

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working-class parties. In Spain, too, the respective party leaderships agreed to fight jointly against "fascism." However, not until a year later was the new Communist strategy proclaimed officially at the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in August, 1935. There the "hero of the Reichstag Fire," the new secretary general of the Third International, Georgi Dimitrov, formally renounced the previous policy of seeking a "united front from below" with individual Socialists against their "social-fascist leaders." The new course called for a "united front from above" with these same leaders for "joint action with Social Democratic parties, reformist trade unions, and other organizations of the working people against the class enemies of the proletariat." This, in turn, was to become the "proletarian core" for a coalition of the proletariat with the peasantry and the urban "petty bourgeoisie" in a "popular front" against "fascism." 1 The united front from above was not a new Communist tactic and had been tried before at various times. However, since Stalin's victory over his rivals in 1928, the parties of the Communist International had been under orders to fight the "social-fascist" leaders, a strategy which in Germany had disastrous consequences. Not until the Polish-German nonaggression pact of January, 1934, shattered Stalin's hopes for collaborating with Hitler and it became apparent that the optimistic Communist expectations concerning the early collapse of the Third Reich were fallacious, did the united front from below give way to the new policy of seeking a united front from above with, rather than against, the Socialist leaders. The changed Comintern strategy was but another facet of the new foreign policy of the Soviet Union which saw the country become a champion of collective security. Hitler having cast the die against collaboration with the U.S.S.R., that nation in the latter half of 1934 turned to the Western democracies for protection against a German attack. In September, 1934, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations and the following May it concluded mutual assistance treaties with France and Czechoslovakia.2 The creation of the French united front made a tremendous impression on many Socialists throughout Europe—particularly in those parties where social-revolutionary left-wingers had considerable influence. Chastened by the collapse of the Social Democratic

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movements in Germany and Austria, alarmed b y the Spanish developments which eventually led to civil war, and suspicious of the attitude of "world capitalism" toward fascism, many were greatly impressed by the new Communist line and, for a time, were ahead of official Comintern policy in their desire to see the French example repeated elsewhere. In view of what was considered the suspicious friendliness of Western "capitalists" toward Italy and Germany, a considerable number of prominent European Socialists readily agreed with the Communists that the U.S.S.R. was the only great power which could be relied upon to defend the interests of the international working class against "fascism" and "capitalism" and that, in turn, the defense of the Soviet Union called for immediate working-class unity. 3 T h e issue caused a severe crisis within the Labor and Socialist (Second) International even before the Seventh World Congress of the Communist (Third) International made the new Comintern strategy official in August, 1935, a crisis which was duplicated to a greater or lesser extent in most of its member parties. T h e sentiment for a united front was particularly powerful among the representatives of countries where Socialists considered themselves and their vested interests seriously threatened—as in France and Spain —or where they had already been defeated—as in Italy, Germany, and Austria. A t a meeting of the Council of the Socialist International in November, 1934, the proponents of a united front pressed for direct negotiations with the Comintern f o r joint action, but encountered strong opposition particularly from the representatives of the British, Dutch, Czechoslovak, and Scandinavian member parties. Consequently, the Council resolved to leave it up to the leadership of the individual parties to deal with the problem on the national level. In the case of the exiled German Social Democrats— in contrast to the Austrian and Italian Socialist exile movements— the issue led to bitter quarrels and proved to be the first step toward disintegration.4 The Old Left Woos the German Communists Shortly after the underground Austrian and Italian Socialist parties had followed the French example and concluded unity-of-action

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agreements with their Communist counterparts, a "Revolutionary Socialist Study Group" among the German exiles came forward with a "program for a coming revolutionary Socialist united front." The authors of the document at first sought to remain anonymous. It became soon public knowledge, however, that they were leading members of the Old Left, including not only former Communists and the pre-193 3 revolutionary Socialist dissident groups, but Aufhauser and Bochel, the two representatives of the Old Left in the exiled executive. Both men apparently took leading roles in drafting the document.5 The Old Left leaders stated categorically that the present Nazi dictatorship of "monopoly capitalism" could be replaced by the "dictatorship of the proletariat in a Soviet Germany" only if Social Democrats and Communists would fuse their forces in a "united revolutionary Socialist party" by way of a preliminary united front along the French lines.8 They claimed that the apparent new Communist approach to unity suggested by the French example had removed the last basic differences between the Old Left and the German Communist leaders. As Aufhauser was at pains to point out to the latter, the new proposals of the Old Left not only accepted the principles of Marxist-Leninism and took the Bolshevist movement as a model, but declared that the Soviet Union was the natural ally of the "revolutionary Socialists" in the fight for a Soviet Germany—its defense against Western "imperialism" was "self-understood for revolutionary Socialists." Confident that in alliance with the Soviet Union a united working-class movement could bring about "a new revolutionary Europe" and, eventually, the "world revolution of the proletariat," the authors of the new program claimed that the U.S.S.R. could count upon the unlimited support of the "revolutionary Socialist" forces in the world, if it was indeed ready to "readjust its entire policy... to win the wholehearted support of the world proletariat by supporting the unification and development" of the international revolutionary working class movement. In proposing a united front between the leaders of the two German labor parties, the Revolutionary Socialist Study Group rejected the immediate Communist rejoinder that its members individually join the Communist party—the old united-frontfrom-below strategy. It would be better for the cause of ultimate

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unity, was the reply, if its Social Democratic proponents led the fight in their own movement for the "ideological conversion" to the cause of a united front and an eventual merger.7 The immediate, sharp reaction of the majority in the exiled executive to these proposals revealed the deep chasm which already separated it from the left wingers. The new program of the Revolutionary Socialist Study Group was "haunted by the authoritarian spirit of Leninism" and imbued with the same "perverted" socialism as had led to "Stalinist Caesarism," claimed Curt Geyer. Identifying it as a "product of the crisis which has gripped Socialist t h o u g h t . . . as a r e s u l t . . . of a loss of faith in the power of human reason," he charged that the program proposed to substitute an authoritarian system that sought to dictate a proper attitude to the masses for a genuine, democratic system which allowed for the gradual development of the Socialist ideal and the rationality of the masses. Geyer dismissed these proposals "to substitute for the rationality, the determination, the enthusiasm of the masses . . . a dictatorship of the proletariat" as merely an attempt by its authors to compensate for their own weakness and feeling of helplessness. It showed, he wrote, that they were completely blind to the fact that more and more democratic forces were stirring inside Germany and that for that very reason alone the "battle against fascism can only be a battle for liberty, for democratic rights . . . for the restitution of democracy." 8 "According to all available evidence, we are facing a reactivation of the Socialist movement," Paul Hertz told the left-wing opponents of the majority in the Sopade, "the belief of the first period of illegality t h a t . . . a new united Socialist labor movement would replace the atomized old one is no longer supported by the present condition of the movement in Germany." A united front with the Communists was to be rejected for any number of reasons. In the underground struggle inside Germany the Communists were said to be "ruthlessly sacrificing their supporters," while "we . . . insist that every illegal action must provide maximum guarantee for the liberty and safety of the perpetrators." Therefore, cooperation with the Communists in the underground movement would increase the risk of the work immensely without adding to its effectiveness. Moreover, according to Hertz, the Social Democrats

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found it difficult enough to overcome the Nazi-induced "fear of bolshevism" that was still keeping a large part of the growing antiNazi opposition from accepting their leadership—there was no need to compromise the cause gratuitously by concluding a pact with the Communists. Hertz dismissed the united-front campaign outside Germany as a Communist maneuver to capture the Social Democratic masses, not to come to an understanding with them. Above all, however, there were "fundamental differences between Social Democrats and Communists;" the majority of the exiled executive committee would not accept "the systematic application of the principles and experiences of Soviet Russia" to Germany; it did not want to substitute one dictatorship for another, but bring to Germany "a system or real liberty and Socialist regeneration." If, therefore, the Sopade rejected cooperation of any kind with the Communists, it did so, according to Hertz, because it believed that it would merely handicap the fight against Hitler unnecessarily.9 The proposals of the Old Left prompted the majority of the exiled executive to reassert its thesis that the old leadership and the traditional democratic socialism of the S.P.D. represented the most effective rallying points for those, supposedly increasing, number of Germans who were said to want neither the terroristic Nazi dictatorship to continue nor see it replaced by "Bolshevist chaos," which the Goebbels press claimed was the only alternative. A new "ideological union" based on the desire to retain and regain the humanitarian and material accomplishments of the Social Democratic movement had arisen in Germany in place of the outlawed organization of the old party, according to Hertz, linking the loyal old Social Democrats inside the country more firmly than ever to their exiled leaders in Prague; "the more . . . these past accomplishments are wrecked by the dictatorship . . . the more precious they will seem," he claimed, and the more effective would be the Sopade's appeal for "the restoration of what has been," rather than "an entirely new beginning." Therefore, predicted Geyer, the left-wing opponents of the majority—so far as they would not succumb to communism—would remain at best an oppositional faction with the democratic Socialist movement.10 The reaction of the Sopade majority to their appeal for a united front probably came as no surprise to the Old Left leaders; how-

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ever, the response of the K.P.D. leadership was perhaps more unexpected in view of the ardor with which a united front was being sought by other Communist parties. The proffered hand was immediately struck down with the charge that it was nothing but a new pseudorevolutionary maneuver by "left" agents of the exiled "social-fascist" leaders to steal the Communists' thunder in the struggle for the allegiances of the German workers. The underground organ of the K.P.D., the Rote Fabne, declared that for the sake of real proletarian unity these "left maneuvers" of the bankrupt reformist leaders had to be smashed quickly and effectively. Just because the unity appeal of the German Revolutionary Socialists went a long way toward "the fundamental ideas, aims, strategy, and tactics of the Communist party," it was said to be all the more dangerous an attempt to betray and confuse the "revolutionary masses" in Germany. In an underground leaflet addressed to the German workers, Wilhelm Pieck denounced the "antiStalinist" attitude of the Old Left, and Walter Ulbricht advised those Social Democrats who had at last awakened to the bankruptcy of their party to join the Communist party. Genuine unity, he declared, demanded that all concerned accept without reservations the principles and authority of the Comintern. 11 The German Communist leadership ignored Aufhauser's reference to the switch in Communist tactics elsewhere in Europe because it was evidently uncertain about the intentions of Moscow. The switch by the Comintern from the united front from below to the united front from above was gradual, and the sporadic application of the new tactics apparently reflected a dispute over their advisability among Stalin's advisers. Having faithfully followed Comintern directives in their attitude toward the Social Democrats in the past and having accepted Moscow's optimistic expectations concerning the imminence of a proletarian revolution in Germany, the German Communist leadership through most of 1934 clung to the old party line. Arthur Koestler, then close to the K.P.D. central committee, reports that its members were thoroughly confused and uncertain concerning the new strategy adopted by some sections of the Comintern: "It seemed quite possible that the French experiment would again be reversed—such things had happened in the past—with woeful consequences for those who had fallen for it."

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The new line might be imposed on the German Communists too, "but it was also possible that the French and German section would be ordered to adopt different lines, as it sometimes happened in the Comintern."12 Without clear directives to the contrary, the central committee of the K.P.D., under the leadership of Fritz Heckert, loyally adhered to "the old line, directing Communist "cadres" in Germany to absorb individual Social Democrats and groups into their organization, retaining the old Comintern theme that the class struggle was growing increasingly intense inside the country, and instructing Communists to work on a short-term basis in anticipation of the approaching collapse of the Third Reich. The wait-and-see attitude of the "social-fascist" leaders in exile was roundly denounced; they were accused of doing their best, as in the past, to block the "revolutionary upsurge of the masses under the leadership of the K.P.D." Communist propaganda destined for Germany described "Wels and his cohorts" as a handful of fugitive gangsters, who would have to be the first to be tried before a revolutionary tribunal on the morrow of the proletarian revolution for trying to save the bourgeoisie and capitalism at the moment of the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship.13 As for the left-wing German Socialists, they were labeled the most dangerous foes of communism, one and all "left agents" of the "social fascists," whether members of the Old or New Left. Their supposedly "revolutionary Socialist" programs were characterized as "frauds through which the social fascists are seeking to bring the Social Democratic German workers once more under their control [and] save the German bourgeoisie, as in 1918, from bolshevism, from the proletarian revolution." "Whether Wels or Miles, Aufhauser or Neuendorf," wrote the Rate Fahne, "their entire contribution toward bringing about a revolutionary decision will consist of keeping the workers from engaging in total, that is, Bolshevist activities."14 A New Course for German Communism Toward the end of October the Comintern leadership ended the confusion in the ranks of the German Communist leadership. A resolution of its politbureau criticized the K.P.D. severely for its

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"left-sectarian" opposition to the new united front from above, and particularly its attacks upon Social Democratic proponents of unity. The German section was ordered to adopt the new course and instructed to seek immediate negotiations with the S.P.D. leaders, particularly the left wingers; the Heckert faction of the K.P.D. central committee was purged for its "negative attitude, going as far as outright opposition" toward the new course.15 After an initial and unsuccessful attempt by the German Communist leaders to induce Aufhauser and Bochel to negotiate a united front with the K.P.D. in the name of the S.P.D., the German politbureau was summoned to Moscow and instructed on January 19, 1935, to propose a united front directly to the exiled Social Democratic executive committee in Prague.16 On January 30, 1935—the second anniversary of Hitler's accession to power and shortly after the overwhelming victory of the Nazis over the Socialist-Communist Volksfront in the Saar Plebiscite—the central committee of the K.P.D. announced that after a thorough reexamination of its activities, it had resolved to consummate "a bold turn in its revolutionary tactics." Henceforth the K.P.D. would seek the cooperation of the Reichswehr, storm troopers, peasants, petty bourgeois, and the German intelligentsia for the Communist fight for the restoration of "democratic liberties" in Germany through the Antifascist Popular Front led by a united front of the proletariat. The "destructive sectarian tendencies" which were blamed for previous Communist tactics were declared to have "permitted the Prague S.P.D. executive . . . to increase its domestic contacts and to create a centrally directed network" in Germany. Communist attempts to bring about a united front with the Social Democratic groups inside the country were said to have been unsuccessful because instead of taking the leftwing leaders of social democracy, who favored a united front, by their word, the K.P.D. had concentrated its fire in a "doctrinaire fashion" against this very left wing, without differentiating between it and the majority of the S.P.D. executive committee. The K.P.D. central committee promised to mend its ways.17 The central committee initiated its new strategy on February 11, 1935, with an open letter to the S.P.D. executive in Prague, inviting the latter to issue a joint appeal to the German workers

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for the formation of "unity" committees to wage an open campaign against the official Nazi candidates in the impending elections of factory councils. "We are certain," declared the Communist leaders, "that the conclusion of this alliance would greatly increase the confidence of the working class . . . in its ability to pursue successfully its demands for economic and political freedom." The S.P.D. executive immediately refused the invitation as being neither the desire of the underground German labor movement nor in its best interests. The Sozialistische Aktion told its intended readers in Germany that the Sopade also desired unity but believed that a fundamental agreement on the ends of joint action with the Communists had to precede an understanding on the means; it was declared that as long as the Communists insisted on submission, unity of any kind was out of the question. The Sopade asked that the Communist leadership provide some proof of its desire to aid the common fight against the Third Reich by calling a halt to continuing attacks against the exiled Social Democratic leaders. Reflecting on the defeat of the experimental united front between German Social Democrats and Communists in the Saar, the Neuer Vorwdrts expressed strong doubts on its supposed advantages, and a writer in the Zeitschrift fur Sozialismus cautioned against any hasty unity agreements as long as there was no strong and clear evidence that it was favored by the Social Democratic underground movement.18 The Communist leaders replied that as the decision to turn down their invitation had neither been taken by the entire membership of the executive nor in consultation with the Social Democratic resistance—a majority of which was declared to be most anxious for a united front—they were forced to conclude that this rejection was only an expression of the views of the inner circle in the executive. They reminded Aufhauser and Bochel, the left-wing members, that in view of their recent statements in favor of a united front, they could surely not agree, and informed them that the time had come to let action follow their words. "While . . . the Communist party . . . fights for democratic liberties and for this purpose seeks a united front," the K.P.D. leaders declared, "Social Democracy . . . opposes this battle" because it feared that proletarian unity might interfere with its plans to collaborate with Center party

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leaders, Reichsivehr generals, and other members of the bourgeoisie; however, the Communists declared themselves confident that even if the Sopade majority insisted on "sabotaging" a united front, other Social Democratic leaders could be found who would cooperate.19 Indeed, agreed Max Seydewitz, one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Socialist Study Group, the action of the Sopade majority led him to suspect that the old illusions, that Hitler could be overthrown in league with the Reichsivehr, monarchists, and capitalists, still prevailed in the executive.20 Aufhauser and Bochel had demanded that the executive seek an agreement with the K.P.D. central committee as soon as the Council of the Labor and Socialist International had tossed the united-front issue back into the laps of its member parties the previous November. While they had refused to deal separately with the Communists, they had encouraged them to approach the Sopade directly, which the K.P.D. central committee did with its offer of February n , 1935. When the majority in the exiled executive refused to negotiate, the two representatives of the Old Left apparently threatened to accept the previous Communist offer to deal with them separately. Whether this was merely to prod the majority into a united front or was actually a real threat to split the exiled Social Democratic leadership, the Sopade majority preferred to assume the latter. Dissent was said to have its limits—it could not exceed what were considered the "interests of the movement."21 Early in March, 1935, Aufhauser and Bochel were expelled from the executive committee. Simultaneously the Sopade majority gave expression to its feeling that it was no longer necessary to yield to the demands of the leftwing groups by discontinuing such financial support as it had previously extended to them and instructing its functionaries to sever their connections with them. In such instances where the Sopade had relied upon agents of the left-wing elements for its contacts inside Germany—as in the case of the Karlsbad border secretariat—an attempt was made to assume their functions with the help of loyal Sopade supporters.22 Planted in the fertile soil of the factional disputes within the Social Democratic exile movement, the united-front issue thus proved to be the cause of the first serious break—so obviously

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desired by the Communist leadership—in the uneasy front which the Social Democratic exiles had managed to maintain for two years in their fight to overthrow Hitler. The K.P.D. central committee immediately followed up its initial success to split the Social Democratic exiles with an open Letter to all Social Democratic groups and left-wing leaders in which it called particularly upon Aufhâuser, Bôchel, and Miles to conclude a united front in the name of German social democracy—because and in spite of the "sabotage" of the "right wingers." "Yours is now a great responsibility . . . , " the left-wing Social Democratic leaders were informed. "You have repeatedly professed your desire for unity of action. Now is the time to act." 23 The pressure which the K.P.D. leaders exerted upon the exiled Social Democrats to compel them to accede to their united-front proposal grew increasingly stronger after the first break in the ranks of the latter. No longer was there any talk of "every Communist a leader of five Social Democrats," but unity was proposed on the basis of absolute equality of both partners in every unity committee from the top down to the smallest resistance group. The K.P.D. central committee now accepted the Sopade manifesto of January, 1934, with its call for united action and working-class unity, and the proposals of the Revolutionary Socialist Study Group as a basis for the unity discussions which, they insisted, the entire Social Democratic resistance was clamoring for. Communist propaganda to Germany maintained that the only thing standing in the way of the united front against Hitler was "the Prague P.V. [Parteivontand] which wants to collaborate with the bourgeoisie." Opponents of this "sabotage" were asked to repudiate the executive and to serve the real desires and interests of the Social Democratic movement by coming to an understanding with the Communists.24 During 1935 the K.P.D. extended several more invitations for united action to the Sopade which—in view of the control of that body by the opponents of such a policy—were bound to be rejected. Thus, on April 1, exploiting the alarm which reintroduction of universal military service in Germany produced among anti-Nazis, the central committee asked the Sopade to cooperate with it in opposing Hitler's plans; for, "anyone who does not want

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to see the flower of the German workers drowned in a sea of blood must desire this common fight." Upon receipt of the inevitable rejection, the K.P.D. declared that "we cannot believe that Social Democrats . . . condone this action. . . . How can one speak of fighting against Hitler when one opposes the united front, thus dividing the forces of the proletariat." In June the Sopade turned down another appeal for united action. "The left-wing Social Democratic leaders remain silent. They permit Wels and Stampfer to work against the united front," commented the Comintern's Rundschau. Aufhauser, Bochel, and Miles were told that their reluctant, wavering attitude had already caused the loss of much precious time and allowed the right-wing leaders in the Sopade to continue their sabotage without obstruction; they were urged to take at last decisive action to create a united front. When in November, 1935, Vogel and Stampfer turned down a fourth offer from the K.P.D., insisting that that party did not represent the real interests of the German workers because it was dominated by the Soviet Union, the representatives of the central committee denied this; the "peace policy of the Soviet Union," they said, was identical with the interests of the entire international working-class movement.25 Following the formal proclamation of the new course at the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in August, 1935, the K.P.D. staged a party congress in Brussels in October. There Wilhelm Florin, until recently an archenemy of "social fascism," insisted that the German Communists wanted a united front with the entire Social Democratic party and an understanding with the Social Democratic executive committee. Pieck promised that "we shall again and again approach the Social Democratic executive with offers for common action or discussion for the formation of a united front." But as that body unfortunately was dominated by "reactionary elements," he appealed to the left wingers "whose political concepts differ greatly from those of the Social Democratic executive committee, who are in opposition to the policy of the executive, and who reject that group's . . . opposition to communism." The K.P.D. leaders frankly hoped to win them by making it as difficult as possible for the opponents of a united front to reject it openly. Since its change of heart in January, 1935, the

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K.P.D. central committee reported that it had made considerable progress in encouraging the separation of left-wing elements from the "reactionary" components of the Social Democratic leadership. It was expected that "the reactionary . . . opponents of the united front" would still cause some difficulties in the future, but Florin was confident that their complete isolation could soon be achieved, if it could be shown that their tactics harmed the working class and all their arguments answered by demonstrating the positive achievements and consequences of a united front. Hope was expressed in Brussels that in this manner the differences within the executive could be intensified, in the end compelling the majority either to enter a united front or risk an open split in the executive. For, as the K.P.D. leaders plainly stated, a united front with the Social Democrats was the keystone on which the new Antifascist Popular Front with German anti-Nazis of whatever conviction was to be built. The Seventh World Congress of the Comintern had made this incumbent upon German Communists, declared Pieck; not until this keystone was in place could the working class become the magnet which could attract the middle classes. Left-wing Social Democratic proponents of a new "unity party of the proletariat" were assured that this would be the end product of a united front, though the Communists made it plain that the merger could only take place on the Comintern's terms.26 Of course, this was not exactly what the left-wing Social Democrats proposed, but they were advised that if they really sought the liberation of the German workers, they had to make every effort to bring about a united front. T o this end wholehearted Communist support was pledged for the fight of the left wingers against the "reactionary elements" in the exiled executive.27 The Catalytic Effect of the "United Front" Issue on Factionalism Among the Exiled Social Democrats The question of a united front overshadowed all other issues which divided the Social Democratic exiles in the third phase of the evolution of the Sopade and intensified the growing fractionalization. The exiled executive remained adamantly opposed to any agreement with the K.P.D. Its members and their supporters char-

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acterized a united front as a hypocritical maneuver to split the Social Democratic movement; an attempt to impose under the guise of equality of representation the will of what they described as a minority of the German labor movement upon its Social Democratic majority; "a united front between coachman and horse, in which one of the parties is to pull the wagon of responsibility, the other to wield the whip of agitation."28 The Sopade insisted that it was as anxious as anyone else to see the German "proletariat" and all anti-Nazi forces unified, but it categorically rejected the "unity" pattern proposed by the K.P.D. The exiled Social Democratic leaders in Prague expressed their sympathy for incarcerated Communist leaders, like Ernst Thalmann; they declared themselves willing to consider the possibility of tactical cooperation with the Communist resistance in certain specific cases inside Germany alone and to exchange useful data. They refused, however, Communist overtures for common strategic action or joint manifestoes on the top level, claiming that basically the two elements of German labor were incompatible, that the majority of the Social Democratic resistance opposed a united front and, finally, that fundamental tactical disadvantages would result from it. The Deutschlandberichte published pleas from "comrades in Germany" asking that neither Communists nor "splinter groups" be allowed to become allied with the Social Democratic anti-Nazi movement. Such "entangling alliances," it was claimed, would not only interfere with the strategy employed by the resistance, but above all would make it almost impossible to win the support of conservative, Catholic, and liberal "bourgeois" opponents of Hitler. These were described as still holding off, frightened by Nazi charges that the resistance consisted only of "Bolshevists." "The workers know that they need allies from every section of the community," declared one such report. "But they cannot win them if they proclaim the dictatorship of the proletariat as their goal. . . . Hitler can only be overthrown once he can no longer exploit the specter of Moscow and its stooges."29 The problem of forming a broad coalition against the Nazis occupied the Sopade as much as it did the central committee of the K.P.D. in its popular front period. The fundamental difference was that the majority of the executive committee believed that such

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a coalition was tactically and ideologically impossible if the Communists were included, while the K.P.D. leaders insisted that a united front between the two major labor parties was the essential preliminary to the all-inclusive popular front of German exiles. "Social democracy," stated the representative of the Sopade during the united-front discussions with the K.P.D. in November, 1935, "seeks the liberation of all Germans," and a "free democratic republic in which a united working class may fight for a Socialist society." The reunification of the German labor movement was conceded to be an important element in the effort to unite all opponents of nazism; but not until the K.P.D. had sincerely accepted these democratic liberal aims of the Sopade, was the majority of the executive committee willing to enter upon further discussions regarding organizational unity. This insistence on agreement in "fundamentals" before any agreement on tactical details was, according to the Sopade spokesmen, a matter of principles which could not be sacrificed for the sake of a unity formula.30 T o gain the support of the German people, they sought to stress their unalterable opposition to dictatorship of any kind, and to demonstrate that social democracy was the "complete moral antithesis" of Nazi as well as Communist despotism. When referred to united-front and Popular Front agreements in other countries, the spokesmen for the executive committee maintained that for the German opposition, only German developments, German sentiments, and tactical and ideological problems of the specifically German fight against nazism were decisive. Turning tables on the Second International, which had repeatedly tossed the unity issue back into the laps of its member parties, the Sopade informed the resistance that a possible German united front depended upon a gradual rapprochement between the Soviet Union and the Second International; therefore, if nothing else, all demands for immediate unity within the German labor movement were at least premature. The Moscow purges of 19351938, which considerably cooled the previous enthusiasm of many Socialist united front proponents throughout the world, put an end to any further consideration of the matter as far as the exiled executive was concerned.31 The negative attitude of the Sopade concerning a united front prompted the Communist leaders to redouble their efforts toward

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inducing its opponents in the camp of the exiled Social Democrats to conclude an agreement with them as the "true" spokesmen of the Socialist German labor movement. Their appeals were directed particularly toward those elements of the Old Left who had first proposed a united front in 1934. After the expulsion of Aufhauser and Bochel from the executive, the Old Left united-front advocates formed a separate group, the Revolutionary Socialists, and sought to organize an independent Socialist underground movement in Germany through Willi Lange's border secretariat at Karlsbad.82 The Revolutionary Socialists charged that the "rump executive" in Prague had "isolated itself completely from the active component of the [Social Democratic] movement so that it might continue undisturbed to lead its own secluded existence." The Sopade was said to have sought to eliminate through "bureaucratic suppression" all movements and groups which it found troublesome. The Revolutionary Socialists demanded an end to these "irresponsible atomizing activities." The Sopade, they claimed, had not only failed to create a workable underground organization in Germany, but had actually sabotaged the fight for the overthrow of the Third Reich by its persistent efforts to suppress all critical elements who sought to "reorientate" the Social Democratic movement toward its new tasks. Instead it was said to have engaged in hopeless efforts to restablish the discredited old party organization with the help of the old functionaries—spurning new youthful elements—in the hope that the Weimar Republic might be reestablished with the assistance of military and bourgeois groups. This state of affairs was declared to make it incumbent upon the active and determined elements of the party to try to rectify the omissions of the Sopade by "independent action of their own." T o prevent the final and total liquidation of the German Socialist movement, these elements were called upon to unite and select a new party leadership. Condemning the Sopade for its refusal to heal the breach in the German labor movement, the new group called for the creation of proletarian unity through a new Socialist "unity party," a feat which some of its members were to accomplish a decade later in collaboration with the Communists in Eastern Germany. Welcoming the "new course" of the German Communists, Aufhauser,

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Bochel, and their followers declared that the defense of the Soviet Union against the "imperialist" and "fascist" forces threatening to destroy it, was "not merely . . . an internal Communist affair, but a matter of life and death for the entire German working class." T o strive for proletarian unity and to rally to the defense of the Soviet Union were said to be one and the same, the dual task of all German Socialists who desired to overthrow the Nazi dictatorship.33 The "corrected" attitude of these left-wing Social Democrats won the praise of the K.P.D. leaders striving for a united front. Wilhelm Pieck urged the Revolutionary Socialists to conclude a unity agreement without further delay, instead of holding back in the hope that they might succeed in reorienting the "active" components of the Social Democratic movement. Wilhelm Florin told the Revolutionary Socialists: "You have declared yourself in your program for a dictatorship of the proletariat, for a Soviet government [for Germany], and for militant revolutionary action. You have pointed out the need for a united front and a future proletarian unity party." He added: Our Seventh W o r l d Congress has demonstrated that w e are prepared for joint action and unity, that we want nothing more eagerly than precisely this common struggle and the unity of the workers. W h a t still prevents you from fighting the common class struggle together with us if you are of the same opinion as we, that through unity in battle the Communist and Social Democratic workers will achieve a common ideology and common tactics. What holds you back?3i

But the Revolutionary Socialists never brought themselves to take the decisive step. T o the former Independent Social Democrats among them, the Communist conditions for Social Democratic participation in a new unity party seemed perhaps too much like the Twenty-One Demands with which Lenin in 1920 had sought submission of dissident German Social Democrats to Comintern domination. There could be no disguising the fact that the Revolutionary Socialists would have been swallowed up by the Communists had they agreed to enter a united front. There obviously could be no "equality" in a united front between a party supported by the power of the Soviet Union and the world Communist movement and a small dissident faction among the exiled German Social Democrats.

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For about two years the Revolutionary Socialists sought to gain recognition as the Representatives Abroad of a revolutionary vanguard of the German proletariat, as the force which was training and organizing underground cadres to lead a united German working class in the eventual German proletarian revolution; they continued to call for proletarian unity and expressed their general agreement with Communist principles. However, the Moscow purge trials disillusioned many proponents of unity. It also became evident to most members of the Revolutionary Socialists that they could not replace the Sopade as the spokesman of the German Socialist movement among the parties of the Labor and Socialist International. Both the prestige and financial resources of the exiled executive proved to be superior. Assuming that war was inevitable, the Revolutionary Socialists decided that the German anti-Nazi exile movement was doomed.35 B y 1936 the group began to disintegrate. Of its leaders, Siegfried Aufhauser left the Revolutionary Socialists as soon as it became evident that their objectives could not be accomplished—after the war he returned to Germany to resume his career as a trade-union leader in West Berlin. Max Seydewitz was expelled from the group and became an open fellow traveler, writing a book in defense of the Moscow purge trials. In 1946 he became a leader of the Socialist Unity party in the Soviet zone of Germany. Willi Lange, the original border secretary at Karlsbad, was expelled. In September, 1937, over the opposition of their chairman, Karl Bochel, the remaining Revolutionary Socialists decided to rejoin the Sopade.36 The Miles group among the left-wing rivals of the Sopade also welcomed the "new course" of the Communists, but also shied away from actually concluding the united front K.P.D. leaders were urging upon it.37 Opinion was divided among the members of the group concerning the advisability of such a move. One faction, claiming to represent the real interests of the German underground, called for an end to the internecine quarrels among the German exiles and the "organizational unity of the [German] labor movement at any price." 38 Another rejected the proposed unity moves as premature in view of the "chaotic" state of the "working-class opposition" to Hitler and the supposedly fluid, unreliable character of the "nonproletarian" anti-Nazi elements which the Communists

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wanted to join in a German "Popular Front." T o the latter faction the Communist new course appeared as opportunist a surrender of proletarian-revolutionary principles as the activities of the Sopade. Insisting that the most important task for the present was the "creation of an elite" of professional revolutionaries in Germany since the struggle against the Nazi dictatorship was going to be a long one, it did not believe in the supposed revolutionary ferment of the "masses" which both the Communist and right-wing Social Democratic exile leaders hoped to organize for an early uprising.89 The Communist drive for a united front with the left-wing German Socialist exiles coincided with a severe internal crisis within the New Left or Miles group. Evidently the organization had taken severe losses among its underground workers in Germany due to the increasing effectiveness of the Gestapo; it had failed to gain general recognition as the "new" leadership of the German labor movement in its struggle with the Sopade, the K.P.D., and other groups; the possibility of a revolution against Hitler seemed to members of the group more remote than ever. Its founder, Walter Lowenheim ("Miles")—convinced that there was no point in making further sacrifices in vain opposition—proposed to suspend most activities until such time as conditions would be more favorable for "proletarian-revolutionary work." However, most of the other members of the organization, particularly the exiles running its Foreign Delegation, rejected Lowenheim's pessimistic proposals and induced him to retire from the leadership about the middle of 1935-

The reorganized leadership of the New Beginning group—as it was now generally known—consisted of members of its Foreign Delegation, a group of young men, including Richard Lowenthal ("Paul Sering"), Waldemar von Knoeringen, Erwin Schoettle, Wilhelm Ehrmann, Erich Schmidt, and Karl Frank (also known as "Willi Miiller" and "Paul Hagen"; the latter pseudonym later became Frank's legal name). This Foreign Delegation, like all the others, claimed to be providing indispensable direction to an underground organization which would be helpless without such leadership from abroad, without the centralization, coordination, and liaison, and the contact with "progressive international forces" provided by an exile center. The Foreign Delegation sought to main-

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tain contact with the shrinking underground "cadres" of the group inside Germany and to exchange intelligence data and political information with them. It recruited German volunteers for the Republican side in the Civil War in Spain and solicited funds abroad —particularly in the United States—a matter of vital importance for the survival of the group since the Sopade in March, 1935, had denied it further financial support.40 On assuming the leadership of the New Beginning organization, its Foreign Delegation announced that it would reexamine the ideological and tactical concepts of the original Miles program of 1933 which was now declared to have been only a first and imperfect attempt to determine "revolutionary" objectives.41 Under the influence of the leaders of the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists— the "new men" of the Austrian Socialist movement—and their chief theorist, Otto Bauer, this process of reorientation led the New Beginners in 1935 more or less to the position which the Sopade had assumed in its manifesto of January, 1934, which then they had rejected and now the executive no longer held. Unlike the old leaders of the German Social Democrats, Otto Bauer had voluntarily accepted the new leadership of the illegal Austrian Socialist party and, as director of its Foreign Bureau, he endeavored to provide the theoretical foundations for the strong swing toward revolutionary socialism in the Austrian party.42 Embittered by the refusal of the members of the Sopade to follow his example and yield their position to the "new men" of the German Socialist movement, the New Beginners were strongly attracted to the Austrian group and maintained a close relationship with it. They accepted Bauer's criticism of their original position presented in the "Miles" pamphlet of 1933, particularly his contention that they had been mistaken in discarding Marxist determinism in its entirety. The working class, in its fight against fascism, according to Bauer, needed the propaganda of the class struggle more than ever before, and the New Beginners' fatalistic emphasis on the exclusive revolutionary actions of an elite vanguard fighting apart from the masses was bound to lead to defeatism in its ranks as soon as its underground cadres began to suffer serious losses. Bauer insisted that in order to be able to face the overwhelming power of the state they were fighting, the members of the proletarian anti-

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Nazi resistance needed "confidence rooted in absolute certainty of eventual victory which, even while they are helpless and the cause seems hopeless, will keep their faith alive." And only "Marx's eternal law," the dialectic, materialistic interpretation of history could, in Bauer's view, enable the proletarian opposition to overcome seemingly hopeless odds and counteract defeatism in its ranks. In sum, the New Left in 1935 discarded its original free will thesis—which had given the Miles program a certain uniqueness compared to the other left-wing factions of the exiled German labor movement—and fell back on Marxist eschatology to bolster the morale of its members. Its revised view of the nature of the underground struggle against the Nazi dictatorship hereafter more and more resembled the strategic and tactical concepts developed by Lenin in the first decade of the century for the Bolshevist revolutionary opposition to the Tsarist system. As the conviction grew among the leaders of the New Beginning group that Hitler's position had grown so strong that only the war into which he was believed to be leading the German people would create a revolutionary situation, they increasingly identified themselves with the exiled Bolshevist leaders. Claiming "the legacy of the Bolshevists," they wanted to emulate the former by creating, training, and keeping intact a "democratically centralized" organization of professional revolutionaries inside Germany. A cadre of small underground cells was to work on a long term basis, risking for the time being a minimum of exposure and biding its time until the time was ripe to lead a new revolutionary Socialist party against the dictatorship. Unfortunately, the Hitler regime was not the Tsarist system, and within a few years the New Beginning organization in Germany was wiped out by the Gestapo, and almost all of its leaders were executed. It was indicative of the factionalism and the ideological hairsplitting which increasingly characterized the condition in the German exile camp that, despite its apparent affinity to some of the other groups, the Foreign Delegation of New Beginning could not come to an understanding with any of them. Its young leaders insisted categorically that they alone comprehended the true nature of the Hitler dictatorship and the strategy for the proletarian opposition dictated by the expected course of developments; other

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groups were considered either too "doctrinaire" or too "opportunist." The Foreign Delegation of New Beginning alone was said to represent the "new" Socialist movement in Germany, the elite vanguard which supposedly constituted the sole active and effective nucleus of the movement which was expected some day to direct the proletarian revolution against the Third Reich.43 While the New Beginners insisted that they were "sympathetic" to the idea of a united front, they—like all other Socialist groups—refused to participate in a Communist-sponsored "Popular Front" committee of German exiles in Paris, which made a brief appearance late in 1936.44 The Foreign Delegation insisted that unity could not be wrought by individuals who represented no one but themselves— nor by any exile group, for that matter—but only by the underground in Germany. As a first step toward proletarian unity the New Beginning leaders called for the reunification of the bitterly divided Social Democratic camp to be followed by the unification of the two major branches of the German labor movement. Only then, they contended, might a "Popular Front"—with "nonproletarian" groups who would accept "revolutionary-Socialist" goals for the coming revolution—be a temporary expedient.45 Charging all the rival exile groups with opportunism and pedantry, the Foreign Delegation, too, claimed that it was above all the Sopade which blocked the unity of the German proletarian forces. Like the Communists, the New Beginners professed themselves prepared to accept the Sopade's manifesto of January, 1934, as a basis for unity, but they also claimed that the Social Democratic executive had abandoned its own creation, clinging instead to "illusionary" hopes of cooperation with military and bourgeois elements in Germany. Like the other left-wing opponents of the executive, the group insisted that these "leaders of a beaten army" had proven themselves unable "to reorientate themselves properly" in accordance with the changed character and role of the Social Democratic movement. Having failed to replace the old leaders with men believed more capable and more attuned to contemporary needs of the Socialist underground in 1933 and 1934, the Foreign Delegation was now to try by more covert means to infiltrate and control the Sopade organization. This tactic met with some success, but it also intensified differences with the majority in the executive to an

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extent which ruled out any future cooperation between the groups.46 The Executive in the "United Front" Period The left-wing opponents of the executive among the German exiles were quite correct when they charged that the Sopade had abandoned the spirit of "reorientation" that had led to the "revolutionary" manifesto of January, 1934. The Communist new course and its effect on the exiled Social Democrats merely served to accelerate a development which had already been in evidence during the first half of the third phase. Under the guidance of the old party leaders, who dominated the Sopade entirely after the expulsion of Aufhäuser and Böchel, the previously noted trend away from revolutionary Marxism back to the liberal-democratic principles of the Weimar party continued at a rapid pace. The internal crises which overtook the left-wing groups opposed to the Sopade in this period merely confirmed the latter in the belief that the Socialist underground in Germany had overcome the mood which in 1933 had encouraged a swing toward radical Marxism. While the Communist and left-wing Socialist underground organizations were rapidly being decimated, as the Gestapo became more efficient in ferreting out their members, the composition of the Socialist underground was believed to be weighted increasingly in favor of the exiled old S.P.D. leaders, as old-timers were seen joining the resistance.47 The Neuer Vorwärts denounced as a "liar" anyone who did not agree that German social democracy was "still the party of Friedrich Ebert and . . . Hermann Müller," the two party chairmen who symbolized the S.P.D. leadership since 1914.48 Men like Hilferding, who had sought to compromise between the right-wing leaders of the Sopade and their left-wing opponents, ceased to have any effective influence in the councils of the executive. However, the Zeitschrift für Sozialismus continued—until its demise in 1937 —to open its columns to pretty well all critics of the Sopade.49 The official publications of the executive continued to reflect an optimistic appraisal of developments in Germany, though not in the extreme form that had characterized in 1934 the first half of the third phase in the Sopade's evolution. Hitler's victory in the

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Saar Plebiscite of January, 1935, and the successful reintroduction of universal military service—in violation of the Versailles treaty— the following March were believed to have recovered for him a good deal of the public support which he was thought to have lost in the preceding period. These sops to German patriots were seen as having pacified many who heretofore had not approved of the Third Reich, while anti-Nazis were believed to have been discouraged by the outcome of the Saar Plebiscite and the failure of the Western allies to react forcefully to the violation of the peace settlement of 1919. A vast majority in Germany was thought to be no more satisfied with the political and economic conditions than before, but more apathetic and resigned to their lot. "Fear of the chaos which would follow" was declared to be the chief reason for the absence of greater overt opposition, and admittedly the resistance movement remained weak and unorganized in the face of the fierce retribution which threatened all active anti-Nazis. Actually, even this estimate was far too optimistic in the opinion of the once prominent Social Democratic leaders who had remained in Germany and whose views no doubt were known in Prague. Many considered all resistance quite useless and believed a revolution to be out of the question for an indefinite period.50 For their own comfort and that of their supporters the exiled leaders in Prague advanced the thesis that a few defeats did not lose the war against the Third Reich. Their fight admittedly might take somewhat longer than they had originally expected—another year or two—but a sudden crisis could produce developments which would end their exile sooner. Relying upon Marxist determinism, the Sopade publications predicted that misery, dissatisfaction, and revolutionary sentiments were inevitably bound to increase once more, and, as an emissary of the executive told American reporters, "we Socialists do not intend to force this development artificially." 61 With frequent reference to Marx and Engels the Sopade leaders reiterated Kautsky's maxim that it was "un-Marxian" to "make" a revolution by committting the forces of the proletarian opposition prematurely. This was said to have cost the German Communists untold losses, and the Sopade declared that its own organization would wait until "objective" developments were more opportune for revolutionary action against the Nazi regime.62

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The regime was thought to have gained only a temporary respite from internal tensions and unrest through its accomplishments in foreign affairs; the executive in Prague anticipated a new upsurge of revolutionary sentiment as the nationalist enthusiasm in Germany abated. Reports of a new terror wave against opponents of the regime began arriving in the late spring and were at once interpreted as manifestations of a new outbreak of dissatisfaction and unrest, a renewed, severe crisis for the Third Reich. Particularly the numerous mass trials of Social Democrats accused of treasonable collaboration with the exile center in Prague were cited as proof that the old movement had been successfully reactivated through the combined efforts of the old-timers in Germany and the Sopade in Prague; they were said to indicate the extent and strength of Social Democratic resistance which the Nazis were unsuccessfully endeavoring to wipe out. The fact that the new terror extended beyond the ranks of the "proletarian" opposition to "bourgeois," religious, and other "nonconformist" elements, was interpreted in Prague as symptomatic of new, widespread anti-Nazi activities among elements in Germany which heretofore had not overtly opposed the Third Reich. New Catholic, nationalist, and "bourgeois" resistance groups were believed to be forming all over the country in summer, 1935—cause as well as effect of the new wave of persecutions. Public opinion—far from being intimidated by terror or swayed by Nazi propaganda—was said to be aroused and rallying to the persecuted opposition. But the latter was admittedly still atomized into innumerable factions, at least as numerous as the former political parties; they reportedly lacked as yet a common, unifying conception of the kind of Germany that was to succeed the present tyranny, according to the Sopade.53 This new internal crisis was believed to be caused by economic distress as well as an intense fear of war. The "general ferment" was thought to be more extensive than at any previous time; members of the middle class, farmers, and other "nonproletarian" elements were seen as having at last become aware of the dangers inherent in the Nazi policies. They were reported joining the working-class opposition groups, among which the Sopade organization was said to be by far the most significant—neither Communists nor "revolutionary Socialists" were thought capable of attracting such support. Supposedly, widely respected old Social Democrats were being ap-

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proached by "leading representatives of industry, trade, and commerce, by farmers and intellectuals," for guidance. The Sopade reported a great deal of uncertainty and confusion concerning the exact aims and objectives of the Social Democratic resistance movement among these anti-Nazi elements, though they were said to oppose anything resembling "bolshevism." In the Social Democratic underground organization, too, the object lesson of the Nazi dictatorship was believed to have dispelled the last vestiges of any sentiment for a future Socialist dictatorship. Instead, "far beyond the Social Democratic ranks . . . an intense longing for the lost democratic system" was said to exist. According to the Sopade's reports from inside Germany, the "most progressive elements" among the Social Democratic opposition, realizing that they needed allies, were demanding that the exiled executive formulate a new program containing concrete proposals which would attract the support of the "nonproletarian" anti-Nazis and provide the discontented German people with an acceptable revolutionary objective.54 The Social Democrats had at last an opportunity to take the offensive against the Third Reich, it was claimed in Prague, if they could "find the means . . . to assume the leadership of the forces" looking to them for direction, a platform which would weld the heterogeneous, atomized anti-Nazi groups into a popular revolutionary movement against the Third Reich.55 In general, the debate within the Sopade concerning ways and means of attracting the support of the above-mentioned opposition groups reflected the strong trend away from revolutionary Marxism and its exponents that characterized the third phase in the exile center's evolution. In one form or another, a popular liberation movement rather than a proletarian class struggle was favored. A small group of former Social Democratic functionaries stressed national sentiments and emotions as the most important element for unifying the anti-Nazi opposition. Apparently influenced by the "neo-Socialist" movements of Marcel Deat in France and Henri de Man in Belgium, and particularly by the Sudeten German Socialist leaders Wenzel Jaksch and Emil Franzl, this faction wanted to revive the patriotic-Socialist tradition of social democracy associated with the name of Ferdinand Lassalle, the founder of the German labor movement. Including such former leaders of the right-wing of the S.P.D.

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as Wilhelm Sollmann, Max Sievers, and Fritz Tejessy, the members of this group had been deeply impressed by the successful use which Hitler had made of nationalist emotions, most recently in winning the Saar Plebiscite, in which many of them had taken a leading part fighting the Nazis. They demanded that the German Social Democratic movement turn its back on Marx and return to the patriotic socialism of Lassalle which, they charged, the disciples of Marx had managed to "obliterate" from the party's ideology. They maintained that the S.P.D. had been beaten in Germany not, as the left-wingers maintained, because it had lacked sufficient revolutionary Socialist elan, but quite on the contrary, because it had been overly class-conscious, too much just a "party of the proletariat." The party had remained indifferent to or ignorant of the needs and demands of such nonproletarian elements as the farmers and had slighted the "romantic" tendencies among the younger generation. But above all, social democracy was accused of having gone overboard on Marxian internationalism and pacifism during the Republic, ignoring and neglecting a strong spirit of nationalism among the Germans; it had permitted its extremist opponents to exploit this temper for their own evil purposes. "What social democracy misunderstood or neglected"—the importance of dynamic leadership in a mass movement, the significance of the exaltation of the state in German thinking, patriotism and irredentism, folk traditions, militance, and youthful romanticism—"we now see the rulers of our . . . Germany misuse," insisted Sollmann. The abuse of statist and nationalist ideals by the Nazis was said to excuse in no way the lack of a genuine patriotic-Socialist policy on the part of the S.P.D., which had allowed itself to become enmeshed in an abstract Marxist dogma, oblivious to the real contemporary "climate of opinion." Sollmann charged the Weimar party leadership with having failed to play upon the "immense" "register of nationalist sentiments" which might have provided the "generating power" to "drive the mills of socialism" in Germany. This experience was to be a lesson for the anti-Nazi Social Democratic movement in exile. Sollmann and his friends demanded that the émigré party leaders break out of their isolation and determine "what groups . . . and what ideologies can be brought together to liberate Germany." Their own candidates were specifi-

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cally certain groups to the right of social democracy, exiled Christian Socialists, nationalists, and particularly the corporative Black Front of the exiled Nazi dissident Otto Strasser. These groups, and not the Communists, were recommended as the most effective and logical allies for the type of Social Democratic revolutionary movement which this faction proposed. Only a truly patriotic-Socialist movement, they claimed, could overthrow the Third Reich, for it alone would possess the ideological and physical power to rally sufficient force to overcome the Nazis. Therefore, they called upon / the exiled executive to cast off its Marxist "fetters" and, as a German party, working with the "German nation," lead an anti-Nazi movement inspired by "the forces which move the soul of the people"—"positive nationalism" and ethical socialism. Denounced by the left wingers as advocates of a vague, emotional, "petty bourgeois" socialism similar to that of the Narodniki of Tsarist Russia, the Sollmann group wished to fuse elements of medieval and modern corporatism, ethical socialism, and Lassallean-Hegelian ideals in a patriotic-Socialist movement embracing all classes for the liberation of Germany and the establishment of a truly "national-Socialist" Germany. "Nationally and internationally we are first and foremost German Socialists" whose love and longing for the German fatherland was stronger than any feelings of hate which exiles might nourish, declared Sollmann. Sadistic insanity can banish émigrés, but it can never part them from that Germany which lives on within them and which they have never loved more than during the long pilgrimage of exile. . . . From abroad we see its faults, but also its great virtues—great in spite of everything that happened—more distinctly than ever at home.58

However, the efforts of this group to forge an anti-Marxian, or rather non-Marxian, counterpart to the Communists' Popular Front were entirely unsuccessful because of the unsurmountable ideological, political, and personal differences between the prospective partners. Its members soon abandoned their efforts. Sollmann emigrated to the United States and gradually lost interest in the affairs of the German exiles as he assimilated to his new environment. He died there in 1951, disillusioned by the "nationalistic" character of the postwar Social Democratic party led by Kurt Schumacher.57

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Though Stampfer conceded that there might be certain tactical advantages to collaborating with such groups as Strasser's Black Front, the exiled leaders in the Sopade remained cool to the suggestion that they abandon Marxism altogether.58 They had no desire to permit their left-wing Socialist and Communist rivals the exclusive use of the eschatological Marxist doctrine in the fierce competition for support of the dwindling underground organizations inside Germany. Rather they endeavored to retain the presumed benefits of Marxism for propagandist«: purposes as well as to provide themselves with a theoretical justification for their activities. The Sopade underground organ, the Sozialistische Aktion, continued to appeal particularly to the "proletarian" opposition, retaining and exploiting to the fullest extent the symbols and slogans of the revolutionary Marxist tradition of German social democracy in what was called the class war against the capitalist dictatorship. "We cannot expect to overthrow the despotism with the aid of the bourgeoisie, but must rely upon our own strength," claimed the paper. "We can and must learn that the program for the future cannot be once again simply liberty and nothing but liberty, but must be . . . the Socialist revolution."69 The Neuer Vorwärts and the Deutschlandberichte, on the other hand, showed an increasing preoccupation with the problem of gaining "nonproletarian" allies—though the German army no longer figured in such plans since it was thought firmly behind Hitler's rearmament and expansionist program. A majority of the German people had to rise against nazism; the German proletariat was declared to be only a minority in need of allies; to appeal to other groups and other interests was defended as good Marxist tactics. If it wanted to see Hitler overthrown, it was said the working class could neither claim exclusive leadership of the anti-Nazi movement nor expect its allies to lay down their lives to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat in Germany.60 In contrast to the patriotic socialism and emotional appeal favored by Sollmann and his associates, Stampfer insisted that social democracy was above all heir to the democratic and liberal traditions of Western civilization. Traditionally its "ethical basis" was a fundamental "faith in the power of goodness which will always triumph in the end," he now wrote, implicitly repudiating his "self-

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criticism" of the "reorientation" phase two years earlier. German Social Democrats had always believed in the ultimately decisive power of reason, that humanitarian ideals would always possess sufficient moral and intellectual superiority to triumph over noisy brass bands and false propaganda.61 It was primarily on this basis that the Sopade sought to establish its brand of social democracy as an alternative between nazism and "bolshevism"—the synthesis needed to bring together the antiNazi resistance groups. The exiled representatives of the old S.P.D. leadership insisted again and again that it was above all necessary to "educate" the German masses; for when they had understood that their misery was solely the fault of their rulers, that the restoration of liberty and democracy was the only hope for salvation, and that no one but the German people themselves could put an end to the Third Reich, then and only then would they be ready to follow Social Democratic leadership. In this, as in many other things, the Sopade maintained that it was merely following in the footsteps of the great popular revolutions of the West, being the heir of its liberal democratic traditions. Education of the "decent elements" in Germany—the vast majority—remained the keynote of the hopes and activities of the Sopade until the reoccupation of the Rhineland in March, 1936. Though these elements remained "a fluctuating form without a shape," the leaders expressed their faith that as the objective conditions in Germany—economic misery and danger of war—would move further toward a revolutionary situation, the public could be educated and imbued with a burning desire for liberty which would at the right time break forth like a gigantic wave to overthrow Hitler as the French had overthrown Louis X V I . The executive believed that its literary activities against Nazi Germany, including its "inside" reports on the "true" situation in Germany, were particularly effective and, therefore, especially feared by the rulers of the Third Reich; intensified Gestapo activity against its agents were interpreted as vindicating this claim. Operating on these premises and analyses of internal German developments, the Sopade insisted that only an extensive network of reporters and couriers could operate effectively against the Gestapo; it constituted the core of the coming resistance movement. Given

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this claim, it followed that the central collecting and distributing point in Prague was the most important agency in the battle to overthrow the Nazi regime through educating the German people; its literary activities were still the most effective method to recruit and organize the revolutionary movement in Germany.62 In this connection the Sopade claimed "with pride . . . what the System uses as an accusation," to be standing "in the center of the fight against it." 63 "If the underground Socialist movement intends to assume the leadership of the antifascist opposition, then it must not be afraid to proclaim anew the spiritual and moral values which it has always professed," declared the Deutschlandberichte, in November, 1935.64 "Our first and foremost task is to proclaim unconditionally and unequivocally our fundamental democratic convictions," stated the Sopade newsletter; "our second . . . to speak a language which will permit those who have not been Social Democrats in the past to understand and accept our aims."65 The Sopade believed that national socialism was a good object lesson in despotism for Germany and, therefore, the opportunity for educating its people had never been better. The Germans were believed to be undergoing a process of "spiritual-political maturing," learning the value of the democratic and liberal ideals which they had once rejected because they had not sufficiently understood and appreciated them. In addressing itself in the name of liberty and democracy "for all" to Social Democrats and Communists, Catholics and Protestants, conservatives and liberals, peasants and workers, youth and teachers, "middle class" and "capitalists"—and even to disillusioned Nazis—the Sopade replied to the question of what was to succeed Hitler with "Look to England, that is our model. That is what we want to come after Hitler." 66 The trend away from the revolutionary socialism of the second phase back to the liberal democratic, libertarian precepts which had characterized the S.P.D. leadership of Weimar days, culminated in the manifesto published by the executive on January 30, 1936. This was evidently the much discussed "new program" demanded by the underground, the Sopade's reply to the Communist Popular Front appeal. After three years of Hitler and two years to the day after the proclamation of their "revolutionary" manifesto of 1934, the

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old party leaders stated in a few paragraphs what they now believed to be the true heritage of their movement and the strategy which it should employ. Germans of every class and occupation were asked to unite behind the exiled leadership of social democracy "for Germany—against Hitler." Nazism was stated to be leading the nation toward ruin and chaos, it was the obligation of all patriots to achieve Germany's salvation by overthrowing the present government. There was no longer any reference to any revolutionary Socialist ambitions which the exiled executive might be nourishing, nor to a coming Socialist dictatorship. They were fighting for the immediate restoration of liberty and representative democracy for all Germans, the exiles insisted, not for a new dictatorship, not for "the despotic rule of one element of society over all the rest." There was no mention here of a class struggle fought by a revolutionary working class to overthrow capitalism; the exiled executive appealed to "all classes and sectors of society, with the exception of the ruling clique which profits from the present situation." All who were dissatisfied or persecuted were asked to join "with equal rights and responsibilities" a popular anti-Nazi movement to restore liberty and the rule of law to the German fatherland.67 In contrast to the growing pessimism of the left-wing Socialist exiles, the optimistic mood which was characteristic for the third phase of the evolution of the exiled executive was still evident as its members began the fourth year of their banishment. This mood was well summed up by Karl Henrichsen in the January, 1936, issue of the Sopade's Zeitschrift fiir Sozialismus.68 Henrichsen condemned those pessimists who had concluded that the Nazi regime was firmly entrenched, that all talk about the growth of revolutionary sentiments in Germany was illusionary, and that—short of war—there appeared to be no prospect of overthrowing the dictatorship in the foreseeable future. He rejected the fatalist belief that the fight of the anti-Nazi exiles had become only "a futile reaction to an irrevocable revolution" which would see the German émigrés end up alongside their Russian and Italian brethren who "had gradually lost all credibility with their perennial predictions of an imminent revolution in their homelands." Neither at home nor abroad had the German dictatorship attained the stability of the Italian and Russian, insisted Henrichsen. In Germany the oppo-

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sitional potential was growing daily larger in direct proportion to mounting dissatisfaction with the ruling system, including perhaps even now a majority of the population. The Third Reich was doomed. Its "inevitable" destiny was either to become involved in a war which it would lose or to collapse even without a war. The latter possibility Henrichsen considered the more likely for he believed that the forces opposing Hitler's ambitions abroad were strong enough to block the expansionist policies which he was forced to pursue in order to retain control in Germany. The end might not come tomorrow or the day after, but the ruling group could not retreat from its present course, and a growing fear of war and economic chaos would rouse the German people to overthrow their present rulers—rather than be destroyed with them in a "twilight of the gods."

Chapter 6 Generals Without An Army . . . and there are a few of us, escaped victims or eyewitnesses of the things which happen in the thicket and who, haunted by our memories, go on screaming at you in newspapers and in public meetings . . . and you walk on, protected by the dream barrier which stifles all sound.—Arthur Koestler

Lengthening Shadows On March 7, 1936, the German Wehrmacht marched into the demilitarized Rhineland in defiance of the Treaties of Versailles and Locarno. For the last time hope swelled high among the German anti-Nazi exiles. Here at last was the open challenge to the status quo which its guarantors surely could not ignore; Hitler had gone too far, strong countermeasures by the Western powers would follow. In that case the fear of war—should Hitler remain defiant —loss of prestige and popular support—should he back down— were expected to arouse a storm of dissatisfaction among the German people which, in turn, might lead to his overthrow. Such hopes were quickly dashed. For the exiled executive the event marked the beginning of the fourth and final phase, that was to end tragically. From the first day of their banishment the German Socialist exiles had prophesied that the Nazi regime was destined to follow a rigidly determined course which could only end in war or revolution. Having unleashed a frenzied nationalism in order to establish and maintain his dictatorship, Hitler was believed to depend on an unbroken series of victories over Germany's so-called enemies in order to maintain himself in power. Accordingly, the hopes of his

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exiled opponents of whatever stripe to a very large extent rested on the expectation that Hitler's demands for "equality" in arms and "justice" for Germany would meet firm opposition from the European powers, shattering the "useful myth" of Nazi invincibility which was thought to be the principal prop for the dictatorship. Without it popular dissatisfaction with the internal political and economic policies of the Third Reich would soon culminate in the destruction of the Nazi regime. This theme was fundamental to the twin campaign of the Socialist exiles which at one and the same time sought to convince foreign statesmen that for the sake of world peace they must firmly reject all of Hitler's demands and to impress on the German people that an iron ring of irreconcilable enemies circling the German fatherland was being forged by Hitler, who would unhesitatingly plunge the nation into a catastrophic war unless he was overthrown. While the social-revolutionary wing of the German Socialist exile camp soon lost hope that war would be averted, the exiled executive in Prague pursued this theme for three years. Through its underground publications it sought to warn the German people of the disastrous consequences which would follow from Hitler's rearmament and expansionist drive. The Sopade pitted the predicted terrors of a war which Germany was said to be sure to lose against the prevailing terror of the Gestapo; Goebbels's predictions of glorious times to come were countered with dire forecasts that the German people would pay for Hitler's deeds with their blood. The executive called on every patriot to save the fatherland from inevitable defeat and dismemberment by joining the Social Democratic fight to overthrow the regime before it was too late.1 This was not a fight on behalf of one party or a small minority of the German people, the exiled German Social Democratic leaders insisted. N o r was it a purely German affair. Theirs was a battle for the preservation of Western civilization, they shouted into the world. It could "no more permit this maniac to dominate it than William II" in 1914. Nazi Germany, the exiles pleaded, must be treated as an outlaw among the civilized nations, it must be refused any concessions which could strengthen Hitler's position at home if the German people, as well as those of other nations, were to be

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spared the horrors of another world war.2 Beginning in spring, 1934, the Sopade made public extensive and detailed reports concerning covert German rearmament and the aggressive plans of the Nazi regime which it claimed to be receiving from trustworthy agents inside the country, reports which were to prove remarkably accurate. These Deutschlandberichte, edited by Erich Rinner, were sent to leading statesmen, politicians, and opinion leaders throughout the world. Appealing not only to the self-interest, but also to the "conscience" of the world, the Sopade sought to publicize the brutality of Nazi terror in Germany, particularly in the concentration camps—about which relatively little was known at that time.3 However, despite the basic optimism which prevailed before March, 1936, among the supporters of the exiled executive, there could be no disguising the fact that the assumed opponents of German rearmament and expansion in Europe—particularly in Britain—were not acting in accord with the hopes of all the antiNazi émigrés. The evident failure of any serious international opposition to German demands to materialize increasingly alarmed them. Beginning in 1935, the Sopade publications reflected a mounting fear that the Western democracies and the League of Nations were not prepared to act against Nazi Germany and that Hitler's position was accordingly being strengthened. The Western powers were accused of practically surrendering the Saar Territory to Hitler in January, 1935, and warned that this had merely stimulated irredentism in Germany; there were bitter protests against the Anglo-French offer of February, 1935, to consider freeing Germany from the arms limitations imposed upon it by the Treaty of Versailles. The cause of peace would be better served, wrote the Neuer Vorwärts, if the Western democracies were to advise the Nazis that their activities were leading toward a war which Germany could never win and which would see its leaders end on the gallows.4 Anxiety increased and admonishments grew louder when there proved to be no real opposition abroad to the reintroduction of universal military service in March, 1935, a clear violation of the peace settlement of 1919. Inside Germany, "the frenzy of nationalist enthusiasm" had reached a pitch the like of which had not been known since the outbreak of the First World War, claimed Hil-

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ferding. He saw "the previous tendency toward a disintegration of the mass support of the dictatorship . . . checked by a strong counterforce" and "large masses, heretofore tending to be indifferent or in opposition to the dictatorship" rallied to its support through the "nationalist-militarist" sentiments released by this action. The Western democracies were warned that the Nazis would not hesitate to use the threat of war or war to overcome their political and economic deficiencies at home. Hilferding claimed that this aggressive nationalism, the new hope, the new faith, with which he believed the Nazis were endeavoring to woo the German masses, frankly and even hopefully considered the possibility of war. " A rejuvenated, powerful Germany will soon regain its former preëminence in world affairs," the Germans were reportedly being told by their leaders: Just as Hitler is vanquishing his enemies abroad, he will also manage to overcome present economic problems. T h e markets of the world will have to be reopened to a powerful Germany [and] the shortage of raw materials, caused by envious foreign powers, come to an end; developments are once again taking a turn for the better, and should our enemies try to stop us, we shall crush them.6

The Sopade warned that for the sake of peace there could be no further such concessions to German demands for "equality" and "justice." "The world must at last understand what is at stake. It is useless to seek agreements with a power that has crushed all the laws of humanity under its heel," it admonished, insisting that millions of anti-Nazi Germans were but awaiting an opportunity— which the foreign powers could give them—to take up arms against the Third Reich. "The world must at last realize that its own fate is linked to that of those brave men," the exiled executive committee of the S.P.D. proclaimed in March, 1935. "Either they will be victorious or all of Europe will be plunged into a flood of arson and murder."6 The trend of international developments during 1935 was not such as to lessen the fears of the exiles. Nationalist sentiments, they believed, were the mainstay of Nazi power. Particularly British policy toward Germany was seen as wittingly or unwittingly paving the road to war and the attempt to impose a Nazi pax barbarica upon Europe. The rulers of Germany would not keep the treaties

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which Britain hoped would satisfy their demands for equality and justice, they warned, as Sir John Simon went to Berlin to negotiate the Anglo-German naval accord of 1935. The Neuer Vorwärts declared that Europe was in mortal danger. "Is it not insane," demanded the paper, "that this gangster government is to be allowed, unchecked and with impunity, to lead the German people toward destruction, Europe and the entire world into a dark period of war threats, armament races, economic chaos and disaster—perhaps another world war?" 7 Nonetheless, until the occupation of the Rhineland, the Western-orientated Social Democrats in the camp of the Sopade refused to give up hope that the democracies might yet call a halt to Hitler's ambitions and thereby bring about the preconditions for a revolution in Germany. Not so their left-wing opponents, who, lacking this faith in the "capitalist" democracies, gloomily expected the worst. Despite their outcries over lack of firmness in the West, the basic optimism which characterized the third phase in the evolution of the executive led its supporters to cling to the hope that there was after all a gradual awakening to the Nazi threat among the democracies. The executive's New Year's manifesto of 1936 expressed renewed confidence that in the future there would be no further concessions to Hitler.8 This frantic optimism yielded to despair after March 7, 1936. The unopposed remilitarization of the Rhineland appeared to the exiles as Hitler's greatest triumph—and the most severe setback for his opponents—since 1933. They realized that Hitler had successfully called their bluff and with one stroke disproved their contention that Nazi rearmament and aggressive nationalism would run into implacable opposition abroad. The Nazi regime had admittedly scored a tremendous victory in the battle for the allegiance of the German people. In Prague it was believed that the "liberation of the Rhineland" had released a tremendous wave of nationalistic emotions. Even opponents of the regime were reported to be deeply impressed by Hitler's audacious move. The executive of the S.P.D. pessimistically conceded that the purported results of the Reichstag "elections" which followed—98.9 per cent of the voters supposedly endorsed the official slate—were for once not far off the mark. "Dissatisfaction that had been reaching dangerous proportions

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up to that moment" had been appeased and silenced by an implied promise of future glorious times to come through further aggrandizement, Sopade commentators declared. The Nazis were seen as having repeated Bismarck's successful subordination of domestic aifairs to the "primacy of foreign affairs" and created a situation that would permit them to blame "evil foreign statesmen" for all their future economic and other domestic shortcomings; from now on the ups and downs of the Third Reich would be primarily determined by the success or failure of Nazi foreign policy. "As long . . . as success appears to vindicate Hitler's foreign policy based on fctit accompli and the expectation that other nations' desire to maintain the peace at all cost is unlimited, his German opponents will be helpless," declared Karl Henrichsen in the Sopade's "Zeitschrift fur Sozialismus. It was beyond their power to impress upon the German masses that no further concessions would be made to Nazi demands and that, if Hitler made further aggressive moves, war would become a certainty. Only a major diplomatic defeat for the Third Reich, in the view of the exiles, could return the initiative to Hitler's German opponents, but it was for the statesmen of Europe to administer that defeat and call a halt to further expansionist moves. The occupation of the Rhineland had dealt a tremendous blow to the chances of a revolutionary movement in Germany, it was said. "The average German," wrote Henrichsen, ". . . compares what Hitler . . . can do with impunity to the pressure to which the Weimar Republic was exposed and concludes that, while Hitler's predecessors must have been fools or knaves, he is an incomparable genius." Many Germans, who up till then had opposed the Third Reich, would now fall silent, lest they injure the national interests of Germany; moreover, he pointed out, from now on the Nazis would be more successful in labeling Germans who opposed their politics "traitors" to the fatherland. In the opinion of the Social Democratic exiles, as long as further concessions would be made abroad to Nazi demands, as long as Hitler would seem to be winning his gamble with Europe's dread of war, neither the resistance movement nor the people of Germany would or could hope to stage a revolution; future endeavors by anti-Nazis to arouse Germans against their rulers with the prediction that Hitler was leading

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the nation into war, would simply boomerang, if new retreats b y the nations of Europe should prove his opponents wrong and boost Hitler's reputation in Germany even higher. 9 Actually, the total disintegration of such underground opposition groups as had previously supported the efforts of the exiles had begun a good deal earlier. But the Sopade had refused to admit it before the optimistic mood of the third phase yielded to the pessimism of the fourth. It had interpreted the mass arrests and trials of 1935 as a recrudescence of revolutionary activity instead of the beginning of the total destruction of the last vestiges of anti-Nazi opposition. It had also permitted itself the illusion of far greater and overt unrest among the populace than was justified by the facts. T h e awakening was, therefore, all the more painful. What Rothfels has fittingly termed a "diabolical mixture of terror and propaganda" gained the Nazi regime acquiescence among the German public, even where it did not receive outright support. 10 For the greater part, the public accepted Goebbels's claims on behalf of the regime, particularly those that satisfied national sentiments in a country which was widely believed to have been unjustly treated by the victors of 1918. Germany was pictured as becoming once more the great power it had been, the "fetters" of Versailles were being cast off, mass unemployment was but an evil memory, and fratricidal "class struggle" had yielded to national unity in a "German people's community" that was said to place the national interest above the selfish interests of any of its member parts. A n increasing number of the public accepted these claims. Even those Germans who did not entirely approve the means could not help accepting the apparent ends—peaceful aggrandizement and prosperity. All the gloomy predictions contained in the literature of the anti-Nazis—which reached in any case only a small and diminishing audience—seemed to be disproved b y actual events. B y 1936 public opinion undoubtedly backed overwhelmingly a government that seemed to promise not only economic security, but the prospect of German dominance over the European continent. 11 Simultaneously, the period 1935-1936 saw the end of the last remnants of an active anti-Nazis resistance movement in Germany. T h e efficient methods of public-opinion control developed b y the government were supplemented by an equally scientific terror

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regime in regimenting public opinion. By 1935 the Gestapo had attained sufficient expertness, efficiency, and ruthlessness to undertake the systematic destruction of all remaining underground resistance groups. In contrast to the earlier, comparatively capricious terror employed against anti-Nazis, the campaign was most carefully organized and executed. Every device known to modern criminology—spies, agents provocateurs, and informers—were used in conjunction with actual and threatened violence to ferret out the remaining centers of opposition. By 1936 it became evident even to the most optimistic anjong the exiles that the wave of mass arrests and trials was not symptomatic of a new upsurge of revolutionary sentiment, but was a determined drive to exterminate the opposition or frighten it into inactivity. One by one the groups with which the various émigré centers had worked were wiped out; the contacts between exiles and anti-Nazis in Germany were gradually destroyed, until the outbreak of war severed them entirely. All border traffic was carefully checked, and suspected opponents of the regime in Germany were kept under constant surveillance. The Communist opposition groups were apparently the first to be wiped out, followed by the Socialist cadres. The old-timers— who had formed the backbone of the Sopade's underground organization—were tried by the hundreds before the "people's courts." "Anyone who maintains contact with individuals engaged in highly treasonable activities abroad and who allows himself to be misled by them . . . will be adjudged guilty of high treason," the government announced.12 Long prison and penitentiary terms were meted out to thousands, many of whom may well have been innocent of the charges against them, but were condemned as a warning to others. A secret Gestapo report for the year 1936, which came to light after the war, listed 11,687 arrests for "leftist propaganda," 17,168 cases tried under the so-called Heimtucke Gesetz of 1934, and the confiscation of 1,643,200 underground leaflets.13 Thousands more were held incommunicado in concentration camps. Those anti-Nazis who were not caught were apparently completely demoralized by Hitler's bloodless victories on behalf of German aggrandizement and the adulation which he received not only at home, but abroad. Most of them dropped further activities against

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the dictatorship—resigned to let events take their course. Only a f e w small and isolated groups, which carefully refrained from any direct action against the regime, attempted to hold themselves in readiness for a more opportune time to resume revolutionary activities. A m o n g these were the Social Democratic and conservative groups which were later to participate in the 1944 conspiracy against Hitler, as well as a f e w Communist and united-front cells from which emerged the "antifascist committees" that here and there claimed the succession leadership to the Nazi regime at the end of the war. Neither the strategy which the Social Democrats had employed against Bismarck nor that used by the Bolshevists against the Tsar proved a match for the Gestapo. B y 1939 organized resistance to the Nazi dictatorship had ceased. " W h a t remained at the outbreak of war was of no political significance and could no longer be considered of any importance in the fight against Hitler," according to one of the f e w surviving Social Democratic participants of the abortive coup of 1944. 1 4

The Executive and "Appeasement" of Nazi Germany

1936-1938

T h e last and most tragic phase in the history of the effort to continue the Social Democratic fight against the Third Reich under the leadership of the exiled executive coincided with the period of "appeasement" that preceded the Second W o r l d W a r . Under the blows of the Gestapo and the propaganda impact of each new bloodless victory of the Third Reich the lifeline that had connected the Sopade to Germany began to fray. Isolated from their homeland and denied an audience, the exiles were deprived of the principal reason which they had from the very first advanced in support of their activities—their "revolutionary mission." T h e influx and distribution of their literature in Germany was reduced to a trickle which gradually dried up; their couriers and agents were caught one b y one; Nazi success took away their audience; terror and desertion wiped out their underground support. Moreover, the shift of emphasis in the fight against the Third Reich to the realm of foreign affairs confronted the exiles with the difficult task of fighting concessions to Germany, while endeavoring to avoid the taint

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of traitors to their fatherland. In fighting "appeasement" tooth and nail until the outbreak of war with the shrinking means at thendisposal, they continued to insist that they were acting in the best interests of the German people by trying to save them from a catastrophe. Their despair increased with each new step along "appeasement" road; they were more and more forced to the conclusion that, as Hitler's hold over the German people and his power in Europe increased, their own battle to save Germany was lost. Bitterness and pessimism characterized the writings and statements of the exiles during this fourth phase; bitterness particularly toward Great Britain, believed the moving spirit behind "appeasement" of Nazi Germany. "Some day the English . . . will emerge from their grandiose illusions," predicted the Neuer Vorwärts at the time of the Rhineland occupation," . . . they will come to realize that the present National Socialist orgy was but a dress rehearsal for mobilization day." 16 Political developments and diminishing funds forced the Sopade to curtail its activities. The Zeitschrift für Sozialismus ceased publication in 1936, the Sozidistische Aktion in March, 1938. Most of the remaining physical and financial resources of the Sopade were poured into a desperate effort to effect a last-minute rally of world opinion against the Nazi danger. This effort was centered in the Deutschlandberichte which after 1936 also appeared in condensed form in English and French. Its reports and analyses constituted the last justification which the exiles could advance for their activities and their attempt to maintain contact with agents inside Germany regardless of the risks involved. Despite the constantly diminishing number of such agents, their strategic positions in important factories, governmental offices, and other centers of economic and public life in Germany gave to these reports a degree of objectivity and accuracy which was appreciated more by the Gestapo than by foreign recipients. If secret Gestapo reports for this period may be believed, the exiled executive committee was exceedingly well informed concerning economic conditions, military preparations, and morale in Germany.16 According to one such Gestapo Lagebericht, numerous secret German documents were leaked to the Sopade by its agents in the governmental hierarchy. For example, in 1937 the Nazi leaders

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Hess, Himmler, and Rosenberg presented a series of secret lectures on Germany's future objectives to a group of select army officers. Published in a limited edition for the exclusive use of the top echelons of the armed forces, they were made public by the exiled executive in fall, 1937. Here was evidence "in what manner and by what manner of men Germany is being governed and what the rest of the world may expect from this system," according to the Sopade. "Its aim is war, a war to deprive all men of their liberty." "We trust," the Neuer Vorwärts commented, "that the world will at last learn from these secret lectures the danger it faces from the bellicose materialism of the pan-German superiority complex." 17 However, these revelations made no impressions abroad; the veracity of exile sources was always held suspect. A growing sense of anguish and doom among the exiles grew out of the realization that they were not being heeded. As early as August, 1937, the Sopade warned that the Free City of Danzig might become a casus belli and predicted the possibility of "a planned attack on Western Europe in conjunction with a simultaneous attack in the Far East" by the European and Asiatic aggressive powers.18 "It is the fault of the democracies that the dictatorships may increasingly terrorize Europe," complained the Neuer Vorwärts, grieving over the failure of the League to prevent the Italian conquest of Ethiopia and the nazification of Danzig, and the breakdown of Anglo-French efforts to prevent effective German and Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War on Franco's side.19 Three months before the annexation of Austria the executive warned that it was generally thought in Nazi party circles that an Anschluss was imminent; immediately before this prediction was to be fulfilled, it cautioned that a drive to annex the Sudeten borderland of Czechoslovakia was next.20 The anxiety of the Sopade reached new heights after the Anschluss of March, 1938. Anticipating the campaign against Czechoslovakia, the Social Democratic exile center complained: "Just as they permitted German democracy to fall, the Western powers are doing nothing now." 2 1 It charged that "the blindness, timidity, and indecisiveness of the democratic powers" had permitted the Nazis to create a mighty military machine, conclude aggressive alliances, and occupy strategic positions for future expansionist moves "in full view of the

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entire world," with the result that war had now become an "imminent danger."22 During the Czech crisis of the summer and fall of 1938 the publications of the German Social Democratic executive warned that more than the Czech borderlands were at stake, that Poland would be the next victim, for no amount of appeasing by the other powers would satisfy the unsatiable appetite of the Nazi "beast of prey." Yet, "tomorrow's victims pursue their daily routine without concern . . . as if there were no beast" grieved the exiles. "It might have been killed when it was still small and harmless, [but] at that time the future victims, which it was already eyeing, shrugged their shoulders. Today it is fully grown and dangerous, and now the [future] victims—[still] deluding themselves—are certain that it won't leap! But why has it grown teeth and claws?"23 As long as the democratic powers continued to appease Hitler, there could be no domestic pressure to halt the march toward war. For "what is to prevent the German people from concluding that Hitler has been right all along," asked the Neuer Vorwärts, "as long as every arbitrary act, every illegal step, every flagrant violation of law, yields the results he sought, without causing him the least difficulty or domestic complications?"24 The Munich agreement of September, 1938, was interpreted by the Sopade as a sell-out by the Western democracies not only of Czechoslovakia, but also of the anti-Nazi German opposition movement. Nazi Germany, not yet quite ready for war, wrote Curt Geyer, had been given a heaven-sent opportunity to prove once more that it alone was the successful champion of so-called German national interests. The anti-Nazis patriots inside and outside Germany, however, who fought German expansionism, who warned that Hitler was taking the nation into war and sought to rally Germans against nazism around principles supposedly sacred to the Western democracies, were declared to have been shamefully abandoned and betrayed by the governments of these same Western nations. By giving in to Nazi demands Chamberlain, according to Geyer, had in fact pronounced Hitler right and all his opponents wrong. "All of us, Social Democrats, Communists, Catholics, and German Nationalists" who had fought against the fulfillment of the supposed German national interests, wrote Geyer,

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now appeared as "traitors to our nation and our people who deserve the terror of the Third Reich." For the exiled German Socialist leaders Munich was "the first great German victory in the Second World War which has begun with the destruction of Czechoslovakia." They felt unable to share the hope that European peace had been assured by the settlement. "We are compelled," declared Geyer, ". . . to admonish the nations who now feel free to breathe more easily, that there is no peace and there can be no peace" with Nazi Germany.25 A feeling of tragic futility mingled with impotent anger overcame the exiles as they saw prediction after prediction come true and warning after warning disregarded. Hitler's international prestige had reached new heights between Rhineland and Munich, and talk of a coming war was unpopular in Western Europe; only too many people were inclined to agree with the Nazi propagandists that the real warmongers were the exiled anti-Nazi Jeremiahs.26 Others, who took a more charitable view of these warnings were inclined to consider them highly exaggerated—the product of querulous political agitation of frustrated exiles, of émigré psychoses. It proved of little avail for the Sopade to insist that exiles always had a better comprehension of conditions and developments in their homeland than visiting tourists and diplomats. European political leaders showed little or no inclination to listen to the voices in the wilderness, to accept the claims of the German exiles that they were acting in good faith as patriots and civilized men fighting to save Europe from war or bloodless subjugation to the Nazi dictatorship. The Socialist and liberal anti-Nazi émigrés were all too often looked upon as "Bolshevist" troublemakers, seeking to sabotage the efforts of responsible European statesmen to preserve peace.27 The International Socialist Labor Movement and the German Exiles In 1933, when the exiled executive first raised the flag in Prague, it had assigned to itself four principal tasks: ( 1 ) to organize and lead a revolutionary organization against nazism; (2) to rouse the German people by an "offensive of truth" into joining the opposi-

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tion movement; (3) to call upon the world, in the name of "the other Germany," to support the anti-Nazi fight by standing firm against all of Hitler's demands; and, finally, (4) to rally the international Socialist labor movement for what was said to be the common fight against German as well as international fascism. The fourth period of the Sopade's development brought the realization that the executive had failed in all the tasks it had so bravely assumed in the first. "Even the Socialist parties of the democratic countries fear to look into the Medusa face which we are endeavoring to show them," as Geyer complained at the time of the Munich agreement.28 Confronted by hostility or indifference both in Germany and abroad, the exiled German Socialist leaders had to learn that generals without an army carried no more weight in the international Socialist labor movement than elsewhere. While the dependency of the Sopade for political, financial, and moral aid from the Labor and Socialist International increased enormously in the fourth phase, particularly the European member parties of that organization viewed the activities of the exiled executive of what once was the world's largest labor party with increasing indifference—often outright hostility. The constant requests for aid and assistance from seemingly innumerable émigré groups, all claiming to be the sole representatives of the German labor movement, were a source of irritation or a bother to all too many of the Socialist parties gripped in the late 'thirties by fear of fascist reaction at home and the threat of growing German power in international affairs. Ironically enough, it had been the German Social Democrats who in 1923, fearing that too much centralization might prevent the organization from functioning altogether, had taken the lead in drafting a constitution for the new Labor and Socialist International that had guaranteed to its member parties a maximum of autonomy and independence of action.29 The result had been the passage of resolutions by the Council and Assembly of the International which carefully avoided binding the member parties to any specific course of action and expressed little more than general sentiments concerning the evils of war, armaments, and imperialism. After 1933, this state of affairs represented an unsurmountable obstacle for the exiled leaders of German social democracy, who

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sought in vain to persuade their comrades in the International to lend concrete and substantial financial, political, and moral support to the Sopade's campaign for a revolution against Hitler; they wanted them to rally public opinion in their countries against the Nazis and exert powerful pressure upon their governments against appeasement of the Third Reich. The last assembly of all member parties of the Labor and Socialist International had taken place in August, 1933, and at that time the German delegates had not been able to get more than a general pledge of support, which turned out to be of no more concrete value than previous resolutions of the organization. A t the periodic meetings of the Council of the International during the following years the exiled executive sought to persuade the organization to drop at least its time-honored demands for universal disarmament—"with or without Germany"—and justice for Germany through revision of the Treaty of Versailles. The pleas of the German representatives that such resolutions which they had strongly supported before 1933 now no longer made sense with Hitler in control of Germany, fell upon deaf ears. Hilferding and others sought in vain to persuade the European labor parties to switch to a militant, anti-Nazi policy, firm opposition to all of Hitler's demands and rapid rearmament of the democracies to maintain a lead over Germany and avert war. The International responded with vague, noncommittal resolutions which, while they condemned nazism and pledged support to its enemies, also continued to endorse support of Germany's claims for justice and equality. The distress of the German exiles increased as they realized over the years that their warnings to fellow Socialists were being ignored and no serious attention was being paid to their suggestions for meeting what they insisted was a threat to the entire international Socialist movement. Dogmatically pacifist or preoccupied with domestic economic and social problems, the leaders of most European labor parties either tended to snub the Germans exiles as former leaders of a beaten army or to consider their case as primarily a welfare problem. Immediately following the establishment of the Sopade, initial reaction to developments in Germany had resulted in some half-

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hearted moves on the part of European Socialists to boycott German goods and the passage of resolutions protesting against terror in Germany. In the years that followed the publications of the International itself and those of its member parties would dutifully print periodic reports, warnings, and appeals by the German exiles; Sopade representatives were permitted to represent German labor in the Council of the International and invited, though with diminishing frequency, to national congresses of Socialist parties. The Mateotti Fund and other Socialist relief agencies attempted to help the German exiles, increasingly dependent on relief in view of the fact that labor permits were denied to them in most countries and their own resources were being exhausted. But after the first shock caused by reports from Nazi Germany and the arrival of the first refugees had abated, public sympathy for the swelling stream of refugees slackened and at times turned into hostility. Individual labor groups, in fact, approved the barring of exiles from the domestic labor market and preferred to see them emigrate overseas. Relief funds for exiles who neither could find work nor would go overseas were far too small to meet the needs of thousands of new refugees arriving not only from Germany, but soon from Austria, Spain, and Czechoslovakia. Such funds as could be raised for the exiles, therefore, had to be earmarked primarily for relief; financial assistance for the anti-Nazi campaign against the Third Reich was reduced to a pittance. For some years fellow Socialists—particularly nationals of countries bordering on Germany and sailors—assisted the Sopade and other groups to smuggle anti-Nazi literature into the Third Reich. Gestapo action and strong representations by the German Foreign Office in neighboring countries, increasingly anxious to avoid any provocative incidents, effectively put an end to most of such support. In France and the Scandinavian countries in particular, Socialist and labor groups surrepticiously continued to give limited financial aid to the anti-Nazi activities of the Sopade and some of the other German groups—ostensibly for relief. In general, however, the exiles found such support diminishing while their need for assistance constantly mounted. Interest in their work decreased rapidly as each labor party found itself taken up with its own domestic problems.30

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The Western-orientated members of the S.P.D. executive in exile who did not look to the Soviet Union for succor were particularly distressed by the negative attitude of the two most influential member parties of the International, the British and the French, toward their efforts to induce the international Socialist movement to adopt a more militant stand toward Nazi Germany. "The pacifism of the Labour party has constituted the strongest support for Hitler," Hilferding wrote when universal military service was reintroduced in Germany in 1935. He claimed that it was above all the fault of that party that the Socialist parties of the West in 1933 and 1934 failed to take the leadership in pursuing a militant anti-Nazi foreign policy which could then still have stopped Hitler and contributed to his overthrow without war. 31 Recalling in 1938 being told by a German Socialist in 1935 that in all likelihood only a war would end the Nazi rule, Jouhaux, leader of the French C.G.T., reported he replied that he would "never . . . permit the shedding of French blood . . . to enable you . . . to have your revolution."32 While the British Labour party about 1937 abandoned its policy of urging negotiations with Hitler to save peace and strongly condemned the Munich settlement, it nevertheless continued to discount the gloomy predictions of the German Socialists that war was practically inevitable. The majority of French Socialists, however, supported their government's foreign policy and believed that the Munich settlement had been necessary to maintain world peace. The Scandinavian, Belgian, Dutch, and Swiss Socialists sought to escape from being drawn through the International into commitments which might conflict with the neutrality policies of their countries, to which they too were pledged. They accused the exiled German and Austrian representatives in the International of endeavoring to use that body to start a war which would overthrow Hitler and allow them to return home. The long-time secretary general of the International, Friedrich Adler, an Austrian, had to resign and was replaced by a Belgian thought less in sympathy with the cause of the exiles. The representative structure of the Council was altered to prevent any future "embarrassment" for these smaller parties through resolutions of the International. For all practical purposes—particularly for the German Social Democratic leaders in exile—the Labor and Socialist International "ceased to function

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as a political agency" after Munich.33 Once again—as in 1914—the national interests and international professions of its member parties proved to be incompatible when put to the test. Exodus from Czechoslovakia Like the Fascist and Communist totalitarian regimes, the Nazis took considerable pains to discredit their exiled opponents and silence their agitation against the regime. Nazi propaganda from the first labeled the Sopade "the center of agitation against the New Germany" and claimed it was organized by traitors who vainly sought to restore the "corrupt" democratic state and regain their lucrative sinecures. Most of the political exiles and their families were deprived of their German citizenship, and such property as they had left behind was confiscated. This seriously aggravated their legal and economic status abroad, particularly after Nansen passports and similar documents no longer sufficed to accommodate the growing demand for the all-essential identification papers. The political and economic situation, moreover, made it more and more difficult for German anti-Nazis to procure residence and travel permits for various European countries, not to mention the economic hardship created by the almost impossible task to procure working permits for stateless refugees in most continental countries.34 Known friends and relatives of the exiles were frequently imprisoned as hostages by the German government and compelled to write letters pleading with the émigrés to desist from further activities against the regime. Heavy penalties were handed out to "treasonable collaborators" of the anti-Nazi exiles caught by the Gestapo, which went to considerable efforts to discover them. Like most exile groups, the German anti-Nazi organizations were infiltrated by agents, posing as refugees, tourists, even as emissaries of the domestic resistance movement. Evidence which came to light after the fall of the Third Reich indicated that the Gestapo was on the whole well informed about the exiles and their activities. In April, 1935, the Sopade asserted that hundreds of Nazi agents were operating abroad.35 In later years the rumored activities of the Gestapo within the anti-Nazi exile colonies not only intensified

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mutual distrust among the émigrés, but throughout Europe rendered suspect all Germans, no matter how much they claimed to belong to "the other Germany." For quite some time the Sopade interpreted the reported operations of Gestapo agents among the German exiles as simply indicative of growing concern over émigrés activities among the Nazis. A number apparently penetrated into the Sopade organization, but where their activities came to light the executive claimed that little damage had been done. In August, 1934, the secretary of the German Social Democratic relief committee in Sweden was reported to have turned over to the Gestapo confidential listings of anti-Nazis in Germany. In spring, 1936, Czech police discovered that an employee of the Sopade's relief committee in Prague had permitted a German agent to photograph secret listings of supporters of the executive in Germany who had assisted others to escape. This discovery was reported to have resulted in the wholesale arrest of numerous Sopade agents and was at once cited by the opponents of the executive as new evidence that the old leaders were obviously unfit to lead a conspiratorial organization.36 The rulers of the Third Reich also sought to extend the terror against their opponents inside Germany into the exile camp. Several émigrés were assassinated by German agents, others barely escaped. Such direct methods proved to be rather unpopular abroad at a time when German diplomats were trying to convince the world of the pacific character of their government. Accordingly, the Gestapo switched to kidnaping exiles in order to pass "judgment" upon them safely inside Germany. In 1935 a wave of such abductions terrorized the exile colonies and border secretariats along the German borders with Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Lithuania—and especially Czechoslovakia. Communists, Socialists, liberal democrats were time and again dragged into automobiles which took them screaming across the border into Germany.37 These violations of the sovereignty of Nazi Germany's smaller neighbors created new unwelcome indignation abroad, and once more the Gestapo altered its methods. Some not too successful efforts were made to convince foreign governments that they harbored German criminals who should be extradited under international agreements.38 Somewhat more effective were promises of immunity from prose-

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cution to anti-Nazis exiles who would return home. A few of the more gullible, believing news of death or serious illness among close relatives in Germany, did return, only to find the police waiting.39 As the novelist Heinrich Mann had told his fellow exiles as early as 1934, the haven they had found among Germany's neighbors was precarious and their own security was closely linked to the continuing state of world security in the face of known German aggressive intentions.40 All earlier Nazi moves had failed to strike at the roots of the émigré opposition. With the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the casting off of the kid gloves in Germany's diplomatic relations with its smaller neighbors, the Hitler regime began to move in earnest against the nation which harbored most of the anti-Nazi exiles' groups—Czechoslovakia. Among the smaller of Germany's neighbors the republic of Czechoslovakia had probably been the most generous in opening its borders to liberal and Socialist opponents of the Third Reich, and also to Communists and dissident Nazis. Prague and other cities of Czechoslovakia became the seats of numerous exile centers from where the fight against Nazi Germany continued. "We are proud to provide a haven for the German refugees," Premier Eduard Benes—himself once an exile—declared in 1933, "just as America, England, and France were once proud to offer an asylum to victims of political persecution."41 In response to repeated diplomatic representations by the German government, the Czechs had insisted that the exiles had the democratic right to work against the Nazi dictatorship on their territory as long as they plotted no "violent" acts against the German rulers. The Czech police, under instruction from its government, had done what it could to protect the anti-Nazi exiles from plots of the Gestapo. Benes and his government adhered to the liberal democratic principles regarding the rights of political exiles which had grown out of the revolutionary conflicts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By 1936 political and economic conditions made it increasingly difficult for the Czechoslovak government to adhere to the liberal principles to which it had pledged itself in 1933. The ever-growing flood of political and racial victims of nazism—after February, 1934, swelled by Austrian Socialists fleeing the Schuschnigg gov-

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ernment—that entered the Czechoslovak republic provided the small county already plagued with severe unemployment, with enormous economic and social problems. It proved impossible to provide most refugees with working permits and the number of relief cases among them, therefore, mounted steadily. President Benes and members of the government were subjected to political attacks —notably from the conservative Agrarian party which was one of the most powerful members of the government coalition—for treating the exiles too liberally. Even earlier, foreign and domestic political developments had begun to undermine the ability of the Benes government to stand by its pledges to the exiles. In international affairs the government felt its position weakened by the disintegration of the Little Entente, the German-Polish treaty of 1934, Hungarian and Polish animosity toward Czechoslovakia, and German pressure upon both Austria and Czechoslovakia, while neither France nor Britain appeared prepared to resist the revisionist powers. Domestically the situation of the German anti-Nazis was seriously affected by the emergence of the Nazi-supported Sudeten German party as one of the largest parties in the elections of May, 1935, while the Sudeten German Social Democrats lost half their voters. It was not long before the Czech government began to feel the impact of mounting German pressure ostensibly on behalf of the German minority. President Benes sought to meet it, indicating his desire to come to a "friendly" understanding with Germany on outstanding issues between the two countries.42 About the time of the victory of the Sudeten German party in the elections of 1935, the various German exile groups in Czechoslovakia suddenly found themselves more closely controlled and experiencing increasing difficulties with the authorities. Entire issues of the Netter Vorwärts were confiscated before publication, at other times the government censor insisted on the deletion of articles which might embarrass the government. The Sopade pleaded in vain that the democratic nations should not curb the endeavors of the exiles to spread the truth about Nazi Germany in spite of increased German pressure; but the restrictions multiplied. Early in 1936 fifteen exiled German Communists were arrested in Prague, charged with meddling in internal Czech affairs and

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smuggling anti-Nazi propaganda into Germany. The latter, at least, was an offense of which all anti-Nazi exiles had been guilty for three years—with the full knowledge of the government. Now, however, the Czech authorities declared that they were determined "to suppress similar activities by political refugees they permit to dwell in their country."43 The anti-Nazi exiles in Czechoslovakia began to sense that something was afoot; to fear that they and their cause were to be sacrificed to appease Nazi Germany.44 There were rumors—at once denied by the Czechs—that the political émigrés were to be extradited.45 Evidently, diplomatic pressure on the Czechoslovak government was mounting. According to Benes, secret conversations on outstanding issues between Czechoslovakia and Germany broke down late in 1936. Protracted negotiations with the Sudeten German party led to what the Czechs considered "extensive new concessions" in February, 1937, but German pressure continued.48 In spring, 1937, the Nazi press began to attack Czechoslovakia as a Bolshevist revolutionary center that was a source of danger to its neighbors.47 Apparently provoked by the knowledge that the German embassy in Prague was providing directives and funds to the Sudeten German party, the Sopade unwisely became involved in a so-called "domestic dispute" by criticizing Henlein, the party's leader.48 Meanwhile the Czech government was apparently under considerable pressure from Western statesmen to ease the friction with Germany which demanded a less provocative and more cooperative attitude on issues that irked the Nazi rulers. In June the Czechoslovak government dealt the Sopade and other anti-Nazi organizations a crippling blow when all German exiles were ordered to quit the border provinces immediately. In effect, this meant the abandonment of the border secretariats and other liaison points between the exiles and their contacts in Germany. President Benes took pains to inform the German government that "the transplanting of the émigrés''' to the interior had been under his personal direction and had been "carried out with the utmost vigor"; no "individual considerations . . . with regard to possibility of livelihood" had been shown "until the uncontrollable mass had been removed from the frontier areas."49 However, that was not enough. The German minister informed the Czech govern-

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ment "that we could no longer tolerate the fact that, under the protection of the Czechoslovak government numerous émigré newspapers were inciting opinion against the Third Reich and insulting the German government." He "especially pointed out the dangerous nature of . . . [the Sopade's] publishing house and the Sopade Reports" to President Benes and announced that only "if such press activity were put an end to . . . would the atmosphere be created in which efforts might be made toward a political détente."50 To what extent British pressure upon the Czechoslovak government forced the latter's hand is not quite clear, but that some pressure was brought to bear by the British ambassador in Prague seems, in view of the subsequent events that led to Munich, not at all unlikely. Benes, claims Stampfer, let the Sopade know late in 1937 that, while he had been able to withstand German demands to curb the exiles, the weight of British pressure proved too much for him.®1 In any case, there was no longer any doubt that the exiles were the sacrificial offering which Hitler was demanding from Czechoslovakia if tension was to be eased. The Czechs informed the German government that they "recognized the importance of a satisfactory settlement of the émigré question for the normalization of . . . relations" and promised further "positive" measures to ease the "heavy burden" which the exiles had become for Czechoslovakia.52 In fall, 1937, after conversations with the Nazi government, the Czech government banned the street sale of the Neuer Vorwärts and other anti-Nazi exile publications. It informed the German government that it "realized, however, that this was only a step toward the goal aimed at" and promised "further measures" toward restricting the activities of the exiles. President Benes assured the German minister Eisenlohr of his desire for friendship with the Third Reich, but explained that "up to the present he had been obliged by domestic political considerations to tolerate this press so far as it was legal." However, "he fully agreed . . . that the matter must now be cleared up," Eisenlohr reported to Berlin.53 Toward the end of 1937 Benes advised the Sopade through the Sudeten German Social Democrats that he could no longer resist the pressure to prohibit its publications and outlaw its activities; he, therefore, asked that the Sopade voluntarily move to some other

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country lest he would be forced to outlaw its activities. On December 10, 1937, the Czechoslovak minister informed the German Foreign Office that the Neuer Vorwärts, as well as similar publications, would cease publication "within a few weeks," and expressed the hope that amiable relations between the two countries could now be restored.54 The exiled Social Democratic leaders had no choice but to pack their bags and seek haven elsewhere. They refused Benes's offer to remain as silent guests and requested the French Popular Front government to let the Sopade continue its fight from Paris. "We have no cause to look back upon the year that has passed with satisfaction or to greet the new with optimism," wrote the Neuer Vorwärts in one of its last issues from Prague. "Despotism is still on the advance . . . [and] there is no power that dares oppose it." The liberty of Hitler's opponents was being bartered away by the European powers in order to save the peace—appeasement of Nazi Germany could not preserve the peace of the world. Peace and freedom were not for barter, and the denial of freedom to some men ought to be the concern of all men, as the past five years had shown. "The suppression of freedom in Germany has now evolved into a threat to the liberty of its neighbors . . . and we, who fight for the German people and their freedom . . . fight simultaneously for preservation of the freedom of all of Europe and the peace of the world," declared the Social Democratic leaders, taking leave from Czechoslovakia. "This is our task of which we are so certain that not even the bitterest experience will change our faith in it. . . . Where we stand and where we go, we shall remain what we are."55

Chapter 7 Finale

God preserve us from the exile colonies and the exile conflicts. —V. I. Lenin

Centrifugal Forces Among the Exiles The vast majority of so-called refugees who left Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1935 were probably genuine exiles, distinguished from other emigrants by their hope and determination to return as soon as political conditions would permit it. Former functionaries of outlawed parties, anti-Nazi journalists, pacifists, they had gone abroad not necessarily for fear of direct persecution, but often voluntarily in order to fight Hitler more effectively from foreign soil, or simply because they had found the intellectual and moral climate in the Third Reich intolerable. No figures concerning the size of this group can be considered entirely reliable—in part because only those who legally resided abroad could be accounted for —and estimates have varied widely. The best available data indicate that of about 63,300 persons classified as refugees who left Germany in 1933 the greater number by far remained in European countries, particularly in France and Czechoslovakia, the major centers of the anti-Nazi exile colonies. About 1935 the size and character of the anti-Nazi emigration from Germany began to change. Victims of Hitler's racial policies began to leave by the tens of thousands. While the total number of emigrants increased rapidly, the percentage of exiles among them appears to have steadily declined. Rather than consider their residence abroad temporary and, therefore, remain in Europe,

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more and more sought permanent settlement in non-European countries, particularly in Palestine and the United States. While in 1933 about 83 per cent of the anti-Nazi refugees had remained in Europe, by 1935 this number had dropped to 54 per cent and by the end of 1937 to 38 per cent. As of this latter date, genuine exiles constituted probably still about half of some 58,200 refugees remaining in Europe. This belief seems to be borne out by the fact that, while "Aryans" constituted only about 14 per cent of the total number of refugees in 1937, they made up close to 50 per cent of those living in European countries.1 E S T I M A T E D G E O G R A P H I C D I S T R I B U T I O N OF G E R M A N R E F U G E E S ,

1933 France Czechoslovakia Great Britain Scandinavian countries . . . . Other European countries . . .

25,000 5,000 2,500 2,500 17,600

Europe Non-European countries

52,600 10,700

Total

. . . .

1935

Pet. 83 17

63,300

10,000 1,600 2,500 1,000 28,600 43,700 36,800 80,500

1933-1937

1937

Pet. 54 46

10,600 3,500 5,000 2,700 22,000 58,200 97,800

Pet. 38 62

156,000

SOURCE: Compiled from materials and d a t a cited in note 5.

However, a trend developed even among the political and intellectual exiles—particularly the younger ones—to cut emotional and political ties to Germany. The growing feeling that nazism had not simply changed the political system of Germany but transformed the entire country, prompted many exiles to attempt a "conscious transplantation" of their existence to a new homeland.2 Increasing restrictions upon the employment in various European countries, the threat of being deported by the governments of nations which found the exiles both a political and economic burden, the arbitrariness of public officials abroad toward the stateless, and perhaps above all, their rapidly deteriorating economic status induced an increasing number of exiles to apply for immigration visas to overseas nations that expected them to become permanent residents. For the political emigre this implied giving up the hope and the struggle to return home as a result of a revolution in

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Germany; it meant making the psychological transition which differentiated the exile from the bona fide refugee. But more and more chose to take that road. Sadly the Neuer Vorwärts commented in January, 1938: "Who would have guessed in 1933 how far the German political emigration would be scattered?"3 Beginning in 1938 a mass flight developed from Nazi antiSemitic terror which swamped the remaining German political émigrés in Europe. Those who were reported to have left Germany and its newly annexed possessions in 1938 were said to have exceeded the total number of previous emigrants from the Third Reich. Less than one-third stayed in Europe, usually not voluntarily but of necessity. The sudden flood of requests for permission to enter countries overseas now brought into play quota restrictions in these nations, which left thousands stranded in transit. Those countries which became their reluctant hosts would not, and usually could not, provide employment for this multitude, the overwhelming majority of which was almost entirely dependent upon public and private charity. Particularly the smaller neighbors of Germany sought to rid themselves of their unwanted guests. In May, 1938, the Dutch government, for example, refused retroactively to the preceding March to accept any more emigrants, forcing hundreds who had arrived in the interval to seek refuge in other countries or face deportation. Other countries would admit only those who could prove that they were only passing through en route overseas.4 By 1939 the political exiles, "Aryan" and "non-Aryan," had dwindled to a minority of at best 20 per cent of some estimated 50,000-60,000 German emigrants who remained in Europe, Social Democrats and Communists constituting a majority. Many lacked proper credentials to apply for employment, emigrate, or often simply to reside legally in a European country. The international agencies that were endeavoring to help German refugees to find new homes overseas could be of no assistance to exiles who clung to their European bases of operation, knowing that emigration to Africa or America would remove them from the anti-Nazi battlefield which alone still gave their existence a raison d'être. Jewish relief agencies on the whole were not interested in nonJewish refugees, while the resources of the political exiles' own re-

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lief organizations and private organizations, such as the American Emergency Committee in Aid of Political Refugees from Nazism, and the British Relief Committee for the Victims of Hitler Fascism, did not suffice to provide for the needs of the growing number of destitute political émigrés. Each month the pressure on the exiles to quit their activities, leave Europe, and seek a new life overseas grew stronger. T o counteract this pressure that sought to separate them from the fight against the Third Reich and to justify—above all to themselves—the humiliations, destitution, sacrifices, and frustration which political exiles experienced daily, they had to cling to the belief that all was not yet lost, that there was still cause to continue the fight. These men and women struggled desperately to justify themselves and their work, to believe that it was of vital importance, and that they were upholding the cause of "the other Germany." Each little faction had to claim that it alone remained as the last "true" representative of anti-Nazi opposition in Germany. T o abandon this faith, to admit that the exiles had lost their raison d'être could only lead to assimilation in a new "fatherland" or to suicide.5 As a result of these pressures, the centrifugal forces which had plagued the anti-Nazi political emigration from the very first became far more severe. The exiles had brought with them most of the intense ideological and intellectual differences that were so characteristic of German political life, the accustomed notions of class and caste differences, and the political factionalism which had already led the political life of the Weimar Republic at times to assume anarchic aspects. Most of the numerous German exile groups which had emerged after 1933 formed along patterns predetermined by the political and social conflicts of the past and reflected from the very beginning the disunity which was characteristic of the movements and political trends before the fall of the Weimar Republic.6 Differences of opinion and factionalism are common to all political groups, but the intensity which seems to characterize such disputes within émigré colonies far transcends the norm. Embittered by defeat and deprived of real power or the opportunity and the hope to achieve it, the frustrated generals-withoutarmy appear to pour all their energies into mutual recriminations

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and bitter personal attacks. In this particular case the normal pattern of German politics and the abnormal of exile politics combined to set the political factions against one another with almost greater intensity than against their common Nazi opponent. Representations Abroad of the liberal democratic middle-class groups of republican days, of the League of Rights of Man, of various pacifist organizations, of the Protestant Bekenntniskirche, the atheist Freidenkerbund, and Catholic anti-Nazi groups, of antiNazi German Nationalists and anti-Hitler National Socialists, of the German branch of the Comintern, the K.P.D., and its numerous anti-Soviet, but Communist opponents—quite apart from the various Social Democratic factions—had been established in profusion all over Europe in the first few years. Émigré publishing houses were set up in Prague and Paris, in Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Zurich, Stockholm, Moscow, and Warsaw. Each group claimed to speak for the "opposition inside Germany" and all of them published at least one newsletter, paper, or journal. Sternfeld lists twenty-two "genuine" German exile publications that were published in Europe alone between 193 3 and 1939, and he does not include the multigraph newsletters that were distributed in profusion by the many smaller groups that could not afford the costs of printing. Their audience being limited, the circulation figures of such publications were small; the Sopade's Neuer Vorwàrts, reduced to some 5,000 copies in the later years, was by far the largest publication among them.T The increasing destitution of their exile readers and the mounting disinterestedness of non-German subscribers in what the German anti-Nazis had to say, forced more and more of these papers, journals, and publishing houses, to shut down. The atomization of the political groups in the exile colonies had as its by-product the constant appearance of new publications which before long disappeared again in the competitive struggle for a limited number of potential subscribers. Each group sought to maintain its own separate network of agents, couriers, and border secretariats; each laid claim to a net of informants inside Germany who were said to be the sources for the innumerable "inside" reports put out by the anti-Nazis exiles principally for non-German readers. Competition was fierce from the start and became fiercer as the situation

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of the political exiles deteriorated. "Each group spied upon the other" and "much effort was spent luring couriers away from other groups," according to Cahen; worse, the ever-present fear of the Gestapo and its spies reportedly prompted the various groups to denounce one another as Nazi agents to the authorities of their haven countries. 8 Ultimately, émigré publications which—like those of the Sopade—had been founded to serve as the core and cement of a German revolutionary movement—so far as they managed to survive at all—were reduced to house organs of the various groups that strove to keep the scattered remnants of the exiled followers in contact with their leaders. T h e paying subscribers contributed to maintain publications which alone still could justify the existence of a central office for each exile group; the latter, in turn, had only its circulation figures—which were kept strictly secret—to estimate the remaining number of its supporters. More and more of the political exiles sought to break the ties with the past and with Germany by emigrating overseas. Others escaped the tragedy of their exile existence by suicide. "I have nothing left for this country whose language I use as infrequently as possible," declared Kurt Tucholsky, once a well-known and brilliant radical journalist, in a bitter denunciation of Germany, the Germans, and those who sought to make it their business in exile to "save" them from nazism, which he penned before his suicide. "May it perish," he wrote of his former fatherland, "may Russia conquer it, I am through with it." Tucholsky advised his fellow exiles that the game was up and ridiculed them for continuing as if nothing had happened, still writing "the same old books" and making "the same old speeches, the same old gestures." 9 The Executive in Paris With the permission, if not the encouragement, of the Popular Front government of an old friend and fellow reformist Socialist, Leon Blum, the members of the Sopade moved their headquarters to the Rue des Ecoles in Paris in the late spring of 1938.10 T h e French republic, for more than a century a favorite haven for political exiles, had at first opened its gates freely to the German

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anti-Nazis. They were afforded complete liberty of action and, in some cases, their activities against the Third Reich apparently even received some semiofficial financial support. This generally cordial attitude toward the anti-Nazi émigrés was not only rooted in the traditional French principle embodied in the Jacobin constitution of 1793, that France was "an asylum to all who, on account of liberty, are banished from their country," but a number of French leaders apparently believed that "affording succor to the exiles would build up powerful pro-French anti-Hitler sentiments among large blocks of the German people themselves."11 Some Frenchmen, who recognized the Nazi threat to their country, seem to have nursed the hope that it might be removed as a result of the exiles' revolutionary endeavors. As long as the number of exiles in France was few, the public did not look upon them as a discordant element. However, this sentiment began to change as more and more German refugees flocked to France, joined in 1934 by Austrian Socialists, in 1935 by anti-Nazi refugees from the reannexed Saar Territory, and after 1937 by thousands of Spanish Loyalists, Czechs, and more Austrians. As many as fifteen thousand German refugees are thought to have resided in France between 1938 and 1940, and most of them were in desperate economic straights. Even before the Munich conference right-wing French groups that were in sympathy with the German government strongly objected to the political activities of the anti-Nazis exiles while, on the other hand, the anti-German sentiments of many French patriots frequently made no exceptions in the case of the refugees. Moreover, France, like other European countries, was in the throes of an economic crisis. The Sopade arrived in Paris at a most inopportune moment, for the Blum government, which had shown a great deal of sympathy for the anti-Nazi exiles—and the German Socialist "comrades" in particular—was replaced by a new government led by Eduard Daladier which did not share these sentiments. The latter immediately announced that hereafter only such German refugees as could prove "a sure prospect of emigration overseas" would be admitted into France; illegal emigrants were either deported or drafted into compusory labor battalions.12 When the members of the exiled executive arrived, Paris was

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teeming with German exiles. With the expulsion of the anti-Nazi émigrés from Czechoslovakia, the Prague colony, which had consisted mostly of left-wing elements, merged with the Parisian group, that until then had included mostly exiled "bourgeois" politicians and journalists. As a result, practically the entire body politic of the anti-Nazi political emigration was now concentrated in the French capital. Most of the exiles led a kind of ghetto existence without an opportunity to have much contact with the French, according to Arthur Koestler, who was one of them; "they read their émigré papers, frequented their emigre-clubs and cafés" and "lived immersed in their émigré universe." Considering himself typical, Koestler relates that he "lived entirely in the company of fellow refugees and continued to write and think in German." 13 The German exile colony in Paris between 1938 and 1940 reflected in its political atomization the extreme heterogeneity of the anti-Nazi emigration in its latter stages. There were groups of liberal democrats, German Nationalists, Catholics, and dissident National Socialists. The Socialist groups included the executive and its supporters, a faction of Rhenish and Saarland Social Democrats who refused to recognize the Sopade's leadership (Sozialistischer Landesverband Frankreichs), the New Beginners, various remnants of the Socialist Worker's party (S.A.P.), and the International Socialist Militant League (I.S.K.)—groups that had originally split away from the S.P.D. before 1933. There was a German Freedom party led by an ex-Communist chieftain, Willi Münzenberg, and the former Nazi president of the Danzig Senate, Hermann Rauschning, who, briefly and unsuccessfully, sought to create a non-Communist united front among the exiles. At least two factions of the so-called Volkssozialisten claimed to be genuine German "national Socialists." There was the Communist party (K.P.D.) and its various splinter groups, the Trotzkyites, the Communist Party Opposition (K.P.O.), and other anti-Stalinist factions. In addition, there were a number of Austrian groups including the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria (R.S.Ó.), and the exiled remnants of the Austrian Communist party. Conflicts and disputes between once powerful politicians often resulted in additionalfissionsand the formation of new and tiny groups composed of the loyal friends of these formerly prominent exiles. Each of the factions, sometimes consisting of no

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more than a dozen exiles, desperately sought funds to publish some sort of newsletter or journal to defend its position and to attack the other groups.14 Among all these groups the Sopade was in 1938 still one of the strongest and largest, and its official organ, the Neuer Vorwärts, with an estimated circulation of some 5,000 copies, commanded more readers than probably any other German anti-Nazi publication. But even at that, the executive was but a shadow of the organization that had been established in the summer of 1933. The funds which had helped to maintain its preeminent position in former years had been exhausted; the salvaged remnants of the S.P.D. archives had to be sold to the Dutch Socialists, and Stampfer visited the United States endeavoring to raise funds among such groups as the American Federation of Labor and the Jewish Labor Committee. But the yield did not suffice to meet expenses. Of the numerous publications with which the exiled executives had started out in 1933 only the Neuer Vorwärts and the Deutschlandberichte remained. The contents of the latter indicated that the Sopade's sources of intelligence concerning developments inside Nazi Germany were deteriorating with the gradual elimination of its underground contacts and the loss of the most important liaison points in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Of the large staff of 1933 only a few salaried employees were left, including most of the remaining members of the executive. And these few were accused by the rival groups of providing merely sinecures for themselves, while doing nothing for the "revolutionary cause." 15 The arrival of the executive in Paris had at once touched off a new violent dispute between the Sopade and other Socialist exile groups who denied the claim to preeminence, if not outright leadership of the German Socialist movement abroad which the executive claimed by virtue of its "mandate" of 1933. The leaders of the New Beginning faction, encouraged by the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists and financially supported by the American Friends of German Freedom in New York, spearheaded this attack. The New Beginners, having failed to dislodge the Sopade as the recognized representative of German socialism in the international labor movement in 1933 and 1934, had for some years preserved their self-imposed isolation from the other exile groups, all of whom in their

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view were the anachronistic remnants of a dead past. They had "always believed that the work of building the new revolutionary Socialist party in Germany must be done inside the country," they reported to their American supporters in February, 1938; "the quicksand character of the [exile] organizations" did not warrant expending much time and effort toward their unification especially since, for the inner development of the movement in Germany, it would but be of minor importance.16 Yet, even while it was still assuming this attitude of proud isolationism, the New Beginning group welcomed the Sopade to Paris with a sudden demand for Socialist unity. Its announced objective was to replace the Sopade with "an effective Social Democratic center" to represent the "independent" German labor movement in negotiations with the international movement and particularly in discussions with the Communists for closer cooperation. The New Beginners contended that the executive no longer had any reason for claiming preeminence among the exile groups. The Sopade's resistance groups were said to be practically nonexistent, while those of the New Beginners had grown stronger; the executive's consistent refusal to concede equality to other Socialist groups, to share its resources and authority with them, and to accept their advice, were declared to have caused tremendous damage to the anti-Nazi "proletarian" movement both inside and outside Germany; in fact, the executive was charged with primary responsibility for the atomization of the movement. On the basis of this bill of particulars the Foreign Bureau of New Beginning gave the executive the immediate alternative between joining a "Socialist concentration" of all exile groups and being completely ostracized and isolated.17 This new unity drive placed the leaders of the Sopade in a difficult position. Most of them thoroughly distrusted the intentions of New Beginning and the other left-wing Social Democratic groups who came forward in support of its proposals. They believed that they were well acquainted with the consequences of the Leninist "democratic centralism" which the left wingers had advanced as a basis for a Socialist concentration in the past and feared that their own authority and beliefs would soon be eliminated were they to agree to the proposal. Moreover, they continued

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to be as strongly opposed as ever to further unity discussions with the Communists, advocated by the proponents of Socialist concentration. Yet, the majority could not afford to slight the strong desire for greater unity expressed by many prominent Social Democratic exiles whose allegiances it wished to retain. When the Sopade came to Paris it found there Marie Juchacz and Georg Dietrich who, having been elected to the S.P.D. executive committee by the national conference of April, 1933, could claim a voice in the decisions of the exiled rump. These two, along with Paul Hertz and several former parliamentary deputies of the S.P.D., strongly pressed the reluctant majority—deprived of the strong leadership of Otto Wels, who lay sick in Copenhagen—to agree to the proposed Socialist concentration. The exiled leadership of the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists, whose appearance in Paris after the Anschluss was apparently largely responsible for the unity drive of their New Beginning friends, announced that annexation of Austria had made the revolution against Hitler a common cause of the German and Austrian people and agreed to join the concentration as a step toward an "all-German Socialist revolution." 18 The intensity of the pressure was indicated when at a meeting of members of the Social Democratic community in Paris in March, 1938, the proponents of the concentration, Karl Frank (the New Beginning leader) and Paul Hertz received the endorsement of half those present, while Hans Vogel and Friedrich Stampfer, representing the unwilling right wing of the Sopade, fell far short of getting a majority to support their position.19 In the end the Sopade agreed to cooperate in an attempt to form a German Socialist concentration.20 These developments brought to a head a bitter conflict between Paul Hertz and the rest of the Sopade. While the majority, guided by Stampfer and Geyer, had long ago abandoned the social-revolutionary principles of the January manifesto of 1934, Hertz's Sozialistische Aktion, the Sopade's underground organ, had continued to adhere to them. For better than two years the contents of that publication had been conspicuously at variance with the trend toward liberal socialism in the official Sopade proclamations and the Neuer Vorwärts. In fact, the Sozialistische Aktion had put increasing emphasis on the "capitalist" alliance with Hitler and had de-

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nounced the "bourgeoisie" as an unreliable ally in the "proletarian class struggle," while elsewhere the Sopade called for just such an alliance. A liberal and democratic program for the revolution against Hitler was strongly criticized by the underground paper, and instead of the "educational" approach to the entire German people, stressed in the Neuer Vorwarts and the Deutschlandberichte, it placed more and more emphasis on the need to train and organize elite cadres of professional revolutionaries for the coming "Socialist revolution" and a probable proletarian dictatorship—in other words, the New Beginning program. These increasingly glaring contradictions had seemed for a time purely tactical variations in the Sopade's appeal to various strata of German society, particularly to the Communists, who charged the "social fascist" leaders with hypocritically wooing simultaneously the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Now, however, it became clear that a fundamental split had developed within the Sopade. Hertz revealed that since the majority, in his opinion, had not lived up to the "revolutionary" principles and promises of support for other Socialist groups contained in the 1934 manifesto, he had, on his own responsibility, quietly invited the New Beginners to write for the Sozialistische Aktion and placed Sopade agents at their disposal. Such, he said, was his interpretation of the Sopade's duties derived from the mandate which the executive claimed to hold. His colleagues considered his action outrageous and disloyal, suspended publication of the Sozialistische Aktion—ostensibly for financial and tactical reasons—in March, 1938, and the following June excluded Hertz from future meetings of the executive. The latter, after having vainly demanded a return to the Sopade's social-revolutionary position of 1933-1934 and cooperation with the left-wing groups toward a reorganization and concentration of the Socialist opposition to Hitler, became openly a leader of the New Beginning group. The entire episode, filled with arcrimonious arguments and bitter personal accusations, bore witness to the psychological tensions of émigré life which now were leading to the final disintegration of the Sopade.21 That the question of genuine unity had actually become academic by 1938 was revealed by the heated exchanges regarding the whys and hows of Socialist concentration. The Austrian Rev-

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olutionary Socialists denied the Sopade any claim to speak for German social democracy, but praised the New Beginning faction as being "politically the most advanced . . . force in the German movement." Joseph Buttinger, their spokesman, proposed that all the various groups, large and small, receive an equal voice in a unity council that was to create a new Socialist party of the German working class.22 The New Beginners, in turn, enthusiastically endorsed this proposal of their Austrian friends and urged that all groups proceed at once toward the formation of a "provisional united foreign representation" of German socialism, leaving the ironing out of bothersome ideological and tactical differences between them to the future. "Nothing less than the preparation of the German Socialist revolution is at stake," they insisted.23 Representatives of the left-wing Socialist Workers' party (S.A.P.) welcomed a Socialist concentration as a step toward the creation of a revolutionary unity party that was to include the Communists as well. They, however, insisted that the participating groups first of all agree to unite only on the basis of a "firm Socialist orientation" and a definitive "revolutionary Socialist" program, and that they bar, if necessary, such groups as might refuse to accept unity on these terms.24 The majority of the Sopade leaders was bound to balk at unity proposals which would all but eliminate their influence in a Socialist concentration and express only the will of the left-wing groups. Stampfer replied that the executive committee had been charged by the Social Democratic movement in 1933 "with the duty to safeguard the banner of German social democracy until it could be returned some day to a liberated Germany." He declared that the executive made no claim to control the other groups and would gladly serve as a core for concentration, as indicated by its resolution of March, 1938; but it would never betray its mandate of 1933 by surrendering its trusteeship to a self-constituted new leadership or even so much as share it with any other group or groups. Nor would it participate in any move to create a new party from among the exile groups.25 Less diplomatically and more brusquely, another member of the last-elected S.P.D. executive, Wilhelm Sollmann, wrote from the United States that to unite groups which had nothing in common

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would weaken rather than strengthen the movement; to harness together individuals who by their very nature, their political opinions, and their political morality were bound to clash, would simply produce new destructive friction through endless and senseless discussions. Any real agreement with the Left, was, in his view, entirely out of the question, since differences which had caused serious division between Social Democrats in the past, had only been greatly aggravated by five years of exile.26 "Does Stampfer, does the Sopade, really believe that the old Social Democratic movement still lives?" replied the New Beginners. As far as they were concerned it did not, and those who claimed to represent it had but the choice of assisting in the "necessary" creation of a new movement or isolating themselves from all the other groups. T o attempt to preserve in exile the old traditions until some day a Social Democratic party might be resurrected in Germany, struck them as ridiculous.27 The matter was settled when at a conference with the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists on August 31, 1938, the Sopade turned down the latter's proposals for the formation of a "cartel of German Socialist organizations," as "such a cartel would be recognizing the independence of the various factions of German social democracy and would perpetuate rather than remove the factionalism which divides these groups." 28 Thereafter, the polarization of the Social Democratic camp into a right-wing element behind the Sopade and a left-wing element formed around the New Beginning group by the S.A.P. and some other small revolutionary Socialist factions proceeded unchecked. Hatred and suspicion, jealousy and a competitive struggle for recognition and funds from abroad—particularly the United States— alienated the exiles from one another to such an extent that the idea of a genuine Socialist concentration had to be entirely abandoned. Differences of personality and age, widely conflicting interpretations of the Marxist legacy, ethical versus materialist socialism, authoritarian versus liberal democratic concepts, humanist, populist, revolutionary, militant, and any number of other varieties of socialism could not be reconciled. Moreover, with the increasing certainty that war would soon come, the problem of the position of the exiles in such a conflict assumed increasing significance.

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Were they to join forces with the opponents of the Third Reich or should they, like Lenin in 1914, call down a plague upon both sides as imperialist? Under the sociopsychological and economic pressure to which the exiles were exposed, the necessary minimum of tolerance and agreement, which alone might have checked the centrifugal forces that were rapidly atomizing them, proved to be lacking. Nor did it prove possible to bring the Sopade and its supporters into closer alliance with liberal middle class and other non-Socialist exile groups. Between 1938 and 1940 the old Social Democratic leaders by choice and by circumstances remained a small and embittered group of generals without an army, ignored by the outside world and ostracized by their fellow emigres. Exiles Among the Exiles Stampfer maintained that personal rather than tactical or ideological differences divided the Socialist exiles. Although this was to a large extent true, he and his associates verbalized these differences most effectively in ideological terms that made the Sopade and the camp of the social revolutionaries appear as extreme antipodes.29 "The present leadership of German social democracy is an extension [ Wesensfortsetzung] of the old party and its traditional ideals," insisted Curt Geyer, editor of the Neuer Vorwärts, shortly before the outbreak of war. The Sopade represented the genuine tradition of Weimar social democracy, liberal democratic socialism; the position of its opponents, however, he defined as the end product of the social revolutionary tradition. The Sopade, declared Geyer, was determined to resist to the last the attempts of the "orthodox Marxist faction" to take over the leadership of German socialism in order to impose in the name of a "new beginning" an alien, dogmatic, authoritarian, "Bolshevist" pattern upon liberal German social democracy. Geyer defined the disputes about the future of the Social Democratic party, about the nature of the coming revolution, the tactics and character of the party, as an extension into exile of the old and persistent conflict between "the Marxist school and the realistic supporters of liberal socialism." While the "orthodox Marxist faction" was said to have always sought

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a proletarian dictatorship through a social revolution, Geyer claimed that the Sopade, true to its mandate, to the traditional liberal principles and the political realism of German socialism in the past, wanted nothing for the present but a political revolution that would restore to all Germans, regardless of class, democracy, liberty, and the rule of law. A strong bond was still said to unite old Social Democrats in Germany and their central leadership in exile and to surrender to the "orthodox Marxists" would be to betray the men from whom the executive claimed to have received its mandate; it would mean the surrender of the traditional ideology and to permit the transformation of the "character, aims, and spirit" of the old movement "into something altogether different from what it has been and still is." 30 Ostracized by their fellow exiles and ignored by the world, the remnants of the exiled executive arrived in 1939 at the terminal point of what Geyer termed a process of "ideological revisionism" that followed "the temporary renaissance of social-revolutionary Marxism" of the winter 1933-34. 31 The Sopade's abandonment of the last elements of the revolutionary Marxist heritage of German social democracy was defended by the spokesman of the executive, Geyer, as being entirely in the spirit of the mandate of 1933; the Sopade had merely chosen to resume the "realistic" course away from revolutionary Marxism which had been followed by the leadership of the S.P.D. since 1914. Looking backward, men like Otto Wels and Friedrich Stampfer believed that what they and their colleagues in the S.P.D. leadership had then accomplished had been all for the best.32 The "Christian, liberal, and Socialist humanitarian principles," represented by the Weimar Republic and its constitution, embodied for Stampfer the same fundamental spirit which he hoped to see resurrected in Germany after Hitler.33 The "party of liberty," represented by the Sopade, stood for the great humanitarian and liberal ideals of the French Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, insisted Geyer. "We consider ourselves a part of the great spiritual movement of recent centuries which today survives in liberalism as well as socialism," he wrote, "because both are based upon the same fundamental ideals of liberty and humanitarianism." This liberal socialism, the creed of the exiled executive as presented by Stampfer and

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Geyer in 1939, neither adhered to the concept of a proletariancapitalist class struggle nor the principles of the eschatological mission of the working class. The battle " f o r the realization of the happiness and freedom of all men" could not recognize a special right or special morality for the working class.34 Geyer maintained that the Sopade's resistance to the "creation of a [new Socialist] party of the proletarian dictatorship" was based not alone upon its determination to preserve the liberal character of the Social Democratic movement, but constituted the only "realistic" approach to the unification of the German opposition in the battle to restore the fundamental ideals of European civilization in Germany. He denied categorically that the Third Reich was a dictatorship of the "capitalist bourgeoisie," as leftwing Socialists and Communists maintained. Germany was not ruled by a class "which could be defined in accordance with the Marxist class theory, but a military-bureaucratic caste." 35 The vast majority of the German bourgeoisie had opposed the Third Reich from the start, wrote Stampfer in 1939, while it had to be admitted that the so-called proletariat neither had had the strength to prevent Hitler from coming to power nor had opposed him since 1933 to the extent that the bourgeoisie had; it was unfortunate, but true, that the workers rather than the bourgeoisie constituted Hitler's supporters in Germany. Therefore, only in cooperation with "nonproletarian" anti-Nazi elements could social democracy hope to effect a change in Germany. 36 T o proclaim a class dictatorship as the aim of social democracy was labeled "political stupidity," as it would antagonize rather than attract these groups. It was not opportunism, as the left wingers charged, but realism, these Sopade spokesmen maintained, to seek the support of likeminded bourgeois elements both inside and outside Germany. 37 Going even further, Wilhelm Sollmann pronounced class socialism and class politics bankrupt and to a large extent responsible for the shortcomings of social democracy in Weimar Germany. In the Western democracies and Scandinavia he professed to see the models for future German socialism; patriotic reformist and populist labor parties, freely cooperating with bourgeois parties for the welfare of the entire nation. This type of social democracy, Sollmann declared, was not based on the materialistic interpretation

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of history, the class struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat, but on love for justice and freedom, respect for human dignity, on faith that the progress of society and the rationality of men would some day produce "a community of brothers and sisters."38 The collapse of the International and the predisposition among Socialist parties of Western and Northern Europe to place national interests before international working-class cooperation strongly influenced this "realistic reorientation" of the position of German social democracy by its exiled executive. Despite the appeasement temper which prevailed not only among large groups of conservatives in the West, but among labor leaders as well, the remnants of the old S.P.D. leadership maintained that ideologically as well as realistically German social democracy had to take its stand on the side of the Western democracies. They informed these nations that the Sopade sought only the restoration of Western democracy and liberalism in Germany and claimed in return the support of the West for their fight; not only against Hitler, but against orthodox Marxism as well, maintaining that it was a battle for the same principles which the democratic nations professed to be defending.39 On the other hand, the Sopade remained adamant in its opposition to Communism and rejected every invitation to join other German exiles in endorsing the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. After the Munich settlement of 1938 the united-front idea was resuscitated, as numerous Socialists and liberals once more turned toward the Soviet Union as the only power which seemed to them determined to resist Nazi aggression. The movement toward a Socialist concentration among the German exiles in Paris reached its high-water mark in the spring and summer of 1939, while Great Britain and France were negotiating with Russia for the formation of a grand alliance against Germany. Various left-wing groups among the German and Austrian Socialist exiles, proclaiming that a future Socialist Germany depended upon the earliest possible creation of a united social-revolutionary party of the German proletariat and the wholehearted cooperation of such a party with the Soviet Union, formed a joint "working committee" of German and Austrian Socialists (Arbeitsausschuss deutscher Sozialisten und der revolutionären Sozialisten Österreichs) .40 The announced purpose of the concentration was to work out a friendlier relationship with the Communists and to proclaim

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the position of the revolutionary Socialist anti-Nazi resistance with regard to the current diplomatic negotiations between Russia and the Western powers. In April, 1939, the participating groups joined the German and Austrian Communist parties in issuing an "appeal to the German and Austrian workers" which pledged the signatories to work as the avant-garde of a German Socialist revolution in close cooperation with the Soviet Union. As for the "old bureaucratic party leaders" of the Sopade who refused to participate in the unification move, the signers of the manifesto declared that even without them they were certain of speaking for all the active revolutionary elements of German socialism.41 "Among the powers which, in case of war, will fight against Germany the Soviet Union will be the only one whose war aims will not be of an imperialist nature [and] on whose support the German revolutionaries must and can depend," predicted a confidential memorandum entitled, The Coming World War, prepared by the leaders of the New Beginners and the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists for the working committee.42 They predicted that after the certain defeat of Nazi Germany in the coming war—"an imperialist war for the redistribution of the world" so far as the Western democracies were concerned—the "imperialist" Western powers would support the German bourgeoisie in preventing a Socialist solution in Germany; and the authors maintained that a united revolutionary party of the German proletariat would face very much the situation confronting the Bolshevists in Russia in 1917. In view of the expected opposition of the imperialist powers to "the assumption of power by the working class," close cooperation between the German social revolutionaries and the Soviet Union would be "matter of life and death for . . . a revolutionary Germany." Since Soviet Russia would not want the power of the capitalist nations to become too great after the war, its military support for those who would fight against the reestablishment of socalled democratic liberties and national independence in Germany and other nations subjugated by Hitler was thought certain. And it was expected to be desperately needed in the fight of the revolutionary Socialists to crush the opposition of the bourgeoisie to a Socialist revolution and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat. The Sopade preferred ostracism to joining the movement to

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align the German Socialist exiles on the side of the Soviet Union, though this opposition brought upon it the wrath of the left-wing groups, who insisted the executive had forfeited any right to speak for German Social Democrats. "The partisans of Soviet Russia are not the 'German Opposition,' " insisted Geyer in the Neuer Vorwärts, "nor can the German Opposition become the partisan of Soviet Russia under the pretext of an alliance." He refused to see Soviet Russia as the guardian of a democratic Germany and, therefore, declined to place Germany's future for better or for worse in Russia's hands. "We cannot . . . at one and the same time profess to stand for a democratic and liberal constitution and for the imitation of the Bolshevist example in Germany," claimed Geyer. A future democratic Germany was both ideologically and strategically destined to belong to the West, not the East; why seek to "rejuvenate" or "unify" the Social Democratic movement if this meant "fusing it with Stalinism?"43 The hopes of the left-wing German exiles were shattered by the Nazi-Soviet pact of August, 1939. The Communists at once endorsed the agreement and savagely attacked all who failed to follow suit as "enemies of the German people" and "accomplices of British imperialism."44 The radical Socialists considered themselves cynically betrayed by the power which they had trusted to champion their cause.45 Most of them were unable to execute an about-face with the K.P.D. Neither, however, would they submit as prodigal sons to the leadership of the Sopade. Embittered and politically and ideologically homeless, the left wingers did not survive this blow. With the outbreak of the war many were interned by the French, others left the country or simply fell silent. The Sopade naturally felt its consistent opposition to a united front and communism vindicated by these developments. "There were many attempts during the last six years to lure us away from this fight which we entered with firm views and resolutions," it declared in a manifesto widely distributed in German, French, and English: If the Social Democratic party had not resisted those groups which demanded cooperation with the Communists even in the illegal activities in Germany, valuable fighters would have fallen victim to the Gestapo, and the confusion of ideas would have spread over the masses of the German Social

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Democratic workers. . . . Some minds in the rank and file could be weakened, but the party kept firm as the leaders were firm and our view and purpose remained firm.46

For Germany Against Hitler The coming of war brought the German exiles the supreme test of their moral and political convictions. Perhaps nothing in this age of national loyalties tends to bring home to the modern exile the strangeness, the abnormality of his situation, his utter loneliness and isolation, than the outbreak of war against his native land. Many an anti-Nazi exile who had departed an indifferent patriot or had considered himself above "base" national sentiments had developed a new and strong emotional attachment for his land and people while eating the bitter bread of banishment—a feeling which had grown stronger as he pined to return from lands and peoples that remained alien to him. For many German anti-Nazi émigrés—and many antiSoviet Russian and anti-Fascist Italian exiles too—the Second World War brought a conflict of loyalties and emotions that grew out of their deliberate decision to remain exiles and not to transfer their patriotic allegiances to a new fatherland. The exiled patriot who was not fighting to liberate his homeland from an alien oppressor but from a native regime was torn between an almost instinctive desire to see his people spared the agony of death, destruction, and defeat and the wish to see the annihilation of the regime which drove him into exile and which to him represented the incarnation of evil. This conflict between national loyalties and the political and moral principles which had made them exiles made it imperative for the émigrés to adhere more than ever to a rigid distinction between the Nazi regime and "the other Germany," to deny Hitler's claim to represent the entire German people and their national interest, and to insist that the battle against the Third Reich was not treason, but motivated by the patriotic desire to save Germany through the destruction of the Hitler dictatorship. Since the Munich conference the German Socialist exiles were convinced that war was inevitable, but many were less certain about their position in the pending conflict. Among the social revolutionaries lived the hope that they, somewhat like Lenin and his exiled supporters in the First World War, would be able to remain morally

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aloof from the expected imperialist conflict, collaborating with, but not supporting, the capitalist powers opposing Nazi Germany "as a preliminary to the overthrow of the fascist regime and . . . the assumption of power by the working class."47 On the opposite end of the émigré Socialist political spectrum stood right wingers like Wilhelm Sollmann, who expressed in their more extreme form both the pacifist and the patriotic traditions of German social democracy. According to Sollmann, faced with the alternative of serving in the armed forces or war industries of their hosts or internment in concentration camps, the vast majority of the German Socialist exiles would find it impossible to reconcile the patriotic fight against the Hitler dictatorship with either direct or indirect participation "in the bombardment of German cities and the shooting and bayonetting of German soldiers, millions of whom will be democrats and Socialists like ourselves." Such as would become "mercenaries" in the service of Germany's opponents would, in his view, forever sever the bonds that continued to tie the exiled patriot to his people.48 For the members of the executive there never existed a question of whether they would support Hitler's opponents in the defense of European freedom and civilization in case of war. The threat of war had been clear to them from the start, as had their position if it should come. But it was no easy choice for the remnants of a Social Democratic leadership which in 1914 had chosen to subordinate its international to its national loyalties. Bitterly Stampfer complained: "Had the civilized world treated Hitler from the very first according to his deserts, had it branded him openly the enemy of humanity that he is, had it provided his opponents in Germany with protection and assistance, the Third Reich, and with it the threat of war, would have disappeared long ago."49 As the self-proclaimed spokesmen of "the other Germany," the members of the executive insisted that unconditional opposition to the Third Reich—even in war—was patriotism in its purest form. T o the last they hoped that the German people would overthrow Hitler for the sake of self-preservation, if not for liberty, for the outcome of the conflict which threatened was clear to them. On September 1, 1939, the exiled executive committee of the S.P.D. pledged "the other Germany" to fight alongside the "demo-

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cratic forces in Europe" for the defeat of Hitler and his system and the preservation of European freedom and civilization. In the name of all "Germans who despise war and dictatorship and wish only to live in peace and freedom," the executive declared: W e are fighting for the German nation. . . . W e call upon the German people to reconquer their liberty, to overthrow Hitler. T h e destruction of his system will shorten the war, save millions from dying [and] preserve the German nation. Hitler's deeds are not in the national interest. . . . Our aim is a peace which shall make good the damage wrought by Hitler, eliminate the totalitarian system, and restore to the Germans, as to all other enslaved peoples, law and liberty. 50

With the outbreak of war this tiny and utterly isolated group of anti-Nazi émigrés more than ever considered it its responsibility to tell the world that the supposed identity of Nazi and German interests was a myth, that there was "the other Germany" which bitterly, if silently, opposed Hitler, and that, therefore, the German people were not to be held collectively responsible for Hitler's crimes. "We believe . . . in the victory of the better Germany . . . and the recovery of the German people," declared Geyer in the Neuer Vorwärts on January 7, 1940. "This faith is basic to all our political actions." Warning the Germans that they were certain to lose the war, the executive believed it to be its patriotic duty to call upon Germans to revolt before the wrath of Hitler's foreign victims would include the entire nation in their cry for revenge. The Neuer Vorwärts wrote in December 1939: T h e German people will face a terrible reckoning at the end of this war. T h e longer it lasts the worse the reckoning will be. . . . T h e Hitler regime has announced that, should it collapse, it would drag down with it everything and everybody. A r e the German people going to permit Hitler to destroy everything needed for the reconstruction of Germany? 5 1

True patriots had to realize that this war was not like other wars, and that the followers of the swastika were the enemies of the German people. T o "save the German people," the executive asked them to "crush the scoundrels that are leading them toward misery and death."52 "As the appointed spokesman of the German opposition," the executive committee condemned in strong terms the invasion of

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Scandinavia and the Low Countries in spring, 1940. It saw the future of Germany being crushed under the same heels that were now trampling upon the freedom of new victims of Nazi aggression. It proclaimed anew its solidarity with all victims of nazism, all nations violated by the Third Reich, before or after the outbreak of war. And the executive reiterated its warning to Germans that each new crime ultimately would be credited to their bill and insisted that for patriotic reasons alone "the welfare and future of Germany demands disobedience, resistance, and rebellion against the gangster mob." 53 Surrender on Demand Fearing—with reason—that German agents were operating in France in the guise of anti-Nazis, the French government had interned most German and Austrian men at the outbreak of war. While many of the German exiles were soon given back their liberty, their movements were carefully controlled by the authorities and organized political activity among them practically ceased. Most of the anti-Nazi papers stopped publication. The Social Democratic executive sought to carry on with a small staff, but the content of its publications bespoke the fact that its purported inside information from Germany was often based more on wishful thinking than reliable facts.54 Almost all contacts with the country had been severed and probably few Germans ever saw the Sopade's appeals for revolution. Of the nine members of the 1933 exiled executive in Prague, only Stampfer, Vogel, Rinner, and Ollenhauer remained; Wels died two weeks after the outbreak of war; Crummenerl had preceded him to the grave. On May 10, 1940, German forces attacked the Low Countries. On June 2 2—seventh anniversary of the prohibition of the S.P.D.— the French government concluded the armistice agreement, Article 19 of which obliged it to "surrender on demand all Germans named by the German government."55 Numerous anti-Nazi exiles were caught in the French internment camps to which many had been returned by a panicky government when the Germans began their attack. Gestapo officials, armed with a roster of the men they wanted, a Sonderfahndungs-

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liste West, began visiting the camps to seek out the individuals wanted by the Nazi government.58 Those who managed to escape, thanks to the deliberate laxness of French camp commanders and military authorities, fled southward before the Gestapo into unoccupied France, crowding into the Mediterranean ports of Toulouse and Marseilles. Terror and confusion reigned supreme. Only a few had managed to take along any belongings and the majority was nearly destitute. The Petain government sought to stop the flight by prohibiting travel by aliens; Switzerland and Spain closed their frontiers to the refugees; shipping across the Mediterranean to North Africa was not available; local French Socialist and tradeunion groups were much too harrassed themselves to lend any assistance to the frantic anti-Nazi Germans. "There they were— without money, home, food, jobs, and even the right to work; without permission to stay or permission to go; no chance of being assisted, threatened by hostility, by reinternment, by labor camps for suspects, by extradition" reported the representative of the Social Democratic executive in Great Britain. "Only one thought was in their minds, to get out, at any cost." 57 The members and staff of the exiled executive of the S.P.D. knew well that they were at the head of the Gestapo's list. At an emergency meeting of the Sopade in Marseilles it was decided that its members had to get out of France as quickly as possible. Efforts were to be made to resume activities in England or the United States if possible.58 Urgent appeals went out to London and New York for the visas without which the French government would not permit them to depart. All British consulates in France had been closed, but the German Labor Delegation in New York, the representative of the Sopade in the United States, succeeded in getting American emergency visas for the exiles with the help of the Jewish Labor Committee and the American Federation of Labor. However, they came all too slowly for men who knew the Gestapo to be at their heels. These emergency visas had to be issued in the United States individually, and many of the less prominent exiles were unknown to the American authorities. Moreover, escape by sea or through Switzerland being closed, the only way open to the anti-Nazis to the United States was through Lisbon, Portugal, which meant slipping across Spain without the knowledge of the

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Franco government. Many made it, but some—including Rudolf Hilferding and Rudolf Breitscheid, two of the most prominent leaders of the old S.P.D.—were arrested by the Vichy police and turned over to the Gestapo. Hilferding reportedly hanged himself in his cell in Paris, Breitscheid died in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944.59 In Lisbon, the remnants of the executive scattered. Stampfer and Rinner went to New York. Vogel and Ollenhauer, accompanied by Geyer and Fritz Heine of the Sopade staff, succeeded with the assistance of the British Labour party in going to London where they hoped to continue the fight as the executive committee of the Social Democratic party of Germany.60 However, the organization that in 1933 had raised the flag in Prague was no more.

Chapter 8 Epilogue T h e y could not live . . . by the work they were accustomed to and any other was unnatural to them; moreover, they felt it not worthwhile to begin anything new, they were always listening for the bugle call.—Alexander Herzen

"In Kummernis und Dunkelheit," in misery and darkness, the colors of German freedom had been hidden—until the day when liberty triumphed. During the Second World War many an anti-Nazi exile must have thought of these lines, written in 1848 by Ferdinand Freiligrath and later sung defiantly by the men of the Reichsbanner, the paramilitary organization pledged to the defense of freedom and democracy in the dying days of the Weimar Republic. In misery and darkness the exiles waited for the day when the flag of freedom would be raised once more in their fatherland. Tossed upon alien shores the scattered remnants of the once great and powerful Social Democratic party longed for the morrow when they would set sail for home again. Caught up in the bitterness generated by a desperate world conflict, the German exiles were accused, on the one hand of having betrayed their country, on the other of sharing the "collective guilt" of their people for the horrors of the war and Nazi imperialism. Viewed with distrust, they were shunned or at best considered useful tools for psychological warfare by the governments of many countries fighting Nazi Germany. Atomized into many fractions, the anti-Nazi émigrés vegetated in innumerable small colonies in North and South America, in Sweden, Switzerland, and Britain—all too far from the land they still considered their homeland.1

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Most exiles who had managed to effect their escape from France had made their way to the United States, particularly to New York. There bitter disputes and venomous recriminations were the order of the day. The right-wing Social Democratic émigrés were grouped around the German Labor Delegation and the weekly, Neue Volkszeitung. While his comrade of the days in Prague and Paris, Erich Rinner, withdrew from political life, Friedrich Stampfer occupied a leading role in the German Labor Delegation which was engaged in a continuous war with the Friends of German Freedom, a remnant of the New Beginning faction, led by Paul Hagen and Paul Hertz. Between these two polarities gravitated other Social Democratic groups, such as the Arbeiterwohlfahrt U.S.A. and the German-American Congress for Democracy. All professed to be working for the rebirth of German social democracy in a new democratic Germany after the war and competed bitterly for the support of sympathetic Americans.2 The remnant of the executive committee of the German Social Democratic party consisted of Hans Vogel and Erich Ollenhauer in London, who considered themselves the "trustees" and spokesmen of the movement they were certain would some day be resurrected in Germany. Cut off from their homeland, without funds or staff, the two men broadcast occasional messages to Germany calling for the overthrow of the Nazi regime and sought to keep before the public of the allied nations a clear distinction between the Hitler dictatorship and the German people. However, their voices were seldom heard beyond the self-contained universe of the small Socialist émigré colony in Great Britain. The anti-Nazi German "enemy aliens" were generally shunned, if not denounced, by the nationals of the allied countries in London, many of whom vent on these émigrés their increasingly bitter feelings toward the entire German people. Even many of their former comrades in the Labor and Socialist International turned against the German Socialist exiles and included them in the charge that the German nation was collectively guilty for the crimes committed by its government. Under these circumstances it was no doubt a singularly grievous blow for Ollenhauer and Vogel that Curt Geyer, who for so long had been one of the principal defenders of the émigré Social Democratic leaders, became in spring of 1942 a fervent advocate of the

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collective-guilt thesis and a bitter enemy of the exiled executive. Together with five other German Socialists, Geyer joined the Fight for Freedom Committee, a group supported by many prominent Britishers and representatives of nations conquered by Germany, which demanded severe retribution on the Germans after the war. Geyer and his associates denounced Vogel, Ollenhauer, and other exiled German anti-Nazis as anti-democratic, rabid nationalists and ridiculed their claim that there was "the other Germany" which might some day overthrow the Nazi regime and restore the country to the community of peace-loving and democratic nations.3 Their common fate and common problems drew the Socialist exiles in Britain together, and the remnants of the various factions there achieved what during the earlier period of their banishment from Germany had seemed impossible. While personal differences and old disputes kept the New York colony divided, Vogel and Ollenhauer joined leaders of the New Beginning group, the Socialist Workers' party and the International Socialist Militant League in March, 1941, to form the Union of German Socialist Organizations in Great Britain. Starting as a "cooperating committee" of groups anxious to maintain their political independence, the Union gradually evolved into a small émigré nucleus for a "new" and "united" Social Democratic movement, from which, after the war, a number of the leaders of the resurrected S.P.D. were to come.4 Within the Union, Vogel and Ollenhauer participated in extensive discussions concerning the future organization and objectives of the new and united party that was to rise in Germany after the fall of the Third Reich. According to Ollenhauer, the members of the London group considered it their duty to their silenced comrades and a future party leadership in Germany to take advantage of their liberty for serious and objective preparatory work. As outlined by him late in 1942, these plans conceived the new party as a mass movement embracing both the proletariat and the majority of the bourgeoisie, a Socialist people's party open to all who desired an egalitarian and democratic order for Germany. Such a movement was to substitute tolerance toward all varieties of socialism for the narrow doctrinaire rigidity which had divided the party in the past into bitterly antagonistic factions; it was to be free of dominance by a bureaucratic organizational machine and was to

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exercise great care to assure internal party democracy. The new S.P.D. was to "retain our fundamental conception of a libertarian and democratic Socialist party" and, if for no other reason, the members of the Union rejected "organizational fusion" with the Communist party as long as the latter remained a totalitarian movement subservient to Moscow's control.6 Small voices against a mounting roar, the members of the Union denied that Germans were collectively guilty for the acts of their government. They sought to preserve a clear distinction between Hitler's Germany and "the other Germany," represented abroad by the exiles. They insisted that the war was not between nations, but between ideologies, with the German anti-Nazis fighting on the side of the democracies. Denying that the exiled German Socialists were either rabid nationalists or traitors, Vogel declared on the tenth anniversary of the Hitler dictatorship in 1943: W e have already shown our hatred against Hitler under danger to our liberty, our honor, and our life at a time when others have played up to nazism and have shown them their well meaning toleration. It seems, as if especially those circles today want to hide their own bad consciences under the limitless hatred against the whole German people. Nazi atrocities do not date from 1939 onward. . . . W e German Socialists have never defended the crimes of national socialism. W e have never recognized the motto of all chauvinists: 'Right or wrong, my country.' W e have always fought for justice, even if that meant fighting against the country which is our homeland. Therefore, we think we have the right also to demand justice for our own tortured people.®

Bitterly opposed to a "total peace" which would dismember, partition, or deindustrialize Germany, the exiles pleaded that the liberal principles of the Atlantic Charter of 1941 should become the basis of a future peace settlement. In their broadcasts to Germany, Vogel and other Socialist emigres called upon their people to rise against Hitler in order to receive the benefit of generous peace terms; they bitterly opposed the unconditional-surrender formula which emerged from the Casablanca conference of January, 1943, and the prospect of indefinite alien rule over Germany. The German people themselves—according to Vogel and Ollenhauer—led by a new Social Democratic party, were to make the necessary revolutionary changes which would forever destroy Ger-

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man militarism, nationalism, and "reactionary capitalism" and create a democratic, Socialist, and entirely demilitarized Germany. The latter, they hoped, would join a democratic European confederation and pool its economic resources—particularly coal and iron ore—with other nations.7 "It is our common conviction that the Hitler dictatorship will fall as a result of a clear allied military victory and a revolutionary uprising of the antifascist forces in Germany," Ollenhauer declared in late 1942.8 Both he and Vogel desperately hoped that a successful internal uprising in the Third Reich would prevent the complete devastation and conquest of the country by the allies which would leave its future at the mercy of the victors. "Those who regret that there was so little bloodshed" in the revolution of 1918 would have no complaints this time, promised Ollenhauer, the eradication of "reactionary," "militarist," "nationalist," and "capitalist" elements by the anti-Nazi revolutionaries would be thorough.9 The executive published occasionally Inside Information and Reports, containing material which it claimed to have received from its agents in Germany; but the reports revealed merely that the exiles had little knowledge of what was really happening at home. Their hopes for a revolution gradually waned, and the news of the unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Hitler in July, 1944, apparently came as a surprise—though a number of Social Democrats were actively involved. The members of this conspiracy seem to have deliberately avoided contact with the émigrés, though they had sent a number of emissaries abroad to acquaint representatives of allied and neutral nations with their plans. Though the revolt had failed, the exiles hailed it as a great manifestation of the growing resistance of "the other Germany." 10 While the surviving remnants of the Social Democratic movement in exile paid tribute to the courage of the "Russian people" after Hitler had launched his attack against the Soviet Union in 1941, they turned a cold shoulder toward renewed efforts of the German Communist émigré leaders to forge a united front against nazism. The leopard had not changed its spots, maintained Vogel and Ollenhauer; the K.P.D. remained to them the abject tool of Soviet totalitarianism. This attitude, which in London was fully supported by the membership of the Union, determined their re-

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fusal to join the Communist-sponsored National Committees for a Free Germany. Beginning in 1943, such committees were established by exiled Communist functionaries in Moscow, London, New York, Stockholm, Lisbon, and other German emigre colonies throughout the world. In New York a number of left-wing Social Democrats and former participants in Communist Popular Front movements before the war joined such Communist functionaries as Gerhard Eisler and a number of well-meaning "bourgeois" refugees and prominent Americans in a Council for a Democratic Germany. The German Labor Delegation, however, supported the London executive in vigorously denouncing the Popular Front groups and their members as creatures of the K.P.D. After the war, many of the organizers reappeared in the Soviet zone of Germany as leaders of the Socialist Unity party.11 The Road From Exile With the collapse of the Third Reich in spring, 1945, the problem of the return of the exiled executive's "mandate" to a new Social Democratic leadership in Germany became acute. Vogel and Ollenhauer, the remaining "trustees," expected that this new national leadership would arise gradually from the scattered local remnants of the old movement and resistance groups that had survived twelve years of totalitarian rule. They realized that they would be regarded with some suspicion by these survivors in Germany and anticipated that the two components of German social democracy would have "grown apart in certain matters during the long years of separation."12 The executive stood committed to return its mandate, and with it an accounting of its "trusteeship," to the new leadership that was expected to emerge in Germany, but until they believed this time had come, Vogel and Ollenhauer considered themselves still the legal guardians of the interests of German social democracy and as such entitled to take a hand in the reorganization of the S.P.D. First reports from Germany indicated that developments—over which it had no control—were not exactly conforming to the wishes of the London executive. It soon became evident that among the Social Democratic leaders who emerged in the various

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cities occupied by allied troops there was considerable sentiment to create a united party with the Communists and thus heal the cleavage which was believed to have resulted in the defeat of both parties in 1933. So-called antifascist committees of Social Democrats and Communists appeared locally, demanding immediate fusion and the assumption of the succession leadership to the Nazi regime by a united proletarian party. These groups were usually formed by survivors of local anti-Nazi resistance groups and underground organizations in the concentration camps and, as such, commanded considerable prestige among the otherwise largely leaderless and confused remnants of the old Social Democratic movement. Many of the strongest personalities of the old S.P.D. were missing— liquidated by the fallen regime—others were sick and old, and opposition to the unity proponents was at first rather weak. 13 In the sections of Germany occupied by the three Western powers, this trend toward immediate "proletarian unity" was effectively checked by a temporary ban against all political activities and organizations. Surviving leaders of the Weimar S.P.D. were appointed to administrative positions by the Western military governors and quietly developed local organizations, staffed by their friends and supporters. When permission was finally given after some months to organize precinct and district organizations of the S.P.D., the strength of the unity movement in the Western occupation zones had been broken, and leaders more in sympathy with the objectives of the exiled executive were in control.14 However, in the Soviet zone, the unity movement proceeded toward the formation of the Socialist Unity party. In the evident hope of influencing the future political life of the entire country, the Soviet authorities almost immediately granted the K.P.D., the S.P.D., and two "bourgeois" parties authority to establish zonewide organizations. A central committee (Zentralausschuss) of the German Social Democratic party was constituted in Berlin under the leadership of Otto Grotewohl, a former Reichstag deputy, which proceeded to reorganize the S.P.D. in the Soviet zone from the top down. The occupation authorities provided it with headquarters, funds, and facilities to print a daily and required local and district leaders of the resurrected S.P.D. to be approved by the central committee. By the time Social Democrats

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in the Western zone received permission to begin organizing locally, the party in the Soviet zone already numbered several hundred thousand members, including 70,000 in Greater Berlin alone. The central committee in Berlin took advantage of the enforced silence of the Social Democrats in the Western zone to take steps toward the eventual merger of the S.P.D. and K.P.D. throughout Germany. Reportedly some of its members had suggested unification to the Communist leaders returning from Moscow with the Red Army even before the central committee made its appearance in early June, and in its first public statement, a "Manifesto of the German Social Democratic party," the committee called on June 15, 1945, for the early "rectification of past mistakes" through the "organizational unity of the German working class." It formed at once a joint working committee with the K.P.D. central committee, consisting of five members of each group, and on July 15 entered an "antifascist block" of the four "democratic" parties licensed in the Soviet zone. When at last the Western powers lifted their ban on political activities and organizations, Otto Grotewohl, the chairman of the central committee in Berlin called for an immediate national party convention to elect a leadership that was to negotiate with the K.P.D. for fusion of the two parties throughout Germany. 15 Invited by the S.P.D. central committee to turn over their mandate, the exiled "trustees" of the Social Democratic party in London were powerless to influence developments which no doubt gravely disturbed them. Unlike the Communist leaders brought back by the Red Army, Vogel, Ollenhauer, and other exiled leaders of the S.P.D. were denied permission by the Western powers to return to Germany while political activities were still prohibited in their zones of occupation. About all that the exiled executive committee in London could do to slow down the central committee's drive toward fusion prior to the reactivation of the party in the West was to assert its authority as the only "legal" leadership of the movement as long as a new one had not been chosen by a national party convention. Expressing their opposition to the precipitous actions of the group in Berlin, Vogel and Ollenhauer declared that the "organizational and political reconstruction of the party" could "only proceed by free democratic methods and

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the free election of party functionaries in each locality and district by the party members" throughout Germany, repudiating thus the efforts of the central committee to recreate the S.P.D. from the top down. Implicitly challenging the authority of the "provisional" leadership of the party in Berlin, the exiled leaders announced: The executive of the German Social Democratic party [in London] hopes that as soon . . . as it will be possible to arrange a national conference of the entire party it can return the mandate which it received from the last legal national conference in April, 1933. . . . Until such time, the executive considers itself bound to retain its mandated trusteeship.16

In the first week of October, 1945, as soon as political organizations at the county level had been authorized in the U. S. and British zones—the French authorities delayed permission until December—an informal gathering of Social Democratic leaders convened on the initative of Kurt Schumacher at Kloster Wennigsen near 'Hanover. Erich Ollenhauer, accompanied by two members of the London Union, received permission from the new British Labour government to represent the exiled executive committee. Otto Grotewohl appeared at the head of another threeman delegation to represent the Berlin central committee. Although neither zonal nor interzonal meetings of political organizations were as yet permitted in Western Germany, the Wennigsen conference was, in effect, the first gathering of S.P.D. representatives from all four zones and the Social Democratic exile movement abroad. Hans Vogel, who still considered himself the chairman of the executive of the S.P.D., was too ill to attend. He was not to realize the ambition which had sustained him through the long years of exile, to return home and participate in the resurrection of his party, for he died in London at the very moment German social democracy was reborn at Wennigsen. In what was to be his political testament, Vogel wrote to the conferees: as the representatives of the party abroad, we tried to express its opinions and to speak for the comrades in Germany who had been muzzled by the dictatorship. Now, as the party returns to legality, our mission is drawing to a close. W e hope that we shall have the opportunity soon to render account for our activities to our comrades at home and to return our mandate to

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them. It is our most urgent wish, thereafter, to work once again among our comrades in Germany for the common cause.17

His death, declared Carl Severing, one of the surviving leaders of the Weimar S.P.D., "was a great loss for the party, for Vogel could have been the link between the older and the younger generations" in the reorganization of German social democracy.18 For Ollenhauer and the other exiles who came to Wennigsen, however, "the objective which had been theirs since . . . the day they had left Germany, their 'return home to a Germany liberated from the Hitler dictatorship,' was at last achieved."19 As the sole representative of the exiled executive committee, Ollenhauer indicated to the meeting at Wennigsen that Kurt Schumacher, the strongly anti-Communist opponent of unity with the Communists, was his choice for the chairmanship of the resurrected party. The conferees, however, did not consider their meeting more than an informal gathering and deferred the election of a new national leadership, pending the reestablishment of a nation-wide party organization and an all-German government, and the meeting of a regular party convention of the S.P.D. The representatives from all zones, including the delegates of the central committee in the Soviet zone, reportedly recognized the validity of the "mandate" of 1933 claimed by the exiled executive and agreed to its formal return, along with an accounting of the "trusteeship," at the first national convention. On the other hand, the representatives from the Western zones turned down the claim of the central committee for recognition as the legal successor to the exiled executive. They were neither willing nor able—under existing limitations imposed by the four occupying powers—to acceed to Grotewohl's request for the expansion of his central committee into a provisional national leadership through the inclusion of Ollenhauer, representing the exiled executive, and Schumacher and other leaders of the district organizations in the Western zones. Until the meeting of a national party convention, no further steps toward "organizational unity" with the Communists were to be taken, it was decided, with Grotewohl reportedly agreeing. Until such time, the central committee was merely to represent the party's interests in the Soviet zone and Schumacher in the three Western zones. Ollenhauer—still speak-

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ing in the name of the executive committee of the German Social Democratic party—and those who had come with him from London were to represent German social democracy abroad, pending their permanent return. Urging all exiles to return as soon as possible to help fill the gap left by the extermination of so many Social Democratic leaders by the Nazis, the delegates at Wennigsen declared that they harbored no hostility toward them—though they questioned whether some of the émigrés needed to have left Germany. The exiles were warned, however, that they would have to forget the past and "try to attune themselves to the changed circumstances" in the party and in Germany. Their position in the reëstablished movement was to "depend solely" on their future contributions to the "work of the party after their return."20 In the Soviet-occupied part of Germany returning Social Democratic exiles were to have no opportunity to help rebuild their party and their homeland. Despite vigorous opposition from Social Democratic leaders in all four zones, Grotewohl and other members of the central committee in April, 1946, joined the former émigrés Pieck, Ulbricht, Dahlem, and the rest of the K.P.D. leadership in announcing the creation of the Socialist Unity party.21 Due to the opposition of the three Western occupation powers and the vigorous anti-Communist leadership of the remaining Social Democratic organizations in Berlin and Western Germany, led by Schumacher, the new Unity party remained confined to the Soviet zone. In West Berlin and Western Germany the reorganization of the S.P.D. proceeded apace and culminated in May, 1946, in the election of a new executive committee under the chairmanship of Schumacher, by a party congress representing those parts of Germany not under Soviet control. Erich Ollenhauer, the only representative of the exiled executive committee, was elected vicechairman of the party. However, neither the Hanover congress, nor any subsequent party congress, asked for the long promised, formal accounting of the exiled executive's "trusteeship" of the previous thirteen years. It refused to be bound by any of the manifestoes, statements, or actions of the Sopade and failed to formalize the mandate which the exiled leaders had claimed during the 1933-1946 interregnum. The delegates were declared deter-

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mined to demonstrate that the S.P.D. had no formal links with the past and that "a new Social Democratic party . . . had been formed."22 More than any other major German party—except perhaps the Communist—the S.P.D. felt the void which Nazi terror had left in its ranks. Many of the most promising younger leaders and functionaries of the pre-Hitler period had fallen victim to it, and many of the survivors were physically worn out by long terms in prisons and concentration camps. Schumacher and the other survivors who wanted to reestablish as quickly as possible a disciplined Social Democratic mass movement called upon the exiles to return and help fill the void. "We need the comrades who went abroad. . . . We cannot spare them," declared one of the delegates to the 1947 party congress.23 Many exiles followed the summons, returning, however, not in organized groups—like the Communist emigre leadership that was superimposed upon the indigenous movement—but as individuals pledged to forget former quarrels and factional allegiances in helping to rebuild their party. Younger on the whole and physically in better condition than many of the functionaries who had remained in Germany, the former exiles soon rose to positions of prominence in the new S.P.D. This was particularly true of the London group which, led by Ollenhauer, reestablished a strong party organization obedient to the leadership of the ailing Schumacher. After the latter's death, Ollenhauer was chosen by 98 per cent of the delegates to the Dortmund congress of 1952 to succeed him as party chairman.24 Eight of the thirty members of the S.P.D. executive committee elected in 1954 were former exiles—the majority former members of the London Union—representing the entire political spectrum of the left-wing emigre movement.25 At least 17 per cent of the S.P.D. Fraktion in both the Bundestag elected in 1949 and 1953 were former exiles; so were six of eighteen members of the Fraktionsvorstand in 1949, five of twenty-one in 1953.26 Paul Hertz and Siegfried Aufhauser returned to West Berlin, where the former became a member of the city government and the latter once again a trade-union functionary. Friedrich Stampfer, while too old to take an active role in party affairs—he celebrated his eightieth birthday in 1954—as an elder statesman continued to write and speak extensively for die Partei.

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The former exiles have not cared to dwell upon the past, endeavoring to start a new political life in their party. However, their very prominence in its leadership has provoked a certain amount of comment. Opponents have attacked them for "treasonably" supporting Germany's enemies during the war.27 Friends have given them credit for tempering a tendency toward narrow parochialism in the post-war S.P.D. and injecting into its leadership a broader and more tolerant world outlook brought back from exile.28 Others have complained that the former exiles form a new oligarchical clique at the apex of a reconstituted bureaucratic party apparatus.29 From afar, their actual influence is difficult to assess. Certainly, there is evidence that the exiles, especially those who lived in Britain, helped to introduce into the S.P.D. some of the spirit and outlook which had previously distinguished the British Labour party from the continental Socialists. And, as Erich Matthias has pointed out in Sozialdemokratie und Nation, the new emphasis on patriotic sentiments in the movement was not merely due to Schumacher's influence, but also resulted from the critical reexamination of the past which the exiles had undertaken after 1933.

Chapter p Conclusion: Revolution by Remote Control

Our task is not to condemn, but to comprehend.—Friedrich Meinecke

This has been a tale of failure and frustration, of shattered hopes and bitter strife. Exile movements are seldom edifying subjects for investigation. "If anyone from the outside had conceived the idea of writing the inner history of the political exiles and refugees from the years 1848 . . . what a melancholy page he would have added to the records of today," wrote Alexander Herzen, a most perceptive observer, of his fellow exiles a hundred years ago. "What suffering, what privations, what tears . . . and what triviality, what narrowness, what poverty of intellectual powers, of resources, of understanding, what obstinacy in quarreling, what pettiness in wounded vanity!" 1 The same might well be said of most exile movements. Perhaps it has been the nature of the subject which has led it to being slighted by historians and social scientists. Yet, such neglect seems undeserved. As a general phenomenon, as well as a phase in the history of specific movements, exile politics present a challenge to the student of modern politics. The preceding investigation has endeavored to describe what happened to the leaders of a once powerful and highly disciplined mass movement which, from abroad, sought to direct a revolution against the totalitarian dictatorship that forced them into exile. The object of these concluding considerations is that of any inquest, neither to damn nor to praise, but to seek the cause of death, to determine what factors led the exiled leaders of German social democracy to fail in their endeavor.

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Basic Assumptions When in the summer of 1933 the exiled members of the executive committee of the S.P.D. raised the flag of revolution abroad, their cause seemed to them by no means hopeless. They were not alone in believing the Hitler dictatorship to rest on brittle foundations. The Social Democratic leaders hoped that rising dissatisfaction caused by the expected failure of the regime to live up to its promises and the expectations of its supporters, along with mounting fears that Hitler would lead the nation into a disastrous war, would induce a growing number of Germans to rally behind a surviving core of determined, irreconcilable opponents of the dictatorship. Insufferable economic conditions and political oppression, together with growing pressure from foreign powers determined to block the expansionist ambitions of the regime, were expected to lead to the rapid disintegration of the power base of the Hitler dictatorship. Simultaneously, the strength of its German opponents was to increase, until the time was ripe for "the other Germany" to liberate the nation from its oppressors. Believing this, the exiled leaders of the S.P.D. sought to assume the task of organizing and directing the anti-Nazi revolutionary movement in Germany. According to the Sopade, such a movement required the guidance of a centralized leadership that was secure, responsible, and endowed with the prestige necessary to rally support for the cause inside as well as outside the country. N o indigenous group was believed to possess the authority, the funds, the organizational talent, and all the other resources thought necessary to unite and prepare the anti-Nazi underground movement for its revolutionary task. "The only visible and effective center for resistance and attack" for the "enslaved people" of Germany was declared to be the executive committee of the S.P.D. in Prague.2 Claiming to be still the legitimate and acknowledged leadership of a party which for decades had not only been Germany's largest, but the only one with an unblemished anti-Nazi, antitotalitarian record, the exiled executive asserted that it represented the obvious focus for a popular revolutionary movement that could unite Germans of the widest political and ideological persuasion. Its members were said to have the necessary experience, prestige,

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and sense of responsibility to organize and direct such a movement. They alone, among the opponents of the Third Reich, supposedly still commanded the support of hundreds of thousands of loyal supporters inside Germany and possessed the international connections necessary to obtain foreign support for the revolutionary movement. These were the assumptions upon which the exiled executive of the S.P.D. based its claim to lead a revolutionary movement against the Third Reich and from which it derived its self-assigned mission. The assumptions proved false and the mission failed. The executive was neither able to organize and direct a revolution by remote control nor even capable of creating a strong, united antiNazi revolutionary movement abroad. The Nazi Goliath was to prove impervious to the revolutionary ambitions of its exiled opponents, to succumb in the end only to power even greater than its own. The Target Like most other opponents of the new regime, the exiled leaders of the German Social Democratic party for some time greatly underestimated the strength of the target of their revolutionary ambitions. Blinded by false assumptions and wishful illusions, they were slow to realize that they had chosen to fight one of the most ruthless and powerful dictatorships the world had known. Overestimating the chances of a revolution against Hitler, the executive committee hoped to repeat more or less the successful campaign which the S.P.D. had waged against Bismarck's efforts to suppress it in the eighteen-eighties. The old leaders gradually realized that the analogy was false, but they nonetheless clung rigidly to the strategic and tactical concepts they had adopted in 1933 to the bitter end in 1940. Their left-wing rivals for the leadership of a revolutionary movement against the Hitler regime were no less the victims of a false historical analogy, attempting to emulate the Bolshevist campaign against the Tsarist regime a quarter of a century earlier. Hitler proved to know none of the moral and political inhibitions that had curbed Bismarck and Nicholas II, and public support for his rule turned out to be far greater than either the

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"Iron Chancellor" had enjoyed in his campaign against the Social Democrats or the Tsar defending his tottering regime during its last years. Hitler had come to power at a time when all but a comparatively small minority in Germany had rejected the liberal-democratic and reformist Socialist principles which formed the basis of the Sopade's revolutionary appeals. The majority had expressed its preference for authoritarian creeds that seemed to promise economic and political salvation to a demoralized people. By a combination of adroit propaganda, ruthless terror, and foreign-policy successes satisfying to German national pride, the dictator managed quickly to transform these diverse negative sentiments toward the fallen liberal-democratic system into positive support for his regime. There seems little doubt that he generally enjoyed the overwhelming support of the German people during the years of the antiNazi exiles' most intensive efforts to overthrow him. Particularly those among the émigrés who—like the members of the executive —symbolized a defeated and rejected order, could hope for little response to their revolutionary appeals to a people that overwhelmingly accepted the Nazi claim that Hitler stood for the moral and political regeneration of the German nation. The anti-Nazi exiles seemed indeed, as Dr. Goebbels claimed, fugitive traitors conspiring from abroad against the national interest of the fatherland. All elements of power, all effective media of communication were monopolized by the dictatorship. Hitler could view with equanimity the isolated and sporadic manifestations of dissatisfaction which led his exiled opponents to abandon themselves to wishful reveries of a coming revolution. But for a few resistance cells, too weak and fractionalized to cause the regime any trouble, all actual and potential opposition was wiped out within a short time after the "national revolution" of 1933. Even when, many years later, defeat on the field of battle heralded the doom of the Third Reich, even then there was no evidence of the wide-spread revolutionary sentiment which most of the exiles had thought existed in the early years of Hitler's rule. With the exception of a few brave men—such as the conspirators who plotted the abortive coup of July, 1944—most anti-Nazis sought refuge in an impotent "inward emigration," unable or unwilling to war against a

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regime that had at least the tacit support of most Germans. Many were paralyzed into inactivity by Hitler's claim that to support his opponents' efforts was treason against the German nation and its legitimate leaders. Impotence of the Exiles The aspiring leaders of a revolution against Hitler discovered that "brute force" would not yield inexorably to "moral factors, to the logic of events," as Wilhelm Liebknecht had claimed after Bismarck's fall.3 Might proved stronger than right. In glaring contrast to the monolithic power of the totalitarian regime, the anti-Nazi exiles lacked even the most elemental sources of power for their fight against the dictatorship. Exiles aspiring to stage a revolution in their homeland, whether it be against a native regime or an alien oppressor, are helpless without substantial support at home and abroad. Supported by an indigenous resistance movement, a strong organization abroad, and foreign sponsorship, they may at least have a fighting chance, as Masaryk, Benes, de Gaulle, and other successful émigré leaders realized. Endowed with such resources, as well as perhaps a military organization and control over some territory, they possess a power base to support their revolutionary efforts. And even then, as experience seems to indicate, short of defeat in a major war a totalitarian dictatorship appears to be almost immune to revolution —particularly revolution by remote control. The German anti-Nazis in general, and the Social Democratic leaders in particular, possessed none of these elements of power to pit against the Third Reich. They controlled no indigenous resistance movement—as did many of the exile committees and émigré leaders in the First and Second World wars—which might have lent support to their claims to represent the "legitimate" leadership of a popular resistance movement against a hated regime. Neither a "campaign of truth" conducted from abroad nor the efforts of exiles to organize and direct an indigenous revolutionary movement proved of avail against a regime identified by its subjects with the national interest and using its monopoly of power to suppress all opposition. In retrospect, it is more than doubtful that the sur-

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repetitious efforts to organize an anti-Nazi revolution from abroad were worth the sacrifices which they involved. Many courageous men and women risked—and often lost—life and liberty attempting to carry out the directives of their exiled leaders and distribute their ineffective calls for revolution among an indifferent public. The messages from abroad either fell into the hands of the Gestapo or merely reached an ever smaller group of irreconcilable antiNazis who lacked any influence on the course of events. It may be—and has been—argued that the revolutionary efforts of the exiles would have met with more success had they been given greater direct and indirect support abroad. With the exception of the Communists, none of the groups was supported by either a foreign government or a powerful political organization abroad. Nor did the efforts of the exiles benefit even from such indirect aid as diplomatic and other pressure from foreign powers upon the Nazi regime might have provided. Hitler's power and apparent popularity in Germany, a good deal of initial sympathy for his professed aims among influential quarters in foreign countries, as well as indifference, noninterventionist traditions, and plain fear led the governments and people of the European nations to deny assistance to a cause which the anti-Nazi exiles claimed was in Europe's interest to support. Instead, the émigrés were considered helpless flotsam, cast out by their people and lacking any influence inside Germany. At best they met with pity, at worst with hatred and contempt. Many of the responsible leaders of the larger powers were indifferent, if not hostile, to the anti-Nazis' appeals for firm resistance to Hitler's demands and threats; those of the smaller European countries tended to consider the exiles an unwelcome source of friction with the growing power of Nazi Germany. Nor did the so-called Auslandsdeutschtum, ordinary German emigrants in foreign countries, provide the anti-Nazi exiles with the kind of support which made it possible for Italian, Czech, Polish, and other émigré leaders to establish strong organizations abroad. The German emigrants were on the whole either opposed or indifferent to the efforts of the anti-Nazis. The latter were handicapped by the fact that they were not fighting a foreign ruler, but a native government apparently supported by an overwhelming majority of its people. Yet, many anti-Fascist exiles from Musso-

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lini's dictatorship succeeded under similar conditions in gaining the support of thousands of Italian emigrants, particularly in Europe and North Africa. They returned home as the recognized leaders of strong political organizations. However, the Italian emigrant colonies, unlike the German, consisted largely of workers in sympathy with the aims of the left-wing émigrés from Italy.4 Factionalism It proved impossible for the exiled anti-Nazis in general and the remnants of the Social Democratic party in particular to unite against the common foe. Cause as well as effect of their pariah status, fierce internecine disputes between numerous small cliques discredited the cause of the entire movement. Yet unity was a sine qua non for exiles claiming support at home and abroad as the "legitimate" representatives of a popular resistance movement against the dictatorship. But the legacy of the past as well as the centrifugal forces of exile life proved too strong. In contrast to the picture of the monolithic cohesiveness presented by the Third Reich, the anti-Nazis exile movement from the start was divided into irreconcilable factions, all equally weak, yet each claiming to be the exclusive spokesman of the "other Germany" fighting to overthrow the Hitler dictatorship. The exiled executive of German social democracy had neither the prestige nor the means to overcome this factionalism and provide the anti-Nazi movement with an authoritative leadership. The very composition of the anti-Nazi exile movement defied all efforts to achieve unity, above all voluntary unity, behind the leadership of the exiled executive. For the better part, the exiles were former leaders, theorists, and functionaries of the many factions into which the German labor movement had been divided before its defeat in 1933. Throughout its history bitter doctrinal and personal disputes had time and again led to internal cleavages, sometimes provoking open splits—as during the First World War—other times superficially patched up for the sake of party unity. Epitomizing the ideological orientation that had been characteristic both of the continental European labor movement and German political life in general, the Social Democratic and the Communist parties

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had been rent by innumerable conflicts over the ideological purity of strategy and tactics—which frequently had merely disguised personal rivalries between competing aspirants for the leadership. So far as such disputes had not led to the formation of splinter groups, party dicipline and control of a powerful organization had enabled the incumbent leaders to subdue their opponents. With the destruction of the party organizations in 1933 these formal bonds were shattered. There was nothing to take their place, no common ideology or fundamental aims to unite on a voluntary basis groups which had been unable to agree under more favorable circumstances. Instead, defeat and the conditions of exile life unleashed centrifugal forces which neither the exiled leaders of the two major German labor parties nor those of the various splinter groups were able to overcome. A legacy of personal and doctrinal differences hopelessly divided the anti-Nazi exiles, fed by mutual recriminations over responsibility for their common fate. No group proved to have either the power or the prestige to realize its claims to lead a united exile movement. There were neither ideological nor personal ties, neither a commanding personality nor a strong organization to bring together a substantial majority behind a leadership that consequently might have commanded some respect and support both inside and outside Germany. And the exigencies of the situation prevented the adjustment of these disputes and rivalries by means normally available to political organizations, such as appeals to the general membership or the electorate. The congenital causes of disunity were aggravated, as the period of banishment grew longer, by the centrifugal forces that plague all exile movements. Often frustrated leaders who either had once held great power or had vainly aspired to it, political exiles tend to be men accustomed to a highly active life. Frustrated and embittered, they suffer intensely from the awful void, the paralyzing inactivity, and the intense humiliation which all too often characterize the exile's life in an alien environment. It is an existence "infested with special states of mind unimaginable for men who have a country," as Edmund Wilson once described it.5 Their urge for action inhibited by circumstances beyond their control, the anti-Nazi exiles—like so many other émigrés before

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them—exhausted their energies and emotions in petty quarrels, personal vendettas, and polemical attacks against each other. Hunted from country to country, impoverished, ignored, and despised, they turned upon each other with a fury born of misery and frustration. Casuistric disputes and personality conflicts assumed in the artificial hothouse climate of the exile ghettos a significance incomprehensible to outsiders. Differences which under more normal conditions might have been overlooked or adjusted, seemed of vital importance for the future of Germany and the world and, therefore, fundamental. Contending for the leadership of nonexistent revolutionary movements, these unhappy men clung desperately to what they believed their mission and calling, the reformation of Germany after Hitler's fall. Assimilate in the countries that provided them a refuge they could not and would not as long as they adhered to this belief. Many of the younger men gradually gave up the cause for lost and sought to start life anew by breaking all ties with the past. But others, particularly the older exiles who knew no existence but that which had given their life a meaning in the past, compulsively continued to plan and plot for the day of their return, to speak and write as if there were still a vast audience to pay rapt attention. The divisive activities of the exiled German Communist leaders, disguised behind the call for a united front, proved to be merely a catalyst accelerating the atomization of the German exile movement. Their efforts to discredit the old Social Democratic leaders simply exploited and accentuated existing differences without achieving the professed aim of the Communist "unity" drive. The Communist postwar contention that primarily the refusal of the exiled S.P.D. executive prevented the German "proletariat" from overthrowing Hitler was a myth which gave the executive more credit than was its due.6 Revolutionary Leadership The structure and leadership of a political organization are the derivatives of its function. Legal movements freely participating in the political life of a country require an organization and leadership quite different from groups compelled to seek the realization

256

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of their objectives by covert means.7 The revolutionary conspirator and agitator is fundamentally a type totally different from the skilled parliamentarian and experienced functionary of a wellestablished and legally recognized democratic mass movement— such as the S.P.D. had been before 1933. Less tolerant and "reasonable," more ruthless and aggressive, the revolutionary leader usually does not derive his authority from a "legitimate" mandate bestowed by a party congress or the electorate, but rather achieves his position by force of personality and personal power. In contrast to the loyal functionary risen to leadership by stint and faithful service, he tends to be endowed with some of the qualities which Max Weber called "charismatic . . . the very opposite of bureaucratic."8 The transformation of functions facing a revolutionary Social Democratic movement dedicated to the overthrow of a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship, called for an entirely different type of leadership than the exiled remnants of the Social Democratic oligarchy of the Weimar era could provide. Revolutionaries not so much by choice as by force of circumstance, the former leaders of the legal party were neither temperamentally nor vocationally qualified for the task they assigned themselves in 1933. Skilled parliamentarians and debaters, journalists, and experienced functionaries of mass organizations, they were the products of the long era of legality, reform, and steady progress that had characterized the history of their party over the preceding forty years. Men who had risen to eminence by skillful and faithful service in capacities favored by the political activities of the S.P.D. during the legal phase of its existence, almost instinctively approached their entirely new functions in terms of accustomed beliefs and practices. Disposed to ignore a climate of opinion that did not suit their own inclinations, the old Social Democratic leaders clung to principles and methods that had little validity in terms of the tasks confronting them as revolutionary leaders. They sought to cast their revolutionary efforts and aims into traditional molds, hoping that reason, logic, and a yearning for liberty would induce Germans to turn against the dictatorship under the leadership of the old Social Democratic movement and its functionaries. Enlightened and educated concerning the true nature and aims of the Nazi regime

REVOLUTION BY REMOTE CONTROL

2J7

through the newspapers and pamphlets of the exiled executive, the people were expected to revolt and restore more or less the liberal democratic system of the Weimar era. Like so many exiles, the Social Democratic leaders believed what they wanted to believe. Grasping for the certainty of victory over the regime that had made them fugitives, they fell back upon an exaggerated faith in the potency of reason and inexorable laws of economic development to justify their activities and their claim to leadership of a revolutionary movement. Men who had prided themselves in the past on being political realists, as exiles refused to face the true nature of their situation and to recognize that it was hopeless to reestablish more or less the old party under its older leaders as a revolutionary movement. All exiles aspiring to lead an indigenous resistance movement are seriously handicapped by appearing to call upon those who remained to risk their lives in opposition while they enjoy the safety of sanctuary abroad. The German anti-Nazi exiles suffered from the further disadvantage that they were not fighting for the liberation of their country from the rule of a foreign tyrant but were fugitive outcasts from a regime accepted, if not supported, by the overwhelming majority of the population. The old Social Democratic leaders, in addition to all these impediments to their ambitions, were perhaps hopelessly handicapped by being the involuntary symbols of defeat, fugitive representatives of a political system that had been overwhelmingly repudiated, beaten generals of a party that had succumbed to the ruthless power of the Nazi movement. The old Social Democratic leaders and the principles and practices they represented symbolized a past which even many members of their own party did not wish to return to. It was vain hope, therefore, to assume that their appeals could arouse any substantial response even among opponents of the Nazi regime—no matter how much they proclaimed to have broken with the past. Democratic socialism and the men who were identified with it were discredited in Germany, an unpalatable truth which most members of the exiled executive preferred to ignore. Germans, particularly young Germans, yearned for a "new order" and a strong leadership. N o matter how irrational and potentially dangerous these sentiments, they were strong and real, and rational arguments and libertarian appeals

258

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were of no avail against them—least of all from fallen generals seemingly determined to regain their former estate. The exiled executive lacked both the men and the appeal to stimulate indigenous opposition against the Hitler regime. Nor were the old Social Democratic leaders either influential or powerful enough to overcome factionalism among the exiled remnants of the German labor movement and unite them behind the executive's leadership. Without the former means of disciplining and controlling opposition to their authority within the party, without the support of a strong organization, loyal functionaries, and faithful party members, the exiled survivors of the old oligarchy were exposed to long pent-up forces of revolt against the men, the philosophy, and strategic principles that had dominated the S.P.D. before 1933. Shattering what remained of party unity, the left-wing opponents of the old reformist leadership descended upon its remnants with a vengeance, blaming them for Hitler's victory and the defeat of the German labor movement. N o longer surrounded by the awesome aura of high office and revealed as ordinary mortals endowed with all the frailties and deficiencies of other men, the one-time great were subjected to vituperation and contempt. Under the stress and strain of exile life, leaders whose words and actions had once been law for a highly disciplined mass movement, who had stood at the head of millions, were reduced to a group of impotent and quarreling men, vainly demanding recognition as the legitimate leaders of revolutionary social democracy. It proved impossible to reorganize the leadership and the organization of the Social Democratic movement in accordance with its new revolutionary functions. The exigencies of the situation prevented the emergence of a new leadership and the reorganization of the movement inside as well as outside Germany. There was neither the will nor the necessary agreement to unify the exiles. Those who came forward to challenge the old leaders' fitness and right to head the "new" movement were themselves largely products of the past, old rivals, and opponents of the reformist leaders who were determined to use the catastrophe of 1933 to establish themselves as the future leaders of a German "dictatorship of the proletariat." On the whole, their ideas were no more realistic than those of the old reformist leaders they so bitterly opposed. The

REVOLUTION BY REMOTE CONTROL

2J9

inclination of many of the left wingers for a united front with the Communists leads one to suspect that, had they succeeded in establishing themselves as the "trustees" of the German Socialist movement, they would have succumbed to Communist control—like the exiled Italian Socialists led by Pietro Nenni. Such a united front would probably have begot sooner instead of later the Socialist Unity party which emerged in Eastern Germany after the war. In the light of Communist intentions and left-wing Socialist inclinations, the old Social Democratic leaders appear to have been fully justified in their stubborn refusal to join either a "united front" or a "Socialist concentration" of the anti-Nazi exiles. Unlike the Italian Socialist party, the German Social Democratic party did not reemerge after the war compromised and handicapped by an alliance with the Communists, concluded in its name by its exiled "trustees." While they had failed as revolutionary leaders, the surviving members of the exiled executive could return to Germany as loyal guardians of the democratic Socialist principles with which the party resumed its legal existence. In this sense, their mandate had been vindicated.

Appendix I Principal Groups Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (I.S.K.): International Socialist Militant League, an Old Left splinter group of the German Social Democratic party. Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (K.P.D.): the German Communist party. Neu Beginnen (Miles Gruppe): New Beginning, chief representative of the New Left among the Socialist exiles. Revolutionäre Sozialisten (R.S.), also known as Revolutionäre Sozialisten Deutschlands: short-lived splinter group of Old Left among exiles, 1935-1937. Revolutionäre Sozialisten Österreichs (R.S.Ö.): Revolutionary Socialists of Austria. Successor to the Austrian Social Democratic party after its prohibition in 1934. Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei (S.A.P.): Socialist Workers' party, another Old Left splinter group of the German Social Democratic party. SOPADE: the exiled executive of the German Social Democratic party and its organization. Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (S.P.D.): the German Social Democratic party. Union deutscher sozialistischer Organisationen in Grossbritanien (UNION): Union of German Socialist Organizations in Great Britain, a coalition formed among a majority of anti-Nazi Socialist exile groups in 1941, including the remnants of the Sopade, Neu Beginnen, I.S.K., and S.A.P.

Appendix II Principal Personalities "Ernst Anders": see Erich Rinner. Siegfried Aufhäuser: elected to executive committee, April, 1933, leading member of Old Left, returned to West Berlin after war. Karl Böchel: elected to executive April, 1933, leading member of Old Left. Wilhelm Florin: leading member of politbureau of German Communist party, died in Moscow during war. Karl Frank: leader of New Left organization Neu Beginnen, after 1935. Also known as Willi Müller and Paul Hägen. Curt Geyer (pseud. "Max Klinger"): editor of Neuer Vorwärts 1934-1940, major spokesman for right-wing majority of executive. "Paul Hägen": see Karl Frank. Fritz Heckert: leading member of politbureau of German Communist party until purged in 1935. Paul Hertz: elected to executive April, 1933, editor of its underground organ, Sozialistische Aktion 1933-1938, then joined Neu Beginnen. Returned to West Berlin after war as member of city government. Rudolf Hilferding (pseud. "Richard Kern"): chief theoretician for executive, editor of Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, extradited to Germany by Vichy government, died in Paris in German captivity. Karl Kautsky: leading theorist of German Social Democratic party 1890-1933. Died in the Netherlands 1938. "Richard Kern": see Rudolf Hilferding. "Max Klinger": see Curt Geyer. Walter Löwenheim (pseud. "Miles"): founder of Neu Beginnen, leader until 1935.

APPENDIXES

263

Richard Löwenthal (pseud. "Paul Sering"): chief theoretician of Neu Beginnen. "Miles": see Walter Löwenheim. "Willi Müller": see Karl Frank. Erich Ollenhauer: elected to executive committee April, 1933. Succeeded Kurt Schumacher as chairman of resurrected S.P.D. after the war. Wilhelm Pieck: a founder of German Communist party and chairman of its politbureau 1935-1946. Became president of the (East) German Democratic Republic after war. Erich Rinner (pseud. "Ernst Anders"): youngest member of executive, elected April, 1933. Editor of Deutschlandberichte. "Paul Sering": see Richard Löwenthal. Friedrich Stampfer: leading journalist of German Social Democratic party during Weimar era and of exiled executive. Identified with right-wing in Sopade. Walter Ulbricht: prominent member of the exiled politbureau of the German Communist party in the Nazi era. After war became secretary general of the Socialist Unity party in the Soviet zone of Germany and first deputy premier of the (East) German Democratic Republic. Hans Vogel: elected cochairman of German Social Democratic party in 1930. Leader of exiled executive in London 1941-1945. "Walter": see Walter Ulbricht. Otto Wels: elected cochairman of German Social Democratic party in 1920. Leader of exiled executive. Died Paris, 1939.

Notes

Preface

(pp.

vii-xiii)

Winston Churchill's distinction at the Yalta conference between émigrés "driven out of their own country by their own people" and exiles forced to leave by a foreign invader seems to me artificial and subject to political bias. See Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1953) pp. 273 f. 2 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, The Everyman Library (London: Dent, 1906), II, 67. 3 "An Exchange of Letters," Order of the Day, p. 107. * See Karl O. Paetel, "Deutsche im Exil," Aussenpolitik, (Sept., 195$), pp- 574> 581. 1

Chapter 1 (pp.

1-33)

1 Limitation of space restricts this description of the leaders of Weimar Social Democrats to the "ideal type." For variations on the theme, see such autobiographical and biographical works as Friedrich Stampfer, Die ersten ¡4 Jahre der deutschen Republik; Paul Lobe, Erinnerungen eines Reichstagspräsidenten; Carl Severing, Mein Lebensweg; Otto Braun, Von Weimar zu Hitler; Rudolf Breitscheid, "Collapse of the German Social Democrats," New Statesman and Nation; Albert C. Grzesinski, Inside Germany; Wenzel Jaksch, Hans Vogel; Gustav Noske, Aufstieg und Niedergang der deutschen Sozialdemokratie; Wilhelm Keil, Erlebnisse eines Sozialdemokraten. For the evolutionary Socialist concepts of the S.P.D. in the period, see, among others, Kurt Langer, Sozialdemokratische Wirtschaftstheorien der Nachkriegszeit; Hermann Heller, Die politischen Ideenkreise der Gegenwart, passim; Erika Rikli, Der Revisionismus, passim; Hans Kelsen, "Marx oder Lassalle? Wandlungen in der politischen Theorie des Marxismus," Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung; Franz Neumann, European Trade Unionism and Politics, passim; Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Das Heidelberger Programm. On the role of the S.P.D. leadership in the Republic, see particularly Sigmund Neumann, Permanent Revolution, pp. 105 f., 114, 116, 213; Karl Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction, pp. 51, 74; Emil Lederer, State of the Masses, pp. 133-137, 153 ff.; Henry de Man, The Psychology of Socialism, pp. 25, 185, 283, 330 ff.; Alfred Vierkant, Staat und Gesellschaft in der Gegenwart, pp. 109 ff.; Godfrey Scheele, The Weimar Republic, pp. 61-63; R. T . Clark, The Fall of the German Republic, pp. 80, 198, 228 f.; Koppel S. Pinson, Modern Germany, pp. 413-416. 2 Stampfer, op. cit., p. 128. 3 Thus, the party leaders pointed with pride to the increase in membership which, in 1930, topped one million, making the S.P.D. by far the largest party in terms of dues-paying members. However, while the party added new recruits from the prewar generation of liberal democrats to its faithful pre-1914 working-class following, it failed to attract the generation born after the turn of the century.

266

NOTES

These new members contributed heavily to the deproletarization of the S.P.D. and whole-heartedly supported the leaders' faith in reason and common sense and their activities designed to support the liberal democratic Weimar Constitution. While the percentage of manual workers among the party members declined from 73 in 1926 to 59 in 1930, it has been estimated that at least 30 per cent of the Social Democratic electors in 1930 were liberal republicans who supported the party's democratic, rather than its professed Socialist objectives. See Thomas Mann, "An Appeal to Reason," in Order of the Day, pp. 58 f.; Sigmund Neumann, Die deutschen Parteien, p. 29; Hans Gerth, "The Nazi Party: Its Leadership and Composition," American Journal of Sociology, X L V (January, 1940), J30; Vorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Jahrbuch der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, I-IV (1926-1930); Arthur Dix, Die deutschen Reichstagswahlen, 1870>930, und die Wandlungen in der Volksgliederung, pp. 28, 31; Sigmund Neumann, 'Permanent Revolution, pp. 234-239. 4 Taking into account eligible voters who had died between the elections of December, 1924, and September, 1930, about 6,500,000 who came of voting age in this interval had not previously exercised their franchise. In 1930, 6,300,000 more votes were cast than in 1924 and abstentions dropped to 18.6 per cent (compared to 22.3 per cent in 1924 and 254 per cent in 1928). The S.P.D., which had polled 7,900,000 in 1924 and 9,200,000 in 1928, got 8,600,000 in 1930, compared to a Communist vote of 2,700,000, 3,300,000, and 4,600,000, and a Nazi vote of 900,000, 800,000, and 6,400,000 in the three elections. Clearly, the new votes did not go to the S.P.D., but were cast in 1930 for the two extremist parties. Günther E. Gründel wrote in Die Sendung der jungen Qenerattion that the "younger generation" rejecting the liberal and individualistic philosophy of the "reactionary older generation," voted for a "fundamental reorganization of the entire political system" by one or the other of the extremist parties. See, Statistisches Reichsamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch für das deutsche Reich, 1925-1932. Also, Otto Schragg, Die Homogenität der Parteizusammenstellungen im Reich und in den Ländern, p. 390; Dix, op. cit., p. 36. 5 They claimed to be the true heirs of the social-revolutionary Marxist faction in the S.P.D., which had for decades fought the reformist leaders. Many of them founding fathers of the Communist party, they continued to admire the Soviet Union and accepted most principles of Leninism, but objected to Stalinist control over the K.P.D. and sought to transform the S.P.D. into a "genuine" revolutionary Marxist party. However, "with the growing notoriety of the failure of Social Democratic policy," they became more favorably inclined toward cooperation with the Communists. See Anon., "End of a Great Illusion," New Statesman and Nation, V I (Sept. 9, 1933), 389 f.; Siegfried Marek, Reformismus und Radikalismus in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, passim and Sozialdemokratie, passim; Toni Sender, The Autobiography of a German Rebel, passim; Arthur Rosenberg, A History of the German Republic, passim; Paul Merker, Deutschland, sein oder nicht sein, I, passim. 6 Serge Chakotin, The Rape of the Masses, p. 246. Carl Mierendorff, the principal spokesman of this group, demanded that the S.P.D. pledge itself to a strong state which would "not consider the constitution an enumeration of checks and balances for the protection of the individual, but a militant expression of the collective will." "Der Sozialistische Weg," Sozialistische Monatshefte, L X X V I (Dec. 1932), 989-993. What might be described as a democratic national socialism or populist tendency (Volkssozialismus) in social democracy had its origins in the writings of Ferdinand Lassalle, who had founded the German Socialist labor movement in 1863, as well as in various patriotic and anti-Marxist influences which pervaded the S.P.D. before 1918 and in the immediate postwar period. Along with Mierendorff, a few other younger functionaries—among them many war veterans who had volunteered in 1914—fought during the last years of the Republic for a

NOTES

267

reorientation of Social Democratic strategy and tactics in the spirit of the ethical, patriotic socialism of Lassalle. Of these, Julius Leber and Theodor Haubach were later to collaborate with MierendorfF in the anti-Nazi underground and were executed after the unsuccessful coup of July, 1944; Kurt Schumacher was t o attempt after 1945 t o realize some of the ideas which this group had stood for. See Mierendorff's articles in Sozialistische Monatshefte, 1930-1932; Julius Leber, Ein Mamt geht seinen Weg, passim; Fried Wesemann, Kurt Schumacher, pp. 17-31; de Man, op. cit., passim; Chakotin, op. cit., passim. Fritz Borinski and W e r n e r Milch, Jugendbewegung, pp. 14-21, 24, 39; Theodora Huber, Die soziologische Seite der Jugenbewegung, pp. 25 f., öo, 72 f., 81; Else Frobenius, Mit uns zieht die neue Zeit, pp. 235-246, 343, 347. 7 T h e class struggle was declared not to be a matter of shouting and "irrational" behavior, but of calm persuasion, supported by rational arguments. T h e party leaders, wrote Severing, thought it "poor pedagogy for the older generation to tell youth constantly that the future was in its hands," for "it leads to arrogance on the part of youth . . . directed against the older generation . . . which has accumulated a good deal of wisdom in a lifetime" (Mein Lebensweg, II, 269 f.). Braun, w h o claimed that he believed in presenting hard and cold facts and logical arguments to his listeners, was strongly opposed to all efforts to whip up enthusiasm f o r social democracy by imitating the propaganda devices of the extremist parties. If "bourgeois youth" was mentally too lazy t o take an interest in the rational arguments of liberal democracy and succumbed willingly to the intellectually "more convenient" extremist propaganda, it had n o one but itself to blame for the consequences ( V o n Weimar zu Hitler, pp. 307, 374.) 8 In 1932 the average age of the twelve most prominent members of the S.P.D. executive committee and Reichstag delegation (Wels, Vogel, Crispien, Lobe, O . Braun, Severing, Breitscheid, Hilferding, Stelling, Scheidemann, Stampfer, Dittmann) was fifty-eight years, with a minimum of eight years and a maximum of thirty years of service in the Reichstag. T h e average age of the twelve Nazi party "Reichsführer" was thirty-seven. Less than forty years were: 70 per cent of the Communist, 62 per cent of the Nazi Reichstag deputies, but only 14 per cent of the Social Democrats. However, 12 per cent of the S.P.D. delegation were more than sixty, compared to 1 per cent of the Communist deputies and 3 per cent of the Nazis. Data from Cuno Horkenbach (ed.), Das deutsche Reich von 1918 bis heute (1931 and 1932 editions); Büro des Reichstags, Reichstagshandbuch, VI. Wahlperiode, 1932; Wer Ist's, 1935. 9 Braun, op. cit., p. 240. 10 Stampfer, Die ersten 14 Jahre, p. 597. 11 For the political tactics and general position of the S.P.D. leadership 19301932, see in particular relevant passages in Severing, Braun, Stampfer, Grzesinski, and Keil, as well as in Rosenberg, A History of the German Republic; Calvin Bryce Hoover, Germany Enters the Third Reich; Evelyn Anderson, Hammer or Anvil; Adolph Sturmthal, The Tragedy of European Labor; Karl Kautsky, "Hitlerism and Social Democracy," in Socialism, Fascism, Communism, pp. 59-62; Clark, op. cit., Arnold Brecht, Prelude to Silence, especially pp. 68-71; Georg Bernhard, Die Deutsche Tragödie. 12 " N o one had a clear picture of what the future would hold," according to Wilhelm Keil, the S.P.D. leader in the state of Württemberg, Keil, op. cit., II, 486. 13 Reported in International Information, organ of the Labor and Socialist International (Feb. 8, 1933), p. 52. Hereafter referred to as I.I. 14 Vorwärts, Jan. 31, 1933 (morning ed.). For an English translation, see 7.7. (Feb. 8, 1933), pp. 52 f. 15 Vorwärts, Jan. 31, 1933 (evening ed.). 7.7. (Feb. 8, 1933), p. 52. New York Times, Jan. 30, 1933. 16 International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXIV,

268

NOTES

373-375, Document 351PS (minutes of the first session of the Hitler Cabinet, Jan. 30, 1933). 17 Löbe, Erinnerungen eines Reichstagspräsidenten, p. 147. 18 International Military Tribunal, op. cit., XIV, 264 (Testimony of Karl Severing, May 21, 1946). 19 Brecht, op. cit., p. 74. 20 Stampfer, Die ersten 14 Jahre, p. 632. 21 See Vorwärts, Jan. 30 (evening ed.); Jan. 31 (morning ed.); Feb. 1 (both eds.); Feb. 2 (morning ed.), and Feb. 8 (morning ed.), 1933; 1.1. (Feb. 8, 1933), p. 53; Keil, op. cit., II, 490; Clark, op. cit., pp. 469, 474; New York Times, Feb. i and 7, 1933. That Social Democratic distrust of Communist motives had good reasons is indicated by Gordon W. Millikan, "The Science of Soviet Politics," Foreign Affairs, XXL (April, 19J3), 472-485. 22 See New York Times, Jan. 30, 1933. Friedrich Stampfer, Sie haben nicht kapituliert, pp. 15 f. dark, op. cit., pp. 473-478. Brecht, op. cit., pp. 76-78. Braun, op. cit., pp. 441 f. Keil, op. cit., pp 472 f. Evidently the Social Democratic leaders' estimate of this situation was shared by many, perhaps most Germans. Wilhelm Pieck, a leading member of the Communist politbureau, admitted two years later that his party, too, had been reassured and lulled into a false sense of security. (See Wilhelm Pieck, Der neue Weg zum gemeinsamen Kampf für den Sturz der Hitlerdiktatur, p. 50.) The commanders of the armed forces—whom Hitler told privately on February 3 that he was determined to exterminate pacifism, Marxism, and democracy in Germany and to establish an authoritarian form of government —did not take these declarations very seriously. (See Thilo Vogelsang, "Zur Geschichte der Reichswehr 1930-33," Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, II (Oct., 19J4), 434 ff.) Similarly, leading German industrialists—told privately by Hitler on February 20 that the coming election would be the last one for a long time to come; whether the Nazis won or lost, he would retain power—considered the apparent restrictions on his freedom of action sufficient to render such threats harmless. Papen and Hugenberg felt certain they could handle him, and Schacht had no trouble raising three million marks among the industrialists for the government parties' electoral campaign. (See Louis Lochner, Tycoons and Tyrant: German Industry from Hitler to Adenauer, pp. 137-143.) 23 Vorwärts, Feb. 2, 1933 (morning ed.). English translation in Clark, op. cit., p. 471. 24 See Vorwärts, Feb. 1-3, 7-14, 23-26, 1933. Also, Frederick Mundell Watkins, The Failure of Constitutional Emergency Powers Under the German Republic, p. 112; New York Times, Feb. 26, 1933. 25 Brecht, op. cit., p. 87. 26 Schultheis' Europäischer Geschichtskalender, 1933, p. 39; Hans Wendt, Die Märzrevolution von 1933, p. 31; Watkins, op. cit., p. 112. 27 Watkins, op. cit., pp. 114 f.; Vorwärts, Feb. 3, 1933 (morning ed.), Feb. 4, 1933 (morning ed.), Feb. 7, 1933 and Feb. 14, 1933 (morning eds.); New York Times, Feb. 28, 1933. 28 Keil, op. cit., II, 472 f. Papen apparently still believed that he and Hugenberg "could manage Hitler." See Lochner, op. cit., p. 137. 29 Vorwärts, Feb. 12, 1933 (morning ed.). See also Vorwärts, Feb. 15-26, 1933, passim. so New York Times, Feb. ij, 1933. Keil, op. cit., II, 490. 31 See Schulthess, pp. 50 f. for the text of the so-called "Magna Charta of the Concentration Camps." See also Leipziger Volkszeitung, Feb. 28, 1933. New York Times, Feb. 28, March 2 and 3, 1933. 32 Joseph Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, pp. 270 f. 33 See Stampfer, Sie haben nicht kapituliert, p. 18; Löbe, op. cit., p. 151.

NOTES

269

34 Leipziger Volkszeitung, Feb. 28 and March 1, 1933. Max Klinger (Curt Geyer), Volk in Ketten, p. 24. Stampfer, Sie haben nicht kapituliert, p. 18. 35 New York Times, March 2, 1933. 36 See Frankfurter "Leitung, March 6, 1933. 37 Quoted in Evelyn Anderson, Hammer or Anvil, p. 152. 38 See 1.1. (June 10, 1933), p. 267. Also, 1.1. (March 18, 1933), p. 119. 39 Reprinted in World Tomorrow, XVI (April 5, 1933), 316 and in 1.1. (March i i , 1933), p. no. Otto Braun, who by this time had given up all hope, reports that "many of my friends in the party were upset by my departure. Most of them were still laboring under the illusion that future political developments in Germany depended upon a few thousand Social Democratic votes more or less." An emissary of the party executive pleaded with him two days after the election of March 5 to return to Germany since it was believed his presence there would boost the morale of the Social Democratic supporters. Braun told him that he did not share the Socialist leaders' view that Hitler would permit parliamentary activities to continue, but "they clung evidently to the end to this mistaken opinion, which . . . was their undoing." Braun, op. cit., pp. 451 f. This has been confirmed by Keil, op. cit., II, 612 f. and Erwin Schoettle, "Der Parteiführer in Stuttgart," in Arno Scholz and Walther G. Oschilewski, Turmwächter der Demokratie: Ein Lebensbild von Kurt Schumacher, I, pp. 473, 475. 40 LI. (March 11, 1933), pp. 110 f. This was presumably the leaflet which Stampfer later reported having written "overcome with joy" by the loyalty of the Social Democratic voter. (Sie haben nicht kapituliert, p. 21.) 41 Interviews with Friedrich Stampfer (Feb. 14, 1946); Rudolf Katz (Feb. 11, 1946); Paul Hertz (April 2, 1946), and the late Georg Reinbold, in 1933 district secretary of the S.P.D. in Baden and member of the Diet (Feb. 28, 1946). 42 Quoted by Carlton J. H. Hayes, "Socialist Theory in Germany 1863-1914," A History of Political Theories, pp. 292 f. 43 See 11. (March 18, 1933), pp. 114-117. 441.1. (March 11, 1933, p. no; and March 18, 1933, p. 119). 45 The Center and the smaller, middle-of-the-road parties not only feared that, if the bill were turned down, the storm troopers would run wild, but hoped that, if it passed, Hitler would be able to control his supporters, and less extreme individuals would in turn be able to exert a moderating influence upon him. They were won over by the conciliatory promises regarding the churches, private enterprise, unemployment, peace, and their fear of communism, which Hitler promised to eradicate. They had confidence in the limitations on the powers of the government incorporated in the bill, limitations which seemed to bar an absolute dictatorship in favor of a constitutional "crisis government." See Die Zeit, April 8, 1952. Brecht, op. cit., p. 99. 46 At the cabinet meeting of March 15 Goring expressed confidence that passage of the bill was assured, but proposed that as presiding officer he might, if necessary, exclude some of the Social Democrats who would manage to enter the chamber. He hoped, however, that the S.P.D. would abstain. See International Military Tribunal, op. cit., XXI, Doc. 2962PS (minutes of the Reichscabinet for March iy, 1933). 47 Die nationalsozialistische Revolution, pp. 47-49. 48 Ibid., pp. 49-53. Hitler's "spontaneous" reply, which impressed observers as "one of the cleverest exhibitions of oratorical duelling that has ever been heard in the Reichstag," (Konrad Heiden, A History of National Socialism, p. 272), had actually been carefully prepared in advance. The Social Democrats, as was customary, had provided the press with an advance release of Wels's speech, which found its way into Hitler's and Goebbels's hands before its delivery, according to the statements by Stampfer and Hertz to me.

270 49

NOTES

Ibid.., p. 49, for the text of the enabling law. See Verhandlungen des Reichstags, Vili. Wahlperiode 1933, pp. 32-41, for the minutes of the entire meeting. See also, Stampfer, Sie haben nicht kapituliert, pp. 23-30; Clark, op. cit., pp. 485 f. 50 Schulthess, p. 78. 61 Contrary to the generally accepted view that there was no thought of allied intervention, the former Chancellor Heinrich Brüning has claimed that Marshal Pilsudski of Poland proposed joint military intervention to the French government, but was rebuffed. According to Brüning, knowledge of Pilsudski's plan "strongly influenced" the decision of the non-Nazi deputies who supported Hitler in the Reichstag on March 23 and May 17—including the Social Democrats on the latter date. ("Ein Brief," Deutsche Rundschau, L X X [July, 1947], 3.) Stampfer also mentioned the alleged Pilsudski plan for "preventive action," in conversations with the author, but claimed that it merely gave the Social Democratic leaders the mistaken impression that they could count on pressure on the Hitler government from abroad in support of their tactics. It now appears that while there were rumors going around in Berlin at the time that Pilsudski had made such proposals, they had probably no substance in fact. See Boris Celovsky, "Pilsudskis Präventivkrieg gegen das nationalsozialistische Deutschland," Die Welt als Geschichte, XIV, 1 (1954), 53-70. On the international reaction to the Hitler government in spring, 1933 see Royal Institute for International Affairs, Survey of International Affairs 1933 (London: 1934), pp. 125, 140, 152, 155 If.; André Frangois-Poncet, The Fateful Years, p. 99; G. M. Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, pp. 360, 376. 52 Frangois-Poncet, op. cit., pp. 70, 101. 03 See J. B. Jansen and Stefan Weil (pseuds.), The Silent War, p. 99. 5 *1.1. (March 31, 1933), p. 141. 55 This "confidence in the organization and its power was based on a tradition of decades," as an intimate of the leaders wrote later; it "proved so overwhelming at that moment that the most important consideration appeared to be the preservation of the organization." (Klinger, op. cit., p. 66.) See also Keil, op. cit., II, 612 f. 56 Karl Kautsky, "Einige Ursachen und Wirkungen des deutschen Nationalsozialismus," Der Kampf (June, 1933), 235-245. An editorial note indicates that the article was written in April or early May, 1933. 57 Quoted in Neue Volkszeitung, July 22, 1933. ss Verhandlungen des Reichstags, Vili. Wahlperiode 1933, p. 41. 59 Lobe, op. cit., pp. 151 f. 60 Heiden cites Danish press accounts to the effect that Hertz declared "false" reports could only harm the fight of German Social Democrats against Hitler. The party "would conduct its campaign . . . exclusively by means of objective arguments" (op. cit., p. 281). For the exchange between Wels and the Labor and Socialist International, see 1.1. (April 1, 1933), p. 146. Also, interviews with Stampfer (Feb. 14, 1946) and Hertz (April 2, 1946). Keil maintains that the leadership of the International agreed to the resignation and considered it wise, op. cit., II, 612 f. 61 See Henning Duderstadt, Vom Reichsbanner zum Hakenkreuz: wie es kommen musste, pp. 129-135. 92 See Franz Neumann, European Trade Unionism and Politics, pp. 34, 43 f.; Klinger, op. cit., pp. 67 f.; A. Fogarasi, Der Bankrott der Theorien des Sozialfaschismus am Ende der kapitalistischen Stabilisierung, p. 90 and passim; Arbeitskreis revolutionärer Sozialisten, "Der Weg zum sozialistischen Deutschland," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, (Sept.-Oct., 1934), pp. 389 f. is Neue Volkszeitung, May 27, 1933. 64 For reports on the conference see 1.1. (May 6, 1933), pp. 189-191, and May

NOTES

271

20, 1933, P- 226. Neue Volkszeitung, May 27, 1933. Frankfurter Zeitung, April 28, 1933. 65 Data based on information in Reichstagshandbuch 1928 and 1932; Vorstand des Vereins Arbeiterpresse, Handbuch des Vereins Arbeiterpresse (Berlin, 1927); Office of Military Government for Germany, Political Parties in Western Germany. Also, an untitled, mimeographed handbook for the occupation of France prepared by the German Secret Police (Gestapo) for the use of the German occupation authorities in 1940. (The document is in the possession of Professor Wolfgang Kraus, Washington, D. C., who kindly lent it to me.) Hereafter referred to as Gestapo Handbook. Also, interviews with Friedrich Stampfer and Paul Hertz. 66 Regarding the history and activities of the Zürich center, see August Bebel, Aus meinem Leben, III, passim; Eduard Bernstein, My Years of Exile, passim; Richard Lipinski, Die Sozialdemokratie von ihren Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, II, 53 f., 57. Wilhelm Schröder, Geschichte der sozialdemokratischen Parteiorganisation in Deutschland, I, 30-36. Franz Mehring, Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, IV, passim. For the Ebert-Braun mission of 1914, see Grzensinski, Inside Germany, p. 35 67 Indicative of Lobe's attitude at the time is his admission that "despite all the evidence" he found it "difficult" to believe that the Nazis had themselves set fire to the Reichstag and then had been so "inhumane" as to imprison innocent persons for the act. His "last doubts" did not vanish until the Blood Purge of 1934. See Lobe, op. cit., p. 151. 6S 1.I. (March 31, 1933). Among those who took this position were Kurt Schumacher, who was to spend eleven years in a concentration camp; Carl Mierendorff, who after several years in a camp, worked in the anti-Nazi underground until his death in an air raid in 1943; and Wilhelm Leuschner, leader of the Social Democratic participants in the 1944 attempt to overthrow Hitler, who was executed. On this conflict see 1.1. (June 10, 1933), pp. 265-270; Löbe, op. cit., p. 1J2; Klinger, op. cit., pp. 66 ff.; Neuer Vorwärts, Dec. 23 and 31, 1933, Dec. 31, 1937; Ludwig Lore, "The Fate of the Worker," in Nazism, an Assault on Civilization, pp. 121 f. 69 Jaksch, Hans Vogel, pp. iy f. /./. (June 10, 1933), p. 268. Klinger, op. cit., p. 66. Heiden, op. cit., p. 257. Interview with Stampfer, Feb. 14, 1946. 7 0 See Schulthess, p. 127; Klinger, op. cit., p. 74; Konrad Heiden, Geburt des Dritten Reiches, p. 258. Thus the leadership of the S.P.D. in Württemberg advised its elected representatives to "support the reorganization of the German state in the spirit of the national revolution." Keil, op. cit., II, 498. 71 See Royal Institute, op. cit., pp. 217, 269; Fran9ois-Poncet, op. cit., p. 101. 72 Brüning claims that knowledge of Marshal Pilsudski's supposed proposal for joint Franco-Polish military intervention was the reason the S.P.D. deputies supported "a resolution . . . which in cautious language expressed the unanimous opposition of the Reichstag to the plan which Pilsudski had proposed to the French." According to Brüning it was this vote which prompted the French government to reject the Polish proposal. See "Ein Brief," Deutsche Rundschau, L X X (July, 1947), j . 73 On the debate in the Social Democratic caucus preceding the meeting, see Jaksch, op. cit., p. 16; Paul Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben und ihre Erfüllung," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, (Sept.-Oct., 1934), p. 423; Sozialistische Aktion (May, 1934); 1.1. (May 29, 1933, pp. 234 ff.; June 3, 1933, p. 242; June 10, 1933, pp. 272 f.; and June 17, 1933, pp. 280, 300). Neue Volkszeitung, June 10, 1933. Frankfurter Zeitung, May 18, 1933. Interviews with Stampfer, Hertz, Erich Rinner, and Marie Juchacz, then members of the S.P.D. executive committee. 74 Fran§ois-Poncet, op. cit., p. 101.

272

NOTES

7B Politiken, a Danish paper, gave a vivid description of the scene: "Every deputy sprang from his seat—the Social Democrats with the others. A sensation! . . . a glaring spotlight is turned on them. . . . Balconies and galleries thunder applause in which the honorables [sic] on the dais and at the Ministers' table join. Hitler applauds and with him the ex-Crown Prince. The Social Democrats are the recipients of all this vociferous approval." Quoted in Ludwig Lore, "The German Socialist Debacle," Current History, XXXVIII (Sept., 1933), 697; see also Verhandlungen des Reichstags, VIII. Wahlperiode 1933. 76 Frankfurter Zeitung, May 18, 1933. 77 Frangois-Poncet, op. cit., p. 102. 78 Royal Institute, op. cit., p. 217. See also pp. 221, 227. 79 Reprinted in I.I. (June 24, 1933), pp. 313-316. 80 1.1. (June 3, 1933), p. 249. Also, Lore, "The German Socialist Debacle" p. 699. 81 /./. (June 3, 1933), p. 242. 82 See Breitscheid, "Collapse of the Social Democrats," pp. 837 f.; and Neuer Vorwärts, June 25, 1933, and Feb. 25, 1934. 83 "The Task of the Emigration in the Persecuted Party," I J. (June 10, 1933). 84 /./. (June 10, 1933). Interview with Stampfer, Feb. 2, 1946. 85 Id. (May 29, 1933, pp. 234 ff.; June 7, 1933, p. 260; and June 17, 1933, pp. 277 ff.). 88 Neue Volkszeitung, June 8, 193J. 87 LI. (June 10, 1933). See also Lore, "The German Socialist Debacle," p. 699. Breitscheid, "Collapse of the Social Democrats," p. 838. Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 423. Neuer Vorwärts, June 25, 1933, and Feb. 25, 1934. 88 Frankfurter Zeitung, June IJ, 1933. 89 Frankfurter Zeitung, June 9, 1933. See also Klinger, op. cit., p. 86. 1.1. (June 10, 1933, p. 267; and June 17, 1933, pp. 277-280). Neuer Vorwärts, Feb. 25, 1934. 90 Frankfurter Zeitung, June 7, 10, and 11, 1933. Otto Bauer, Die illegale Partei, p. 154 f. Anon., "The Underground Movement in Germany," American Socialist Monthly, VI (May, 1937), 27. Klinger, op. cit., p. 86. 91 Frankfurter Zeitung, June 14, 1933. See also Schulthess, p. 155. 92 Neuer Vorwärts, June 18, 1933. 93 Frankfurter Zeitung, June 20, 1933, and Schulthess, p. 156. 94 Frankfurter Zeitung, June 21, 1933. 96 See Die nationalsozialistische Revolution, pp. 57 ff.; Schulthess, p. 159; Frankfurter Zeitung, June 23, 1933, for the decrees prohibiting the S.P.D. See also II., (July 1, 1933), p. 336; Neue Volkszeitung, June 23 and July 22, 1933; "Social Democratic Party of Germany," editorial in the New Republic, LXXV (July j, 1933), 192 f.; Lore, "German Socialist Debacle," p. 86; Heiden, Geburt des Dritten Reiches, p. 257; Klinger, op. cit., p. 86.

Chapter 2 {pp. 37-62) 1

Neuer Vorwärts, June 25 and July 3, 1933. Hereafter referred to as N.V. N.V., July 3 and 30, 1933. 3 Friedrich Stampfer in N.V., June 19, 1938. For corroboration of Stampfer's statement see also Paul Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben und ihre Erfüllung," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (Sept.-Oct., 1934), 423. 4 See New York Times, April 11, 1934; Büro des Reichstags, Reichstagshandbuch, IV. Wahlperiode, 1928, p. 463; Emil Unger, Politische Köpfe des sozialistischen Deutschlands, pp. 59-63; Maximilian Müller-Jabusch (ed.), Handbuch des öffentlichen Lebens, p. 979. 2

NOTES

273

s Jaksch, Hans Vogel, pp. 2-8; Stampfer, Die ersten 14 Jahre, p. 121; Reichstagshandbuch, 1928, p. 459. 6 Jaksch, op. cit., pp. 21 f.; Vorstand des Vereins Arbeiterpresse, Handbuch, 1927, p. 460. 7 Duderstadt, op. cit., pp. 22 f.; Varga, Die Sozialdemokratischen Parteien, p. 61. 8 See Stampfer's various books, including Sozialdemokratie und Kriegskredite, Das Qörlitzer Programm, Die ersten 14 Jahre, passim; also interviews with Stampfer; and Paul Weidemann, Die Programme der sozialdemokratischen Partei von Gotha bis Görlitz, pp. 87-94. 9 New York Times, April 11, 1934; Büro des Reichstags, Reichstagshandbuch, 1928, p. 346; Müller-Jabusch, op. cit., p. 909; Severing, Mein Lebensweg, pp.

200, 214. 10

Office of Military Government for Germany, Political Parties in Western Germany, p. 9. Walther G. Oschilewski, Erich Ollenhauer, pp. 9-19. 11 The sources cited for the persons discussed above were supplemented by numerous personal interviews in 1946-1950 with Friedrich Stampfer, Paul Hertz, Erich Rinner, and Marie Juchacz, all former members of the S.P.D. executive committee; Emil Kirschmann, former member of the Reichstag; and numerous other exiled German Social Democrats. 12 N.V., June 18, 1933. 13 See Id. (June 10, 1933), p. 270. My italics. 14 See N.V., June 18 and 25, 1933, and Stampfer's article in N.V., June 19, 1938.

16

Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, p. 424. Anon., Revolution gegen Hitler. Die historische Aufgabe der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, p. 3. T h e original pamphlet, intended for mass distribution in Germany, carried no identifying marks, but it was later made "Heft 1" of the pamphlet series, Probleme des Sozialismus, published by the Sopade publishing house Graphia, Karlsbad. A summary of the pamphlet appeared in the N.V. on July 9, which would indicate that it was written during June and published at the end of that month or at the beginning of July. 17 N.V., June 18, 1933. 18 Anon., Revolution gegen Hitler, p. 14. 18 Ibid., p. 4. 20 I.I. June 21, 1933, p. 285. 21 Quoted by Stampfer in N.V., Sept. 24, 1939. 22 See, for instance, Stampfer in N.V., June 25, 1933, and Revolution gegen Hitler, passim. Also, declaration of Sopade in N.V., Oct. iy, 1933. For a discussion of this basic theme, see Erich Matthias's valuable study Sozialdemokratie und Nation, pp. 89 ff., 149, 158-174. 23 Anon., Revolution gegen Hitler, pp. 4, 13. 24 Ibid., p. 15. 25 Ibid., p. 16 and passim. See also N.V., July 9, 1933, for a short statement of Sopade position as presented in its new program. 28 N.V., Aug. 22, and Sept. 3, 1933. See also Revolution gegen Hitler, p. 4. 27 Werner Sombart, Der proletarische Sozialismus, II, 181 f. Also Elfriede Fischer, "Grundlagen der Interpretation . . . ," p. 5. 28 T h e famous "Vorwärts conflict" of 1916 in which "social patriots" and "social pacifists" fought a bitter struggle for control of the major party paper, and which ended in the appointment of Friedrich Stampfer, a "social patriot," as editor in chief, demonstrated by the very bitterness with which the struggle was waged on both sides, the tremendous significance which was attached to the possession of the chief newspaper of the party. 29 Sombart, op. cit., pp. 181 f.; Fischer, op. cit., pp. 5, 41. 16

274 30

NOTES

Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 426. For the quotations here cited, see Revolution gegen Hitler, p. 14. See also Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . , " p. 424; Bauer, Die illegale Partei, pp. 57, 131. 32 De Man, The Psychology of Socialism, p. 144. 33 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 422. 3 *N.V., Aug. 6, 1933. 35 See N.V., Oct. 15, Nov. 26, 1933. 36 Bauer, op. cit., pp. 128, 133. See also pp. 25 f., above. 37 It had been Lenin's hope in 1902 that "the mere function of distributing a newspaper" would "help to establish real contacts" among the opponents of the regime. "A network of agents," he wrote, "that would automatically be created in the course of establishing and distributing a common newspaper" would develop into an organization and eventually a party "centered around an all-Russian newspaper." See V . I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, pp. 149, 152, 156, 162, 164. See also Bertram D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution, pp. 154 f. 38 See Bauer, op. cit., pp. 59, 128 f., 131-135; David Shub, Lenin, passim; Wolfe, op. cit., pp. 154-164; Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, pp. 148-165. 39 N. V., July 30, 1933. 40 Interview with Stampfer, Feb. 14, 1946. 41 Appeal printed on inside cover of the pamphlet, Revolution gegen Hitler. 42 Bauer, op. cit., pp. 57 f. See also N.V., Dec. 31, 1933, and interview with Stampfer, Feb. 14, 1946. 43 Anon., Revolution gegen Hitler, p. 14. 44 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 426, and interview April 14, 1947. See also Gustav Richter (Joseph Buttinger), Probleme und Aufgaben der österreichischen sozialistischen Emigration, pp. 19 ff. 40 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 426 and interview, April 14, 1947. "Ibid. 47 According to a manuscript prepared by Hertz for the New York Public Library and statements made in interview April 14, 1947. See also I.I. (Nov. 14, 1934), pp. 562-565 and New York Times, April 11, 1934. Complete sets of the Sozialistische Aktion are in the New York Public Library and the Hoover Library at Stanford University. 48 Collections of representative samples of this material are in the possession of the New York Public Library and the Hoover Library. See also New York Times, April 11, 1934; LI. (Nov. 14, 1934), pp. 562-565; and Heinrich Fraenkel, The German People Versus Hitler, pp. 105-112; and interviews with Stampfer, Hertz, Rinner, Reinbold. 49 1 was unable to ascertain a more exact figure of the Sopade funds in my interviews with a number of its former leaders. See also p. 25, above. 50 Jaksch, op. cit., p. 21. B1 See reprint from Prague Sozialdemokrat of June 24, 1933, in Neue Volkszeitung, July 15, 1933; Kurt R. Grossmann and Hans Jacob, "The German Exiles and the German Problem," Journal of Central European Affairs, IV (July, 1944), 171; N.V., Aug. 2 and Dec. 31, 1933. Interviews with Alexander Stein, Friedrich Stampfer, and Paul Hertz. LI. (Nov. 11, 1934), p. 585. New York Times, April 29, 1934. Jaksch, op. cit., p. 16. Alexander Stein, "Rudolf Hilferding," Neue Volkszeitung, Oct. 26,1946. 52 Interview with Erich Rinner, Sept. 6, 1950. Estimates of the number of organized Social Democratic exiles varied widely since it was impossible to draw a clear distinction between political, religious, and other types of refugees. There appear to have been about 3,000 before 1936. See Matthias, op. cit., p. 18. 53 See end-paper map. 64 The Reichsbanner had been a uniformed, paramilitary organization founded 31

NOTES

275

in 1924 by the S.P.D. and the trade unions to counter the private armies of the extremist parties and help protect the democratic state and parties. 55 This account of the Sopade organization is based on interviews with Hertz, Stampfer, and Erich Rinner, all members of the Sopade; Hertz and Rinner, particularly, were concerned with the activities of the border secretaries and couriers. Also, interview with the late Georg Reinbold, March, 1946. See also Bauer, op. cit., pp. 69 f.; N.V., Feb. 4 and Sept. 23, 1934; Sozialistische Mitteilungen (Feb. 1940); Jaksch, op. cit., p. 19. 56 N. V., Aug. 27, 1933. See also interview given to the press in Prague by Wels and reported in the Neue Volkszeitung, July 15, 1933, and the communication addressed by the Sopade to the parties affiliated with the Second International, reprinted in I.I. (June 10, 1933), p. 270; Matthias, op. cit., pp. 92 f. 67 N. V., Aug. 13, 1933. See also Revolution gegen Hitler, p. 4. That the exiles were fully aware at this stage already of the danger of war presented by the Nazi government is also evident from Georg Decker's (Georg Denicke's) book, Revolte oder Revolution, p. 31. 58 See Hilferding's article written under the pseudonym Richard Kern, "Krieg, Abrüstung, und die Internationale," Der Kampf, X X V I (Nov., 1933), 433, 436. Also, Alexander Schifrin, "Trotzkismus und Sozialdemokratie," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, (Jan., 1934), p. 122. 59 See LI. (June i°> 1933)1 P- 27060 See 1.1. (Oct., 1933), for the official report on the Paris conference of August, 1933. See also N.V., Aug. 27 and Sept. 3, 1933.

Chapter 5 (pp. 65-119) Jansen and Weil, The Silent War, p. 72. See I.I. (June 10, 1933), p. 269 and numerous issues of N.V., 1933-1934. Vorstand der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Material zu einem Weissbuch der deutschen Opposition gegen die Hitlerdiktatur contains an extensive summary of known persecutions of left-wing opponents of the Third Reich immediately after the National Socialist "revolution," including those persons who were punished specifically for distributing Sopade literature. 3 Franz Alfred Six, Die politische Propaganda der N.S.D.A.P. . . . , p. 17. 4 Franz Neumann, Behemoth . . . , p. 215. See also Dorothy Thompson, "Deutsche die Hitler bekämpften," in Karl O. Paetel (ed.), Deutsche innere Emigration, pp. 22 ff. Also, numerous reports in N.V., June-Sept., 1933. For a collaborationist view of a former Social Democrat, see Duderstadt, Vom Reichsbanner zum Hakenkreuz, particularly, pp. 22, 43, jo, 126, 142. 5 See Bauer, Die illegale Partei, p. 53. 6 Jaksch, Hans Vogel, p. 19. Julian Amery has observed: "family men . . . will tend to defer active Resistance until the chances of conclusive action outweigh the risks of reprisals [while] reprisals are much less effective in deterring . . . young men without family responsibilities. For them, Resistance offers a cause, a way of life, and a means of livelihood." "Of Resistance," The Nineteenth Century and After, C X L V (1949) 86j. 7 Thus Wilhelm Keil, former leader of the S.P.D. in Württemberg, like Severing and other top functionaries of the Weimar party, lived quietly on a government pension through the twelve years of Nazi rule. Resistance activities they condemned as "senseless and useless." "A realistic appraisal of the facts led us to conclude that any such ventures had no chance of success," as Keil later recalled. " W e oldsters, [who] had decided to remain in the country and to abide by its 1

2

276

NOTES

laws," he wrote, "heard only occasional rumors" of resistance groups formed by younger men. See Keil, Erlebnisse eines Sozialdemokraten, II, 497 f., 507, 530. 8 Leber, one of the first to be arrested, wrote a bitter indictment of the Weimar Social Democratic leaders while he was awaiting trial. See Ein Mann geht seinen Weg, pp. 187-247. 9 Jansen and Weil, op. cit., p. 97. 10 Lenin, What Is To Be Done, p. 28. 11 On the factors and influences which played a part in the formation of the earliest Social Democratic underground movement, see Ernst Henri, "The Revolutionary Movement in Nazi Germany," New Statesman and Nation, VI, (Sept. 16, 1933), 319 f.; S. A. Häuser, (Siegfried Aufhäuser?) "Illegale Organisation in Deutschland," Der Kampf (Feb., 1936), p. 55; Bauer, Die illegale Partei, pp. 49, 58, 103 f.; Anderson, Hammer or Anvil, p. 163; Evelyn Lend, The Undergrotmd Struggle in Germany, p. 9; Jaksch, Ham Vogel, p. 19; Geyer, Die Partei der Freiheit, p. 31. Sturmthal, The Tragedy of European Labor, pp. 2J9, 344 ff.; Günther Weisenborn (ed.), Der lautlose Aufstand, pp. 161-163. 12 Wilhelm Pieck, We Are Fighting for a Soviet Germany, Report to the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, December, 1933, pp. 65-70. 13 Lionel Kochan, Russia and the Weimar Republic, pp. 165 f. 14 Die Kommunistische Internationale über die Lage in Deutschland, pp. 3, 9 f., 12, and passim. Italics in original. Also. Paul Merker, Deutschland Sein oder nicht Sein?, I, 343; and C. L. R. James, World Revolution, p. 353—a "Stalinist" and a "Trotzkyite" interpretation. Also Kochan, op. cit., pp. 172-177. 15 Pieck, op. cit., p. 54. Italics in original. 16 Rundschau (July 28, 1933), quoted by Franz Borkenau, The Communist International, p. 380. See also Piatnitzky's The Present Situation in Germany, published in the summer of 1933, and quoted in James, op. cit., p. 355: "It would be a great mistake to think that the Social Democratic Party had been destroyed in Germany. Gradually the Fascists will let it have its press back and will then permit it to continue the demagogy which it carried on before Hitler came to power." 17 Pieck, op. cit., p. 79, and Die Kommunistische Internationale über die Lage in Deutschland, p. 12. 18 Reproduced under the title "For German Working Class Unity!" in Labour Monthly, XV (Sept., 1933), 558-567. Italics in original. 19 Pieck, op. cit., pp. 5, 30, 54, 71-95. "We must always bear in mind," stated Pieck, "the teaching of Lenin, who wrote in 1909: 'The party which will understand how to consolidate itself in order to work in conjunction with the masses, conscious of its goal, the party of the advanced class which will understand how to organize its vanguard, which will direct its forces towards influencing every expression of the life of the proletariat in a social democratic (i.e. today, in a Communist) spirit—this party will conquer under all circumstances.'" Ibid., p. 70. 20 See James, op. cit., p. 356 for the partial text of the Comintern resolution of December, 1933. 21 Pieck, op. cit., p. 95. For the Communist position in this period, see also A. Fogarasi, Der Bankrott der Theorien des Sozialfaschismus . . . , pp. 81, 121, and passim. Franz Borkenau's The Communist International (American title: World Communism) contains extensive quotations from the Rundschau, organ of the Comintern, particularly on pp. 377 f. 22 See Jansen and Weil, op. cit., p. 89; Hauser, "Illegale Organisation . . . " p. 55; Bauer, op. cit., pp. 57 f., 67; Richter, Probleme und Aufgaben . . . , pp. 19-23. 23 Both the leadership and the support for the radical Marxist wing of the SP.D.

NOTES

277

had come principally from this region since the days of Bismarck. The editorial staff of the Leipziger Volkszeitung had provided the nucleus of the World War splinter group which became the German Communist party. In 1923 it had been the Social Democratic organizations of Thuringia and Saxony which had formed, over the opposition of the national leadership, the ill-fated united-front coalition governments with the Communists. Even after the failure of this attempt to create Soviet governments in Central Germany, the electoral strength of the S.P.D. remained 8-10 per cent above its national average in the region—particularly in Chemnitz, Leipzig, and Dresden—and the left-wing opposition to the party leadership continued to draw its leaders and chief supporters from the two states as did the Communists and various Marxist splinter groups. 2 4 On the Karlsbad border center and the organization connected with it, see Bauer, op. cit., p. 58; Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief, (Sept., 1937); interview with Paul Hertz, April 4, 1947; Weisenborn, op. cit., pp. 161 f. 2 5 K . B. Neuendorf (Karl Büchel?), "Die deutsche Katastrophe," Der Kampf, (Oct., 1933), pp. 386-393; and N.V., July 3, 1933. 2 6 Alexander Schifrin, "Revolutionäre Sozialdemokratie," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (Dec., 1933), 8i-8j. Also, Otto Friedrich (Otto Friedländer) in N.V., Sept. 24, 1933. 2 7 Konrad Heiden, "Wer führt?" Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (Nov., 1933), pp.

46-48.

2 8 Schifrin, "Revolutionäre Sozialdemokratie," pp. 86 f. Rosa Luxemburg, a leader of the extreme social-revolutionary wing of the S.P.D. before the First World War, had been one of the founders of the antiwar U.S.P.D. (Independent Social Democratic party) in 1917 and of the German Communist party in 1918; Lassalle and Schweitzer, the first two leaders of a German Socialist movement, were thought to have stood for an evolutionary socialism which accepted the existing political system as a proper framework for its activities; Vollmar and David, two leading reformists of the pre-Weimar period, Friedrich Ebert, the right-wing Social Democrat who served as the first president of the Weimar Republic, and Theodor Leipart, the chairman of the German Trade Union Federation until 1933, were identified by the radical Marxists with the anti-Marxist, patriotic, and antirevolutionary extreme right-wing of the German Social Democratic party. 2 9 Ibid., p. 88. 3 0 See a "left-wing" Social Democrat in N.V., July 3, 1933. 3 1 Heiden, " W e r führt?", pp. 49 f. 8 2 Schifrin, "Revolutionäre Sozialdemokratie," p. 86. 3 3 Heiden, " W e r führt?", pp. 48 IT. Also, Schifrin, "Revolutionäre Sozialdemokratie," p. 86; and N.V., July 3, 1933. 3 4 See Vorwärts, Feb. 3, 1933. Vorstand des Vereins Arbeiterpresse, Handbuch (1927), p. 49; Frankfurter Zeitung, April 28, 1933. Also interviews with Erich Rinner, Nov. 2, 1946; Friedrich Stampfer, Feb. 7, 1947; and Paul Hertz, April 4, «9473 5 See Reichstagshandbuch, 1928, p. 277; Merker, op. cit., I, 254, 332; Eugen Varga (ed.), Die sozialdemokratischen Parteien, pp. 53-66; Sender, The Autobiography of a German Rebel, p. 266. Also interviews with Stampfer, Rinner, Hertz,

1946-1947.

/./. (Aug. 24, 1933), pp. 448-451. Also, N.V., Sept. 3, 1933. Italics in original. See Aufhäuser in N.V., Sept. 24, 1933. Also other articles expressing similar views in N.V., July 23 and Aug. 27, 1933. 3 8 Miles, Socialtsm's New Beginning, pp. 23, 131 f. The original pamphlet, entitled Neu Beginnen! Faschismus oder Sozialismus was published in October, 1933, 36

31

278

NOTES

in Karlsbad by the Sopade's publishing house Graphia as the second of its series Probleme des Sozialismus. T h e manuscript was said to have been written in August, 1933. All further quotations here cited are from the American edition in which "only minor changes have been made since the original German version was written" (p. 23). 39 H . N . Brailsford, the British Socialist in his preface to Socialism's New Beginning, pp. 3 f. 40 See Matthias, Sozialdemokratie und Nation, p. 292, n. 42. 41 T h e covert nature of the pre-1933 organization of the "Miles group" was later attributed to the fact that it had been early "aware of the danger of the threatening Nazi dictatorship" and had, accordingly, prepared an underground organization "designed to weather the coming storm." (See Anderson, op. cit., p. 146 and Sturmthal, op. cit., p. 344.) However, it has been maintained elsewhere that at least some of the leaders had shared the optimistic belief of the Communist and Social Democratic leaders in February, 1933, that the new coalition government represented merely a "rear-guard battle of reaction" and that its so-called "democratic elements" would be able to control Hitler. See Anon., " T h e Underground Movement in Germany," The American Socialist Monthly, VI (May, I9Î7). 2742 Ludwig Lore, "German Socialism Underground," The New Republic, LXXX ( A u g . 15, 1934), 8. 43

According to Matthias, op. cit., p. 292, n. 42. Italics in original. See Miles, op. cit., passim. **Ibid., p. 118. See also pp. 103, 114 ff. 47 Ibid., pp. 99, 103, i o j f. 48 Ibid., pp. 60, 140. 49 Ibid., pp. 121-124. See also p. 137: "Final success in the fight against fascism can only be the result of years of hard struggle." 50 Ibid., pp. 47 ff. 61 "As regards the Communist Party, the probability of its participation in this unification is at present very small. It is not only organizationally and politically, but also spiritually, so dependent on the Comintern, that its incorporation in the German socialist class front, highly desirable as it is, will be the result of an inevitable and highly desirable settlement of our differences with the Bolsheviks rather than with the German comrades." Ibid., pp. 136 f. Also, pp. 118, 141. 52 Ibid., p. 128. 53 Pieck, We Are Fighting for a Soviet Germany, p. 6j. 54 Ibid., pp. 128 ff. 65 Ibid., pp. 20, 89, 130 f., and passim. 56 Italics in original. 57 Ibid., pp. 131 f. ss Ibid., p. 134. Italics in original. 59 Ibid., p. 140. 60 Quoted by Friedrich Stampfer in N.V., Sept. 24, 1939. 61 Ibid. 62 Anderson, op. cit., pp. 139 and 176. This attitude was supported by such émigré sociologists as Karl Mannheim who observed: "Philosophers and sociologists once thought there was a tendency towards rational and moral progress inherent in the human mind. T h a t this is untrue is clear to everyone who knows what is happening in the contemporary world. . . . T h e human mind, when suddenly brought into unfavorable circumstances, can relapse quite directly into earlier stages of its development." (.Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction, p. 51. This work was first published in a German edition in 1935.) See also Rosenberg, 44 45

NOTES

279

A History of the German Republic, pp. 781 f. and de Man's observations on the conversion of Socialists to totalitarian ideologies in The Psychology of Socialism, PP- 33. 3563 Karl Kautsky, The Road to Power, pp. 6, 56, and 63. 64 See Lenin, What Is To Be Done? passim. 65 / . / . (Aug. 21, 1933), pp. 433 fif. 68 Kautsky, "Hitlerism and Social Democracy," in Socialism, Fascism, Communism, p. 73. 67 See Kautsky, "Einige Ursachen und Wirkungen des deutschen Nationalsozialismus," Der Kampf (June, 1933), 236-241, and Kautsky, "Hitlerism and Social Democracy," pp. 59-65. T h e latter is a revised and expanded version of the above article written somewhat later, but reaffirming the attitude taken by the author in the Kampf article only all the more firmly. 68 Otto Bauer, "Der deutsche Faschismus und die Internationale," Der Kampf (Aug.-Sept., 1933), 3°9. 3 2 1 f69 Neuendorf, "Die deutsche Katastrophe," p. 391. 70 See Lenin, What Is To Be Done? and " 'Left W i n g ' Communism," for the terminology here cited. 71 See Bauer, Die illegale Partei, p. 40. 72 See p. 6, above. 73 T h e data about the N e w Left leaders are based on information in the Gestapo Handbook, pp. 59 f.; Office of Military Government for Germany, Political Parties in Western Germany, pp. 10 f.; Sopade Informationsdienst, (Aug. 11-12, 1949); Paul Hägen, Will Germany Crack?, p. xiv; and Friends of Paul Hägen, Replies to the Attacks on Paul Hägen, pp. 7 ff. 74 Geyer, Die Partei der Freiheit, p. 9. 75 Rinner belonged to the right wing of the S.P.D. and his inclusion in the Sopade preserved the preponderance of the right wingers in that body, despite the addition of the left wingers Aufhäuser and Böchel. Information based on interviews with Hertz, Stampfer, and Rinner. 76 Geyer, op. cit., p. 9. 77 See Bauer, "Der deutsche Faschismus und die Internationale," Der Kampf (Aug.-Sept., 1933), p. 321. See also Geyer, op. cit., p. 41. 78 Miles, Socialism's New Beginning, p. 4. 78 Ibid., p. 7. 80 See reply of Friedrich Adler, secretary general of the Labor and Socialist International, to this demand in I.I. (June 24, 1933), reprinted in N.V., July 3, 1933. S1 N.V., Aug. 20, 1933. 82 Writing under the pseudonym Max Klinger, "Der Rückfall in den Machtstaat," Sozialistische Revolution (Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, No. 1; Oct., 1933), pp. 18 f. 83 See Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 424. 84 Friedrich Adler in Replies to the Attacks on Paul Hägen, p. 8. Lore, "German Socialism Underground," p. 8. 85 "This series of pamphlets," they stated inside the front cover, "is being published as a contribution toward a clarification of views regarding the new situation which the victory of fascism has created in Germany. T h e publishers neither wish to nor can take any responsibility for the views presented in these pamphlets . . . they believe, however, that they are rendering the German and international labor movement a service by making it possible for the discussion of our great problems t o be presented on the broadest possible basis in open discussion." Miles, Neu Beginnen! Although the series was eventually t o include some thirteen pamphlets on "problems of socialism," the Miles pamphlet alone bore this qualifying legend. T h e title of the series was identical with the title of the series of articles

280

NOTES

under which Bernstein in 1896-1897 introduced his "revisionist" theories in the Neue Zeit. 86 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 424. 87 See Alexander Stein, "Rudolf Hilferding," Neue Volkszeitung, Oct. 26, 1946; Ruth Fischer, Stalin and German Communism, p. 142, n. 23; obituary f o r Hilferding by Toni Sender in the Neue Volkszeitung, Sept. 27, 1941; Reichstagshmdbuch, 1928, p. 347; Unger, Politische Köpfe des sozialistischen Deutschlands, pp. 80-84; Sturmthal, The Tragedy of European Labor, pp. 129 ff.; Merker, Deutschland Sein oder nicht Sein?, I, 134 f.; Varga, Die sozialdemokratischen Parteien, p. 61; David, Der Bankrott, p. 5; U. (May 27, 1933), p. 229. 88 "Die Zeit und die Aufgabe," lead editorial, Sozialistische Revolution, (Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, N o . 1) (Oct., 1933), pp. 10 f. Italics in original. 89 Friedrich Stampfer, "Beitrag zur Selbstkritik," Der Kampf (Aug.-Sept., 1933), pp. 334-338. Italics in original. See also Stampfer's article in N.V., Aug. 13, 1933. 90 N.V., Dec. 17, 1933. 91 N.V., Dec. 31, 1933. Italics in original. 92 Gestapo Handbook, p. 55; Frankfurter Zeitung, April 27 and June 20, 1933; interviews with Erich Rinner, Stampfer, Hertz. 93 O n Geyer, see his early radical writings, including Deutsche KaninchenzuchtMahnruf an die deutsche Jugend and Die Richtlinien der US.P.D. auf dem 2. Rätekongress für den Aufbau des Rätesystems; also Herder's Konversationslexikon, 1921-1923; de Man, The Psychology of Socialism, p. 33; Vorstand des Vereins Arbeiterpresse, Handbuch, p. 46. 94 E r n s t Anders (Erich Rinner), in N.V., Dec. 23, 1933, and "Neu beginnenzu welchem Ziel?" Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (hereafter cited as ZfS), (Dec., 1933), pp. 98 ff. See also N.V., Dec. 10, 1933. 95 Klinger, "Der Rückfall in den Machtstaat," Sozialistische Revolution (Oct., '933), PP- 14-1998 Bauer, "Der deutsche Faschismus und die Internationale," Der Kampf (Aug.Sept., 1933), p. 31J f. 97 Oda Ollberg in N.V., Sept. 17, 1933. 98 Ernst Anders, "Neu beginnen—zu welchem Ziel?", pp. 98-101. Also, N.V., Oct. 22, 1933; Karl Kautsky, "Eine Diskussionsgrundlage, ZfS (Nov., 1933), pp. jo-58. Also, review of the Neu Beginnen! pamphlet in Sozialistische Revolution (Oct., 1933), p. 38. " K a r l Kautsky, "Die Diktatur des Proletariats," Der Kampf (Nov., 1933), P- 439100 Kautsky, "Hitlerism and Social Democracy," pp. 74, 99, 101 f. 101 Ibid., p. 102. See also Karl Kautsky, "Die blutige Revolution," Der Kampf (Aug.-Sept., 1933), pp. 346, 361. 102 N.V., Jan. 14, 1934. 103 Kautsky, "Eine Diskussionsgrundlage," ZfS (Nov., 1933), pp. 50-58. 104 See Paul Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 425, and Alexander Stein, "Rudolf Hilferding," Neue Volkszeitung, Oct. 26, 1946; also interview with Erich Rinner, Feb. 10, 1950. 105 See Geyer's articles written under the pseudonym Max Klinger in N.V., Dec. 23, 1933 and Jan. 21, 1934, and "Positive Kritik," ZfS (Dec., 1933), pp. 96-98. 10«"Die Zeit und die Aufgabe," Sozialistische Revolution (Oct., 1933), pp. 5-10. 107 See Max Klmger "Unbelehrbar: Die Komintern und das Präger Manifest," ZfS (April, 1934), p. 223; Richard Kern (Hilferding), "Revolutionärer Sozialismus," ZfS (Feb., 1934), pp. 145, 149. 108 Though the preceding debate had concerned itself with a "new program" f o r social democracy, the document was published as a "manifesto." As the exiled

NOTES

281

representatives of the old executive committee, the Sopade could "legally" not proclaim a new program for the party. This was the responsibility of a party congress. Moreover, Kautsky had strongly objected to a tactical program being labeled "a new program of German social democracy," replacing the Erfurt and Heidelberg programs of 1891 and 1925, which he had helped to write. Lastly, a manifesto was a temporary document which could at any time be repudiated by those who originally signed. A definitive program was less easily abandoned. 109 Kern, "Revolutionärer Sozialismus," pp. 145-152. 110 Ibid., p. 149. Klinger (Geyer) in N.V., Feb. 25, 1934 and "Unbelehrbar," p. 222. 111 Kern, "Revolutionärer Sozialismus," p. 149. « * See Klinger, "Positive Kritik," p. 97. 113 See Kern, "Revolutionärer Sozialismus," pp. 149-152; Klinger, "Positive Kritik," p. 97 and "Unbelehrbar," pp. 222 f. and N.V., Feb. 25, 1934. 114 Italics in original. 115 For Hilferding's concern with arousing the international labor movement to the dangers presented by nazism, see Alexander Stein, "Rudolf Hilferding," Neue Volkszeitung, Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, 1946. For the circumstances surrounding the drafting of the entire document, see, in particular, the articles by Stein, Hilferding, and Geyer, previously cited. Additional data were contributed by Erich Rinner in an interview with the author, Feb. 10, 1950. Chapter

4 ( p p . 123-144)

Victor Schiff, "Wer soll gestürzt werden?" ZfS (June, 1934), pp. 293-300. Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben und ihre Erfüllung," ZfS (Sept.-Oct., 1934), p. 432 and passim. 3 See Jaksch, Hans Vogel, p. 16. * See Harold D. Lasswell, World Politics and Personal Insecurity, p. 130. 5 Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station, p. 391. See also Jaksch, op. cit., p. 28. 6 See Paul Hertz, "Das Prager Manifest von 1934," Austrian Labor Information 1 2

( M a y 1, 1944), v i . 7

See Sozialistische

Aktion (Jan.,

S.A. and N.V., 1934-1935,

passim.

SN.V., Nov. 19, 1933. See 9 Deutschlandberichte der

1935),

hereafter referred to as S.A. Also the

also N.V., Oct. 22, 1933. Sopade (Jan., 1935), p. B-29. Hereafter referred to

as D.B. 10N.V., June 25 and July 29, 1934. The paper estimated that the courts had handed down 81 death sentences and a total of 3,500 years in penitentiary and prison to the opponents of the regime between June 30, 1933, and June 30, 1934, indicating to it the strength of the opposition. For the distribution of the Neuer Vorwärts alone it was estimated that a total of 199 years in the penitentiary and 136 years in prison had been meted out. See N.V., July 29, 1934. Also March 18, April 18, June 17, 24, July 1, 1934. " S e e N.V., May 6, 13, 20; June 3, 17, 24; July 15, 1934. 12 See N.V., July 8, 15, 22, 29; Aug. 5, 12, 19, 1934. S.A. (July 12 and 29, 1934). 13 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 428. Also N.V., Aug. 12, 19, and 26, 1934. 14 N.V., Sept. 2, 9, 23; Dec. 9, 23, 30, 1934. 15 See Häuser, "Hlegale Organisationen in Deutschland," Der Kampf (February, 1936), 55; Anon., "The Underground Movement in Germany," American Socialist Monthly,

V I (May, 1937), 28.

See Pieck, Der neue Hitlerdiktatur, p. 24. 16

Weg zum gemeinsamen

Kampf

für den Sturz

der

282 17

NOTES

See D.B., 1934-1935, passim. See Anon., "The Underground Movement in Germany," pp. 28-30; also Hertz, "Das Prager Manifest," p. vi. 19 See Otto Bauer, Zwischen zwei Weltkriegen?, p. 309; S. A. Hauser (Siegfried Aufhäuser?), "Organisation der revolutionären Macht," ZfS (April, 1934), p. 216; Anon., "Österreich und wir," Sozialdemokrat (Prague: March 31, 1934), quoted in Rundschau (April 12, 1934), 931. 20 See N.V., Sept. 16 and Nov. 25, 1934. 21 N.V., Oct. 28, 1934. 22 Julius Deutsch, Der Bürgerkrieg in Österreich and Putsch oder Revolution?, passim; N.V., Sept. 16, 1934. 23 Anon. (Karl Kautsky), Grenzen der Gewalt, passim; N.V., Sept. 16, 1934. Kautsky extended these remarks in Shaplen and Shub's Socialism, Fascism, Communism (pp. 76 ff.): "A revolution can overthrow only a government that no longer enjoys the confidence of the people and is rejected by them." This revolution would not even have to take the form of a civil war, as some Socialists claimed, nor would it have to imitate the fascists by using cruelty and violence. Above all the revolutionaries should seek to deprive the ruling groups of the support of the armed forces. According to Kautsky: "When the army . . . has been defeated by a foreign foe and disbanded, or when the government is financially bankrupt and cannot pay its defenders, then the government is forced to capitulate without a struggle and the revolution proves victorious without resort to civil war. This was the case in France in September, 1870, in Russia in March, 1917, in Austria and Germany in November, 1918." 24 See Bauer, Die illegale Partei, pp. 129 f. 25 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 427; Georg Decker (Georg Denicke), Revolte oder Revolution?, pp. 31, 33; Schiff, "Wer soll gestürzt werden?" pp. 297 fr. 26 Geyer in N.V., Feb. 4, 1934. Decker, op. cit., p. 27 and passim; and "Nicht radikal genug," Sozialistische Revolution (Oct., 1933), pp. 20 f.; and "Erkenntnis als Aufgabe," ZfS (June, 1934), p. 303. 27 Decker, Revolte oder Revolution?, pp. 3 f., 22 f., 25, 30-36, and passim; "Nicht radikal genug," passim. Italics in original. 28 New York Times, April 11, 1934. See also ibid., April 29, 1934. 29 Paul Hertz, "Kämpfer und Helden," Argentinisches Tageblatt, Nov. 18, 1934. See also LI. (Nov. 14, 1934), pp. 562-565. 30 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," pp. 426 f. 81 II. (Nov. 14, 1934), pp. 562-565. 32 Interview in Neue Volkszeitung, June 11, 1935. 33 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 427. Also, ZV.F., Feb. 3, 1935; and Decker, Revolte oder Revolution?, p. 33. 34 See Proclamation of the executive committee of the Social Democratic party of Germany of July 1, 1934, printed in S.A., (July 8, 1934); Justinian, (Wilhelm Hoegner), Reichstagsbrand; and Landesgerichtsdirektor, (Hoegner), Der Faschismus und die Intellektuellen, passim. Also S.A., 1934, and Jan., 1935, passim. 35 N.V., Dec. 16, 1934. See also N.V., Sept. 2, Oct. 7, Dec. 30, 1934, and March 3, 1935. Also, 1.1. (Nov. 11, 1934), pp. 562-565. 39 See N.V., April-Dec., 1934, and in particular the issues for Sept. 26, Dec. 30, 1934, and Jan. 27, 1935. 37 N.V., June 23, 1935. 38 Quoted in Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution, p. 333. 39 Press conference reported in Neue Volkszeitung, July 15, 1933. 40 Neue Volkszeitung, Sept. 14, 1935. 41 N.V., Dec. 16, 1934. 18

NOTES

28?

« D . S . (Jan., 1935), pp. B-16-20. 43 Schiff, "Wer soll gestürzt werden?", p. 299. 44 See Manchester Guardian, Aug. 7 and Sept. 5, 1934, and Neue Volkszeitung, Sept. 1, 1934. 45 Interviews with Stampfer (Feb. 14, 1946), Hertz (April 4, 1947), Rinner (Feb. 10, 1950), and President George Shuster of Hunter College (Feb. 10, 1947), who was at that time in contact with Brüning and other Center party exiles. Certain right-wing Social Democratic leaders, such as Otto Braun and Theodor Leipart had favored such an alliance with the army before January 30, 1933, and it is likely, in view of the conspiratorial wartime alliance leading to the 1944 attempt to overthrow Hitler, that such sentiments continued to exist among Social Democrats both inside and outside Germany after 1933. 46 Telford Taylor, Sword and Swastika, pp. 112 ff. See also Emil Henk—one of the Social Democratic conspirators of J944—Die Tragödie des 20. Juli 1944; Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit: Der zwanzigste Juli, pp. 51-77; Walter Görlitz, History of the German General Staff 1657-1945, 295 f.; John W . WheelerBennett, The Nemesis of Power, pp. 383, 390; Hans Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler, p. 39; Gerhart Ritter, Carl Goerdeler und die deutsche Widerstandsbewegung, pp. 125-147. 47 See N.V., April 25, 1937. 48 Willi Müller (Karl Frank), "Gegen Argumente des Konservatismus," ZfS (April, 1934), pp. 230-234. 49 See Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Bericht über die Lage in Deutschland, November,. December, 1933, and March, May, 1934. Hereafter referred to as Bericht. The term, "Foreign Delegation," not "Representation Abroad," was used by this group in its English language communications and is for that reason used here too. See also Weisenborn, op. cit., p. 167 f. 50 Bericht, May and June, 1934. 51 Bericht, July and Aug. , 1934. 52 "Franz" (Franz Dahlem?), "Weshalb kämpft der Parteivorstand der S.P.D. gegen die Einheitsfront?" Rundschau (April 4, 1935), p. 831. 53 K . B. Neuendorf, (Karl Büchel?) "Das Prager Manifesto," ZfS (March, 1934), p. 188. See also article by the same author in N.V., March 11, 1934. 64 Siegfried Aufhäuser in N.V., Feb. 18, 1934, and Alexander Schifrin, "Die Konsequenzen des revolutionären Programms," ZfS (June, 1934), pp. 281, 292. 66 Historikus (Arthur Rosenberg), Der Faschismus als Massenbewegung, Probleme des Sozialismus, p. 75. 56 See Alexander Schifrin, "Die Konsequenzen des revolutionären Programms," ZfS (June, 1934), p. 265 and "Der Riss in der Diktatur," ibid. (Aug., 1934). p. 354; also Historikus, op. cit., pp. 74 f. 67 See Max Seydewitz, "Die Überwindung der faschistischen Diktatur," ZfS (March, 1934), pp. 198-207, and "Hitlers Konterrevolution," ZfS (Aug., 1934), pp. 355-364; Ludwig Neureither (F. Borkenau), "Klassenbewusstsein," ZfS (Feb., 1934), pp. 152-159; Fritz Bieligk, "Die revolutionäre Organisation," ZfS (April, 1934), pp. 234-238; Schifrin, "Der Riss in der Diktatur," p. 354, "Revolutionäre Sozialdemokratie," p. 90. "Trotzkismus und Sozialdemokratie," ZfS (Jan., 1934), pp. 118 f. Karl Böchel in N.V., Oct. 28, and Nov. 25, 1934. 58 See Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," p. 422; Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Materialien zur sozialistischen Konzentration (Paris? 1938), p. A-5. Chapter y (pp. 1 2

145-178)

See G. DimitrofT, Probleme der Einheits- und Volksfront, passim. See Franz Borkenau, World Communism, passim, and C. L. R. James, World

284

NOTES

Revolution 1917-1936, passim. Also Adolf Sturmthal, The Tragedy of European Labor, passim, and Kochan, Russia and the Weimar Republic, pp. 165 ff. 3 See Bauer, Zwischen zwei Weltkriegen? pp. 312-3 36; Harry W . Laidler, Social-Economic Movements, p. 469. 4 For comparative purposes, see Charles F. Delzell, "The Italian Anti-Fascist Emigration, 1922-1943," Journal of Central European Affairs, XII (April, 1952), 40-48, and Joseph Buttinger, In the Twilight of Socialism, passim. See also Neue Volkszeitung, Aug. 31, 1935; Otto Bauer, "Rechtsblock and Linksblock in der Internationale," Der Kampf (Dec. 1934), pp. 274-280; and "Einheitsfront in der Weltpolitik," ibid., (Oct., 1935), pp. 433-443. Also S.A. (early Jan., 1935) and /./. (Jan. 26, Feb. 2, April 27, Aug. 31, and Dec. 19, 1935). Raphael Abramovitch, "Taktiken der sozialistischen Parteien in Europa," Neue Volkszeitung, Feb. 9, 1936. Sturmthal, op. cit., p. 266 f. 5 Arbeitskreis revolutionärer Sozialisten, "Der W e g zum sozialistischen Deutschland. Eine Plattform für die Einheitsfront," ZfS (Sept.-Oct., 1934), pp. 375-409. Aufhäuser identified himself as one of the principal authors in the Nette Weltbühne of Nov. 1, 1934, and according to information cited by Matthias. Böchel gave the document its final form. Other members of the Old Left who were reported to have contributed to the contents were Max Seydewitz, who in 1931 had become the founder and leader of the radical Marxist Socialist Workers' Party (S.A.P.) after his expulsion from the S.P.D., Fritz Sternberg, also a former leader of the S.A.P., Otto Friedländer, former secretary general of the Socialist Student International, and Georg Fuchs, formerly economic editor on the left-wing Leipziger Volkszeitung. See Matthias, Sozialdemokratie und Nation, p. 293, n. 52; Fritz David, "Das neue Programm der deutschen 'revolutionären Sozialisten,'" Rundschau (Jan. 10, 1935), p. 86; and "Franz" (Dahlem?), "Weshalb kämpft der Parteivorstand . . . , " ibid. (April 4, 1935), p. 831. Additional data were contributed by Alexander Stein, Paul Hagen, Paul Hertz, Friedrich Stampfer, and Erich Rinner in a series of interviews with the author. 6 Italics in original. 7 See "Der W e g zum sozialistischen Deutschland," passim. Also the exchange between Aufhäuser and "Walter" (Ulbricht), a member of the central committee of the K.P.D., in the Neue Weltbühne (Aug. 30, Oct. 25, and Nov. t, 1934); and Toni Sender, "Einheit der Kräfte," ibid. (Nov. 22, 1934). 8 M a x Klinger (Geyer), "Der W e g zur Verwirrung," ZfS (Sept.-Oct., 1934), pp. 409-422. 9 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . ," pp. 430 f. Italics in original. 10 Hertz, ibid., pp. 429 if. and Klinger, "Der W e g zur Verwirrung," p. 422. 11 "Walter" (Ulbricht), "Für die Aktionseinheit," Neue Weltbühne, (Oct. 25, 1934). (A carefully edited version of this article—omitting all references to the strategy of the "united front from below"—appeared nineteen years later (after Ulbricht became the Soviet-sponsored dictator of Eastern Germany) in Walter Ulbricht, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, pp. 36-49.) Wilhelm Pieck, "Aufgaben und Zielsetzungen der Einheitsfront"; also Fritz David, "Das neue Programm der deutschen 'revolutionären Sozialisten,'" Rundschau (Jan. 10, 1935), pp. 86 ff. W . Müller, "Ideologischer Wirrwarr: Drei Plattformen in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie," Rundschau (Oct. 11, 1934), pp. 2362, 2364. [Note: This W . Müller is evidently not identical with Willi Müller—Karl Frank.] Pieck, Der neue Weg, p. 24, contains the extract from the Rote Fahne here cited. 12 See Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing, pp. 257 f. On the factional dispute between proponents and opponents of the "united front from above" in Russia, see Barrington Moore, Soviet Policies—The Dilemma of Power pp. 352 f., 355; Kochan, op. cit., pp. 174-177; Franz Borkenau, European Communism, pp. 122 f., 132 f.

NOTES

28S

13 See the subsequent abject "confession of errors" by "Franz," a member of the central committee of the K.P.D. (probably Franz Dahlem) in "Weshalb kämpft der Parteivorstand der S.P.D. gegen die Einheitsfront?" Rundschau, (March 28, 1935), p. 781. Also K.P.D. Deutschlandinformation and other—often camouflaged —Communist underground literature in the possession of the New York Public Library. For the quotations here cited and other instances of the savage Communist agitation against the Social Democratic leaders, see, in particular: Anon., "Der Gipfelpunkt sozial-faschistischer Demagogie," Rundschau (Feb. 8, 1934), pp. 508-510; W . Müller, "Wir gehen der Revolution entegegen!" ibid. (Feb. 16, 1934), p. 539; Fritz Heckert, "Was geht in Deutschland vor?" ibid. (July 19, 1934), pp. 1645 f.; W . Müller in Rundschau (Oct. 11,1934, p. 2363, and Oct. 18,1934, p. 2433); Kurt Heinrich, Neue Programme der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, passim, and Wels und Trotzki, eine Abrechnung, passim; Fogarasi, Der Bankrott der Theorien des Sozialfaschismus, passim; "Walter," Neue Weltbühne (Oct. 25, 1934), pp. 1350 ff. Also the manifestoes of the central committee of the K.P.D., calling upon Social Democrats in Germany to join the K.P.D., in Rundschau (Aug. 16 and Nov. 15, 1934); and R.J., "Die S.P.D., der 30. Juni, und die proletarische Einheitsfront," Rundschau (Aug. 2, 1934), p. 1760. 14 Heinrich, Wels und Trotzki, pp. 7 ff.; Fogarasi, op. cit., pp. 115 ff.; Kurt Heinrich, Neue Programme, pp. 14-22; W . Müller, "Alte Sozialdemokraten kleiden sich jugendlich," Rundschau (Feb. 22, 1934), p. 619; R.J., "Die S.P.D.. . .," Rundschau (Aug. 2, 1934), p. 1760; V. G. Knorin, Fascism, Social-democracy and the Cormmtmtt, pp. 48 f.; see also the subsequent recantation of these views by the K.P.D. leaders: Pieck, Der neue Weg, p. 24 and passim; Wilhelm Florin, Wie stürzen wir Hitler?, p. 19 and passim. 15 See Pieck, Der neue Weg, p. 26, and "Walter," Rundschau (Aug. 8, 1935). Probably the disastrous results of the "short-term" Communist underground tactics in Germany and the K.P.D.'s admitted lack of success in its endeavors to woo Social Democrats in the country away from their old leaders contributed to the Comintern's decision to impose the new course on the German section too. See "Franz," "Weshalb k ä m p f t . . . , " Rundschau (March 28, 1935) p. 781, and Heckert, "Was geht in Deutschland vor?", ibid. (July 19, 1934), p. 1645. The exceedingly well informed Gestapo listed among the members of the reorganized Central Committee Walter Ulbricht, Wilhelm Pieck, Wilhelm Koenen, Willi Münzenberg, Paul Merker, Albert Schreiner, Franz Dahlem, Wilhelm Florin, Leo Flieg, Hoser Hasdenteufel, Paul Bertz, Siegfried Raedel, and Edwin Hoernle. (Gestapo Handbook, pp. 49 f.) Most of these, except Pieck, Ulbricht, and Koenen, were subsequently purged; Florin died in Moscow during the war. 18 See Pieck, Der neue Weg, pp. 26 and 29; "Franz," "Weshalb k ä m p f t . . . ," p. 781; Merker, Deutschland Sein oder nicht Sein?, II. 491; Gestapo Handbook, pp. 49 f. 17 For the text of the resolution of the K.P.D. central committee, see Rundschau (Feb. 2i, 1935), pp. 551-554. See also Ulbricht, Zur Geschichte . . . , II, 55, 84 ff. 18 See S.A. (early Jan., 1935); N.V., Jan. 20 and 27, 1935; Ottokar Puls, "Bemerkungen zur Einheitsfront," ZfS (Feb., 1935), p. 558. 19 Rundschau (March 7 and 14, 1935). 20 Max Seydewitz, "Eine Arbeiterklasse, eine Partei," ZfS (Feb., 1935) pp. 551 f. 21 Hertz, "Unsere Aufgaben . . . , " p. 424. 22 While the left wingers immediately branded the expulsion of the two men as illegal on the grounds that they, like the rest of the members of the exiled executive, had been elected by the Reichskonferenz of April, 1933, the majority refused to debate the issue, and the Sopade publications observed complete silence on the matter. Therefore, the above account is based exclusively on left-wing Socialist and Communist sources. See R.S. Briefe (July, 1935); Auslandsbüro "Neu

286

NOTES

Beginnen," Materialien zur sozialistischen Konzentration, p. A - j ; Rundschau (March 14 and April 4, 193j). 23 "Offener Brief des Zentralkommittees der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands an alle Sozialdemokratischen Gruppen und linken S.P.D. Führer," Rundschau (March 21, 1935), p. 743. See also ibid. (March 28, 1935). 24 "Franz," "Weshalb kämpft . . . ," p. 782. See also numerous Communist underground leaflets published in this period and included in the collection of German underground material in the N e w York Public Library; Pieck, Der neue Weg, passim; Florin, Wie stürzen wir Hitler?, passim. 25 See Rundschau (April 4, 28; July 31; Aug. 8; and N o v . 28, 1935); N.V., Dec. 8, 1935; JLP. Deutschland Information, Dec. 20, 1935; Pieck, Der neue Weg, p. 30. 26 T h e K.P.D. leaders at Brussels stipulated that Social Democrats would have to agree to conditions which the Comintern had insisted could be the only terms on which Communists would merge into a "unity party." Recalling the T w e n t y One Demands of 1920—by which Lenin and Zinoviev had successfully split the Independent Social Democrats as well as the greater part of the international Socialist movement—these conditions included acceptance of the "democratic centralism" through which Lenin had autocratically controlled the Bolshevist movement, acceptance of the necessity of overthrowing capitalism b y revolution and succeeding it with the dictatorship of the proletariat, and refusing support to the bourgeoisie in any future "imperialist" wars. 27 For the speeches of Pieck and Florin and the final resolution of the Brussels Congress, see Pieck, Der neue Weg, passim. Florin, Wie stürzen wir Hitler? passim. Also the report to the German underground in the camouflaged pamphlet entitled, Wie unsere Kakteen richtig gepflegt werden müssen. 2S N.V., Sept. 8, 1935. See also N.V., Aug. 23, Dec. 8, 1935, and Aug. 22, 1937; Karl Kautsky, "Gedanken über die Einheitsfront," ZfS (Nov. 1935), pp. 833-838; Rundschau (March j, 1936); Merker, Deutschland Sein oder nicht Sein?, II, 490. 29 D.B. (Nov. 1935, pp. A-22 f.; and Jan., 1935, pp. B-32, 36). See also N.V., Aug. 18, Dec. 8, 1935; Feb. 28, 1937, and 1936, passim; also Grzesinski, Inside Germany, p. 174. 30 2V.F., Dec. 8, 1935. D.B. (Nov., 1935) pp. B-8 f. S.A. (Nov., 1935). 31 See N.V., April 19, 1936, April 25 and Aug. 22, 1937; S.A. (Nov. 1935, and Sept., 1936). 32 Also known as the German Revolutionary Socialists or R.S.D., the group had no formal connections with the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists, R.S.Ö., the former Austrian Social Democratic party. Siegfried Aufhäuser, the only leader of the group w h o could later be contacted, refused t o grant me an interview. See Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief, (Sept., 1937), for data on the Revolutionary Socialists. 83 See RS. Briefe (July, Sept., Oct., Dec., 1935); also Kampfruf der linken Sozialdemokraten, an underground leaflet dated June, 1936. 34 Florin, op. cit., p. 23 (italics in original); Pieck, Der neue Weg, p. 72. See also Rundschau (Aug. i j and Oct. 31, 1935) and a Communist underground leaflet, Die schönsten Brett- und Legespiele. 35 T h e RS. Briefe (Sept.-Oct., 1936) stated: "Once the catastrophe breaks over Europe . . . , once the f u r y of war tears through the nations, once all centers where it can gather have vanished, the German exile movement will be scattered to the farthest corners of the globe, and of all that which in the course of the . . . years it has brought together, sifted, clarified, and examined, nothing will remain but rubble and ashes." See also R.S. Briefe, 1936-October, 1937, passim, as well as various leaflets authored by the Revolutionary Socialists for distribution in Germany in the possession of the N e w York Public Library.

NOTES

287

3 8 See Matthias, op. cit., p. 34; N.V. (Sept. 12, 1937); Auslandsbüro " N e u Wochenbrief, N o . 30 (Sept., 1937), and MaBeginnen," Sozialdemokratischer terialien zur sozialistischen Konzerttration (Aug. 27, 1938). O n Max Seydewitz's position in the hierarchy of the Socialist Unity party after 1945, see in particular Office of the U.S. H i g h Commissioner for Germany, Elections and Political Parties in Germany, i94$-i9$2, p. 33, and the 1954 joint electoral list for the German Democratic Republic in Neues Deutschland, Sept. 24, 1954. 3 7 See Nachrichten des Auslandsbüros "Neu Beginnen," N o . 1. ( T h e date on this issue is Sept., 1934, but it is clear f r o m the contents that actually it was published much later, about summer 1935). Hereafter referred to as Nachrichten. 38 Nachrichten, N o . 3 (Dec., 1935). 39 Nachrichten, N o s . 1-6 (Summer, 1935-June, 1936), passim. 40 Nachrichten, N o . 1 (Summer, 1935?), and N o s . 4-5 (April-May, 1936). Jansen and Weil, The Silent War, pp. 141 f., 159. Auslandsbüro " N e u Beginnen," Materialien zur sozialistischen Konzentration, pp. A-5, A-8. Gestapo Handbook, pp. J 9 f. Merker, Deutschland Sein oder nicht Sein? II, 491. Willi Müller (Karl sozialistische F r a n k ) , "Erster Schritt zur Einigung der Gesamtbewegung," Der Kampf (June 16, 1938). Also interviews with Paul Hagen (Karl F r a n k ) , Paul Hertz, and Erich Rinner, 1947-jo. Matthias, op. cit., p. 292, n. 42. Weisenborn, op. cit., p. 167 f. « W i l l i Müller (Karl Frank), "Zu Otto Bauers Buch 'Zwischen zwei W e l t kriegen'," Der Kampf (Aug., 1936), p. 307, note. Foreign Bureau " N e w Beginning," Report on Conditions . . . , p. 23. 4 2 After the prohibition of the Austrian Social Democrats b y the Dollfuss government in February, 1934, that party had been transformed into the underground Austrian Revolutionary Socialists by a new leadership in Austria. Until the Anschluss of 1938, these "new men" in Austria were the recognized leaders of the illegal Socialist party, while its Foreign Delegation, under the leadership of the principal leader of the old party, Otto Bauer, voluntarily assumed a subordinate position. See Buttinger, In the Twilight of Socialism, passim. 4 3 Limitations of space confine this discussion to a summary based on O t t o Bauer's posthumous study, Die illegale Partei, the contents of Der Kampf, the April, journal of the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists, 1935-1937, Nachrichten, 1936-January, 1937, and a series of articles which N e w Beginning's chief theorist, Richard Löwenthal, published under the pseudonym Paul Sering in Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, namely "Wandlungen des Kapitalismus" (July-Aug., Sept.-Oct., 1935); " D e r Faschismus" (Nov.-Dec., 1935); "Historische Voraussetzungen des deutschen Nationalsozialismus," (March, 1936), pp. 955-975; "Die Aufgaben der deutschen Revolution," (May-June, 1936), pp. 1041-1049; and " W a s ist der Volkssozialismus?" (Sept., 1936), pp. 1105-1136 (published in English under the title, What is Folksocialism?, N e w York: 1937). Also Willi Müller (Frank), "Hitler's fait accompli," ZfS (March, 1936), pp. 945-950; b y the same author under a different pseudonym, Paul Hagen, "Integraler Sozialismus," ZfS (July-Aug., 1936), pp. 1103 f., and Will Germany Crack? pp. 214-218. Lend, The Underground Struggle in Germany, pp. 28 f., and by the same author under the name of Evelyn Anderson, Hammer or Anvil? pp. 175-180. Jansen and Weil, The Silent War, pp. 79, 95, 125-128. Weisenborn, Der lautlose Aufstand, p. 168. 4 4 T h i s short-lived "Popular F r o n t " committee of German exiles in Paris represented the only tangible success of the "new course" of German communism. A few once prominent Social Democrats, including Rudolf Breitscheid and Albert Grzesinski, as well as a number of "bourgeois" writers, briefly participated. However, the committee played no significant role in the anti-Nazi opposition and disintegrated within two years as a result of mutual suspicions, the hostility of other exile groups, and disillusionment among its non-Communist

288

NOTES

members. In the postwar unity drives of the German Communists, Breitscheid was to be hailed as a "repentant" Social Democratic leader and as one of the few genuine non-Communist fighters against Nazism. See, e.g., "Nur die Aktionseinheit führt zum Sieg," and "Sein Vermächtnis mahnt," Neues Deutschland (Aug. 24, and Nov. 2, 1954.). On the Parisian "Popular Front" committee see Grzesinski, Inside Germany, pp. 174 f.; Cahen, Men Against Hitler, p. 247; Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Materialien, p. A-7; Toni Breitscheid, "Rudolph Breitscheids letzte Jahre," Neue Volkszeitung (Nov. 22, 1947); Ulbricht, Zur Geschichte . . . , p. 223. 45 See Sering, ZfS (July, 1936, p. 1047; Sept., 1936, p. 1136). Müller, ZfS (March, 1936, pp. 949 f.; July-Aug., 1936, p. 1078); and Der Kampf (Aug., 1936), p. 307. Also Nachrichten (April-May, 1936, June, 1936, and April, 1937). Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief, (Oct., 1937). Jansen and Weil, The Silent War, p. 239; Merker, Deutschland . . . , II, 493. 46 See Nachrichten (Dec., 1935, April-May, 1936, Oct., 1936, Dec., 1936-Jan., 1937, April, 1937); Jansen and Weil, op. cit., p. i6y; Foreign Bureau "New Beginning," Report on Conditions . . . , p. 13; Gestapo Handbook, pp. 59 f., also interviews with Alexander Stein, Georg Reinbold, Friedrich Stampfer, Paul Hertz, Paul Hagen (Karl Frank), and Erich Rinner. 47 See N.V., April 19, 1936, April 25 and Aug. 22, 1937; S.A. (Nov. 1935, and Sept., 1936); Borkenau, World Communism, pp. 394-398; Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Materialien, p. A-5. 48 N.V., Feb. 17, 1935. 49 Hilferding had been dropped from the executive by the Reichskonferenz of April, 1933, from which the exiled executive claimed to derive its mandate. Curt Geyer, however, who had never been a member of the S.P.D. executive, but was a leading partisan of the right-wing faction in the Sopade, was simply coöpted into the exiled executive, after the expulsion of the left wingers, by virtue of becoming editor of the Neuer Vorwärts. (Fritz Heine of the Sopade staff was similarly coöpted in 1938.) Geyer's elevation was never recognized by anyone outside the Sopade, but within that group his influence grew stronger each year. Other members of the last legally chosen executive who were outside Germany—Wilhelm Sollmann, Marie Juchacz, and Georg Dietrich—were unable to come to Prague to claim a seat in the Sopade. It was, however, customary to permit nonmembers such as Hilferding to participate in the meetings of the group without the right to vote. As most decisions were informally agreed upon by the leading members prior to formal meetings of the executive, strict voting procedure was observed only very rarely when weighty issues were to be decided upon which opinion appeared to be divided. This information was supplied by Stampfer, Hertz, and Rinner in various interviews. 60 See Keil, Erlebnisse eines Sozialdemokraten, II, 527, 530. 61 Gerhart Seger as reported in the Neue Volkszeitung, May 11, 1935. 62 N.V., Jan. 6, 1935; D.B. (Jan., 1935, pp. B-n-14, 29, 32, 36; and April, 1935, p. B-i); Max Klinger (Geyer), "Eine verlorene Schlacht," ZfS (Feb., 1935), p. 534; S.A. (early Jan., 1935). "D.B. (Jan., 1935), p. B-32. «D.B. (Jan. 1935, pp. B-33 f.; April, 1935, pp. B-4, 6; July, 1935, pp. A-4-6, 11. Aug., 1935, pp. A-2, 12; Sept., 1935, p. A-1; Nov., 1935, pp. A-13, 26 f.; Dec., 1935, pp. A-i, 4). N.V., April 28, May 5, June 9, 30, July 14, 21, 28, Aug. 4, 11, 18, 23, Oct. 13, Npv. 3, 24, Dec. 8, 22, 29 1935; Feb., 23, 1936. Ernst Keller, "Glossen," ZfS (July-Aug., 1935), pp. 747 ff.; Ernst Henrichsen, "Von den Oppositionen zum Freiheitskampf," ZfS (July-Aug., 1935), pp. 689-697; Karl Henrichsen, "Hitler ohne Hintermänner," ZfS (Nov.-Dec., 1935), pp. 821-824 and "Bürgerliche Opposition," ZfS (Feb., 1936), p. 917 ff.; Neue Volkszeitung (Aug. 3 and 17, 1935).

NOTES

289

65 See Ernst Keller, "Glossen," ZfS (July-Aug., 1935), p. 750; his italics. Also D.B. (July i j , 1935) and D.B. and N.V. passim 1935-Spring, 1936. 56 Wilhelm Sollmann,, "Sozialistische Machtpolitik," ZfS (Sept.-Oct., 1935), pp. 758-765. 57 See the interesting correspondence between Sollmann, Sievers, and Otto Strasser included in the Sollmann Papers of the Swarthmore Peace Collection, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania—concerning the abortive attempts to forge a common front between the Sopade and the Strasser group. Also Sollmann, "Sozialistische Machtpolitik," ZfS (Sept.-Oct., 1935), pp. 758-765 and "Volksrevolution und Volkssozialismus," N.V. (Feb. 23, 1936); Fritz Tejessy, "Mit Lassalle!" N.V. (April 5, 1936); Andreas Howald in N.V., April 19, 1936 and May 3, 1936; Sering, "Was ist der Volkssozialismus?" ZfS (Sept., 1936), pp. 110536; Bauer, Die illegale Partei, pp. 24-35. For the Strasser group, see Cahen, Men Against Hitler, particularly p. 210. On Sollmann, see also numerous articles which he wrote for the Neue Volkszeitung, 1938-1940; Reichstagshandbuch, 1928, p. 442; IJ. (April 22 and May 17, 1933); his obituary in New York Times, Jan. 8, 1951; also Felix E. Hirsch, "William Sollmann, Wanderer Between Two Worlds," South Atlantic Quarterly, LII (April, 1953), 207-227. 08 See Stampfer in N.V., June 28, 1936. 59 See particularly S.A. (June 30 and Nov., 1935). 60 See N.V., Feb. 23, 1935. 61 See Stampfer in N.V., June 27, 1937, and particularly his conception and defense of the traditional Social Democratic credo in his Die ersten 14 Jahre, written in 1935 and first published in 1936. See also Siegfried Marek, Der Neuhumanismus als politische Philosophie, passim. 62 See D.B. (Nov. 1935), pp. A-13, B-10-20. 63 N.V., June 30, 1935. 64 See D.B. (Nov., 1935), pp. B-3-7. 85 D.B. (Dec., 1935), p. A- 4 . 66 See N.V., Dec. 29, 1935; also Dec. 8, 1935; Jan. 5, Feb. 2 and 23, 1936; S.A. (Sept., 1935); DB. (Sept., 1935, p. A-i; Nov., 1935, pp. B-3-7; Dec., 1935, pp. A-i, 4); Ernst Henrichsen, "Von den Oppositionen zum Freiheitskampf," ZfS (July-Aug., 1935), pp- 689-696; Karl Henrichsen, "Bürgerliche Opposition," ZfS (Febr., 1936), pp. 917 ff. 67 See S.A. (Feb., 1936). 68 Karl Henrichsen, "Drei Jahre Hitler," ZfS (Jan., 1936), pp. 681-689.

Chapter 1

6 (pp.

181-204)

See, for example, S.A. (early Jan. and early April, 1935); N.V., Dec. 17, 1933, April 21, 1935, March 15, 1936. 2 N . V . , Dec. 17, 1933. Also Anon. (Hilferding), "Die Zeit und die Aufgabe," Sozialistische Revolution (ZfS No. J; Oct., 1933), p. 8; Decker, Revolte oder Revolution, pp. 5, 7; Richard Kern (Hilferding), "Krieg, Abrüstung, und Internationale," Der Kampf (Nov., 1933), pp. 425-433. 3 See D.B. and N.V., 1934-1936, passim; Gerhard Seger, Oranienburg; and Anon., Konzentrationslager. 4 N.V., Feb. 3, 1935. See also N.V., Feb. 10 and 24, 1935. 5 Richard Kern (Hilferding), "Macht ohne Diplomatie—Diplomatie ohne Macht," ZfS (April, 1935), pp. 593-604. 6 N.V., March 24, 1935. 7 N.V., April 7, 1935. See also N.V., March 31, May 19, 26, June 2, Aug. 4,

290

NOTES

and most issues summer-fall, 1935; also Ernst Keller, "Glossen," ZfS (July-Aug., I93J). P- 7498 N.V., Dec. 29, 1935. This manifesto, it should be recalled, was published at a time when the exiles—as well as many other people in Europe and the rest of the world—were led to believe by the first international repercussions to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, that aggression would not be suffered there or anywhere else. 9 Karl Henrichsen, "Geduldsprobe," ZfS (April, 1936), pp. 977-982. Also N.V., March ij, April j, 1936, March 27, 1938. 10

Rothfels, The German Opposition Against Hitler, p. 24.

See Gabriel A. Almond and Wolfgang Kraus, "Resistance and Repression," in Almond (ed.), The Struggle for Democracy in Germany, p. 51. Neumann, 11

Behemoth, pp. 189-99,

zo 7t

402. Keil, Erlebnisse eines Sozialdemokraten, II, pp.

543-54512 Quoted in N.V., Nov. 3, 1938. 13 These figures are not an entirely reliable index of opposition since many persons were undoubtedly unjustly accused and sentenced. Cited in Günther Weisenborn, "Es gab eine deutsche Widerstandsbewegung," Die Neue Zeitung, Dec. 9, 1946.

14 Henk, Die Tragödie des 20. Juli ¡944, p. 8. On the anti-Nazi resistance movement of the prewar period see Hans Rothfels, "Das politische Vermächtnis des deutschen Widerstands," Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, II (Oct., 1954),

331 and op. cit., passim; Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power, pp. 383 f.;

Weisenborn, Der lautlose Aufstand, pp. 145 f. and "Es gab . . ."; Almond, op. cit., pp. 34, 46-52. Of lesser value are various reports that emanated from German exile sources before and during the war, since most of them sought to establish primarily that there was widespread resistance—a shortcoming from which postwar German accounts are by no means free either. For one of the most careful compilations of reported arrests and trials gathered, from official German sources, see Vorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Weissbuch der deutschen Opposition gegen die Hitlerdiktatur. 15

16

N.V., March 29, 1936.

See Weisenborn Der lantlose Aufstand, pp. 154, 160; and Gestapo Hand-

book, p. 55. Allen Dulles paid tribute to the quality of the reports in his Germany's Underground, p. 103. A short statement concerning the methods and principles employed in preparing the Deutschlandberichte der Sopade appeared in every issue. For a more extensive description see Germany—Monthly Report of the

Leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Germany—English-language

sum-

mary of the D.B.— (June, 1937), p. 2, and D.B. (May, 1937), pp. B-1-19. 17 See N.V., Sept. 26, Oct. 3, 10, 17, and 24, 1937; and Weisenborn, Der lantlose Aufstand, p. 154, for the Gestapo "Lagebericht." 1 8 N.V., Aug. 15, 1937. 19 N.V., Nov. 28, 1937. 20 D.B. (Dec., 1937, pp. A-7, 9; and Feb., 1938, passim). 21 N. V., March 20 and 27, 1938. Also D.B. (Feb. and March, 1938). 22 N\F., Feb. 13, 1938. Also N.V., Feb. 6, 1938. 23 N.V., Aug. 28, 1938. 24 N.V., March 27, 1938. 25 See Curt Geyer in N.V., Oct. 9 and Nov. 13, 1938; D.B. (Oct., 1938), pp. A-2, 32 f., B-14, 23; and N.V., Oct. 30, 1938. 26 Jansen and Weil, The Silent War, p. 265. See also Lochner, Tycoons and Tyrants, p. 187; and Francois-Poncet, The Fateful Years, p. 203. 27 See Cahen, Men Against Hitler, pp. 229-237; and Berendsohn, Die humanistische Front, p. 71.

NOTES

291

N.V., Oct. 9, 1938. T h e Labor and Socialist International, founded as a counterweight t o the new Communist International, was supposed to represent the collective will of most Socialist parties of the world. A loose federation of its member parties, it amounted t o n o more than a vague and noncommittal concession b y its members to the Marxist legacy of international working class solidarity, which the Socialist claimants to that heritage neither could nor would surrender entirely to the Communists. 3 0 Curt Geyer, "Nationalismus und Demokratie," N.V., N o v . 6, 1938; N.V., Feb. 24, 1935. Alexander Stein, "Rudolf Hilferding," Neue Volkszeitung, Nov. 2, 1946. Richard K e r n (Hilferding), "Krieg, Abrüstung und die Internationale," Der Kampf (Nov., 1933), pp. 425-436. K . B. Neuendorf (Böchel?), "Die deutsche Katastrophe," Der Kampf (Oct., 1933), p. 386. Alexander Schifrin, "Hitler Deutschland und Europa," Sozialistische Revolution ( Z f S , N o . 1; Oct., 1933), p. 28. Gustav Richter (Buttinger) "Die Tätigkeit der sozialistischen Arbeiter-Internationale," Der Sozialistische Kampf (June 17, 1939), pp. 265 f. Friedrich Adler, "Zur Geschichte des Scheiterns der Arbeiter-Internationale," Austrian Labor Information (Jan. 20, 1943). Max Liebe, Die internationale Gewerkschaftsbewegung . . . , pp. 41-45, 72 ff. The Internationale Trade Union Movement (1933-1935), passim. International Information (1933-1938), passim. Sturmthal, The Tragedy of European Labor, pp. 65, 239 ff., 299 f. 3 1 Kern (Hilferding), "Macht ohne Diplomatie—Diplomatie ohne Macht," ZfS (April, 1935), p. 604. 3 2 According t o report in N.V., Oct. 23, 1938. 3 3 Sturmthal, op. cit., p. 325 and pp. 248-332, passim. Adler, "Zur Geschichte . . ." (Jan. 20, 1943). Gustav Richter (Buttinger), " D i e internationale Arbeiterbewegung nach München," Der sozialistische Kampf (Oct. 22, 1938; address b y the representative of Austrian social democracy before the meeting of the executive council of the L a b o r and Socialist International, Brussels, Oct., 1938); " D e r Zustand der sozialistischen Arbeiterinternationale," ibid. (June 3, 1939); " D i e Tätigkeit der sozialistischen Arbeiterinternationale," ibid. (June 17, 1939); " D i e österreichischen Sozialisten und die sozialistische Arbeiterinternationale," ibid. (July 1, 1939). Austriacus, "Im permanenten Weltkrieg," and G e o r g Wieser Kampf (Otto Leichter), "Ein zweites Zimmerwald," both in Der sozialistische (Oct. 22, 1938). A l s o N.V., July 4, 1937. 3 4 A b o u t members of the Sopade and their families who lost their German citizenship, see N.V., Sept. 3, 1933, June 23, 1935, April 4 and 11, M a y 9, 1937; Neue Volkszeitung, July 22, 1933. On the plight of German political exiles in general—particularly between 1933 and 1935—see W o l f Frank, Führer durch die deutsche Emigration, especially pp. 23 f., 31 if. 36 N.V., April 7, 1935; see also, J u l y 8, 1934; April 14, J u l y 14, September 15, 1935; February 2, 1936; M a y 2, Dec. 12 and 19, 1937. Also Rundschau (Dec. 13, 1934), pp. 2944 f.; Grzesinski, Inside Germany, p. 263; Jansen and Weil, op. cit., p. 143; Anon., Das braune Netz, p. 237; Nachrichten (July-Aug., 1936); Margarete Buber, Under Two Dictators, pp. 171 f.; and Gestapo Handbook, passim. 3 6 Regarding the latter case see N.V., May 24, 1936 and March 28, 1937; Nachrichten (July-Aug., 1936); New York Times, M a y 11, 1936; Cahen, Men Against Hitler, pp. 201 ff. Concerning other incidents of similar nature, see New York Times, A u g . 17, 1934, and June 14, 1936; N.V., April 7 and 14, 1935, M a y 31, 1936, March 28, 1937; Grzesinski, Inside Germany, p. 265. 3 7 Perhaps the most widely publicized case of this kind was that of the journalist Berthold Jacob, w h o was abducted in broad daylight f r o m Switzerland. A n unusual exception to the usual end of such episodes, he was returned to Switzerland b y the German government, upon vigorous Swiss representation supported b y 28

29

292

NOTES

outspoken indignation throughout Europe. (Only to be captured again by the Germans in France following the armistice in 1940.) 38 For example, the postwar Social Democratic Lord Mayor of Hamburg, Max Brauer, was arrested by the French following a German request for extradition for criminal acts. H e was freed, however, when German authorities failed to convince the French that there was sufficient evidence to warrant extradition. 39 See Grzesinski, op. cit., p. 264; also New York Times, Jan. 25 and 26, 1934, March 21 and 24, April 4, 12, 29, 30, May 2, Sept. 3, 1935, Feb. 7, June 14, July 24, 1936; N.V., Sept. 3, 1933, Feb. 3, March 24, April 7, May 5, 12, 19, and 26, June 2, Aug. 11, Sept. 8, 15, and 28, 1935; Neue Volkszeitung, Dec. 30, 1933, May 4, Sept. 7, 1935; /./. (Dec. 13, 1933), p. 100. Anon., Das braune Netz, pp. 221, 237 ff., 368-375. 40 Heinrich Mann, Der Sinn dieser Emigration, p. 26. 41 Quoted in Demokratische Flüchtlingsfürsorge, Fünf Jahre Flucht, Not und Rettimg, p. 14. 42 See Eduard Benes, Memoirs of Dr. Eduard Benes, pp. 10-20; and Felix J. Vondracek, "Diplomatie Origins and Foreign Policy," Czechoslovakia, p. 362. 43 New York Times, Feb. 21, 1936. 44 Sir John Hope Simpson, The Refugee Problem, p. 394. 45 New York Times, Nov. 30, 1936. 48 Benes, op. cit., pp. ij-19. Vondracek, "Diplomatic Origins . . . ," p. 364. 47 Völkischer Beobachter quoted in N.V., Aug. 8, 1937. 48 See the open letter to Henlein in N.V., Oct. 24, 1937. 49 U . S. Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-194$, Series D, Vol. II; Germany and Czechoslovakia 1937-1938 (hereafter referred t o as D.G.F.P.), Doc. N o . 18, pp. 36-43; see also N.V., Aug. 8, 1937, and Simpson, op. cit., p. 393. 50 D.G.F.P., Doc. N o . 12, p. 29 (Report of Minister Eisenlohr to the German Foreign Ministry, Nov. 4, 1937), and Doc. No. 18, pp. 36-43 (Report of Eisenlohr to Foreign Ministry on conversation with President Benes, Nov. 9, 1937). 61 Friedrich Stampfer in N.V., Oct. 16, 1938, Jan. 22, 1939, and in Neue Volkszeitung, July 12, 1947, as well as in conversations with me insisted that the British "appeasers" brought pressure to bear upon the Czech government. Erich Rinner and Paul Hertz in separate interviews, supported this charge, as does Cahen, op. cit., p. 246. Neither Benes nor any British source to my knowledge ever confirmed or denied it. 62 D.GF.P., Doc. N o . 17, p. 33 (Memorandum from State Secretary Mackensen on his conversation with the Czechoslovak minister in Berlin on November 9, i937>53 Ibid., and Doc. N o . 18. 54 D.G.F.P., Doc. N o . 29, p. 68 (Report of conversation between Czechoslovak minister in Berlin and head of political division of the German Foreign Ministry on Dec. 10, 1937). Also Stampfer in N.V., Oct. 16, 1936, and in conversations with me Feb. 7, 1946, and Feb. 2, 1947. Interviews with Erich Rinner, Feb. 10, 1947, and Sept. 6, 1950. Gestapo Handbook, pp. 54 f. Ernst Paul, "Zwölfeinhalb Jahre im Exil," in Oschilewski, Erich Ollenhauer, p. 32. Benes does not mention these developments in his Memoirs. S5 N.V., Dec. 26, 1937.

Chapter 7 (pp. 205-230) 1

These data pertain only to the so-called refugees and do not include "ordinary" emigrants f r o m Germany.

NOTES

293

Franz L. Neumann, "The Social Sciences," in The Cultural Migration, pp. 16 f. "Das andere Auslandsdeutschtum," N.V., Jan. 30, 1938. 4 See N.V., Dec. 26, 1937, and May 29, 1938. New York Times reported on October 5, 1938, that many German "refugees" who had sought haven in the Netherlands had been deported back to Germany by the Dutch, because "most of them were reported to have been trying to avoid military service in Germany." See also "Das Los der Verbannten," N.V., July 17, 1938. 5 The data and material here cited were drawn from the following sources: Simpson, The Refugee Problem, pp. 214-226, 322, 562 f.; Demokratische Flüchtlingsfürsorge, Fünf ]ahre Flucht, Not und Rettung, passim; Dorothy Thompson, Refugees, Anarchy or Organization, pp. 44-55; Kurt R. Grossmann and Hans Jacob, "The German Exiles and the 'German Problem,'" Journal of Central European Affairs, IV (July, 1944); Qrzesinski, Inside Germany, pp. 173-175; Foreign Bureau "New Beginning," Report on Conditions . . . , p. 20. Paul Hertz, "Die Völkerwanderung der Opfer," Neue Volkszeitung, Sept. 2, 1939. New York Times, April 29, 1934, Nov. 24, 1935, Oct. 24, 1938. Fraenkel, The German People Versus Hitler, p. 103. Wolf Frank, Führer durch die deutsche Emigration, pp. 23-27, 3134. Rudolf Katz, "Deutsche Flüchtlinge als Weltproblem," Neue Volkszeitung, Jan. 21, 1939. Ernst Loeffler, "Zur sozialen Lage der österreichischen Emigration," Der sozialistische Kampf, Feb. 25, 1939. N.V., May 5, June 2, Dec. 1, 1935, Oct. 31, 1937, Jan. 30, 1938 ("Das andere Auslandsdeutschtum"), and June 4, 1939 ("Die Wandlung der deutschen Emigration"). Walter Sternfeld, "Die 'Emigrantenpresse,' " Deutsche Rundschau (April, 1950), p. 253. Kurt R. Grossmann, "Deutsche Flüchtlinge nach 1933," Die Neue Zeitung, April 9, 1951. 6 Grossmann and Jacob, "The German Exiles . . . ," p. 170. Also Mann, Der Sinn dieser Emigration, p. 10. 7 Sternfeld, "Die 'Emigrantenpresse,'" pp. 251-55. Also F. C. Weiskopf, "Deutsche Zeitschriften im Exile," Die Neue Zeitung, June 23, 1946, and Berendsohn, Die humanistische Front, pp. 53-63, 75-88. 8 Cahen, Men Against Hitler, pp. 119 ff., 161, 171. Also Sternfeld, "Die 'Emigrantenpresse'," p. 255. 9 This missile to his fellow exile, Arnold Zweig, made public by the latter, was at once prominently reprinted in one of the chief Nazi papers, which cited it to prove to Germans that even the most rabid anti-Nazis had at last recognized that Hitlerism could not be overthrown. Cf. Kurt Tucholsky, "Brief an Arnold Zweig," Das Schwarze Korps (Feb. 27, 1936). See also Berendsohn, op. cit., pp. 53-63, 75-88, and Grossmann and Jacob, "The German Exiles . . . ," p. 170. 1 0 See Ernst Paul, "Zwölfeinhalb Jahre im Exil," in Oschilewski, Erich Ollenhauer, p. 33. According to the Gestapo, Paris was chosen only after it proved impossible to move the Sopade to Brussels or Copenhagen. (Gestapo Handbook, P- 54-) 1 1 See L. J. Ragatz, The German Refugees in France (London, 1934), p. 3. 1 2 Simpson, The Refugee Problem, pp. 322, 326. Grzesinski, Inside Germany, p. 176. 13 The Invisible Writing, pp. 247 f. 1 4 See Gestapo Handbook, which on the whole proved to be well informed regarding the intricate political affairs of the Parisian exile colony, testifying to the extensive Nazi spy network among the exiles, pp. 61-64, 93-94. Willi Müller (Frank), "Erster Schritt zur Einigung der Gesamtbewegung," Der sozialistische Kampf (June 16, 1938); Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Materialien, pp. A-5, 6; Lend, The Underground Struggle in Germany, p. 9; also interviews with Marie Juchacz and Emil Kirschmann, two German Social Democratic leaders active at this time in Paris, November 8, 1946. Also Die Neue Front, organ of one S.A.P. faction; Der Neue Weg, organ of another; Die sozialistische Warte, journal of the 2 3

294

NOTES

I.S.K.; Der Kampf and Der sozialistische Kampf, its successor, journals of the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists; and various issues of journals, newsletters, and pamphlets published b y numerous small exile groups. T h i s material is scattered among a number of archives and libraries, including the L a b o r Archives of the Rand School in N e w York, the N e w York Public Library (Special Collection), the H o o v e r Library in Stanford, and a number of private libraries and collections t o which I was given access. 1 5 Interview with Erich Rinner, Sept. 6, 1950; Gestapo Handbook, p. 56; Deutschlandberichte (1938-1940), passim; Sternfeld, "Die 'Emigrantenpresse'," Deutsche Rundschau (April, 1950), p. 254; Ernst Paul, "Zwölfeinhalb Jahre im Exil," in Oschilewski, Erich Ollenhauer, p. 33. 18 Report on Conditions of Illegal Socialist Activity in Germany, submitted by the Foreign Bureau " N e w Beginning" to the Friends of German Freedom in the U.S.A., p. 20. See also Jansen and Weil, The Silent War, pp. 168 f., 266 f. 1 7 Auslandsbüro " N e u Beginnen," Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief (midJan., 1938), pp. 10 f.; Foreign Bureau " N e w Beginning," Report . . . , p. 5; Willi Müller (Frank), "Erster Schritt zur Einigung der Gesamtbewegung," Der sozialistische Kampf (June 16, 1938); Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief (June 20, 1938), p. 20. 1 8 Buttinger, In the Twilight of Sozialism, p. 495. 1 9 According to Stampfer, as reported in Matthias, Sozialdemokratie und Nation, p. 291, n. 37. Also interviews with Marie Juchacz and Emil Kirschmann, November 8, 1947; and Max Braun, "Zum Konzentrationsproblem," Der sozialistische Kampf ( J u n e 16, 1938). 2 0 Resolution of the Social Democratic party executive of March, 1938, reprinted in Auslandsbüro " N e u Beginnen," Materialien, p. B-7. See also p. A-6. 21 The above account is based on interviews with Hertz, Stampfer, and Rinner, an analysis of the S.A. f r o m 1933 to 1938, and the documentary Materialien collection presented b y the Auslandsbüro " N e u Beginnen." 2 2 Gustav Richter (Buttinger), " D a s Konzentrationsproblem," Der sozialistische Kampf (June 2, 1938). 2 3 Willi Müller ( F r a n k ) , "Erster Schritt zur Einigung der Gesamtbewegung," Der sozialistische Kampf (June 16,1938). 2 4 Jacob Welcher, "S.A.P. und sozialistische Konzentration," ibid. 2 5 Friedrich Stampfer, "Konzentration durch Parteigründung," ibid. 2 8 Wilhelm Sollmann, "Offener Brief an Friedrich Stampfer," N.V., N o v . 27, 1938. See also G e o r g Beyer, "Zur Konzentrationsdebatte," N.V., J u l y 17, 1938. 27 Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief (June 20, 1938). 2 8 "Zur F r a g e der Konzentration," joint Statement b y the Sopade and the R.S.Ö. in Der sozialistische Kampf (Sept. 10, 1938). See also Gustav Richter (Buttinger), " D a s Gebot der Stunde," ibid., Aug. 27, 1938. 2 9 Friedrich Stampfer, " W i r brauchen ein Programm," N.V., A u g . 21, 1938, and "Demokratie und Diktatur," N.V., Sept. 18, 1938. 3 0 Geyer, Die Partei der Freiheit, passim. 31 Ibid., p. 10. 3 2 See, f o r example, Wels's message to the Swedish Social Democrats, N.V., March 7, 1939. 3 3 Friedrich Stampfer, " V o r zwanzig Jahren," an article celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the birth of the Weimar Republic, in N.V., Jan. IJ, 1939. See also Stampfer's articles in N.V., Feb. 12, April 9, and M a y 14, 1939. 3 4 Stampfer, "Sind wir liberal?" N.V., Feb. 6, 1938; "Geschichte als Lehrmeisterin," N.V., April 24, 1938; "Sozialismus, nicht Proletfaschismus," N.V., July 24, 1938; "Klassenkampf gegen Nazismus," N.V., May 28, 1939; "Volksfront im Wandel der Zeit," N. V., June 11, 1939. Geyer, "Nationalismus und Demokratie,"

NOTES

295

N.V., Nov. 6, 1938. Stampfer's obituary article for Kautsky, N.V., Oct. 23, 1938; and articles by Stampfer in N.V., Sept. 11 and Nov. 27, 1938. See also Geyer, Die Partei der Freiheit, passim. Geyer's work, though not an "official" presentation of the Sopade's position of 1939, was interpreted as being just that by the Sopade's opponents as well as its supporters. Geyer was, after all, not only a leading member of the group, but since 1934 had edited the Neuer Vorwärts, its official paper. Geyer intended his book to be a defense of the Sopade and its position past and present against the posthumously published criticism of the Austrian Socialist leader, Otto Bauer, Die illegale Partei, which had championed the cause of "revolutionary Marxism" and particularly its German exponents of the New Beginning faction. For the reception of the Geyer work among supporters and opponents of the Sopade, see Wilhelm Sollmann's review in the Neue Volkszeitung of Aug. 12, 1939. Also Georg Wieser (Otto Leichter), "Eine Schrift gegen Otto Bauers Vermächtnis," Der sozialistische Kampf, (July 29, 1939); Victor Knapp, "Wie ein Sozialdemokrat den Marxismus revidiert," Der sozialistische Kampf (Aug. 26, 1939); Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," SIB Sozialdemoratischer Wochenbrief, (Oct., 1939); Hertz, "Das Prager Manifest . . . ," p. vi. 35 Geyer, Die Partei der Freiheit, pp. 13, 67, and passim. 36 Stampfer, "Klassenkampf gegen Nazismus," N.V., May 28, 1939. 37 Stampfer, N.V., Nov. 27, 1938. Geyer, N.V., Jan. 1, 1939, and Die Partei der Freiheit, passim. 38 "Open Letter" to Stampfer in N.V., Nov. 27, 1938. See also Geyer, N.V., Jan. 1, 1939, and op. cit., passim; Georg Beyer, N.V., Oct. 16, 1938; and Julius Civilis, "Grenzen der Propaganda," N.V., Sept. 25, 1938. 39 See memorandum submitted by the Sopade to an international conference to fight political terrorism, reprinted in S.A. (Dec., 1937); Geyer in N.V., Jan. 1, 1939; also Hertz, "Das Prager Manifest . . . ," p. vii. 40 Included were the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists, the New Beginning group, elements of the Old Left of pre-1933 German social democracy, such as the Socialist Workers' party (S.A.P.), and the International Socialist Militant League (I.S.K.), as well as the group of Communist dissidents led by Willi Münzenberg, a former chieftain of the K.P.D., the Friends of a United Socialist Germany (Freunde der sozialistischen Einheit Deutschlands). 41 Der sozialistische Kampf (April 8, 1939) and Neue Front (May, 1939). Gestapo Handbook, pp. 57 f., 61-64. 42 Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Der kommende Weltkrieg . . . , originally published in manuscript form as a "result of discussions among a group . . . of Socialists belonging to the New Beginning organization, the [German] Socialist Workers' party (S.A.P.), and the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists." According to Joseph Buttinger, one of the authors, the pamphlet was chiefly the work of Paul Sering (Richard Löwenthal) the theorist of the New Beginners. (In The Twilight of Socialism, pp. 510 f.). See also Georg Wieser (Otto Leichter), "Die Zusammenarbeit mit der Sowjetunion," Der Kampf (April 22, 1939). 43 See Geyer in N.V., May 21 and Aug. 13, 1939, Wieser, "Eine Schrift gegen Otto Bauers Vermächtnis," Der sozialistische Kampf (July 29, 1939); Victor Knapp, "Wie ein Sozialdemokrat den Marxismus revidiert," ibid. (Aug. 26, 1939); Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief (Oct., 1939). 44 See Walter Ulbricht's article of February, 1940, in the Comintern journal Die Welt, quoted in Franz Borkenau, European Communism, pp. 249 f. 45 The Western democracies and not the Soviet Union were to the last suspected of sabotaging the projected grand alliance of summer, 1939, and Austriacus wrote in Der sozialistische Kampf (May 6, 1939) that the outcome of the negotiations would prove the "readiness of the Western bourgeoisie to undertake to fight fascism." See Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Sozialdemokratischer

296

NOTES

Wochenbrief (Oct., 1939) for an example of the reaction of the left-wing Socialist exiles to the pact. Also, Der sozialistische Kampf (Sept., 1939), passim. 48 London Representative of the German Social Democratic Party, Firm Our View! Firm Our Aim! (English translation of the Sopade's manifesto Klar im Erkennen, Klar im Ziel). The English version is slightly edited here to correct the most glaring mistakes in translation. See also N.V., Sept. 2, 10, 17, Oct. 1 j, 1939. 47 Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen," Der kommende Weltkrieg, 48 "Emigration und Krieg," Neue Volkszeitung, Jan. 14, 1939. 49 Neue Volkszeitung, June 3, 1939. 50 N . V,, Sept. 10, 1939. Dec. 31, 1939. 62 N.V., Sept. 17, 1939. Also N.V., Dec. 31, 1939, Feb. 4, 1940. 63 N.V., April 2, 1940. Proclamation of the executive, April 20, 1940, in N.V., April 28, 1940, and proclamation May 10, 1940, in Sozialistische Mitteilungen (May 1 j, 1940). Hereafter referred to as S.M. 84 An example of such wishful thinking was the belief that the bomb explosion at a gathering of Nazi leaders who had been addressed by Hitler—the so-called Hof brau Attentat—in the fall of 1939, was a genuine manifestation of strong popular opposition to the war. In fact, it was a Gestapo-inspired act to arouse the nation through a supposed attempt against Hitler's life. See N.V., Nov. 19 and 26, 1939 and Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power, pp. 479 if. oi For the complete text of the armistice agreement, see New York Times, June 26, 1940. 68

Gestapo Handbook, p. 94. London Representative of the German Social Democratic Party, Struggling Refugees (London, Jan., 1942). See also Union of German Socialist Organizations in Great Britain, Newsletter (1941); Varian Fry, Surrender on Demand, p. ix and passim; and interview with Erich Rinner, Sept. 6, 1950. 58 Jaksch, Hans Vogel, p. 22. 59 See Fry, op. cit., pp. ix, 170 f.; S.M. (March, Oct., Nov., 1941); Boris Nikolajewski, "Hilferdings Vermächtnis," Neue Volkszeitung, July j, 1947; Toni Breitscheid, "Rudolf Breitscheids letzte Jahre," Neue Volkszeitung, Nov. 22, 1947; Jaksch, op. cit., p. 22. Also interview with Rudolf Katz of the "German Labor Delegation in the U.S.A.", Feb. 11, 1946. Reportedly a majority of the Social Democratic exiles trapped in France managed to evade the Gestapo "repatriation teams" and lived underground until the liberation of the country in 1944. See SJ\I. (March, 1945). 80 Paul, "Zwölfeinhalb Jahre im Exil," in Erich Ollenhauer, p. 36. 67

Chapter

8 (pp.

231-243)

1 On the dispersion of the exiles after the fall of France, see Matthias, Sozialdemokratie und Nation, p. 261 If. 2 See Neue Volkszeitung, 1941-1946, passim, and numerous bulletins and publications of the various groups. Also German Labor Delegation in the U.S.A., Landeskonferenz deutschsprachiger Sozialdemokraten und Gewerkschaftler in den USA. and What Is To Be Done With Germany; Friends of Paul Hägen, Replies to the Attacks on Paul Hagen; Grossmann and Jacob, "The German Exiles and the 'German Problem,' " Journal of Central European Affairs, IV (July,

1944), p p . 177 f .

3 See Curt Geyer and Walter Loeb, Gollancz in German Wonderland and other writings by Geyer, Loeb, Fritz Bieligk, Carl Herz, and Bernhard Menne,

NOTES

297

published separately by the Fight for Freedom Committee or in Free Europe: Fortnightly of International Affairs, London, 1942-1946. Also Grossmann and Jacob, "The German Exiles . . . ," pp. 174-177, 184; and Matthias, Sozialdemokratie und Nation, pp. 269-271. 4 See Union deutscher sozialistischer Organisationen in Grossbritannien, Zur Politik deutscher Sozialisten, Politische Kundgebungen und programmatische Richtlinien (1941-1945) as well as SM., 1941-1945, passim. Also Jaksch, Hans Vogel, p. 23, Oschilewski, Erich Ollenhauer, p. 38, Grossmann and Jacob, "The German Exiles . . . ," pp. 174 ff. 6 See Erich Ollenhauer, Möglichkeiten und Aufgaben einer geeinten Sozialistischen Partei in Deutschland. 8 Original English version, quoted from Union of German Socialist Organizations in Great Britain, 10 Years of Nazi Dictatorship. 7 See S.M., 1941-1945, passim; and particularly Hans Vogel, "The Socialist Movement in the War and After the War," Conference of German Social Democrats in England, pp. 3-8; Germany's Future in the Light of World Opinion; and Germany and Europe in the Post-War World. See also Ollenhauer, op. cit. 8 Ollenhauer, op. cit., p. 4. Italics mine. 9 S.M. (Dec., 1942). Also Ollenhauer, op. cit. and Vogel in 10 Years of Hitlerism. 10 Many Socialist exiles for a long time appear to have believed that a revolutionary "change can only emanate from the masses," as Rudolf Katz wrote in the Neue Volkszeitung on November 22, 1941. "The idea that a military revolt in Germany might some day put an end to the Nazi dictatorship" in collaboration with religious, bourgeois, and labor leaders seemed to him entirely out of the question. Such views may have been modified as the tide turned against Germany, and in February, 1944, a report on The Inner German Front, issued by the Executive Committee of the German Social Democratic Party in London, quoted an agent to the effect that without the army a revolution was "impossible." The first real news about the plot of July, 1944, seems to have reached the exiles through one of the minor participants, who managed to escape abroad. (See London Representative of the German Social Democratic Party, Der 20. Juli 1944.) After the war, it became evident that there had been practically no contact between the anti-Nazi underground and the émigrés. I learned that for myself through numerous interrogations in Germany between March and August, 1945; further evidence comes from such books on the war-time resistance movement, as Gerhard Ritter, Carl Goerdeler und die deutsche Widerstandsbewegung; Zeller, Der Geist der Freiheit; Weisenborn, Der lautlose Aufstand; Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler; Almond (ed.), The Struggle for Democracy in Germany; and Henk, Die Tragödie des 20. Juli 1944. See also American Association for a Democratic Germany, Der neue Kampf um die Freiheit, pp. 6 f. 11 See S.M., 1942-1945, passim, particularly the issue of January-February, 1944; and Union deutscher sozialistischer Organisationen in Grossbritanien, Zur Politik deutscher Sozialisten, pp. 16 f. Also Neue Volkszeitung, 1943-1946, passim; New York Times, Sept. 26, 1943; and Grossmann and Jacob, "The German Exiles . . . ," pp. 179-183. Merker, Deutschland Sein oder nicht Sein? II, 491-554, passim, contains a Communist roster of some of the most prominent leaders of this movement. See also Ulbricht, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, II, 331335, 355-375, on the origins and development of the Free Germany committees. Their publications included the Bulletin of the Council for a Democratic Germany and the German-American in New York, the Freie Tribüne in London, and Freies Deutschland in Mexico City, each edited by a prominent Comrfranist functionary (Gerhard Eisler and Albert Schreiner in New York, Wilhelm Koenen in London, and Paul Merker in Mexico City.)

298

NOTES

12 See Friedrich Stampfer, "Die Partei," N.V., Sept. 17, 1939, and Ollenhauer, Möglichkeiten und Aufgaben, pp. 3 i-, 6. 13 See Gabriel A. Almond and Wolfgang Kraus, "The Social Composition of the German Resistance," in Almond (ed.), The Struggle for Democracy in Germany, p. 68; Sidney Lens, "Social Democracy and Labor in Germany," Foreign Policy Reports, X X V I (Nov. 15, 1950), pp. 142 f.; Ludwig Bergstraesser, Geschichte der politischen Parteien in Deutschland, 7th ed., p. 272; Russell Hill, The Struggle for Germany, pp. 183 f. 14 See Almond, op. cit., p. 68; Severing, Mein Lebensweg, II, 452, 485. 15 Otto Grotewohl, Wo stehen wir—Wohin gehen wir: Weg und Ziel der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, passim. See Karl Mahler, Die Programme der politischen Parteien Deutschlands, pp. 20 and 31, for the proclamations of the central committee and the "antifascist block." 16 Vorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Eine Erklärung des Parteivorstandes . . ., pp. 7 f. 17 "Hans Vogel an die Parteikonferenz in Hannover" in Vorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Die Wiedergeburt der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, p. 16. 18 Severing, Mein Lebensweg, II, 480. 19 Peter Raunau, "Aufstieg aus dem Chaos. Erich Ollenhauers Weg seit 1946," in Oschilewski, Erich Ollenhauer, p. 41. 20 Vorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Wiedergeburt der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, pp. 11 f. This pamphlet formed the basis of my account of the reëmergence of the S.P.D. in the four zones. Additional data were provided by Kurt Schumacher and Fritz Heine in a telephone interview on October 29, 1947, in New York City; by a letter from Rudolf Rothe, archivist of the S.P.D., dated January 20, 1951; the pamphlet Der neue Kampf um die Freiheit, published by the American Association for a Democratic Germany; and Vorstand der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Material zu den Verhandlungen zwischen dem Zentralausschuss und den Vertretern der K.P.D. über die Einheit der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung. See also Hill, op. cit., pp. 186 ff. 21 Grotewohl became cochairman of the new Socialist Unity party and later prime minister of the East German satellite state. However, all other leaders of the central committee of the S.P.D. who became members of the new party's central committee in 1946 were subsequently purged or fled to the West. 22 Letter from Rothe, the S.P.D. archivist, January 20, 1951. Also, Protokoll der Verhandlungen des Parteitages . . . 1946 in Hannover. 23 See the speech by Gustav Klingelhöfer reported in Protokoll der Verhandlungen des Parteitages . . . 1947 in Nürnberg, p. 74. 24 See Protokoll der Verhandlungen des Parteitages . . . 1952 in Dortmund. 25 Ollenhauer and Fritz Heine (Sopade), Willi Eichler (S.A.P.), Waldemar von Knoeringen and Erwin Schoettle (New Beginning), Herbert Wehner (K.P.D.), Wenzel Jaksch (Sudeten German Social Democratic party), and Max Brauer (German Labor Delegation in New York). See Sopade: Querschnitt durch Politik und Wirtschaft, Aug., 1954, p. 75. 26 Based on the biographical sketches which they provided for Fritz Sänger (ed.), Handbuch des deutschen Bundestages. 27 See the book by the first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels, Der Fall Otto John, which attacks émigrés who worked against Germany during the war as deserters and traitors—even Communist "agents." Also "Emigranten sind Veräter," Aufbau (New York), Aug. 13, 1954. Reportedly, the Otto John case also led the parties of the Adenauer coalition government to threaten a special investigation by a Bundestag committee of possible collaboration between the fugitive West German security chief and leading Social Democratic functionaries in London during

NOTES

299

the last year of the war. See "Das Gesicht der Gewalten," Der Spiegel, IX (Dec. i, 1954), 8. 28 See, for example, Oschilewski, Erich Ollenhauer, pp. 40 ff., and Hans Habe, Our Love Affair with Germany, pp. 79 f. 28 See Richard Petry, "Die S.P.D. und der Sozialismus," Frankfurter Hefte, IX (Sept., 1954), 664. Chapter 9 (pp. 1

247-259)

Alexander Herzen, My Fast and Thoughts, IV, 167. Underground edition of the Vorwärts, July 30, 1933. Quoted in Hayes, "Socialist Theory in Germany 1863-1914," A History of Political Theories, pp. 292 f. 4 See Aldo Garosci, Storia dei Fuorusciti, passim, and Charles F. Delzell, "The Italian Anti-Fascist Emigration, 1922-1943," Journal of Central European Affairs, XII (April, 1952), 20-55. 5 To the Finland Station, pp. 221 f. 6 See the review of Ulbricht's Zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung in Neues Deutschland, Sept. 12, 1954. 7 Rudolf Herberle, Social Movements: An Introduction to Political Sociology, p. 290. 8 "The Sociology of Charismatic Authority," in Max Weber, From Max Weber, p. 247. 2

3

Bibliography

The major sources used in this study were the overt and covert publications of the exiled executive committee of the German Social Democratic party (SOPADE), the German Communist party (K.P.D.), and various splinter groups of the left-wing German exile movement. Research was considerably handicapped by the scattered nature of the material, the poor condition in which much of it was found, and the fact that much that might have proved to be of value has apparently been lost forever. Complete files of exile publications were frequently unavailable; covert material, prepared on cheap paper in minute print for distribution in Nazi Germany, was often found to have deteriorated almost beyond recognition. Some material was recovered in a deplorable condition from old trunks and satchels, other was discovered in sealed manila envelopes. I did not have access to what appear to be the major European depositories of pertinent sources: the archives of the German Social Democratic party (S.P.D.) in the Parteiarchiv in Bonn and the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam; the Archives of the Labour Movement in Stockholm, and the Wiener Library in London. Research was limited to private and public archives and libraries in the United States and such material as was made available to me by a number of participants in the anti-Nazi exile movement. The most valuable and extensive collections of anti-Nazi exile material were found to be in the possession of the New York Public Library (Special Collection), the Labor Archives of the Rand School of the Social Sciences in New York City, the Hoover Library on War, Revolution, and Peace in Stanford, California, and the private library of Mr. Joseph Buttinger in New York City. Published and unpublished source material was supplemented by information provided in a series of lengthy interviews with various leaders and members of the exile movement. Thanks to their as-

302

BIBLIOGRAPHY

sistance, as well as the recent research of Erich Matthias and Richard Freyh in Germany, a number of pseudonyms could be uncovered. Unhappily, however, I was unable to identify with certainty a substantial number of suspected noms de guerre. In several instances I indicated my uncertainty by placing a question mark after what I thought to be the real name; in others, I preferred to refrain from any identification. The problem of uncovering pseudonyms was complicated by the fact that occasionally one man appears to have employed several pseudonyms (e.g. Karl Frank), while, on the other hand, the same or similar pseudonyms were evidently used by different persons (e.g. "W. Müller" and "Willi Müller," "Franz" and "Leopold Franz.") Moreover, a number of exiles apparently came to adopt their pseudonyms as their legal names (e.g. Paul Hägen, Paul Sering, Georg Decker) or anglicized their names (e.g. Büttinger to Buttinger, Wilhelm Sollmann to William Sollmann.) The following bibliography is largely limited to published sources cited in the footnotes. Unpublished manuscripts, letters, and documents examined by me, but not generally available, are as a rule not included. Where used, reference to these will be found in the relevant footnotes. No attempt has been made to catalogue the innumerable camouflaged leaflets and handbills printed by the various exile groups for distribution inside Germany. Newspapers Frankfurter Zeitung, January—July, 1933. Leipziger Volkszeitung, February, 1933. Neues Deutschland, Berlin, organ of the central committee of the Socialist Unity party of [East] Germany, 1954. The New York Times 1933-1951. Vorwärts, organ of the Social Democratic party of Germany, Berlin, 1932-1933.

Periodicals Das Banner, published by the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei, 1934. Bericht über die Lage in Deutschland, published irregularly by the Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen. Prague, 1933-1937. Aufrief: Streitschrift für Menschenrechte. Prague: October, 1933; absorbed by Europäische Hefte, October, 1934. Bulletin of the Council for a Democratic Germany. New York: 1944-1945. Bulletin of the Labour and Socialist International. Zurich, 1933-1939.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

303

Deutschlandberichte der Sopade (Grüne Berichte), monthly, edited by Erich Rinner. Prague: 1934-1937; Paris 1938-1940. Cited as D.B. Europäische Hefte. Prague: January 1934-November, 1935. Freies Deutschland; Organ der deutschen Opposition. Edited by Max Sievers. Independent Socialist. 1937-1939. Freiheits-Korrespondenz. Published and edited by Emil Kirschmann. Independent Socialist. Mulhouse, France: 1938-1940. Germany. Monthly Reports by the Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. English edition of Deutschlandberichte der Sopade. Monthly. Prague: 1937; Paris: 1938-1940. IB-Berichte. Published irregularly by Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen". 1938-1940. Informationsdienst. Underground publication of the German Communist party. I933-I939?In Re: Germany. Published by the American Friends of German Freedom ["Neu Beginnen"]. New York: 1941-1943. Inside Germany Reports. Published by the American Friends of German Freedom ["Neu Beginnen"]. N e w York, 1938-1941, 1943-1945. International Information. Published by the secretariat of the Labour and Socialist International. Zurich: 1933-1939. Der Kampf; Sozialistische Revue. Organ of the Austrian Socialist exiles. Edited by Otto Bauer, 1934-1938. Brno (Brünn): 1934-1937. Later published as Der sozialistische Kampf. Paris: 1938-1940. Kampfruf der linken Sozialdemokratie. June, 1936. KP Deutschlandinformation. Communist underground publication. 1933-1939? Marxistische Tribüne. Published by the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei. Paris: 19361937Nachrichten des Auslandsbüros "Neu Beginnen." Irregulär. September, 1934 December, 1937. Cited as Nachrichten. Die Neue Front. Published by the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei. 1934-1938. Der Neue Weg. Published by the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei. March, July, December, 1937. Die Neue Weltbühne. Independent. Prague: 1934-1936. Neue Volkszeitung. German-language weekly. N e w York: 1933-1946 Neuer Vorwärts. Organ of the exiled executive of the S.P.D. Edited by Curt Geyer and Friedrich Stampfer. Weekly. Karlsbad: 1933-1937; Paris 1938-1940. Cited as N.V. Newsletter. Published by the Union of German Socialist Organizations in Great Britain. 1941. Renaissance. Published by the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei. London: July-October, 1941.

Reports from Inside Germany. Published by Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen." London: 1939-1941. Rote Fahne. Communist underground publication. 1933-1939? R.S. Briefe. Organ of Revolutionäre Sozialisten. Prague: 1935-1937. Rundschau. Bulletin of the Communist International. II-VIII (Basle: 1933-1939). SIB-Sozialdemokratischer Informationsbrief. Published by Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen." Irregular. Paris, London, N e w York: 1937-1939. Sopade Informationsdienst, published by the executive committee of the S.P.D. Hanover: 1949. Sozialdemokratischer Wochenbrief, published by Auslandbüro "Neu Beginnen." N . p. 1937-1938.

Sozialistische Aktion. Underground publication of the executive committee of the S.P.D. Edited by Paul Hertz. Karlsbad: 1933-1938. Cited as S.A. Der Sozidistische Kampf. See Der Kampf.

304

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sozialistische Mitteilungen. (News for German Socialists in England.) Issued by the London Representative of the German Social Democratic Party. Monthly. 1939-1946. Cited as S.M. Sozialistische Revolution. See Zeitschrift für Sozialismus. Sozialistische Warte. Published by Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (I.S.K.). Bimonthly. Paris: 1934-1940. Sozialistische Wiedergeburt. Published by Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (I.S.K.). London: 1934. Zeitschrift für Sozialismus. First issue was called Sozialistische Revolution. Edited by Rudolf Hilferding. Monthly. Karlsbad: 1933-1936. Cited as ZfS.

Selected Books and Articles Adler, Friedrich. "Zur Geschichte des Scheiterns der Arbeiter-Internationale," Austrian Labor Information, No. 10 (January 20, 1943). Almond, Gabriel A., ed. The Struggle for Democracy in Germany. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949. American Association for a Democratic Germany. Der Neue Kampf um die Freiheit. New York: 1946. Amery, Julian. "Of Resistance," The Nineteenth Century and After, CXLV (1949), 86j.

Anders, Ernst, pseud. [Erich Rinner]. "Neu Beginnen—zu welchem Ziel?" Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (December, 1933). . "Die Organisation der Freiheit," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (January, 1934). Anderson, Evelyn. Hammer or Anvil. The Story of the German Working-Class Movement. London: Gollancz, 1945. Anonymous. Das braune Netz. Paris: Éditions du Carrefour, 1935. Anonymous. Das deutsche Volk klagt an. Paris: Éditions du Carrefour, 1936. Anonymous. "Das Gesicht der Gewalten," Der Spiegel, VIII (December, 1954), 8. Anonymous. "End of a Great Illusion," New Statesman and Nation, VI (Septemb e r 9, 1933), 289-290.

Anonymous. Konzentrationslager. Ein Appell an das Gewissen der Welt. Probleme des Sozialismus No. 9. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1934. Anonymous. Revolution gegen Hitler! Die historische Aufgabe der deutschen Sozialdemokratie. Probleme des Sozialismus No. 1. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1933. Anonymous. "The Underground Movement in Germany," American Socialist Monthly,

V I ( M a y , 1937), 26-32.

Arbeitskreis revolutionärer Sozialisten. "Der W e g zum sozialistischen Deutschland. Eine Plattform für die Einheitsfront," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (SeptemberOctober, 1934). Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen." Der kommende Weltkrieg, unsere Aufgaben und unsere Ziele. Paris: 1939. . Materialien zur sozialistischen Konzentration. Paris: August 27, 1938. . See also Foreign Bureau "New Beginning"; also periodicals section. Baron, Dr. S. "Die politische Theorie Ferdinand Lassalles," Beihefte zum Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, No. 2 (Leipzig: 1923).

Bauer, Otto. "Der deutsche Faschismus und die Internationale," Der Kampf, XXVI, (August-September, 1933). —. Die illegale Partei. Paris: Éditions "La Lutte Socialiste," 1939. . Zwischen zwei Weltkriegen? Die Krise der Weltwirtschaft, der Demokratie und des Sozialismus. Bratislava: E. Prager, 1936. Bebel, August. Aus meinem Leben, Vol. III. Stuttgart: Dietz, 1914.

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Bekessy, Jean. See Hans Habe. Benes, Eduard. Memoris of Dr. Eduard. Benes: From Munich to New War and New Victory. Transl. by Godfrey Lias. London: Allen and Unwin, 1954. Berendsohn, Walter A. Die humanistische Front: Einführung in die deutsche Emigranten-Literatur. Zurich: Europa, 1946. Bergstraesser, Ludwig. Geschichte der politischen Parteien in Deutschland, 7th ed. Munich: Isar, 1952. Berner, Wolf gang. "Die italienische Emigration," Politische Literatur, II (1954), 195-197. Bernhard, Georg. Die deutsche Tragödie. Prague: Orbis, 1933. Bernstein, Eduard. My Years of Exile. London: Leonard Parsons, 1921. Bieligk, Fritz. "Die revolutionäre Organisation," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (April, 1934). Bienstock, Gregor. Europa: und die Weltpolitik: Die Zonen der Kriegsgefahr. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1936. Blum, Dr. Oscar. "Zur Psychologie der Emigration," Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, VTI (1916), 412-430. Borinski, Fritz, and W e r n e r Milch. Jugendbewegung. German Educational Reconstruction N o . 3/4. London: 1945. Borkenau, Franz. The Communist International. London: Faber, 1938. . European Communism. N e w York: Harper, 1953. —. World Communism: A History of the Communist International. N e w York: Norton, 1939. Braun, Otto. Von Weimar zu Hitler. N e w York: Europa, 1940. Braunthal, Julius. In Search of the Millenium. London: Gollancz, 1945. Brecht, Arnold. Prelude to Silence. N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1944. Breitscheid, Rudolf. "Collapse of the Social Democrats," New Statesman and Nation, V (June 24, 1933), 837-838. Brüning, Heinrich. "Ein Brief," Deutsche Rundschau, LXX (July, 1947). Buber, Margarete. Under Two Dictators. N e w York: Dodd, Mead, n.d. Büro des Reichstags. Reichstagshandbuch, IV. Wahlperiode 1928. Berlin: 1928. . Reichstagshandbuch, VI. Wahlperiode 19s2- Berlin, 1932. Buttinger, Joseph. See also Gustav Richter. . In the Twilight of Socialism. A History of the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria. N e w York: Praeger, 1953. Cahen, Fritz Max. Men Against Hitler. Indianapolis, N e w York: Bobbs-Merril, 1939Celovsky, Boris. "Pilsudskis Präventivkrieg gegen das nationalsozialistische Deutschland (Entstehung, Verbreitung und Widerlegung einer Legende), " Die Welt als Geschichte, XIV, N o . 1 (1954), 53-70. Chakhotin, Sergei. The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda. Transl. by E. W . Dickes. London: G. Routledge, 1940. Clark, R. T . The Fall of the German Republic. London: Allen and Unwin, 1935. Czech, Erich Walter. Vom 30. Januar zum 21. März; die Tage der nationalen Erhebung. Leipzig: Das neue Deutschland, 1933. Decker, Georg, pseud. (Georg Denicke). Revolte oder Revolution. Der Weg zur Freiheit. Probleme des Sozialismus No. 7. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1934. . "Nicht radikal genug," Sozialistische Revolution (October, 1933). Delzell, Charles F. " T h e Italian Anti-Fascist Emigration 1922-1943," Journal of Central European Affairs, XII (April, 1952), 20-55. Demokratische Flüchtlingsfürsorge. Fünf Jahre Flucht, Not und Rettung. (Prague: n.d.). Deutsch, Julius. Der Bürgerkrieg in Österreich. Probleme des Sozialismus N o . 8. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1934.

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. Putsch oder Revolution. Randbemerkungen über Strategie und Taktik im Bürgerkrieg. Probleme des Sozialismus No. u . Karlsbad: Graphia, 1934. Diels, Rudolf. Der Fall Otto John; Hintergründe und Lehren. Göttingen: Göttinger Verlagsanstalt, 1954. Dimitroff, G. Probleme der Einheits- und Volksfront. 2d ed. Moscow: Verlag für fremdsprachliche Literatur, 1938. Dittmann, Wilhelm. Das politische Deutschland vor Hitler. Zurich, New York: Europa, 1945. Dix, Arthur. Die deutschen Reichstagswahlen 1871-1930 und die Wandlungen der Volksgliederung. Tübingen: Mohr, 1930. Duderstadt, Henning. Vom Reichsbanner zum Hakenkreuz; wie es kommen musste. Stuttgart: Union deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1933. Dulles, Allen. Germany's Underground. New York: Macmillan, 1947. Duverger, Maurice. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State. Transi, by Barbara and Robert North, with a foreword by D. W . Brogan. London: Methuen; New York: Wiley, 1954. "Emigranten sind Verräter," Aufbau. New York: August 13, 1954. Erbe, Otto. Der Sieg des Faschismus in Deutschland und die Aufgaben der Arbeiterklasse. Paris: Auslandsvertretung der Sozialistischen Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, n.d. Executive Committee of the German Social Democratic Party in London. The Inner German Front. London: February, 1944. . See also Vorstand der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands. Fischer, Elfried. Grundlagen der Interpretation der Politik der deutschen Sozialdemokratie durch die sozialdemokratischen Presse. Heidelberg: Dissertation, 1928. Fischer, Ruth. Stalin and German Communism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948. Florin, Wilhelm. Wie stürzen wir Hitler? Der Weg zur Einheitsfront und zur antifaschistischen Volksfront in Deutschland. Strassbourg, October, 1935. Fogarasi, A. Der Bankrott der Theorien des Sozialfaschismus am Ende der kapitalistischen Stabilisierung. Moscow-Leningrad: Verlagsgenossenschaft ausländischer Arbeiter in the U.S.S.R., 1934. "For German working-class unity! An open letter from the Central Committee of the German Communist Party to all Social Democratic workers of Germany, dated June 20, 1933," Labour Monthly, XV (September, 1933), 558-567. Foreign Bureau "New Beginning." Report on Conditions of Illegal Socialist Activity in Germany for the Friends of German Freedom, New York, UJSui. Prague; February, 1938. . See also Auslandsbüro "Neu Beginnen." Fraenkel, Heinrich. The German People Versus Hitler. London; Allen, 1940. François-Poncet, André. The Fateful Years: Memoirs of a French Ambassador in Berlin 1931-38. Transi, by Jacques le Qercq. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949.

Frank, Karl B. See Paul Hägen and Willi Müller. Frank, Wolf. Führer durch die deutsche Emigration. Paris: Éditions du Phénix »935"Franz," pseud. [Franz Dahlem?]. "Weshalb kämpft der Parteivorstand der S.P.D. gegen die Einheitsfront?" Rundschau (April 4, 1935). Franz, Leopold, pseud. [Franz L. Neumann]. Die Gewerkschaften in der Demokratie und m der Diktatur. Probleme des Sozialismus No. 13. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1935. Friends of Paul Hagen. Replies to the Attacks on Paul Hägen. New York: 1941. Frobenius, Elise. Mit uns zieht die neue Zeit. Berlin: 1927.

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Fry, Varian. Surrender on Demand. New York: Random House, 1945. Garosci, Aldo. Storia dei Fuorusciti. Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1953. Gathome-Hardy, G. M. A Short History of International Affairs 1920-1931). 4th ed. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1950. German Labor Delegation in the U.S.A. Landeskonferenz deutschsprachiger Sozialdemokraten und Gewerkschaftler tn den U.S.A. New York: 1943. . What Is To Be Done with Germany? New York: 1945. German Socialist Organizations in Great Britain. See Union deutscher sozialistischer Organisationen in Grossbritannien. "German Socialists and Nazi Dictatorship," The Manchester Guardian, September 5, 1934, p. 13. Gerth, Hans H. "The Nazi Party: Its Leadership and Composition," American Journal of Sociology, X L V (January, 1940), 517-541. "Gestapo Handbook." A mimeographed handbook containing data compiled by the German Secret Police (Gestapo). Prepared probably shortly before the invasion of France, May, 1940. See chap, i, n. 65. Geyer, Curt. See also Max Klinger. • Deutsche Kaninchenzucht—Mahnruf an die deutsche Jugend. Leipzig: 1918?

. Die Richtlinien der USPD attf dem 2. Rätekongress für den Aufbau des Rätesystems. Leipzig: 1919. . Die Partei der Freiheit. Paris: Graphia, 1939. and Loeb, Walter. Gollancz in German Wonderland. London, New York: Hutchinson, 1942. Goebbels, Joseph. Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei. Munich: Eher, 1934. Görlitz, Walter History of the German General Staff 1657-1945. Transl. by Brian Battershaw. New York: Praeger, 1953. Greenwood, Harry P. The German Revolution. London: Routledge, 1934. Grossmann, Kurt R., and Jacob, Hans. "The German Exiles and the 'German Problem,'" Journal of Central European Äff airs, IV (July, 1944), 165-185. Grotewohl, Otto. Wo stehen wir—wohin gehen wir: Weg und Ziel der deutschen Sozialdemokratie. With an introduction by Paul Löbe. Berlin: November, 1945Gründel, Günther E. Die Sendung der jungen Generation. Munich: Beck, 1932. Grzesinski, Albert C. Inside Germany. Transl. by A. S. Lipschitz. New York: Dutton, 1939. Habe, Hans, pseud. [Jean Bekessy]. Our Love Äff air with Germany. New York: Putnam, 1953. Hagen, Paul, pseud. [Karl Frank]. "Integraler Sozialismus," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (July-August, 1936). . Will Germany Crack? New York: Harper, 1942. . See also Willi Müller. Häuser, S. A., pseud. [Siegfried Aufhäuser?]. "Illegale Organisation in Deutschland," Der Kampf, III (February, 1936), 53-57. . "Organisation der revolutionären Macht," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (April, 1934). Hayes, Carlton, J. H. "Socialist Theory in Germany 1863-1914," in Merriam, C. A. and Barnes, H. E., eds. A History of Political Theories. New York: Macmillan, 1924. Heberle, Rudolf. Social Movements: An Introduction to Political Sociology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951. Heiden, Konrad. Geburt des Dritten Reiches. Zurich: Europa, 1934. Translated and included in A History of National Socialism. London: Methuen, 1934. . "Wer führt?" Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (November, 1933).

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Heinrich, Kurt. Neue Programme der deutschen Sozialdemokratie. Basle: 1934. . Wels und Trotzki, eine Abrechnung. Gröbenzell: 1934. Heller, Hermann. Die politischen Ideenkreise der Gegenwart. Breslau: Hirt, 1926. Henk, Emil. Die Tragödie des 20. Juli 1944. 2d. ed. Heidelberg: Adolf Rausch, 1946. Henri, E. "Revolutionary Movement in Nazi Germany," New Statesman and Nation, VI (September 16, 1933), 319-320. Henrichsen, Ernst. "Von den Oppositionen zum Freiheitskampf," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (July-August, 193J). Henrichsen, Karl. "Bürgerliche Opposition?" Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (February, 1936). . "Die Geduldsprobe," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (April, 1936). . "Drei Jahre Hitler," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (January, 1936). Herder's Konversationslexikon. 1921-1923. Hertz, Paul. "Kämpfer und Helden," Argentinisches Tageblatt, November 18, 1934———. "Das Prager Manifest von 1934," Austrian Labor Information, No. 25 (May 1, 1944), v-vii. . "Unsere Aufgaben und ihre Erfüllung," Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (September-October, 1934). Herzen, Alexander. My Past and Thoughts. Transl. by Constance Garnett. 6 vols. London: Chatto and Windus, 1922-1927. Hilferding, Rudolf. "Die Zeit und die Aufgabe," Sozialistische Revolution (October, 1933). (Published anonymously.) . See also Richard Kern. Hill, Russell. The Struggle for Germany. New York and London: Harper, 1947. Hirsch, Felix E. "William Sollmann, Wanderer Between T w o Worlds," South Atlantic Quarterly, LII (April, 1953), 202-227. Historikus, pseud. [Arthur Rosenberg]. Der Faschismus als Massenbewegung. Sein Aufstieg und seine Zersetzung. Probleme des Sozialismus No. 12. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1934. Hoegner, Wilhelm. See Justinian and Landesgerichtsdirektor. Hoover, Calvin Bryce. Germany Enters the Third Reich. New York: Macmillan, 1933Horkenbach, Cuno, ed. Das deutsche Reich von 1918 bis heute. Berlin: Verlag für Presse, Wirtschaft und Politik. 1931 and 1932 editions. Huber, Theodora. Die soziologische Seite der Jugendbewegung. Munich: Dissertation, 1929. International Federation of Trade Unions. The International Trade Union Movement. Vols. XIII-XVI, 1933-1936. International Military Tribunal. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946. Nuremberg: International Military Tribunal, 1947-1949. Vols. XIV, XXI, XXIV. Jaksch, Wenzel. Hans Vogel. Special issue of Sozialdemokrat, organ of the Sudeten German Social Democratic Party. London: February, 1946. James, C. L. R. World Revolution 1917-1936. The Rise and Fall of the Communist International. New York: Pioneer, 1937. Jansen, J., and Stefan Weil, pseuds. The Silent War. Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1945. Joesten, J. "Bandwagon Moscow-Berlin: The Free German Movement in Russia," Antioch Review, IV (December, 1944), 544-552. Justinian, pseud. [Wilhelm Hoegner]. Reichstagsbrand. Wer ist verurteilt? Probleme des Sozialismus No. 4. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1934.

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Kantorowicz, Alfred. In unserem. Lager ist Deutschland. Paris: Éditions du Phénix, 1936. Kautsky, Karl. Grenzen der Gewalt. Aussichten und Wirkungen bewaffneter Erhebungen des Proletariats. Probleme des Sozialismus Nö. 10. Karlsbad: Graphia, 1934. (Appeared anonymously.) . "Die blutige Revolution," Der Kampf, XXVI (August-September, 1933), 346-361.

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