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What you grandfather did to help Hitler

category international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis author Monday January 05, 2004 10:25author by James McKennaauthor email jimmymac61 at hotmail dot com Report this post to the editors

In 1933 a strange new movement was sweeping Europe. Some felt at home with it and some didn't.
Eoin O'Duffy  founder of Gardai at Mansion Hse
Eoin O'Duffy founder of Gardai at Mansion Hse

In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Immediately, members of Hitler's Nazi Party began a campaign of violence against German Jews, socialists, communists and other Nazi opponents. Germany's Jewish Central Association (Verein) issued a statement asserting its belief that "the responsible government authorities are unaware of the threatening situation" and that the Verein had thus "dutifully apprised [the Hitler administration] thereof." The Verein's statement concluded, "We do not believe our German-fellow citizens will let themselves be carried away into committing excesses against the Jews." As early as 1933, however, Stephen S. Wise, founder of the American Jewish Congress, seemed to know better.
Representatives of the American Jewish Committee, B'nai B'rith and the American Jewish Congress met in New York and agreed that organized public protests in America would further undermine the already precarious position of German Jews. Less than a month later, however, the American Jewish Congress changed its mind and called on its partners to help organize an American protest campaign. On March 12, 1933, the AJCongress resolved to hold a mass protest rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Judge Irving Lehman of the American Jewish Committee publicly counseled restraint. Lehman feared that any rally in America "may add to the terrible dangers of the Jews in Germany."
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, had the final word:
The time for prudence and caution is past. We must speak up like men. How can we ask our Christian friends to lift their voices in protest against the wrongs suffered by Jews if we keep silent?
The conference voted to hold the Madison Square Garden rally.
On March 27th 1933 , the AJCongress and its allies convened simultaneous protest rallies at Madison Square Garden in New York, in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and 70 other locations. The New York rally was broadcast worldwide. An overflow crowd of 55,000 inside the Garden and in the streets outside heard AJCongress president Bernard Deutsch, American Federation of Labor president William Green, Senator Robert F. Wagner, former New York governor Al Smith and several Christian clergy call for an immediate cessation of the brutal treatment being inflicted on German Jewry.
The Nazi apparatus denounced the American complaints as slanders generated by "Jews of German origin." Goebbels announced a campaign of "sharp countermeasures" against these attacks. He accused German Jewry of engineering a worldwide boycott of German goods to destroy the German economy. To give Jews a taste of their own medicine, Goebbels announced that the following Saturday, April first, all good Aryan Germans would boycott Jewish-owned businesses. If, after the one-day boycott, the "false charges" against the Nazis in the overseas press stopped, there would be no further boycott of Jewish businesses. If worldwide Jewish attacks on the Nazi regime continued, Goebbels warned, "the boycott will be resumed … until German Jewry has been annihilated."
Urged by Stephen S. Wise to protest to the German government, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull issued a mild statement to the American ambassador to Berlin complaining that "unfortunate incidents have indeed occurred and the whole world joins in regretting them." Hull expressed his personal belief, however, that the reports of anti-Jewish violence were probably exaggerated.
Of course, the American boycott did nothing to deter the Nazis, who escalated their violence against Europe's Jews until settling on the Final Solution. As Rabbi Wise observed, however, the boycott effort, whatever its effect, was a moral imperative. "We must speak out," he explained. "If that is unavailing, at least we shall have spoken."
Meanwhile in Ireland from the Deasys in Waterford to the O'Sullivans of Goleen, Buleshirt bully boys were donning their blue shirts to join the Nazi/fascist Movement. Marches and demonstrations were held all over Ireland and even in the Mansion house by these good "Christians" in support of Hitler , Franco and Mousselini . They went to Spain to fight for the fascists and at home they burned out trade union offices and deported Irish citizens for being Socialists. Aided of course by the Catholic Church.
Where are they all today? The Jewish groups America have now almost totally sold out to the "Holocaust Industry" shakedown of European contries and thus the moral justification of Israel. The German Nazis have for the most part gone away while their Irish cousins who escaped the Nuremburg trials still hassle "hippies", travellers, anti-war people, socialists directly as Gardai or Community Alert paranoids. Same attitude, same people, same fascism, same challenge to humanity from Berlin to Bantry.

Mrs WT Cosgrave take salute in Dublin
Mrs WT Cosgrave take salute in Dublin

Eoin O'Duffy speaks in Bandon, West Cork
Eoin O'Duffy speaks in Bandon, West Cork

author by pat cpublication date Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:30author address author phone Report this post to the editors

i already pointed out above that the french, belgians and dutch also had empires. but i'm not making thjis story up, its therre on the bbc, check it out. not everyone had an empire and so we dont know how they would have treated colonial natives.

i dont see what your point is. i am merely pointing out that in the war against fascism not all were treated as equals. AND that the british , french, belgians and dutch also carried out holocausts in their colonies. if you wish to downplay this then i can only muse about your motives.

author by omgpublication date Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:24author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Most if not all whites in 1943 treated the africans in similar fashion some a lot worse, so do us all a favour and jump off the bash a brit bandwagon for a bit, people have only being hearing that shite for years now, some might say theres an inferiority complex detected

author by pat cpublication date Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:17author address author phone Report this post to the editors

This is how African soldiers were treated in the British Army during the fight against Fascism. You can get the full article and photos at the link below.

"Tanzanian Sylvester Lubala enlisted as a soldier in Nairobi in 1943, and trained as a nurse before crossing the Indian Ocean to Burma via Sri Lanka.

"Of course there was a colour bar... Latrines for Africans, mess for Africans and mess for Europeans," he recalls. "

"Chikukwa’s knowledge of World War II began when he was a child in Rhodesia – as Zimbabwe then was called – and learnt about his father’s contribution.
Aged seven, he remembers Rhodesian policemen coming to look for the gun which was his father’s legacy of the war. (They never found it.) "

Related Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/africa_africa0s_world_war_ii_veterans/html/
author by historianpublication date Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:51author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The original article is hysterical nonsense. The Blueshirts who my own family were in physical conflict with because they were republicans, were obviously attracted by the European fascist movements but to claim that they are responsible for the Nazis is ridiculous. Most Blueshirts would have supported the Brits in WWII anyway. Which raises a whole other issue!

James also posits a totally exaggerated view of what the Blueshirts did, referring to the burning of trade union offices and the deportations of socialists. James, the Blueshirts, as far as I know burned no trade union offices but I stand to be corrected if you have any evidence for it. A blueshirt influenced mob did attack the CPI and Workers College HQ. The blueshirts deported nobody. The ONLY socialist to be deported was James Gralton and that was by the FF Governemtn which in actual fact smashed the blueshirts! Read some history for gods sake man.

Then to suggest that the state here is some sort of unreconstructed fascist type entity based on its attitude to "hippies" and immigrants! What crap.

Marina makes a perceptive point with regard to modern leftists who are living in some paralell universe of "fash" and onanising about taking on the blueshirts. As I said, my grandfather and great-uncles were involved in pretty nasty business with the same lads and not because they were fighting some European ideogical war but because they saw the Blueshirts as free staters and it was pay back time for the Civil War and all the shit between 1923 and 1932.

author by rubbishpublication date Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:25author address author phone Report this post to the editors

There are too many who represent the British Empire in the guise of the underdog. The England of Dunkirk and the blitz veils the England that breaks miners strikes, starves the Irish and rules the Empire.

There is also far far 2 many people that blame the brits for everything, rather than blaming the irish themselves, their lack of courage, lack of leadership and all those people that sold out for a few crumbs

The days of saying, tis all the brits fault, are over kid

author by pat cpublication date Sun Sep 10, 2006 20:22author address author phone Report this post to the editors

" dont know who you are trying to impress here, Pat, but it certainly isnt me. "

You might post on Indymedia to impress people but I merely express my opinions.

" Please dont make assumptions like that about me and then go writing them up here as if you knew what I was thinking and doing when you havent a clue."

I'm not responsible for what you write. If you post slopy writing then its open to misinterpetation.

" To extrapolate from what I posted above that I regard the deaths caused by the British Empire less important is to wilfully misconstrue the plain meaning of what I wrote:"

I didnt see any plain meaning in what you wrote. You are right I'm not a mindreader. I cannot intepet what you didnt write.

" in the specific case of the second world war, Irish people had good reasons to interpret that situation separately from their own experience of the British (I mentioned more than 30 million of them - and there were many others too), which certainly does not mean justifying British injustice in Ireland. "

Some Irish people saw things differently. Thats what this whole debate is about. You are looking into your own heart and speaking on behalf of the "Irish People"

"That is not to discount the horror of the other deaths that you talk about. The threat in WW2 was not from the British, but from HItler."

Look, how many countries were still under the jackboot of the British, French and Belgian Empires? Did they think the main threat was from Hitler? Or might they have dared to see their immediate Imperial Masters as the primary enemy? Were the Indians who continued to fight for independence wrong?

There are too many who represent the British Empire in the guise of the underdog. The England of Dunkirk and the blitz veils the England that breaks miners strikes, starves the Irish and rules the Empire.

The British only fought Hitler in a vain hope to preserve their Empire.

". And how on earth do you read into what I wrote that I think white deaths matter more than others? I have never thought, written or uttered any view that could be interpreted like that. Why are you going out of your way to misrepresent me like this? Who will it impress, I wonder? Is it burn-the-witch time again?"

Well you mentioned tens of million killed. I cannot believe that you are unaware of the tens of millions killed by the Britain. Give over with the victim act, get off that cross, someone else needs the wood.

author by spunky spasm - Famous blue raincoatpublication date Sun Sep 10, 2006 20:20author address author phone Report this post to the editors

We will have some photos to upload on the Fine Gael Party and Garda Siochana very soon.

We might even have a little Competition as well , called 'spot the difference'.

coming soon Folks. Don't go away.

author by The Wicked & Evil Witch of Indymedia.iepublication date Sun Sep 10, 2006 16:24author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I dont know who you are trying to impress here, Pat, but it certainly isnt me. Actually, I 'bother' to read most of the things that Barry posts and agree with almost all of it, while disagreeing with some aspects of the conclusions he draws. Please dont make assumptions like that about me and then go writing them up here as if you knew what I was thinking and doing when you havent a clue. To extrapolate from what I posted above that I regard the deaths caused by the British Empire less important is to wilfully misconstrue the plain meaning of what I wrote: in the specific case of the second world war, Irish people had good reasons to interpret that situation separately from their own experience of the British (I mentioned more than 30 million of them - and there were many others too), which certainly does not mean justifying British injustice in Ireland. That is not to discount the horror of the other deaths that you talk about. The threat in WW2 was not from the British, but from HItler. Barry says he thinks otherwise, where Irish people were concerned. So, where exactly have I accused him of being a nazi supporter? I certainly dont believe that to be true. And how on earth do you read into what I wrote that I think white deaths matter more than others? I have never thought, written or uttered any view that could be interpreted like that. Why are you going out of your way to misrepresent me like this? Who will it impress, I wonder? Is it burn-the-witch time again?

author by archivespublication date Sun Sep 10, 2006 16:02author address author phone Report this post to the editors

and look at what Churchill did. its called collateral damage.
bringing a people to their knees through the aweful power of power and hoping they will
oust their leader. bit like Iraq.
the most poignant one is of a father carrying his child's body on a sleigh. bit like Iraq,
we can agree that war is a failure in civilisational terms.

author by pat cpublication date Sun Sep 10, 2006 15:51author address author phone Report this post to the editors

if you bother to read barrys comments in total then you will see he is an anti fascist. the IRA were not fighting on hitlers side they were fighting the British. i think the IRA 39 -40 bombing campaign in britain was ill advised but hindsight is a perfect science.

lets not forget that the british killed tens of millions in gaining and maintaing their glorious empire. as did the french, belgians and dutch. does it only matter when the millions killed are white?

author by Shipseapublication date Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:54author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The deaths of 5 or 6 million jews, 25 million Russians etc etc in order to stop a totalitarian, murdering dictator who didnt give a damn about anything but the supremacy of the arian stock would have been a significant consideration for a lot of reasonable people. Hitler was never going to give a tuppeny damn about our 800 year old problem with Britain. You need to get about a bit, Barry. Travel the world, get some additional perspective. The british/irish issue is not the nerve centre of political and military considerations, trumping all others in relevance or importance as you seem to think.

author by Barrypublication date Sat Sep 09, 2006 21:11author address author phone Report this post to the editors

it still amazes me how many idiots believe Irish people should have put the silly little differences with Britain aside . Whats an 800 year unwanted occupation and a genocide or 2 between friends . Wise up .

author by Statin' the Obvious.publication date Sat Sep 09, 2006 14:32author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Check out what George W Bush's grandfather did to help out Hitler!
You should be able to google it on the Guardian website.

author by number 6 - Love the Constitutionpublication date Sat Sep 09, 2006 14:22author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Your Article is of vital interest. Most young members of Fine Gael (and the general public)are unaware of the origins of the Fine Gael and Pd's. I really believe that they should be educated to the fact especially at this moment in time.
b.c.n.u.

author by Marinapublication date Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:49author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I think a major point of this is that a lot of indymedia contributors like to view themselves as anti-fascist warriors. Unfortunately for them there are no Stormtroopers goosestepping around to have fist-fights with.
Besides calling everyone they disgree with Nazis, they can also look back our history and say "I'd show those Blueshirts thing ot two!".
I don't there's much point to the article, most people with a vague interest in the history of the period are aware all this. Worth menting though about James Dillon, IRA Nazi Sean Russell, those IRA who fought against Franco, and the many who fought for Britain against the Nazi's. My view? The Nazi's were obviously evil and everyone at the time should have known this as well.

author by Lone Gunmanpublication date Mon Jan 05, 2004 22:28author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I thought Indymedia was supposed to be a discursive group on current events.Not the history channel.A very intresting history by her not him and another weird post by James Mc kenna about another failed bunch of nazis wannabes.Now are we going to have a lecture on flunked communist groups in Ireland and Europe?

author by Her not Himpublication date Mon Jan 05, 2004 16:24author address author phone Report this post to the editors

When discussing National Socialism and the German working class; there's no room for romantic accounts of history, its not about matters of myth or dead heroes alive again in effigy. One thing is clear; a class which had consistently risen throughout Germany in the wave of revolution between 1918 and 1923 failed to produce one large scale strike similar to those that broke out in Turin in 1943 under Mussolini, no peppering of exemplary acts against state agents co-ordinated by a revolutionary underground such as those in Russia under the Tsar, that there was no large scale sabotages of armaments plants or no out breaks of rioting against Storm trooper patrols in working class communities throughout twelve years of a regime which facilitated the most brutal repression against working class people leaves us with many complex questions but only one clear answer. With a secret police producing nearly 1,000 arrests of workers per week; it is clear that with all the vehement hatred contained in National Socialism, it could identify its potentially most dangerous enemy as the German working class itself.

There are four complex but interweaving strands which facilitated the solidification of the National Socialist regime between January 1933 and June 1934. The central locomotive driving the discussion of these four themes are the containment and neutralisation of the working class by National Socialism. The methods employed ranged from attempts to buy off the class through refusing to launch the aggressive attack on wages expected by business and maintaining and extending elements of the social welfare system which had become a feature of Weimar which riled capital with its fear of a 'trade union economy' to out right terroristic repression.

Haunted by the memory of 1918 and the general strike which brought the Kapp Putsch to it's knees National Socialism saw itself foaming at the mouth with impatience to smash the traditional socio-cultural structures of working class solidarity when it came to power in January 1933. The destruction of the working class's overt political structures; as they manifested themselves in both offensive forms as reformist and revolutionary political tendencies and in the defensive organs of the trade union movement proved an immediate agenda of National Socialism under Hitler as it strove to solidify power. The Reichstag fire attributed to the Dutch Communist Van Der Lubbe can be understood as a strategy of tension orchestrated by the SS, Goering was later to boast of it. A ploy similar in many ways to that used in Italy in the late seventies and again finding expression in the media hype surrounding the recent supposed anarchist letter bombings directed at Prodi. That is a pretext for creating an atmosphere of political upheaval and tension which serves to generate, justify and flame repression against those it is claimed is creating the disorder. A parallel can be seen in the myths of a massacre of 70 policemen in Lichtenberg, which fanned FreiCorp's repression in the wake of the March 4th, 1919 General Strike, resulting in 1,500- 2,000 deaths. The ushering in of the 'Emergency Decree for the Protection of the People and The State' saw the swift banning of the Communist Party and arbitrary attacks on the workers' movement by police and SA. Later in the year the regime in a typical attempt to assimilate elements of working class culture declared May 1st a holiday and oversaw huge labour demonstrations, the official organ of the German TUC, Gewerhschaftszeitung, published an article for its May Day edition naively assuming that they 'certainly need not strike our colours in order to recognise that the victory of National Socialism, though won in struggle against (the Social Democrats)...is our victory as well.' In his dairy Goebbels wrote: 'Tomorrow we will occupy the trade union buildings. There will be little resistance'. He was right, the oldest workers' movement in the world was smashed and on June 22nd the Social Democrats too found themselves removed from the political equation. Deprived of its traditional armoury of resistance and opposition in the structures the working class had fostered; militants were forced to operate in an illegality which bore no resemblance to that expected for the regime was to go all out and attempt whole scale restructurings of the working class environment and a taming of the power of national socialist labour organisations.

With this elimination of organised political opposition came a restructuring of industrial relations along National Socialist lines which while not eliminating struggle at the coal face of the class struggle, sought to inoculate ideas of the Gemeinschaft (National Community) into the class which created a façade which theoretically at least neutralised ideas of class conflict in industry. Organising industry along lines outlined in the Arbeitsordnungsgesetz (AOG) enacted on January 20th 1934. The AOG defined the workplace as
Betreibsgemeinschaft, the smallest element in the wider national community, with a feudal relationship between boss and worker promoting a non material bond of loyalty midst capitalist modes of production. Schwenger, one of the architects of Nazi industrial policy described its aims 'to pacify the workforce, eliminate disputes, remove the objective grounds for social tension...to foster national ideas and to reject class conflict.' (1) The AOG plays a key role in highlighting the regimes attitude to the working class and its attempts to solidify power. Through the act the regime attempted a fundamental restructuring of attitudes to work. Hitler described how there as no need to socialise industry when one could socialise people, Robert Ley the head of the Nazi Labour Movement expanded in describing how 'we must all share in the workplace where we are employed. Share in every stone, every machine, everything. Yes, my friend; of you work there, it belongs to you! In law it may be the property of another, but that means nothing.' (2) The removal of traditional working class modes of representation saw an inability to channel opposition, the ground previously occupied by the trade union movement became occupied by the national socialist Deutsch Arbeitsfont (DAF) with a system of elected Councils of Trust which were theoretically to play an advisory role in the new industrial landscape. A process of breaking down relationships between the class was initiated through greater individualisation through Taylorism and with the advent of competitions like National Vocational Competition which sought to introduce the national socialist organising priniciple of competition among workers as a means to break up traditional notions of solidarity which had provided the backbone of the union movement. Mason uses an example of a mural from the 1934 Berlin Exhibition 'German People- German Labour which attempted to illustrate the AOG, featuring labourers and crafts men working in harmony building a small housing estate undisturbed by class tension or the noise of modern industry. The AOG offered 'Strength Through Joy' holidays and leisure pursuits organised by firms and the state. However along with these leisure outlets it also offered the Arbeitserziehungslager, concentration camps attached to larger plants which when viewed alongside the Strength Through Joy iniatives can read as something of a signifier for the regimes attitudes to the working class; terror mixed with a willingness to give in to demands and seek a buying off of the working class. The fear of hunger unrests of 1918 saw the regime attempt to maximise supplies by using up foreign exchange which had been set aside for rearmament in the pre-war period, and as Mason suggests added an internal dynamic to the aggressive expansionism of '38-39; using plunder from Poland to satiate demand at home. The encouragement of geographic and industrial mobility has also been seen as partially contributing to the break up of 'red' neighbourhoods which held the potential for providing support for organised movements of workers opposition and resistance. Having eliminated political expression by the class, the Regime went one step further and attempted to reconstitute the class itself, eliminating the dangerous class contradiction of the old working class by socially dispersing it and wiping it out theoretically as a class.

The success of the elimination of a left opposition and resistance to the regime, then opened up the way to an elimination of a potential left opposition within the National Socialist movement itself as represented by the destruction of the Rohm/Strasser tendency of the Sturm Abteilung (SA) and their rhetoric of a 'second revolution' in the so called Knight of the Long Knives. The SA was socially constituted by the petit bourgeoisie and declassed elements from the years of unemployment; it provided the backbone of the National Socialist Movement and had proved an essential component in the outright attacks by the regime between March and June 1934. Historians like Reich and Rohm locate the violence of nazism as rooted in the authoritarian socialisation of middle class childhoods while this may certainly be true, the existence of the SA as a descendent of the FreiCrops which crushed strikes throughout the upheavals of the early Weimar gives testament to its function within the broader spectrum of National Socialism. The anarchist Daniel Guerin gives an eyewitness account of a Nazi Stormtrooper rally in Leipzig in 1933, quoting the ranting demagogue describing how 'we have now but one enemy to vanquish; the bourgeoise. To bad for it if it doesn't want to give in, if it doesn't want to understand.' (3) The Rohm/Strasser tendency of the SA represented an economic left wing of national socialism which took serious the movements promises to end the burden of interest, rent slavery and to nationalise industry. Rhetoric it may have been, but as Nazi Gauleiter Krebs reported that 'any attack on capitalism and plutocracy found the strongest echo among the local functionaries with their middle class origin.’ (4) Speer mentions something similar in his memoirs, the sole owner of a car in his section 'the other members only expected to have a one after the 'revolution' they dreamed of took place. By way of preparation they were finding out where in the rich suburb the right cars were available for X Day. (5) The SA had provoked tensions along class lines within the movement in the past. In august 1930, Eastern SA units revolted, under the leadership of Walther Stennes. Reasons included payment and problems with the gauleiters and the growing influence of the rival SS. A group in Berlin even attacked Joseph Goebbels offices and beat up the SS men who stood guard. In February 193, Stennes wrote in a letter to Röhm "it is much more important to undertake measures to relieve the economic position of the SA. In Berlin there are regiments containing 67% unemployed. In Breslau a company could not turn out for inspection ... in frost and snow - because it completely lacked footwear". In a speech on 17 June, Franz Non Papen, a centre party renegade and Hitler's Vice Chancellor echoed the sentiment of much of the upper bourgeoisie and capital towards the wave of violence and extra-legal rule by force carried out by an organisation which while existing officially outside the state structure now seemed to share its monopoly of violecnce describing how 'no nation can live in a state of permanent revolution from below...terroristic methods in the field of law.' (6) And it was that Hitler had his 'comrades' in the leadership of the SA liquidated in the Night of the Long Knives. This liquidation of the anti-capitalist elements within National Socialism can be read as a parallel to Mussolini's Concord with the Vatican, that is the Rohm Putsch represented a compact and reapprocahment with capital, the SA's purpose having been served in the wiping out of the labour movement.

While the regime occupied the territories previously occupied by the organs of the working class within industry, and deprived it of political space; another important element which must be discussed and is often underestimated when one speaks of a neutralisation of the working class in the Third Reich is the regimes clear identification of the need to occupy the ground previously held by working class movements within their social and cultural milieus. This was one aspect which both communist and socialist groups did not consider in their preparations for illegality; where they previously could fallback on organic structures of support within communities, now they couldn't. Peukart describes how 'the attempt to nationalise society led to the atomisation of the power structure.' (7) Germany under Hitler saw the intrusion of the state into the various cultural and social milieus of the working class. One of the more interesting campaigns of resistance launched by the KPD (German Communist Party) prior to Januray 1933 was the so-called Kneipe-kampagne, that is the struggle for territorial control of taverns which were been used by the SA to gain a foot hold in working class areas. This physical occupation of a nodal point of working class life by National Socialism broadens with the regimes solidification of power into the introduction of national socialist based organisations (Strength through Joy etc) to usurp the traditional roles of working class voluntary organisations and associations which organised leisure activities and facilitated mutual aid in working class communities. Part of an overall process of creating a dependence at once on the regime and of neutralising ability or tendencies towards the formation of independent cultural and social outlets; which could theoretically have provided the basis of a workers' resistance to Nazism. This was the recognition that the environments that facilitated working class traditions of struggle and solidarity were as much of a threat to the regime as the more overt and official organs of the class's representation that grew out of them. The increasing individualisation in the factories was compounded by an alienation of the community. As one diary entry states 'And the world? The best thing is to shut your eyes to it and to stop hearing and seeing all the dreadful fuse and bother.' (8) As one report by the underground SPD stated 'the essence of fascist control of the masses is compulsory organisation on the one hand and atomisation on the other.'

Yet, a photo of a National Socialist May Day Celebration in Penzberg in Upper Bavaria, Nazi ranks gathered at the back and miners up front, a mass of straight arm salutes and a scattering of clenched fists attesting to two strands which seem to define working class experience under National Socialism; mobilisation and refusal. (9) Horkheimer, the former director of the Frankfurt Institute, used to say "If you don't want to talk about capitalism, then don't talk about Nazism." As the dynamics of capitalism continued to reproduce itself in industry, so too did the dynamics of working class existence breed and necessitate non-traditional modes of resistance to the regime. As Robert Ley, head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront stated 'the only people who still have a private life in Germany are those who are asleep'; so it is not odd for us to characterise even the simple refusal to cook an Eintopf as opposition; as it was a rescinding of an expected form of consent in the private sphere which became an area in which the class was increasingly forced into retreat from its submission in the public sphere. The KPD's strategy of agitation for mass revolutionary action defined in its slogan of 'after Hitler, us' combined with its attempt to impose a form of centralised organisation developed for struggle under a wholly different context led to devastating setbacks for the resistance. However new generations of anti-fascists emerged with no memory of the struggles before 1933, some of these such as the Edelweiss Pirates and Meuten groups of anti-authoritarian youths who rejected the culture of the Hitler Youth would become politicised by the occupation of the working class milieu and declare 'eternal war on the Hitler Youth', organising attacks on National Socialist Patrols and engaging in armed attacks on the Gestapo. In industry, a labour shortage of one million people created new opportunities for working class resistance in the forms of go-slows and mass absenteeism. The nature of resistance may have changed, but the battle field remained the same.


National Socialism then essentially solidified its grip on power through the destruction of the political space of the working class in its defensive and offensive organs, by a restructuring of industrial relations along National Socialist lines and attempts to buy off the class through maintenance of wages and increases in living standards. The regime also saw a need for a rapprochement with capital and the middle classes which necessitated the elimination of anti-Bourgeoisie sentiment within National Socialism Itself. Finally the regime sought to occupy the cultural and social space of the working class depriving it of the ability to self organise and hence any nodal points for the growth of resistance through a proliferation of its own organisations.


1 Quoted in Mason, Timothy. Ed. Jane Caplan. Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class; Essays By Tim Mason. (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
2 Quoted in Mason, Timothy. Ed. Jane Caplan. Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class; Essays By Tim Mason. (Cambridge University Press, 1996) P80
3 Guerin, Daniel. The Brown Plague. Travels in Late Weimar and Early Nazi Germany. (Duke University Press, 1994) P120-122.
4 Hamerquist, Don, Sakai, J, Anti Racist Action Chicago, Mark Salotte. Confronting Fascism; Discussions For A Militant Movement. Kersplebedeb, ARA Chicago, Arsenal Magazine, 2002) P109
5 Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. (Macmillian, New York, 1970) P52
6 Hohne, Heinz. The Order of the Death's Head; The Story of the SS. (Martin Secker and Warburg LTD, 1969)
7 Peukart, Detlev JK. Trans. Richard Deveson. Inside Nazi Germany; Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life. (B.T. Batsford LTD, London, 1987) P144
8 Peukart, Detlev JK. Trans. Richard Deveson. Inside Nazi Germany; Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life. (B.T. Batsford LTD, London, 1987) P79
9 This image can be found on page three of the illustrations in Peukart, Detlev JK. Trans. Richard Deveson. Inside Nazi Germany; Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life. (B.T. Batsford LTD, London, 1987)

author by Myselfpublication date Mon Jan 05, 2004 15:12author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Considering the fact that it was the extreme left and rabid nationalists such as the Sinners who sought aid from the Nazis and bombed Britain to aid the Nazi war effort, and that the only elected supporter of Irish intervention on the side of Jews and the Allies was James Dillon, future Fine Gael leader, the decision to put a Army Comrade Rally and attempt to link to the holocaust is inaccurate and disgusting. Unfortunately from many in Indymedia youd expect no better.

The only people who can be held cupable for the holocaust in Ireland are Sinn Fein as they were a wartime ally of the Nazis. Why didn't the author of this peice of tripe not mention that? Oh, sorry, i forgot about their holocaust denial.

author by mr gloompublication date Mon Jan 05, 2004 14:52author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Heavens, what a piece of non news. Nothing new there, only the last few lines are of relevance to irish perspectives and even still they are vague and well trod. On another note, what if our grandparents weren't blueshirts, then your title is pointless and insulting, but im sure you would in some way link any allegiance they had to the nazis, which is an ultimately pointless exercise at this late stage. The explicit link between nazis and power wielding bullies in present day ireland is tenuous to say the least and adds nothing to discussion/investigation of such issues.

author by LOVELYpublication date Mon Jan 05, 2004 12:26author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I never hear Fine Gael Youth brag about their fine tradition of facism,i mean law and order and catholic bigotry.If Deasy becomes minister of justice you may see the glory days back again.

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