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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. 5 No. 3, 18 January 1941, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The war propaganda of British and American imperialism attempts to picture the German masses as “hypnotized’’ followers of Hitler.
It is a deliberate lie.
It was with the connivance and consent of the capitalists of the world that Hitler came to power in 1933. They preferred Hitler to the only other real alternative – the socialist revolution in Germany.
That revolution was almost achieved in 1918, when the German workers and the returning soldiers overthrew the Kaiser. It was with the help of a French-British-American threat of armed intervention – just as they intervened in Russia – that the German “democrats” smashed the revolution.
The German workers have shown in their whole history that Nazism is utterly alien to them. They have given to the world a shining firmament of revolutionary figures: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Franz Mehring, Clara Zetkin. These, and not Hitler, typify the German masses.
Thirteen million socialists and communists – the backbone of the German people – voted against Hitler in the last election that was permitted. And that election only dimly reflected – no election under capitalism really reflects – the anti-fascist sentiment of the German people.
The German workers need help in overthrowing Hitler. But that help is not carried by American bombing planes. Not freedom but a bloody military dictatorship will be brought to Germany by the victorious imperialist armies of “democracy.”
The decisive help that we can give to the German workers so that they can overthrow Hitler is to demonstrate to them that we, too, are struggling against our oppressors. That we, too, are fighting for a Workers Government.
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Last updated on 16 November 2020