it

i

JARTER of a century
S passed since the pro-
» sections of the Ger-
eople made their at-
o bring about the final
) accomplish the demo-
evolution in Germany.
failed during the years
when the great bour-
yetrayed the revolution.
{ Prussianism had suf-
itt in blood. Economic pro-
ce pushed the German
J barens and bankers
di more upon the road of
st expansion. Being the
gglers in the concert of
¢ powers, they found the
uready divided among
it SO much more persis-
ey joined with feudal re-
» Support the autocratic
their Kaiser. :

and again they tried to
the organizations of la-
| they entangled the
slass, the peasants and
wage workers with a re-
', saber-rattling national-
2ir demands upon the
wers, Britain, France and
‘vhich had completed their
‘ce to united nationhood
‘hd in part by means of
aecratic revolution, be-
er more aggressive. In
itable World War One,
st Germany was de-

‘ptember 29, 1918, after
re of the great offensive
as and under the pres-
he general counter,offen-
the British, French and
1 armies, the German
‘ommand demanded of
Tax yon Baden’s govern-
at negotiations for an
be started immediately.
tary defeat of German
sm at the same time
le position of power of
archy and its support
ile people. The crews of
mutineed in Wilhelm-
m October 31, 1918.
e
yember 1, large meetings
ailors took place at Kiel,
few days later led to the
Ludendroff resigned as
zaster-General of the
‘November 5. The “dem-
General Groener took
>. On November 6, the
Armistice Commission
in its way to the Forest
iegne and on the same
*drich Ebert, who had
€ cabinet of Prince Max,
a the abdication of Wil-
and of the Crown-Prince
Mndition to “assure peace
pr.
Hbocial-Democratic leader
jemand a democratic re-
yecause he was in full
it with Prince Max yon
who proposed a consti-
monarchy with the son
‘OWwn-prince as kaiser.
me, the revolution had
lroughout Germany. Wil-
_demanded of the High
i that front troops be
ainst his own people.
Viax threatened resigna-
ie Kaiser should not ab-
; once. Hindenburg and
thereupon, forced their
| warlord to save him-
a the revolution, which
had engulfed the front
During the night of
9-10, Wilhelm II., ac-
sd by his immediate as-
escaped to Holland.
fating masses in Berlin,
me time, proclaimed the

f @

their rising in Novem-
1918, the progressive

* the people desired to

sh immediate peace,

ermany -- 25 Years

By PAUL MERKER

overthrow of the monarehy, pun-
ishment of those-responsiele for
the war and a socialist regime.

About the road to Socialism, the
majority of the population was
not at all clear. After the model
of the Russian Reyolution, Work-
ers’ and Soldiers’ Councils were
elected. They were to be the
basis of the new form of state.
But anybody, who simply declar-
ed himself for the republic, also
received the right to be named
to the Workers’ and Soldiers’
Councils.

As a result, the influence of
bourgeois democracy soon _ be-
came dominant in these commit-
tees of the revolution. Not social-
ism, but bourgeois
thus become the real aim of their
revolution.

But this historic goal, the com-
pletion of the bourgeois revolu-
tion, was not accomplished. The
methods for its realization were
unknown to the majority of the
peopie.

Too strong was the desire for
peace and quiet after all the
battles and ali the blood. ‘Too
great was the blissful confidence
of the class-conscious workers in
the new “friends” of democracy.
Too thoughtless was their disicp-
line towards their leaders who
in 1914 had put themselves on
the side of the German imperial-
ists and who did not want the
revolution. Teo close was the
allianee of these leaders with the
forces of reaction, seemingly
overthrown.

e@

[EP EEED ICE! EBERT, Phillipp
Scheidman, Gustav Noske and
many others had supported the
Kaiser, the monopolists and the
General Staff with all their
energies during the years of 1914-

18 in order to aid in realization =

of the imperialist war aims.

With the Kaiser’s declaration
at the beginning of the war, “I
know no more parties,” they had
become presentable to court.
Hindenburg and Groener, Stin-
res, Krupp and von Siemens
they had come to look upon as
pleasant and amiable men.

Now they were happy that
these representatives of the old
regime apparently turned their
backs on the monarchy and greet-
ed the republic as the savior
from the greatest of dangers.

Friedrich Ebert did not see in
the revolutionary masses the
force for the foundation of the
democratic regime. The noise of
the revolution, its hard and cal-
igused first and the disorder
caused by it could in his opinion
only lessen the “good will’ of
Stinnes and Krupp to aid in the
building of the “new state.”

To come to an understanding
With them had been so easy. On
the other hand, to come to under-
Standing with Karl Liebknecht
and Rosa Luxenburg was a priori
impossible for Ebert.
~ And so the fateful thing hap-
pened: Freiedrich Ebert and his
friends had confidence in Krupp
and Stinnes, but they distrusted
Liebknecht and Luxenburg. Al-
ready Ebert saw himself going
down in history as the great re-
conciliator of classes. _And the
workers, who refused to subject
themselves voluntarily to his de-
sires, were treated by Noske as
the enemies of the republic and
were quashed by force of arms.

@

S the “protective arm” for his
; democracy Ebert chose the
Army High Command with
Hindenburg, Groener and Sch-
Jeicher. With them he turned
against the friends and support-

ers of a real democracy, against”

the revolutionary forces of the

people.
Qn November 9, Ebert made
an alliance with Groener in ord-

democracy -

er to take power from the Work-

ers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, which
in their party composition could
by no means be considered the
precursors of a proletarian dic-
tatorship. And on November 10;
Ebert, according to his own
words, proposed to Field Mar-
shal General yon Hindenburg an
alliance between the High Gom-
mand and the Social-Democratic
Party in order to form with the
aid of these monarchist generals
a government that “eould’ restore
order.”

Only because of Friedrich
Ebert’s alliance with generals
Hindenburg, Groener andi Schlei-
cher was Wilhelm’s High Gom-
mand able to keep its position of
power,

On November 12, accepting
Ebert’s proposal, the Council of
People’s Deputies restored to the
officers their power to command
and declared that it was the high-
est duty of the Soldiers’ Coun-
ceils to prevent disorder and
mutiny.

Qn December 18, Hindenburg
publicly refused to subject him=
self and the Army to the de-
cisions of the Congress of Work
ers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, the
highest representative body of
the revolution. But, despite this,
he remained the commander-in-
chief of the republic. His gen-
eral headquarters were trans-
ferred to Castle Wilhelmhoehe,
near Cassel.

The servile spirit of the men,
who today suddenly consider
themselves the only brave demo-
crats, found expression in the
eall which Albert Grzesinski is-
sued at the end of November,
1918, when Hindenburg arrived
in Cassel. f

“Today, Field Marshal General
von Hindenburg arrives with of-
ficers and troops of the General
Headquarters at Cassel. ._. Hin-

~denburg- belongs to the German

people and the German Army.

-. - In the most difficult hour, he
did not abandon his people.
Never has Hindenburg been clos-
er to us in the grandeur of his
compliance with duty than to-
day. His person is under our pro-
tection.” :

Thus, Albert Grzesinski wel-
comed his Hindenburg — and he
Was typical. —

@

Ww the acceptance of the
imperial High Army Com-
mand and its introduction into
the texture of the republic, the

formation of a democratic
people’s army, decided by the
Soldiers’ Councils, was also
blocked.

In its stead, Hindenburg, with
the aid of Ebert and Noske,
organized the notorious Free
which produced the Nazi Party
and its leaders Hitler, Hess, Goer-
ing, Himmler, Heydrich, Daluege,
Kube and others.

Thus was created this unique
body of a state, of which it was
said, that it is a republic without
republicans and a democracy
without democrats. This concep-
tion could develop because the
record-of the Weimar Republic
Was one capitulation after the
cther before reaction and because
every mass movement of the
people in defense of its democra-
tic rights, was suppressed by the
state as a “disturbance of the
public order.”

As a result, the Weimar Re-
public ended in the maze of ego-
tistie struggles of interest of a
thin upper strata, which dictated
“emergency decrees” against the
people and which finally engag-
ed Hitler as a better business
manager and hangman.

These men, who declare them-
selves to be the fathers and pil-
lars of the Weimar Republic, con-
tinued their nonsensical policy
until Hitler assumed power.

Fearful of the struggle of the
people and always swooning be-

Aiter Weimar

fore Hindenburg, they rejected
any defense of democracy except,
when it occurred with the ballot
and around the council table. In
peaceful submission, the masses
of the people were supposed to
educate this murderous reaction
to accept democracy.

Two Social-Democratic fighters
of the underground, John B. Jan-
sen and Stefan Weil, in their
book, The Silent War, describe
this position in the following
striking words:

“Qur strength lies in the legal
methods and not in the illesal
ones. If we stay on the legal
road, our enemies will be de-
stroyed because justice will be
on our side. . . . What we must
do, is to wait and keep quiet.”

Yes, above everything else this
was what prevented unity be-
tween the peaceful right and the
fighting left wing of the German
labor movement.

Though it is correct that the
Communists sometimes set their
goals too far ahead, that never
would that have been an obstacle
in the united struggle for the
Oefense of the democratic rights
of our people, if on the part of
Otto Wels, Friedrich Stampfer
and Karl Severing the disposition
for this united struggle had ever
existed. If they had only once
proclaimed it or had not rejected
the proposals for a united front,
the split could have been over-
come overnight.

¢ )

FTER 25 years, we find our-
selves on the eve of happen-

jngs similar to those of October
and November, 1918. Will the
progressive forces of the German
people this time be able to ful-
fill their historic task and com-
plete the democratic revolution?
All the conditions for this are
developing quickly. The powerful
position of the imperialist mono-
polists and of the feudal land-
owners have been shaken. The
Nazi army and the Nazi State are

approaching collapse. Unity of
the anti-Nazi forces is being
formed in the underground

struggle and in the Free Ger-
many Movement.

The present German liberation
movement, using the lessens of

the past, has come to an orienta-"

tion which makes it better able
to uproot and destroy the false
nationalist doctrines which, for
generations chained middle class
people, the peasants and the
backward sections of the work-
ing class to reaction.

Today, its influence is suffici-
ently strong to bring certain lay-
ers of society, which previously
saw in labor its natural enemy,
closer to the working class.

Outside of those Nazis and
their wire-pullers, who are burd-
ened with deadly crimes, there
are only a few unteachable form-
er leaders of the Weimar Re-
public, who, because they carry
their full burden of guilt for Hit-
jer’s ascension to power, are far
removed from the Free Germany
movement. They find comfort in
the hopeless belief that the Al-
lied armies may be interested to
impose them again upon the Ger-
man people.

C)

T the end of this war, it is
hardly possible that a politi-
cal party should become domin-
ant in Germany which concludes
an alliance with the Army High
Command, as in 1918. But the
people, led by the Free Germany
Movement, will sit in court over
the Hitlers, Keitels, Krupps. In-
stead of Grzesinski’s song of
eulogy for Hindenburg, we shall
hear Weinert’s song of hate for

Keitel.

After this war, the High Com-
mand of Hitler’s army will have

no possibility of maintaining its
existence. And those responsible
for the war, those guilty of the
horrible war crimes, will not es-
Cape their weli-deserved punish-
ment. ;

Is this contradicted by the fact
that the Free Germany Move-
ment will show itself magnanim-
ous towards former enemies, who
in time and bravely pull them-
selves together to join the demo-
cratic fighting front and thereby
break all bridges behind them?
There is no eontradiction.

But differences on questions of

~ Strategy, on conduct of the war

economy, and so on, such as exist
between Brauchitsch, Raeder,
Thyssen, Voegeler and perhaps
also between Schacht and Hitler,
will never be sufficient ‘to be
recognized by the Free Germany
Movement as a break with Naz-
ism,

As a frank and courageous
proclamation of war against
Nazism, however, the Free Ger-
many National Committee has
valued the actions of the gen-
erals, officers and soldiers ofthe
sixth Army. The Sixth Army.
was chosen to sacrifice itself at
Satlingrad in order to extend the
bloody rule of Hitler for several
additional months.

A number of generals and of-

ficers, including ‘General Walter
yon Seidlitz, and the troops of

. this army, moved by real national

responsibility, refused to be
martyrs for a bad cause and pre-
ferred unconditionally and in
time to surrender to the Red
Army. That was a big step. But
these generals, officers and troops
did not stop half way. They tried
to understand the real role of
Nazism. They learned to despise
the crimes of Hitler and of his
wire-pullers. :
Thus they recognized, that the
only way to restoration of their
own honor and to the salvation
of the German people is the way
of Free Germany. They broke
their military oath, which they
had given Hitler and, instead,
they become duty bound to the
German liberation movement.

These generals and high offi-
cers did not come, like Hinden-
burg, Groener and Schleicher in
1918, fully in possession of their
positions of power as command-
ers, in order to save their mon-
archist or their Nazi caste privi-
leges and interests in roundabout
way. Their role was not that of
Hindenburg to lead the struggle
against the rising masses of the
people.

General von Seidlitz, Lt. Gen
von Daniels, Major Generals
Korfes and Lattmann came on
the basis of their recognition of .
Hitler’s crimes against the Ger-
man nation and against all
peoples and they joined the anti-
fascist politicians, writers, scien-
tists, workers, middle class
people and peasants in order to
actively participate in the
struggle for the final destruction
of the Nazi regime.

Thus they gave a great example
to their former comrades. And
that is the difference between
the former Ebert-Noske-Hinden-
burg alliance and the militant
anti-Hitler Pieck-Ulbricht-Seid-
litz alliance of today, at which
the Neu Volkszeitung of New
York dares to sneer.

A movement, which already has
the strength to unite the repre-
sentatives. of_ such different
groups of people, will also de-
velop the force and ability to
fulfill its historic mission. In a
new 1918 it will destroy the reac-
tionary German original evil and
will lead the democratic revolu-
tion in Germany to victory.