courtisane festival 2017 notes on cinema
Dürfen Sie Wiederkommen Peter Nestler & Zsóka Nestler, 1971, 16mm, b&w, 48’ Peter Nestler wrote the following note regarding the script of the film, which was published in Kürbiskern magazine:
(Speaker) When fascism gained power in Germany, it meant war; which meant the death of 52 million people. The larger part of the German military power was used against the Soviet Union. The German fascists murdered 8 million people in concentration camps, penitentiaries and extermination camps. At the Potsdam Conference it was stipulated that German militarism and Nazism was to be permanently eradicated so that Germany would never again be able to threaten its neighbors and world peace. Today there are armed terror groups in West Germany, carrying out bombings and attacks. There is a legal fascist party and the right-wing organization ‘Aktion Widerstand’ (‘Action Resistance’)2 openly demands the death of chancellor Willy Brandt and Walter Scheel3.
“It concerns a film I made together with my wife Mrs Zsóka this summer in West-Germany (while I worked as a producer at Channel 2 of the Swedish Television). Two days before the intended broadcast (which was scheduled for the 10.10.71) the film was canceled. As this was the third of three similar cases, it gave rise to a fierce internal dispute, which eventually went public. The film was not considered ‘TV like’ enough because it offered analyses rather than ‘compelling images’. The people speaking in the film (Abendroth, Kuehnl, Behrisch, Schofs) apparently lacked charm, and ‘everyone attacked the SPD1’, plus the school book citations were supposedly not representative of today’s West-German school books…etc. The Aftonbladet implied that this was a socially critical program, canceled at the last minute, about Neo-Nazism in the FRG, which was equally critical towards social democracy.”
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SPD: Social Democratic Party of Germany.
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Aktion Widerstand was a right-wing organization which existed in the FRG between 1970 and 1971.
3
Willy Brandt (1913 – 1992) was a German statesman and politician, who was leader of the SPD from 1964 to 1987 and served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1969 to 1974. Walter Scheel (1919 –2016) was a member of the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), which he led from 1968-74. During the Chancellorship of Willy Brandt, Scheel was Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor.
(Title) May They Come Again? About neofascist tendencies in West Germany
– if the prison management obtains an alibi from the prison doctor, sick people too, psychologically deviant prisoners, pregnant women and breastfeeding women may equally be put into these cells and be treated in this way.
(Speaker) In West Germany schoolbooks say: “The German Eastern Territories under foreign administration, form to this day – in legal terms – part of the German Reich.” “In the Southeast of Silesia lies the second largest industrial zone in Germany.” “All attempts by the FRG to keep communism away must be in vain, if the same aim is not achieved all over the world.”
The current state of affairs is lawless. This is justified by what is referred to as the “customary law of the particular condition of power”. One might translate this as following: once an order has become common within a governmental system of authority, it shall no longer be called into question. (Speaker) A professor at the Institute for Political Science in Marburg.
(Title) “Today’s books are tomorrows’ deeds”. Heinrich Mann What nationalist-socialist and authoritarian mentalities regarding unpopular minorities can still be found within the German penal system?
(Title) Prof. Reinhard Kuehnl, Marburg University The problem lies in the fact that Germany not only provided these general conditions, but that there were also a number of specific conditions that allowed for these fascist tendencies to be stronger in Germany – much stronger than in other capitalist countries. The first of these special conditions I see in the failed bourgeois revolution of the 19th century in Germany, i.e. the attempt to replace the old feudal state and monarchy with that of a parliamentary democracy; so that in this country, in Germany, the authoritarian state was maintained and that this authoritarian state had a particularly authoritarian influence on the population. Here in Germany, the ‘scale of goodness’ (‘Tugendskala’) remained…. also that of the bourgeoisie, so control and discipline, obedience and military bravery were considered the highest virtues. This lack of liberal-democratic traditions meant that the fascistic, authoritarian mindsets were particularly strong. And that fascism could, in its ideology and agitation, continue from these authoritarian traditions. In addition, Germany’s rise to an industrial state occurred later than say in England or France – this is linked to Germany’s long political fragmentation, and is linked to how long it took to create a sense of national unity. The consequences of this late capitalism was that once Germany developed capitalistic tendencies – like all imperialistic states at the time – of reaching beyond its own borders and conquering colonial territories, that in this moment the
(Title) Brigitta Wolf, author4 Inside the holding cell, which is often located in a cellar and separated by bars, there is a wooden bed with bare boards. No cushions, no mattress. During his days of fasting, the prisoner receives only 700 grams of bread per day and bowls of coffee substitute. He is forced to lie on the hard bed, which puts pressure on his nervous system. At night he cannot sleep, his hatred grows and he becomes aggressive from hunger and bitterness. Every third day he is given a mattress, which is often stained with sperm and urine. That day he receives a normal diet, but the following day the mattress is removed and he returns to sleeping on the bare wooden boards. This is cleverly repeated, dosed – so that the prisoner does not die of hunger. And most terrifyingly, this barbaric punishment, which brings to mind prisoner holes of the middle ages, has not been abolished in the most recent service regulation from 1 May 1971. On the contrary: this book states that not only may healthy prisoners be treated this way
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Brigitta Wolf (1913 – 2009) was a human rights activist. She fought for a reform of criminal law and the penal system in Germany and other countries.
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world had already been allocated. England and France had already established their colonial empires. As Germany however developed as a strong economic power, it of course tried to achieve a redistribution of the world. An attempt that led to the First World War. However: Germany is defeated in 1918, its economic power however is not destroyed as far as not being able to reconsolidate itself. And this is how, after a period of consolidation, German Imperialism made a second attempt at redistributing the world based on its own standpoint and interests. This was precisely when an economic crisis shook the entire capitalistic system, and so an alliance was formed as a result of unemployment and a ‘mass-crisis-fear’ between the economic ruling class and the fascist movement; an alliance that led to the establishment of the fascistic system with the purport and purpose of destroying democracy, the labor movement – the enemy of capital –, to establish a strong dictatorial regime, and, assisted by this strong State, to nevertheless implement its imperialist program. After 1945, once fascism was defeated by the military, socialist tendencies initially dominated and aimed at eliminating the basis of fascism, and establish a radical and socialist democracy, but after 1948/49, following the America intervention, the old social order, which once brought about fascism, was successfully restored; it remains possible for the ruling classes that had sustained the Third Reich to reinstate their positions of power – in administration, justice, as well as in the educational system, press, economy, military, intelligence service, and in the ministerial bureaucracy. And, mediated by the ruling classes, the population’s mentality continues to be dominated by the former authoritarian ways of thinking and acting, with these authoritarian traditions being harnessed for a new political ruling system. From the very beginning, the CDU/ CSU5 had delegated its political agitation to these authoritarian traditions. Furthermore, these authoritarian ways of thinking and forms of behavior are addressed and promoted daily by powerful press corporations – in particular the Springer-corporation; and what’s more, is that the living conditions of the wide majority continue to be defined by authoritarian structures, be this at work, in administration or in the military. One can therefore generally say that the fundamental basis for fascism still exists, so that the chances of fascist tendencies to emerge and form are still to be expected, even though it has to be said that especially in recent years the principally antifascist forces, i.e. the radical democratic and socialistic forces, have substantially grown.
fore our eyes, incidentally most frequently in the area of Remscheid and its vicinity. I repeat: these are frequent cases of racism. These can be found particularly amongst employers who are still rooted in beliefs that were propagated throughout a long period before the war… today, around 30 years after the last war, such incidents still exist. One has only to look at the period of crises of 1965/67 when the majority of employees were foreigners. This suggests that these racist incidents still occur today. One such racist incident we had here at a company nearby, in the Dowidat-Werk6. Workers of various different nationalities are employed in this company, and one has to some extent always privileged the Germans, always with a slightly negative attitude towards foreigners. One person in particular, within this company, a German person, did something that stood in opposition to civilized life and to the notions of brotherhood and community. This person took the liberty to publicly state that he thought Italians resembled animals and that they only differed from animals in that they were of bad character, and walked on two legs with a head held high. This really is very troubling, seeing that we are all humans, part of the same family. We leave our families in Italy, we leave our children there, to come here, to work and to obtain access to what our own country cannot provide us with. And then we are treated in this way. Such incidents should not happen.
(Title) Arno Behrisch, journalist
(Title) An Italian worker
(Speaker) Former leading Social Democrat, fought Nazism also as immigrant in Sweden.
(Fontana) There has been so much talk about the perpetual racism that exists in America, and we were repeatedly astonished at how black people are treated in the US. Unfortunately we find similar individual incidents here too, right be-
It would only be fair of me to say something about Sweden. To express my thanks that I was allowed to live in Sweden, at a time when the lights across Europe were being put out, from Norway to Greece, when the Nazis and boot-clad people were stomping across Europe.
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CDU/CSU: the political alliance of two political parties in Germany, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU).
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“Werk” stands for factory, but in fact they are producing tools, so it’s a tools factory (PN).
I owe a debt of gratitude to the LO (Swedish Trade Union Confederation), especially Emil Malmborg7 from the Typografiska Föreningen (The Typesetters Union) and the Arbetarnas Tryckeri (The Workers Print House) where I was given a job. I thank Evert Kumm8, and Tage Erlander9, and I am grateful to Alva and Gunnar Myrdal10 and the ABF (Worker’s Educational Association). I also thank Torgny Segerstedt11 and Victor Vinde12. My secondary school was the state penitentiary in Falun but even for this I must thank the Swedes. I mean, we had a conflict of interests. I have learned a lot in Sweden, but I do not believe that the Swedish model would suffice for Germany. We, the German immigrants in Sweden, have thought a lot about the postwar period and we wrote a pamphlet about it in July of 1944 called ‘On the Postwar Politics of German Socialists’13. Willy Brandt contributed a lot to this pamphlet and I shall quote some excerpts from it. Willy Brandt wrote: “On the agenda is not only the removal of a political head, but also the overcoming of the entire Nazi system which encompasses all social and economical life. The eradication not only of the leading figures but also the political and economic foundations of fascism. Positively put, there is the task of a fundamentally democratic restructuring of the state and society.” And in Stockholm he spoke about the “eradication of Nazism down to its roots.” And he said: “The task is to overcome Nazism and its supporters and accomplices entirely, so the elimination not only of the visible but also disguised Nazis.” The content of this pamphlet expressed the same goals of the resistance movement in Germany. It was aligned
7
Gustav Emil Malmborg (1891 - 1963) was a Swedish ombudsman and a Social-Democrat politician.
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Evert Gustaf Kumm (1912 - 1988) was a Swedish journalist and writer. He was the editor of different social-democratic morning newspapers. He published an important book on the lives of the Roma people in Sweden.
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Tage Fritjof Erlander (1901 - 1985) was a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1946 to 1969. He was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and led the government for an uninterrupted tenure of 23 years, one of the longest in any democracy.
with the Potsdam agreements, specifically that Nazism and Germany’s militarization had to be torn up by the roots. Changes in the foundations of Germany’s societal structure must occur, especially in its economy, ensuring that no monopoly of power would ever happen again. The pamphlet encompassed all the parties’ plans after 1945. The Communists demanded “democracy in Germany” after 1945, the Social Democrats called for “Socialism for Germany” and CDU/CSU condemned Capitalism. CDU explained that the capitalist system “did not satisfy the main interests of the German people.” But the tragedy that occurred in Germany after 1945 started with the break up of the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union. Already in Nuremberg the worst walked free, such as Hjalmar Schacht and Franz Von Papen14. Hitler’s business cronies, the Wehrwirtschaftsführer15, though formally prosecuted, were shortly given back their freedom and power. It is as Theodor Plivier wrote after 1918: “The emperor left, the generals stayed”. One could say “The Führer is gone, but his Wehrwirtschaftsführer, his generals, his Nazi buddies, returned”. Thomas Mann, in his letter from America, expressed concerns that the US would be liable to strike a deal with the semi- as well as total fascists in Europe, on the mere basis of them being anti-communists. The USA, according to Thomas Mann, would not try to conquer the world - they would simply buy it. And so started a period of oath breaking in Germany. The renazification, restoration and remilitarization of Germany started under the direction of the US. Anti-communism became the priority instead of anti-Semitism. Even though anti-communism and anti-Semitism are twin brothers. Konrad Adenauer16 himself started to break the promises he had made to the
14 Hjalmar Schacht (1877 –1970) served in Hitler’s government as President of the Reichsbank (1933–1939) and Minister of Economics (August 1934 – November 1937). As such, Schacht played a key role in implementing the policies attributed to Hitler. Franz von Papen (1879 –1969) served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–34. He belonged to the group of close advisers to President Paul von Hindenburg in the late Weimar Republic. It was largely Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, who persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party domination.
10 Karl Gunnar Myrdal (1898 - 1987) was a Swedish economist, sociologist and politician, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (together with Friedrich Hayek) and known for his work about racism in the United States of America. His contribution led to the establishment of the welfare state in Sweden. 11 Torgny Karl Segerstedt (1876 – 1945) was a Swedish scholar of comparative religion, later publicist and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning from 1917 to 1945. As such he is remembered for his uncompromising anti-Nazi stance.
15 Wehrwirtschaftsführer (WeWiFü) were, during the time of Nazi Germany (1933–1945), executives of companies or big factories called ‘rüstungswichtiger Betrieb’ (company important for the production of war materials). Wehrwirtschaftsführer were appointed, starting 1935, by the ‘Wehrwirtschafts- und Rüstungsamt’ (department for implementing the policy of directing the nation’s economic activity towards preparation for and support of the war effort, including armaments) being a part of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), that was pushing the build-up of arms for the Wehrmacht. The purpose of the appointment was to bind them to the Wehrmacht and to give them a quasi-military status.
12 Oskar Victor Vinde (1903 - 1970) was a Swedish journalist and author. 13 In the late summer of 1944 Stefan Szende, Irmgard Enderle, Willy Brandt and Ernst Behm jointly published “Zur Nachkriegspolitik deutscher Sozialisten” (“On the Postwar Politics of German Socialists”), in which the SAPD members set out their demands for a democratic socialist postwar Germany. A few weeks later, the exiled SAPD in Sweden switched their allegiance to the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which effectively put an end to the SAPD as a stand-alone political party. The former communist Stefan Szende was now officially a Social Democrat, influenced by his experience and a conviction of a need for unity on the political left within which, implicitly, Soviet style communism had no part to play. Stefan and Erszi Szende both formally joined the SPD on 30 September 1944.
16 Konrad Adenauer (1876 –1967) was a German statesman who served as the first post-war Chancellor of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963. During his years in power West Germany strived for democracy, stability, international respect and economic prosperity (the so-called “Wirtschaftswunder”). He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
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German people, namely that “never again would there be German soldiers and German uniforms.” He began to surround himself with Hitler’s despicable cronies, like Hans Globke17. He gathered Hitler’s generals, Hitler’s Wehrwirtschaftsführer, and Hitler’s propagandists, like Kurt Georg Kiesinger18. All this was done as an anti-communist effort. Potsdam became meaningless. The politics of rearmament, and the block politics led to the division of Germany. The arms race began, all efforts and hopes for a democratic Germany were dashed. The rift between what was stated in the constitution and what was enacted grew wider. On paper, one could claim that all was in order. But the reality was completely different! In the beginning it was the German Social Democrats, lead by Kurt Schumacher19, offered some resistance against these politics. But Schumacher was, in truth, an illusionist. He spoke of “socialism for Germany” but neglected to lay the foundations for democracy in Germany. “And Schumacher used his stupid anti-communism to prevent the necessary establishment of the workers movement. In the meantime, the Americans bought Germany and the Germans. They bought them with money, they bought them with power, they bought them with titles, with medals and temptations of all kinds. And nearly all Germans ‘bought into it’. Even the Social-Democrats. One should remember the words of Heinrich Heine “Thinking of Germany by night, puts all thought of sleep to flight.”
We have currently invested 300 million DM in rearmament. And now, we are like leaches attached to America. For example, the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) is short of 70,000 teachers. One can say that the politics of the CDU are bankrupt. If we want to stay abreast in this race up to the year 2000, we must push the politics of the CDU out of German politics. Two years ago we saw a change in government but not a change in power. Willy Brandt, the new chancellor, wants to do better than the CDU/CSU but he does not want to change things. He wants to be the chancellor of reforms, but he does not have the courage to touch the war chest. He does not dare puncture the abscess that is rearmament. I would say that my friend Willy Brandt is an honest-to-goodness German Social-Democrat. He is a typical man of doing things halfway). For example, he falls to his knees in Warsaw, and at the same time send a wreath of flowers to Friedrichsruh where the great Polish-hater Bismarck rests. Willy Brandt uses tax money to finance revanchist organizations in the West German Republic. The very same organizations that cry “Brandt an die Wand!” Brandt creates a new Eastern policy while simultaneously seeking an agreement with CDU/CSU, despite there is a continuity of misdeeds from the “Pan-German League”, the racist “Peoples movement”, the “German Nationalists”, the “National Socialists” and the CDU / CSU. Now, the old social-democrats sins are wearing fruits. On the SPD party day in Karlsruhe (1964) the delegates sat below a big map with Germany’s borders from 1937, and written on it in big letters are the words “Inheritance and Mission”. Is it then strange if the Landsmannschaften20 call Willy Brandt a traitor? SPD has in its time promoted the despicable Nazi Kiesinger to the chancellor seat, SPD has helped Strauss after his loss in the Spiegel Affair to once again be reinstated as a minister. When one sees Willy Brandt sitting beside Kiesinger, Herbert Werner beside Strauss, one thinks about the words of Carl Snoilsky: “Now they conspire together, who offered each other the flames of hell.” NPD, Landsmannschaften, Revanchists, Aktion Widerstand - all these are just the tip of Germany’s neo-nazi movement. The great danger for German Democracy is the CDU/CSU. The danger lies in the so-called “traditional” parties.
We followed America through thick and thin, through wet and dry, in happiness and in sadness. We followed America to the swamps of Vietnam, we are collecting America’s dollars in our bank coffers, we are importing America’s inflation, we are buying America’s scrap weapons.
17 Hans Globke (1898 – 1973) served as the Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery in West Germany from 1953 to 1963. He coauthored both the official legal commentary on the new Reich Citizenship Law, one of the Nuremberg Laws introduced at the Nazi Party Congress in September 1935, which revoked the citizenship of German Jews and various legal regulations, such as an ordinance that required Jews with non-Jewish names to take on the additional first names of Israel or Sara, an “improvement” of public records that later facilitated to a great extent the rounding up and deportation of the Jews during the Holocaust. He also served as chief legal advisor in the Office for Jewish Affairs in the Ministry of Interior, the section headed by Adolf Eichmann that implemented the Holocaust bureaucratically. 18 Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1904 –1988) served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1966 to 1969. He was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1967 to 1971. He joined the Nazi Party after Adolf Hitler’s accession. He spent 18 months in a postwar U.S. internment camp with other Nazi Party members, but he staunchly denied any wrongdoing during Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich and never was charged with any crimes. 19 Kurt Schumacher (1895 –1952) served as chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1946 and was the first Leader of the Opposition in the West German Bundestag from 1949 until his death. An opponent of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s government, but an even stronger opponent of the East German Socialist Unity Party and communism in general, he was one of the founding fathers of post-war German democracy. He was also a noted opponent of the far-right and the far-left, i.e. the Nazi Party and the Communist Party of Germany, during the Weimar Republic, and is famous for his description of the communists as “red-painted Nazis.”
20 Landsmannschaften: organizations representing on a regional basis the interests of German refugees and expellees. They generally took blatant revisionist positions.
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(Title) Professor Walter Jaide, Hannover University
(Title) Professor Wolfgang Abendroth, Marburg University
(Speaker) Member of the government’s so-called Science Council
The strictly speaking fascist movements within the Federal Republic have always arisen during times of economic recession and situations of crisis. During Germany’s period of restoration, the Neo-Nazi “Socialist Empire Party” initially grew immensely, until it – formally – subsided into nothing, at the height of the economic cycle. Into nothing, regarding its mass influence; not regarding its formation of squads and the dissemination of new fascist surges. This became immediately evident when the recession announced itself in 1966/67.
This is an investigation of 2000 young people aged between 15 and 19 in the Federal Republic of Germany. These are mostly young working people, apprentices as well as untrained young workers – around 70%. This certainly has to be stated in advance. The results are not so much interesting for their response frequency regarding individual questions, although some of which are stultifying – more important is the context within which the questions were asked. If one were to state therefore, that neofascism is of great importance to the German youth, then this would not be correct as such. After all, there is a strong tendency to be found amongst working youth towards more conservative or fixed attitudes, clinging onto the present, onto what was or currently is, and finding it difficult to imagine alternatives to how things have been so far. This has obviously to do with educational shortcomings, with the limits of social opportunities, with prejudices and so on. But besides this large group with relatively fixed attitudes there is also however a smaller one with fascist-like opinions. And there coincide, amongst the same young people, opinions that condone National Socialism, opinions that reject or defame the current parliamentary system, and opinions of a nationalistic and isolationist kind – such as resentments towards migrant workers, resentments also towards development countries, partly even towards western alliances within the European Economic Community.
At the time, the NPD grew rapidly as a collective party for the fascist petit bourgeois and the small industrialists, to then decline again, concerning its mass influence, as soon as the new economic boom had overhauled the recession. But, as with the Socialist Empire Party in the past, the NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) left behind a squad – now an even more extensive squad – that continued to operate through to the next recession with e.g. the ‘Aktion Widerstand’ and countless similar groups with quasi-terrorist forms. Strictly speaking this consistency of fascist movements is only possible because it is the state apparatus and the social structure of the Federal Republic of Germany that provides, in an emergency, the guarantee for pro-fascist, authoritarian power groups to not only retained their power but were also able to expand it during the rise of the Federal Republic. Power groups, above all within the socio-economic sectors. As we know, the concentration of industrial and bank capital grew continually within the German Federal Republic, and the management of these concentrations continues directly into those same groups who disseminated the victory of fascism during the transition from Paul von Hindenburg’s authoritarian dictatorship to the Third Reich21, and who lead the economy during the Third Reich. The situation within state bureaucracy is no differ-
The question now is whether this small minority with a neofascist leaning, if they can be absorbed by the - as it were - harmless neutral conservatives, or if it is a reverse process: that this fascist leaning minority contributes to the radicalization of those with relatively fixed or conservative inclinations. Since there are several opinions that coincide within both groups – in precisely this old fashioned, nationalistic conceived foreign policy, and, as mentioned, in their reluctant approval of international, closer international ties.
ent: during the restoration of the Federal Republic and the founding of the Federal Republic, the bureaucratic squads of the old Third Reich were hence directly built into the new bureaucratic squads of the Federal Republic and its federal states. Incidentally, this also applies to the educational apparatus of the German Federal Republic, not least the universities. This tendency increased when the Federal Republic was remilitarized, because of course this remilitarization could only be directly built upon the squads of the Third Reich’s armies. These formations of leadership within German society will inherently, during periods of economic growth, be satisfied with the governing of the Federal Republic in normal, in the shape of mostly constitutional and parliamentary forms. If however such equilibrium is disturbed during a moment of crises, they will lead into new forms of rule and new forms of terrorism as in 1933. This can be observed in many related ways. First of all in the consistency of anti-communist ideology. This consistency can be explained by the fact that during the Third Reich, the old tradition of the German workers movement could be broken in a terrorist way, and that during the period of Germany’s restoration, the hope for the conquest of the DDR, the integration of the DDR into the federal republican ruling system was at first equally demanded by the Allies. From then on, the decisive issue becomes that of the relationship between the Federal Republic and the DDR, in particular regarding the resurrection of fascist trends in the event of a crisis. As long as the political and economic leadership keeps its back door open, through the disallowance of the Polish borders, the Czech borders and those of the DDR, keeping the conditions for an expansion to the East, will this aggressive anti-communism not only result in an internal threat to the Federal Republic, but as once during the rise of the Third Reich to a direct threat to peace within Europe, as soon as there is a real chance of this kind. This real chance might currently appear to have been eliminated, but typically, even social-liberal coalitions – presently governing the Federal Republic –, still refuse to recognize the other German State according to international law. As this recognition would, at least in terms of international law and international relations, block any chance of reconquering the DDR. That the government under Brandt does not dare to take this step, a step that would in fact - as anyone might immediately recognize – only benefit the peaceful advancement of Europe, and with it the approximation of the two German States, is due to the fact that the government under Brandt does not want to and will not risk this – so to speak – last target to liquidate any fascist and imperial aspirations either. It does not dare to – concerning the social-democratic leadership, because the social democratic party had accepted the anti-communist ideology during the entire period of economic growth in the Federal Republic, in the way it was passed on from the Third Reich and partly being associated with refugee organizations.
Typical for this swaying attitude of the social-democratic leadership is that any radical-democratic and socialist critique from the Left, through for example the socialist youth organizations, always leads to party-disciplinary measures and to exclusions, as soon as there is the least contact with communists. Despite Brandt’s undoubtedly progressive politics toward the East, any nationalistic criticism towards this foreign policy by the social-democratic leadership members of refugee organizations remains permitted. The parliamentarian Herbert Hupka22 for example is not even expelled or otherwise harassed when he publicly denies the recognition of the Oder-Neisse-line deal23. The situation is by no means more favorable within the liberal party. This situation is more reckless and dangerous, at least in the event of an international crisis or a social-economic crisis, than these currently small and fragmented fascist factions, who enjoy, one could say, a reiteration of the Harzburg Front24. The right wing of the CDU/CSU, represented above all through Strauss, has repeatedly expressed itself in an aggressive way against the Eastern countries und in particular against the DDR, and has kept informed contact with the most ruthless fascist fractions. The connecting elements are for example the CSU-friendly organizations outside of Bayern. The CDU/CSU as a whole uses this political situation in a most characteristic manner. Even though large parts of the monopoly capital agree to a temporary, relative normalization towards the socialist States, also under international law, for the sake of immediate potential of profit, the same CDU/CSU publicly pursues a demagogic agitation against the Moscow Treaty.
22 Herbert Hupka (1915 –2006) served as the vice-president of the ”Federation of the Expellies” and opposed Brandts new ”Ostpolitik” and the recognition of the Oder-Neiße border with Polen. 23 The Oder-Neiße line is the international border between Germany and Poland. It was drawn at the Potsdam Conference in the aftermath of the Second World War. 24 The Harzburg Front was formed at a convention of representatives of right-wing political groups at a convention at the spa town of Bad Harzburg. The coalition consisted of the national conservative German National People’s Party (DNVP) under millionaire press-baron Alfred Hugenberg with Adolf Hitler’s NSDAP Nazi Party, the leadership of the Stahlhelm paramilitary veterans’ association, the Agricultural League, and the Pan-German League organizations.
21 Paul von Hindenburg (1847 – 1934) served as the second President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934. He handed over the power to Hitler as Germanys new president, “Führer” and chancellor.
(Speaker) He survived four years imprisonment by the Nazis and the punishment battalion 999
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My name is Fred Schofs, I live in Frankfurt am Main, I am 61 years old. I immigrated to the US in my youth and come from a social-democratic family from the Rhineland. In 1937, half a year after the outbreak of the civil war in Spain, I left for Spain with the American volunteers, in order to assist the Spanish people in their fight against FrancoFascism and the preservation of democracy in Spain. For the active struggle, which the German Spanish fighters carried out in the name of democracy and world peace, they were not given any compensation, nor credited for any periods of insurance. In Spain we fought for democracy and world peace, Legion Condor brutally showed the Spanish people what fascism meant. They contributed to the establishment of the fascist regime in Spain, they helped Franco to power. Those who served fascism are credited for their time in Spain, as full military service – also concerning the periods of insurance.
(Fred Schofs)
(Title) A film by Peter and Zsóka Nestler
Translations: Britt Hatzius, Anna de Guia-Eriksson, Per Anders Eriksson, Ricardo Matos Cabo, Stefanie Bodien.
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