Militant Anti-Fascism. M. Testa
dialogue was futile, as evidenced by the fateful meeting when Ulbricht confronted Goebbels on the platform of a Berlin meeting in 1931, which rapidly descended into chaos and ‘which really served to kick off a gigantic meeting-hall battle that three hundred policemen were unable to stop’.42 In the Landtag, the regional parliament, fighting broke out between KPD and NSDAP members and, with superior numbers, the Nazis came out best. Anti-Fascist Action was launched shortly after this with the intention of uniting socialist and communist militants in self-defence of working-class communities, but it was to prove an uphill struggle. Violence increased and according to Szejnmann it was
a crucial part of Nazi, but also of Communist, propaganda…after 1929 the amount of violence between political opponents (particularly between Nazis and Communists), and clashes between demonstrators and police (mainly with Communists) clearly increased. The growing use of knives and firearms made the nature of these fights more and more brutal: twelve demonstrators and two policemen lost their lives in confrontations in northwest Saxony in 1930 and five people died in clashes between political opponents in…1931 alone.43
Control of the streets has always been central to fascist strategy, and the SA’s slogan was ‘Possession of the streets is the key to power in the State’. As the 1930s began, ‘the Communists marched in formation singing down the streets, broke up rival political meetings, beat up opponents, and raided each other’s “territory”’.44 As did the Nazis. The violence had intensified beyond control: ‘Ordinary brawls had given way to murderous attacks. Knives, blackjacks, and revolvers had replaced political arguments. Terror was rampant’.45
In the early 1930s, an era of mass uncertainty and high unemployment, the SA offered potential recruits violent excitement, food, a uniform and even a place to stay in the ‘Brown House’ headquarters. For a few marks, a potential fascist Stormtrooper ‘could sleep and eat in these hostels, which varied widely.… Some of the largest…housed 250 SA men’, and many were paid for by ‘sympathetic businessmen’. A good place for total indoctrination and a free sandwich:
Unemployed young males were put up in dormitories ( SA Heime), where they received shelter and food in exchange for their full-time services as marchers and fighters for the brown cause.46
When the SA was suppressed in 1932, many ended up homeless. As usual, the violence was an attraction for many, and it was in the interests of both the KPD and NSDAP to maintain public visibility and, most of all, street victories to maintain and boost membership. For Merkl, ‘[The] street battles of the S.A., the monster rallies with Nazi speakers, and the meeting-hall battles of the Stormtroopers…uniforms, disciplined marching, flags, and quasi-military behaviour may have been as attractive as witnessing the violent encounters with Communists and the Reichsbanner’.47
The hard core of SA membership ‘consisted of unemployed men who lived in SA messes and barracks’.48 The Nazis continued to set up ‘Sturmlokales’ in ‘Red areas’, which were ‘part dormitory, part soup kitchen, part guardhouse’.49 The Nazis also started to intrude on ‘Red pubs’, which pushed the KPD’s unemployed street fighters out due to their low or no income. Saturation patronage by the Nazis meant that they could take over a tavern and, through economic superiority, guarantee the consumption of so many barrels of beer a week. The owners where unlikely to refuse increased revenue in such dire times, and thus the SA began to take over more venues, whilst the owner could either close in protest or accept the new clientele and their cash.
During the run-up to the election in 1930, street fighting and political agitation increased significantly:
Political mobilization frequently exploded into violence, especially between Nazis and Communists. In late September 1930 there was a typical clash between both sides in Eibenstock: a local Nazi leader had called on his followers to demonstrate against Communist terror. When the 150 Nazis who had turned up met an even larger group of Communists who came marching down the street, a brutal fight developed with stones and picket fences. In the end, there were many injured and a few seriously wounded.50
Smashing up meetings, storming opponents’ pubs, and street brawling were daily occurrences: in 1930 alone there were 23,946 demonstrations, which drew in 25 million people: ‘There was also a dramatic increase in violent incidents: there were 351 reported clashes and verbal abuses in Leipzig alone between 1 August and 20 November, 1932’.51 The scale of activity and associated violence is difficult to imagine: Merkl puts the body count in the hundreds between 1923 and 1933, with many others seriously injured. More specialised and expertly targeted violence was required and hit squads were formed and were involved in activities outside their local areas to avoid identification:
The Stormtroopers were combat units who aimed at defeating their opponents in street battles.… The Communist hardcore reacted to this challenge by taking the counter-offensive with their slogan, ‘Beat the fascists wherever you meet them’.
The SA had grown to over 400,000 members: ‘many hundreds of thousands of SA and SS men every day have to mount on their lorries, protect meetings, undertake marches, sacrifice themselves night after night’.52 Complete control over the SA was something Hitler coveted, and splits amongst the Nazi hierarchy over their function intensified: Hitler, as supreme leader, ordered the SA to avoid street fighting and was keen to stay inside the law in order to avoid being discredited prior to securing political victory. No doubt wealthy sponsors would be getting nervous over continuous political brawling and murder. Given this restriction, the SA, organized as a violent political force, laid mainly idle and without the relief of exciting confrontation. In September 1930, the restless SA smashed their Berlin headquarters over grievances, including pay and political direction, which led Hitler to personally appease their desire for violent action. A few months later it happened again. When the government finally moved in 1931 and banned private armies, Hitler forced the SA to comply in accordance with his new ‘legal’ stance. This was not to last and the ban was lifted again in 1932, which ‘caused an immediate and alarming upsurge in violence. Murderous encounters took place, especially between Nazis and Communists. Deaths were frequent’.53 The record is appalling: the police reported 461 political riots in six weeks with over eighty people killed and many more seriously injured. In 1932, ‘pitched battles took place on Sunday 10 July in which eighteen people were killed. The next Sunday, the 17th, saw the worst riot of the summer, at Altona, near “Red” Hamburg, where the Nazis under police escort staged a march through the working class districts of the town and were met by a fusillade of shots from the roofs and the windows’.54 Nineteen people died and many were seriously wounded. Never being one to miss an opportunity to make propaganda, Goebbels staged large and public funerals of the Nazis killed by anti-fascist actions, using the usual mix of sacrifice and martyrdom to stir his followers’ patriotic blood.
The police operating against the fascists was a relative rarity as they were naturally more sympathetic to the authoritarian Nazis and viewed the left as their main threat, with one noting ‘that the KPD was prepared and determined to use violence right from the start in order to prevent the infiltration of fascists into working-class districts’.55 Not only that, but ‘large sections of the police sympathised with their cause, the Nazis wore down Marxist followers in a brutal battle for control of the streets by the end of 1931’.56
In 1932, despite the changing face of public support for fascism, anti-fascists retained their militancy: ‘Political opponents clashed more frequently too, particularly in strongholds of the KPD and SPD where Nazis faced stiff resistance. For instance, two Nazis were seriously wounded by activists of the Reichsbanner and KPD in Lossnitz, a Marxist bastion’.57 When Nazis tried to march through Red Altona in July 1932, the KPD fired on them, causing an armed police response. The KPD built barricades and the violence ended with eighteen dead, sixty-eight injured and 150 arrested. Later in July, a newspaper reported a clash between KPD and Nazis, which left ‘one of the SA men stabbed to death; another seriously injured’.58 The same paper reported SA men invading an SPD meeting, which turned into a mass brawl as the police completely lost control. In 1932, violence escalated and newspapers reported ‘daily, and even nightly clashes, brawls, assaults, and shootings amongst the huge private armies that has been assembled’.59 The KPD’s hatred of the Nazis was exacerbated by those supporters who had been part of the Freikorps and violently put down workers’ organizations. The KPD had been