Militant Anti-Fascism. M. Testa
of Nazi formations on political meetings of opponents or on workers’ settlements had become an almost daily occurrence.’60
In Berlin in 1933, KPD and NSDAP continued the attacks on each other’s meeting places and pubs. Guns were increasingly used with attendant fatalities. This was now a coordinated policy of ‘mass terror’ rather than individual terror, ordered by the KPD leadership and responded to in kind by the Nazis. It was a deliberate and violent escalation in response to the failure of communist ‘mass action’ and strikes to make a significant political impact. Factory agitation increased, and workers mobilised and initiated a united front policy with the SPD, formerly ‘social fascists’.
As Hitler was aware, these outbreaks of violent disorder and the expression of more extreme sentiments were doing little to assure the bourgeoisie electorate of Nazi respectability or their suitability to govern. Incidents like that of five SA members kicking a communist miner to death in front of his mother were neither endearing nor placatory. The five were initially sentenced to death although this was later commuted to life imprisonment. Despite their bid for respectability and Hitler’s public entreaties, the Nazis were still openly provocative and sought to control their turf through violent means. In January 1933, they demonstrated outside Berlin’s communist headquarters with Goebbels saying, ‘We shall stake everything on one throw to win back the streets of Berlin.’61 Again, protected by armed police, several thousand fascists held a march through Berlin which culminated in a speech by Hitler. The communists had been banned from counter-demonstrating.
Of all the European street confrontations between anti-fascists and their opponents, the Germans counted the most fatalities and, apart from the state-sanctioned violence of Mussolini’s fascists, made places like the UK seem very modest in their affairs. Hundreds of deaths were recorded and large-scale street clashes were a regular occurrence. Between 1925 and 1933 there were hundreds of violent confrontations between left-wing militants, Nazis and the police, with most occurring in Berlin. By the end of 1933, Hitler became chancellor.
1933 & Beyond
After Hitler seized power in 1933, the police and SA began to seal off workers’ strongholds and carry out mass arrests and house searches for KPD members, weapons and propaganda. When KPD leader August Saihof’s house was searched, a gun and bullets, as well as KPD propaganda ‘of a highly treasonable nature and Bolshevist content’ were found.62 This meant immediate detention. It became increasingly difficult and dangerous for anti-fascists to operate. Once arrested, they could hardly expect tea and sympathy, and many died under torture, which was apparently only used selectively; ‘Under the circumstances, the sharpened interrogation may be applied only against Communists, Marxists, members of the Bible Research Sect, saboteurs, terrorists, members of the resistance movement, parachute agents, asocial persons, Polish or Soviet prisoners who refuse to work or idlers’.63 This list doesn’t leave many out.
By 1935, fourteen thousand communists were in confinement with many more to follow: there were few alternatives to arbitrary arrest apart from fleeing and going into hiding. By 1945, between 25,000 and 30,000 KPD members had either died in the camps or been murdered or executed. The paramilitary nature of the state was enforced by the SA, SS and the regular police. The violence and suppression meted out towards the radical left ( KPD, USPD) was soon focussed on moderate socialist organizations and their assets, such as property and printing presses, which were seized by the Nazis. Meetings were forbidden and the Reichsbanner was forced to disband. All political opposition was made illegal, co-operatives and clubs were outlawed, newspapers were banned, and mass repression began. The SA had been sitting on their truncheons for some time, having been bound by Hitler’s bid for legality, but now they could wreak havoc on opponents, real or imagined. The SA had set up improvised concentration camps and many anti-fascists were abducted, beaten and murdered with the usual fascist mix of sadism and criminality: ‘In Berlin’s Columbia cinema, in Stettin’s Vulkan docks, and in countless other places enemies were incarcerated and tortured in a microcosm of the hell that was to come’.64 This in addition to the setting up of ‘legal’ concentration camps and the activities of the Gestapo (which, according to Eatwell, was set up by leading Nazi Hermann Goering to monitor his rival’s activities). The Nazi strategy legitimised institutional violence and the mass arrests of left-wingers (which led to torture and incarceration in 1933) was overlooked by many voters as it was represented as a determined response to republicanism and the Red Menace.
Local fascists sought revenge on militant anti-fascists who had beaten them from the streets previously. Guilty by association, attacks on families and violent reactions were frequent:
These planned raids, together with threats, insults, beatings and arbitrary arrests, and the spontaneous acts of vengeance and terrorist onslaughts carried out by local SA groups which set up their own ‘private’ concentration camps, created an atmosphere of insecurity and helplessness even in working class strongholds.65
According to Szejnmann, ‘The persecution of Marxists was particularly ruthless in Saxony: more than one sixth of all concentration camps were on Saxon soil in 1933.’66
Shortly after Hitler assumed power, communists organized demonstrations. In Breslau, a general strike was ordered but the SA occupied the muster point and, together with the police, attacked the strikers: ‘the communists scattered, some running up nearby streets and smashing windows of shops selling Nazi uniforms’.67 One communist was killed and subsequent demonstrations were banned. Continued sporadic resistance was evident: shortly after the riot in Breslau, militants fired on the SA from a trade union headquarters, which led to further violence against workers’ organizations.
With the KPD, USPD, SPD, and working-class organizations drastically suppressed, supporters of the left grew demoralised. Remarkably, physical opposition still remained in places:
Approximately 2,000 members of the Kampfstaffeln (Fighting Units) in Leipzig—an SPD organization which had been set up to combat the Nazis by violent means—were prepared to occupy streets and public buildings. After the March 1933 elections, however, they waited in vain for three days for a signal to strike because their party leadership had decided against the use of violence.68
Organization became ever difficult as the arrests increased.
Although the Nazis systematically destroyed all established working-class organizations, they remained concerned that, as a class, workers benefited least from fascism whilst the regime entirely depended on their output in order to maintain itself. According to Tim Mason in Nazis, Fascism and the Working Class, ‘it is not wholly surprising that the regime should have enjoyed the active or passive consent of most sections of the middle class and of the power elites,’ whereas ‘the only tangible benefit for the working class was the increase in employment’—which after years of uncertainty and unemployment was no doubt welcome. Whilst a small percentage of workers did benefit, the vast majority were just able to manage. Increasing rearmament depended on consistent production, and Hitler needed the workers onside. However, work itself had transformed from ‘a social activity into a political duty’ and became ideological—as well as alienated—labour supporting a system that consistently disenfranchised those who maintained it.69
Fascist gangsterism and opportunism was not far behind with many chancers scrambling for positions and seeking influence in the new infrastructures. Nazi purges were carried out: many liberals and leftists were removed from positions of office; cultural and educational institutions, such as the Bauhaus, were closed; and fascist sycophants were all eager to profit from the new Germany. Members of the SA, some of whom had been around since the days of the Freikorps, also sought their rewards, knowing they had a potent militia of nearly three million at their disposal. However, they were resistant to being assimilated into the hierarchy of the regular military, which would rob them of their positions of power. This was not a satisfactory situation for Hitler who now wanted rid of the SA and ‘the “old fighters” who had been useful enough for street brawling, but for whom the party had no further use.’70 On the night of 30th June 1934, the leadership of the SA were assassinated in the Night of the Long Knives, leaving the way clear for the black-shirted SS.
Resistance
Socialists and communists did maintain a clandestine resistance, and though their acts