It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.
~ Karl Marx,
The German Ideology
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Gerda Muller grunted sleepily as she pulled up the shutters from her office windows to reveal the bright day outside. The dark nights were in retreat but recently the sunrise wasn’t a sight she was prone to welcoming. It was a Monday after all.
She had spent much of the previous night helping her daughter with her homework. Gerda had been happy that Rosa had wanted to join the Young Communist League but she was keen that her daughter wouldn’t miss out on any more schooling than already lost during the civil war because of party activities. Even if that meant having to accommodate both.
There were times where Gerda feared her own life was becoming all too fixed to routine but she was often too tired to really pause and consider such questions. It was satisfying to be able to implement change after a life of fighting for such policies but the implementation wasn’t always as exciting as the conspiracy and subterfuge had been and the limitations of legislation could be soul destroying.
The initial redistribution of land from Third Reich collaborators to the farmers who worked their lands had largely concluded, the protests of the Rural People’s Movement having burned themselves out. Gerda would have found that to be a relief, even if it effectively meant playing haves against have-nots, however larger tasks now lay ahead alongside more tedious chores. Efforts to entice the newly enabled small holders to form agricultural cooperatives were stagnating, some had been set up successfully but others had broken up over disputes and old rivalries.
Other smallholders hadn’t been interested in merging their plots at all and had set out on their own, some succeeding to make a profit and others failing to do so. Some of the latter were now selling their plots to the more successful and Gerda dreaded to think that within a few years estates might reappear where they had once been. It was a scenario she was determined to avoid but the problems behind it were complex and multifaceted, to the extent one seemed to pop up anew just as another was solved. Then there was the issue of appeals and petitions from workers on estates which hadn’t been tied to the Third Reich. It was a set of circumstances that made her no longer look forward to her work even if she still believed in its importance.
There was a knock on the doorframe and she saw Dieter’s grinning face with the party newspaper in hand. She had wondered why he wasn’t at his desk yet.
“Have you seen the news?”
“Haven’t had a chance.” Gerda responded with a yawn.
“The results of the referendums are in.”
“Already?”
“Already! The Austrians voted for union, almost two to one!”
That woke Gerda up, the result was considered by many to be a foregone conclusion but such a mandate was a victory few had anticipated.
“What about Bavaria?”
“They’re staying with us as well, although they weren’t as enthusiastic about it as the Austrians. Apparently their Crown Prince is making a stink about the result, royals and democracy eh?”
“Maybe he’ll join his cousin in Italy.” Gerda commented off-hand. Her mind was racing all the same.
This was historic but she could already see the problems springing up, her time in the land administration office had made that inevitable. Would Austrian farmers on estates who had supported the Heimwehr be given the same deal German farmers were? Would a new Reichstag election be needed to properly incorporate Austria? How would that affect the balance in the Reichstag?
“They say Zeigner’s going to make a speech, some people are talking about taking the day off.” Dieter’s mind didn’t seem hung up on thoughts as to what would come next. A Stalinist now under the thrall of the United Front. She supposed she had come to accept a similar situation in her own way.
“I’m not sure how our farmer-comrades would feel about us taking the day off to pat ourselves in the back.”
“But this isn’t just about the United Front, this is historic. It’s a day for all Germans, old and new.”
“It is,” Gerda smiled, “but I still don’t see the red flag flying outside, do you?”
Dieter seemed like he might try to argue the point for a moment before sitting down at his desk. Gerda admired the day outside before sitting down at hers. Today was a triumph for Germany but not necessarily one for its workers, that remained to be achieved.
That was the real work.
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A wave of elation swept throughout much of Germany in the wake of the Spring referendums of 1932. For the first time since the Civil War, and perhaps even the World War, Germans could unite under one cause in such a way that the matter of class conflict fell by the wayside. Or so it seemed.
The union of Austria and Germany had been a dream for over a century amongst the people and though previously held back by those in power whose own interests had prevented such a union, they had now brought it about by themselves. Although some went as far as to say that the unification was a final culmination of the revolutions of 1848, it was in fact a victory of proletarian ideals rather than those of the bourgeoisie. Indeed, the most organic and pronounced form of bourgeois or aristocratic nationalism to be found in those heady days was isolated to some parts of rural Austria and Bavaria.
That fact that some 45% of Bavarians had voted for independence largely wasn’t dwelled upon by the workers of Munich, let alone in Berlin or Vienna. There was a general relief that the issue seemed resolved and whilst resentments continued to linger amongst many Bavarian nationalists the Bavarian people as a whole were not immune to the new sense of German identity that pervaded with the Austrian vote. The majority of Bavarians had voted in favour of remaining with Germany, after all and many did so on the basis of what the United Front had already achieved and with the expectation of what it would do in the future.
Although it was not immediately apparent, for formerly bourgeois Germans this can be seen as perhaps the completion of their proletarianisation. The millions who had undergone the process of lowered living standards due to the depression, then desperation following the economic collapse wrought by the civil war, and the final return to dignity and work delivered by the National Reconstruction Council had found themselves in a new, stronger proletarian class of people. It was a class whose patriotism was tied closely to a perception of having control of the state and was emboldened by the success of unification.
It was this ideal of ‘one nation, of its class’ which now became stronger within the Communist Party itself. Hitler’s arguments for German exceptionalism had been present even prior to his wrestling control of the party structures prior to the civil war but it was now that the notion of a ‘German Ideology’ became more frequently discussed.
~ Annett Gerhadt,
Kriegsphilosophie: Totalitarismus und Demokratie in der Deutschen Arbeiterrepublik
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The picture is part of the mural
Building the Republic by Max Lingner