"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?

[The Red]

"Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of Imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of Socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the International Proletariat against Imperialism and its method of war."

~ Rosa Luxemburg

The backrooms of the Duisburg library was not quite what Adolf had had in mind as a centre of operations when this conflict had first started. Although the old books and folders illuminated by the lamp light had a certain cosiness to the setting, he had hoped for a larger arena where he could address the workers personally. He felt his rhetoric had come a long way since Munich, and he had been eager to employ it to a crowd. The lack of the ability to organise such an event under French noses had proven impossible, hence why he was hidden away with a small team of lieutenants that seemed to grow and then shrink after every major attack. The French were on the backfoot now, but not enough for him to become complacent and end up like Liebknecht or Eisner. He would stay out of the public view until he could be sure there was no-one in the crowd that would shoot at him, but his voice was a different matter.

Carried across the airwaves, his voice allowed him to speak to millions of Germans directly without even having to step outside, and as much as he despised the bunker mentality required by an underground conflict, his freedom on the airwaves was a release of sorts. The idea to use radio had been inspired by an Irish uprising in 1916, where the revolutionaries had tried to use radio to get their message out beyond the controlled media of the British state. Their idea had been inspired but the time had been against them, for radio had still been in its infancy, now it was very clearly becoming the information tool of the future and Adolf realised that if used properly it could become a powerful weapon in the Red Front’s arsenal. It had turned out that the futurists had been wrong about a great many things, but there remained inside him a passion for the onward march of technology.

In some ways the tactic had been too successful, for in establishing themselves as the primary resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr, they had gained admirers of a dubious ideological background. Such was the case of the man that was now being brought into his cramped office. The man claimed to be an officer in the Reichswehr and when told to leave had revealed a letter that he insisted on delivering himself. When this had come back to Adolf he had considered shooting the man immediately, the Reichswehr had already killed too many good comrades, but the story was bizarre enough to warrant his interest. The officer could always be shot afterwards.

Although he was wearing a civilian suit it was clear to Adolf that the man was the sort of stuck-up elitist that could easily be a German army officer, there was a certain hardness to his persona that gave off the impression even more, although perhaps that was just his bald head and clean shaven face. Adolf couldn’t remember the last time he’d shaved.

“Herr Hitler, I presume?”

“That depends who wants to know.”

“I am Colonel Kurt Von Schleicher and I come with a message of the highest priority.”

“You’re of a rather high rank to act as a courier, Colonel.”

“I came personally because I wanted you to understand the importance of the situation.”

“And what situation would that be?”

The officer removed a letter from the inside of his suit and placed it on the table.

“The time has come for you to end this conflict”

Adolf looked away from the letter and scowled, “The cowardice I would expect from the agents of capitalism,” The colonel seemed unfazed by the accusation, though he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“We are the agents of Germany, as will you be, by allowing her to survive for as long as it takes for her to grow strong.”

“To strong enough to suppress the workers on their own.”

“These orders aren’t coming from me, you’ve been invited to Moscow. To meet your boss.”

Von Schleicher tapped his fingers on the letter as Adolf raised an eyebrow about this comment, he attempted to appear as aloof as the officer.

“We don’t have ‘bosses’ here, certainly not from Moscow.”

“So shall I presume that you do not want this letter from Comrade Lenin?” The officers voice were cool but his words meant to be anything but.

“You’re acting as Lenin’s postman?!” Hitler scoffed, “No doubt you’re bringing in a forgery.”

“I’m happy to say it’s not a forgery, I’m here to take you to him.”

“Back to a Bavarian prison you mean,” Hitler snorted

“How could we? Von Schleicher laughed, “your name is in the papers now, you would be out in a week. The Soviet’s are asking for you and we want you out of the country. It’s an easy compromise.”

“And if I don’t leave?”

“We tell the French where you’re hiding. If they hadn’t pissed off every German within a thousand kilometres they might have figured it out for themselves already!”

“You would sell out your fellow Germans to the French?” Spittle erupted from Hitler’s mouth, as he had begun to tremble

“The French are a disease of the skin, you communists are a disease of the soul,” The officer remained passive as he spoke, despite the reactions of those in the room. “I have no taste for the French, but if you continue to get in our way, I don’t see why we shouldn’t let them deal with you.”

The Reichswehr officer began to smile, and for a moment Hitler saw in him those who had beaten all those years ago, in the toilets of the old gymnasium, all for standing up to them. He reached for his gun, the officer didn’t flinch as he raised it to his face.

“German won’t have to endure your ilk for much longer!”

The officer stopped smiling, his eyes staring down at the barrel as he raised the letter once more.

“Of course, if I die, then you’ll never know whether this letter is fake. Wouldn’t you be curious to meet Comrade Lenin at least once in your life?”

The gun lowered, Hitler snatched the letter from the officer’s hand. Very gently, the man exhaled. The letter was from Lenin, or at least from someone with excellent handwriting. Of course this could be a trick, but if they were so relaxed about handing him over the French when why had they bothered? Adolf was puzzled, but his curiosity for the contents of the short letter were even greater:

Comrade Hitler!

Fraternal greetings and congratulations to the great strides you and your movement have made for our shared cause, your resistance to capitalist exploitation has been a beacon of inspiration for all of progressive humanity and now they only wonder, what will come next?

This question has compelled me to send this letter to you and your movement with the greatest urgency, for whilst you have dealt a great blow against international capital, there are greater ones still to come.

That is why I implore you to come to Moscow at the nearest opportunity so that we can cooperate in greater depth than correspondence would allow. Although your work in the Ruhr is of great importance, I’m sure that you will agree that the struggle of the international proletariat requires your attention as well. ​

Until we meet,

V. I . Lenin​

Lenin’s message was blunt, but the words had already burned an imprint on Adolf’s mind. He was nonplussed as many questions began to form in his mind: Making the Red Front a pillar of the international revolution? To go to Moscow to consult with Lenin? These were opportunities that hadn’t even been offered to Levine in Bavaria. The Red Front was working and Moscow had taken notice, the question was whether or not to go.

“You might be surprised that we haven’t read the document, but we got the general picture.” The officer’s tone was dry now, almost businesslike, “We’re willing to dispatch you to Moscow if you’ll come, in the same way we did for Comrade Lenin and his gang of misfits in 1917. We’ll give the French everything we know about this ‘Red Front’ if you refuse, if that sweetens the deal.”

Adolf was still enraged at the notion of Germans selling out Germans, but Lenin had offered him the ability to project a bigger picture, one where their truly were no nationalities, merely classes, and a global struggle that he was merely fighting on the fringes of. In Moscow, he could join the real fight.

Adolf held the letter aloft once more as he holstered his pistol.

“It would appear that you’ll live to see another day Colonel. When do we leave?”

---

The still is from Good Bye, Lenin! Go and watch it just now if you haven't already.

 

[The Red]

"The people's sufferings are chiefly caused by lack of food, fuel and clothing. This is not the fault of the Government. The Soviet system does not do it to spite them, or because it enjoys their discomfiture. Only peace with the world can ameliorate their sufferings, and Russia is not at war with the world, the world is at war with Russia. Why am I happy here, shut off from all I belong to? What is there about this country that has always made everyone fall under its spell?"

~ Clare Sheridan

Even before the train had pulled into Nikolayevsky station, Adolf felt a sense of foreboding in this trip. The sights he’d seen on his revolutionary rail journey from Berlin to the Soviet capital had been anything but promising, towns lay in ruins whilst villages appeared to be covered. It was understandable of course, the country was still recovering from civil war, and Russian winters were notorious, but he had presumed that Moscow, being the centre of the international revolution, might at least have had a promising display of what the future might look like.

If Moscow was the showcase city of the worker’s paradise, he wasn’t impressed. The city certainly had a somewhat magical feel to it, he supposed the the thick layer of snow helped, but it was also sombre. The people on the train had seemed anxious and gaunt, and he had felt common cause with him as it had stopped in the middle of nowhere time and time again. It soon became clear to him that the the Russian people were more admirable than anything the revolution had yet achieved.

As the stations had came and gone, people who had been crouched on the uncomfortable benches a moment beforehand jumped off the train with a startling energy, only for someone else to jump on and take their place before assuming the same position and drifting off into their own daydreams. His two “guides” that had gotten on the train with him at the Polish border had sat either side of him to prevent anyone from joining them on their own bench, keeping him at arm’s length from the people that could instead only observe. Russia was a country shaken by war and tyranny that was only just past, but amongst the deprivation and the neglect there was a grim confidence in the eyes of the Russian people, and Hitler was consoled by that notion. The people’s will was the most important part of any revolution. They might have been standing in broken country, but it was one that was finally theirs to rebuild. The Kremlin continued to tower over the vast city as it had done in the days of the Tsar, and as it was so inescapable Adolf wondered what secrets might lie within it. The key to unlocking the potential strength of a Germany that belonged to the workers, a revolution that would inspire even greater fear amongst the capitalist world than the one that had succeeded in the ashes of the feudal state that he was now walking through on the way to his new residence.

The Hotel Lux was a squat four storey building that had become a sort of boarding house for foreign communists in Moscow, containing everything from exiles to agents to individuals simply in Moscow on party business. Adolf wasn’t quite sure where he fit in that equation, but he felt at being held in such high esteem. If the letter from Lenin hadn’t been enough of a clue, this underlined that he was being welcomed into the inner sanctum of international socialism.

His minders took him through the old imperialist lobby with a nod to the woman at the reception desk and soon they were in the elevator headed towards the top floor. Adolf wasn’t much for extravagance but the entire building reminded him of the Kursalon and Franz. It had been a long time since he had been shown such regard. He didn’t even mind that there was a problem with his room.

It became clear the previous tenant had not yet left, and he began to make excuses in what Adolf could discern was Italian as cluttering noises emanated from the room. Eventually a small man with a large mop of hair dragged a large suitcase out of the door and made his apologies in Italian, before disappearing down the hall without another word. Adolf couldn’t help but wonder if he’d caused the man to be thrown out, or whether his bizarre comrade now had a mission of his own. Either way, the large room was now his to dwell in as his minders told him to wait for further instruction.

Adolf hadn’t been given orders since the war, and although he realised the context was much more different in Moscow, the waiting made him uneasy as he questioned whether the Red Front could achieve anything whilst he conversed with Lenin. Finally there was a knock at the door. The same men were back to escort him to his car and as they drove off again, Adolf could not help but wonder whether they were party officials or members of the Cheka, or whether there was even a distinction, as they drove past a yellow building that his hosts referred to as ‘Lubyanka’. The car began to move closer to the spires of the Kremlin, and Adolf’s anticipation grew.

The Kremlin itself was heavily guarded, as the halls of workers power might have been expected to be, there remained counter-revolutionaries. Hitler noted the functional if rather bourgeoisie uniforms of the guards and wondered if they’d seen combat during the revolution. Would the Red Front require uniforms like that one day? The corridors inside remained full of imperial finery, albeit faded, though the standards had been changed, much of the old regime was still to be torn out and burned. Adolf presumed that these things were a work in progress, he was here to talk to Comrade Lenin about architecture after all. To his dismay, it turned out that he was not there to talk to Lenin at all.

Three men were waiting to greet him, and whilst they appeared to be of esteem, Adolf had never heard of him, although he tried to smile graciously as they took his hand and clapped him on the back and introduced themselves as Kamenev, Stalin, and Zinoviev. Although all of them could speak German to various degrees, it quickly became clear to Adolf that this Austrian accent seemed to causing them some trouble. As they sat down in the large meeting room, he tried to speak as neutrally as possible.

“Will Comrade Lenin be joining us?”

The three looked to one another sombrely, before the one named Stalin spoke. “I am afraid it is not as simple as that, Comrade Hitler. Comrade Lenin is very ill at the moment.”

Adolf couldn’t help but wonder if this was recent news, although he did his best to hide his frustration in trying to convey a worried demeanour. After all, these men were clearly influential in their own right.

“That truly is terrible news,” Adolf murmured, before looking up hopefully. “Will he recover?” Kamenev and Zionviev seemed almost embarrassed into silence, Adolf wasn’t even sure if his accent had gotten in the way until Kamenev replied cordially.

“We can only hope so Comrade, but at the moment he is in no state to see you. It is a great shame, and we trust you to keep it to yourself. It is so important for our movement that we do not appear...weak.” For a moment there was a sadness in the man’s eyes which didn’t match the tone of his voice. Adolf wondered how serious the revolutionary’s condition was, before Zionviev spoke and Kamenev had shifted his glance away.

“Despite Comrade Lenin’s illness there is much work to be done in the Soviet Union, and indeed in Germany. This insurrection of yours in the Ruhr, I fear it is doing more harm than good.”

Adolf was taken aback, he had not expected this from the founders of the first proletarian revolution. “Are you saying that it is harmful for the workers of the Ruhr to defend themselves against capitalist exploitation?” Hitler almost growled in response, it seemed Zinoviev had noticed.

“I am not disparaging your efforts, and we all admire your enthusiasm, but this uprising, as professional as it might be, is isolated only to one region of Germany. It has caused the Weimar regime to stifle revolutionaries across the rest of Germany, and its specific focus on the French has threatened to stir up a divide between French and German communists! If we all return to each other’s throats then we will have learned nothing from the last imperialist slaughter, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for that would you?” It was clear that Zinoviev was trying to placate him, and given that the man was responsible for organising the spread of communism around the world Adolf could understand the stress, but he remain unflinching.

“The Red Front will welcome any French or German comrades who wish to help us but if they are not willing to fight against the oppression we jointly suffer then they have no right to complain the Red Front doing , and neither do any of you for that matter.” Adolf pulled back his chair, and for a moment motioned as if we was going to leave. He wasn’t even sure where he would go, he wasn’t used to storming out of the Kremlin. What exactly he was about to do was still going through his head, when that cold voice spoke again.

“You’re correct.”

It was the third man, Stalin, who had spoken. It seemed that the outburst had impressed him somehow.

“You seem to be suffering from the same infantile disease that got Liebknecht and Luxemburg killed, but you’ve shown enough organisation to give the French a bloody nose and make yourself a hero. That shows promise. In time, you will be a great asset to the international revolution...” Stalin leaned forward until he was almost intolerably close, his heavily accented German almost a whisper “but first you’ll listen to what we have to say.”

Hitler stayed silent as Stalin leaned back in his seat and Zinoviev began to speak again, “Conditions in Germany are ripe for revolution, this crisis is arguably even greater than the one in 1923, but another opportunity will be wasted if you squander the anger of the proletariat on small scale insurrection. The time has come to properly organise the Communist party in Germany behind someone who the people will turn to, someone who the workers will listen to when they are told that the Social Democrats are traitors, and that the trade unionists must side with us and only us. Can you be that man?”

“I have been told I am rather good at public speaking yes,”

“Then we will make sure that you will have a leadership role in the KPD when you have returned to Germany. That is, once you have ended this fruitless insurrection against the French.” Hitler wasn’t sure whether to thank Zinoviev or move to leave again. These Russians really did talk in riddles.

“Do you really believe that the KPD will make me their leader just like that?”

“Not at first, but Lenin’s name was enough to get you here.” The men all began to smile. It seemed that Adolf’s earlier suspicions had been confirmed. He was never going to have met Lenin, though an opportunity to greater help the revolution had revealed itself.

“And what makes you think that the fighting in the Ruhr will stop just because I call for it?”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t,” Stalin bluntly replied. Now Hitler smiled, there was something refreshing about the man’s clarity. He thought back to hammering the walls of the Bavarian jail cell and what he would do to his captors if he could decide what their fate would be after the revolution.

It was an attractive offer.

Adolf Hitler returned to the Hotel Lux shortly after, he had been in high spirits contemplated what the future might bring. Unbeknownst to the German revolutionary, the troika were discussing the same topic.

“I think we’ve gotten through to him...” Stalin said in a almost questioning tone, Kamenev and Zinoviev both nodded knowingly,

“That party has been suffering from its own incompetence for too long now.” Zinoviev noted, “If we can turn Hitler from a leftist saboteur into a man who can follow the Comintern line then we can sort out the rest of the rabble as well, those who can adapt will have to be removed altogether but in the end Germany will have a proper Marxist party ready to take power.”

“A proper ally,”, Kamenev sounded almost relieved, “One that doesn’t need to destroy our relationship with the Germans in the meantime like Trotsky would have us do.”

The three men had been in charge of the Soviet Union for several months. Together they had all agreed that the German matter would be dealt with in a way that would keep the German capitalists happy for the meantime, if only to destroy them when the moment was ripe. In this regard, they were already conspiring to worsen the Hitler problem the Reichswehr had asked them to help rid them of.

At the heart of it all, Joseph Stalin noted how his two allies could embrace such betrayal so easily, and whether or not they were planning the same fate for him.


---

The still is from The Girl with a Hatbox

 

[The Red]

I'm delighted to present this wonderful map made by @Tsar of New Zealand, detailing the major clashes and uprisings between the end of the First World War and the beginning of 1924:

 

[The Red]

“The foreign policy which the government has pursued since the end of the war rejects the idea of revenge. Its purpose is rather the achievement of a mutual understanding.”

~ Wilhelm Marx

The provisional American embassy in Berlin was a grand old building, inside and outside. It was the house of Alanson Houghton, the current American ambassador, though it seemed like he was living in someone else’s world. The gilded furnishings and pastille furniture seemed to reflect a bygone era, one in which Germans did not have to flog their old possessions to keep their families from starvation.

Robert Oaks tried to act as graciously as possible as the French and German delegations walked in, he tried and failed to start a conversation with the French ambassador, Monsieur dr Margerie, but the somewhat aristocratic old diplomat simply nodded to him before grinning at Robert’s superior. The snub meant nothing to the Virginian, trying to arrange this meeting had been a nightmare of backroom deals and late night arguments but finally the two parties were here that could finally take some burden off of Germany, and what report felt was his own responsibility to the nation.The sights on the streets, the hungry mobs, and the ever growing number of communists and other radicals promising salvation if only they would tear the whole system down, had been enough to disturb him recently. If German democracy failed, then the peace of Europe as a whole was at stake.

Ernst, the German Marxist who had approached him in the cabaret had left an impression. As Robert had been left to dwell on the idea of a new war breaking out, one that could be prevented before another Versailles, he had realised there was something that could be done. He did not know de Merger well, but Houghton had brought him round. It seemed the two had bonded sometime beforehand over an impressionist art exhibition. Houghton had been rather confused when Robert had told him about his encounter with the German deputy, but it hadn’t taken him long to contact his French counterpart to see if there was anything to it. The reply had been unresponsive, but de Merger hadn’t said no. He only said that the violence had to end before he could meet any German delegation.

Weeks of tension had passed but de Merger had remained adamant that there was nothing he could do until, almost overnight, the violence in the Ruhr settled down after all. The transition was so sharp as to almost be jarring, but perhaps that effect that had its benefits. The French ambassador had actually called the American embassy as the rumours began to circulate.

The supposed leader of the so-called ‘Red Front’, a man Robert had had the displeasure of listening to on the radio only a few weeks beforehand, had apparently been forced to flee the country. The rumours that he was now in Moscow had seemed to confirm the German case that he was a rabid communist that they were not responsible for. German relations with the Soviets were more cordial than most countries experiences with the new Russian regime, but the notion that he could have somehow organised the entire operation was absurd. It seemed the French had been inclined to agree, Robert couldn’t help but feel that all along they had been as desperate for a way out of the Ruhr fiasco as the Germans had been.

Stresemann had resigned as Chancellor the day after he had announced that Germany would resume reparations payments to the French, the French had arrived one week later. It was compared to another Christmas truce by some of the more sympathetic German journalists, whilst even the more critical elements admitted that after his only success, it made sense for the Chancellor to resign when the going was good. Stresemann had sworn to devote himself fully to resolving the lingering problems that had been caused by the chaos of the First World War, and newly installed as foreign secretary he could throw his heart and soul into building a solution. It was a mighty task, but Robert couldn’t but feel that the man looked like he had had a weight lifted from him as Houghton showed the respective delegations to their seats. With his official duty having been done, Robert left the meeting room and returned to the house’s large lobby, to meet the only German visitor who wasn’t there on an official capacity.

Ernst seemed to be as taken aback by the opulence as the French ambassador, though he seemed even more glad to see Robert walking towards him.

“I can’t begin to tell how relieved I am just now.” His excellent English was broken as he broke out into a small laugh. Robert couldn’t help but grin.

“I’d feel more confident if you were in there.” Ernst laughed again, waving his hand away dismissively. The Social Democrats were out of government with Stresemann’s departure, including Ernst.

“I will be back in government soon enough but I trust Stresemann not to bungle things in the meantime. Thanks to you, my friend,” He patted Robert on the shoulder before going on sincerely, “I feel like we can finally try and get some direction in the new Germany. No more scathing at the past and proposing radical solutions, now we can finally move forward in a new world.”

Robert couldn’t help but share Ernst’s optimism.

“There’s a certain poetry to all of this. Overthrowing your monarchy might have caused Germany some teething problems, but if the Republic can survive this crisis, then it will thrive in times of serenity.”

Ernst nodded vigorously, “You know, this really does feel more like the beginning of Spring than the beginning of Winter.”

Robert agreed, “I only hope it’s a long Spring.”

---

The sun had already set in Doorn, as an orphaned son gazed eastward and contemplated his future.

From his exiled residence, the former Crown Prince Wilhelm had sat in the same humiliating comfort he had grown used to as he had heard the optimistic reports of receding crisis come in from his estate’s private radio. His Fatherland was apparently saved, as was the treacherous Republic that had driven his father to an early grave. At least for the moment.

It had seemed like this crisis would pass but how long would it be before the next one came up? He had already been visited by more than a few admirers but their begging for him to return to the throne was petty nostalgia. The house of Hohenzollern would not disgrace itself when he was the head, and showing up at every possible moment of opportunity would only have dragged his father’s name through the dirt.

It had been the last Kaiser’s dying wish that his son would not pursue a return to the throne, or any other political meddling in the new republic. Wilhelm had promised him that he would not do so, but the time would come when the peoples would beg for their rightful leaders to return and then he would answer their prayers. At the moment when the screams of desperation where so loud that they could be heard from Holland he would fulfill his reason for being.

For a son’s promise to a dying father was nothing in the face of a Kaiser’s divine duty.

---

The painting is The Dance of Life by Edvard Munch

 

[The Red]

"That Hegelian dialectics should provide a wonderful instrument for always being right, because they permit the interpretations of all defeats as the beginning of victory, is obvious."

~ Hannah Arendt

February, 1924

The Communist Party of Germany's Berlin offices had quietened down in the last few days, the announcement of the American plan to forgive French debts whilst providing financial support of Germany to rebuild her economy and pay off her reparations at the same time had restored some calm to the Germany economy. The Weimar government was desperately scraping up tangible assets wherever it could find them to recover the Germany currency, and though Gerda was sceptical, it seemed the people of Berlin had recovered an uneasy confidence that the regime which had so recently drove the people into poverty might scoop them out of it. The lines of aspiring members were no longer queuing up outside.

It seemed that the opportunity to take advantage of the crisis was fading, but that was not why the Central Committee was meeting today. A sense of anticipation permeated throughout the building all the same. Both new members and old went about displaying of a mix of emotions; exasperation, frustration, eagerness. All revolved around the man who was joining the party today. The man who had caused the party to close the office to the hungry workers outside waiting to spread revolution and take control of their own lives.

Nothing could go forward, it seemed, until the man from the Ruhr arrived.

The news had came out that the Red Front revolutionaries had decided to cease their insurrection, “by the choice of the people of the Ruhr,” had left many in the party had been downhearted, Gerda hadn’t been one of them. The resistance against French oppression was certainly something that she supported but in her view it had absorbed far too many people away from the movement taking place across Germany. New members who were supposed to have thrown themselves into party work had instead spent their spare time creating ever more vicious anti-French slogans and posters. The whole experience had been unsettling, especially given the presence of the man she had given party membership to, Goebbels, who had appeared to have taken a certain infatuation with her.

Despite the fact he leered at her like a pervert, she had had to admit that he was actually proving himself to be an energetic propagandist, albeit with a similar obsession about the “Red Front” to many of the new members, She had been trying to avoid conversation with him when necessary, but it would be interesting to see what he might come up with. It seemed like propaganda was playing an ever greater role in the KPD’s operations and the leadership were already branding today’s event as a victory in and of itself.

The leader of the ‘Red Front’ was coming to Berlin to join the party. Usually it had to take a while before someone could even be considered for the central committee, things weren’t as bad as they had been under Paul Levi but there was still a lack of pluralism when it came to Heinrich Brandler's leadership, this was why Gerda was so surprised that this Hitler was being moved onto the Central Committee straight away.

The man stood in silence for a moment, as if he imagined that there was an aura around him, he took the time to sweep back his unkempt hair, a poorly maintained beard made it look like he hadn’t shaved for a while, although it appeared someone in Russia had lent him a decent suit. He began to speak slowly, almost as if talking to himself.

“My fellow comrades, it gives me great strength to see us all gathered here today, at the epicentre of the German revolution. Four years have passed since the beginning of that great revolutionary struggle where our party fought off the white guards of capitalism in the streets of Munich. It is an honour to join this party of all true German socialists, which has been giving a new aspect to German life whilst I and my comrades fought with the workers of the Ruhr.”

Hitler paused for a moment, his voice was clearer now and growing louder.

"Our work has been undertaken with the same purpose in mind, to stand with the workers of our nation, and the workers of the world. It is important that we should understand clearly, not only for our own sake but also for that of the generations to come, that our movement is not only essential for the future, but intended for a far greater purpose.

For together, the Communist Party of Germany and the Red Front will usher in that future together!”

The gathered crowd began to clap, as Hitler cried jubilantly, “Tomorrow belongs to us!” He cried it again, and after a little encouragement some members joined in crying out the phrase as the new member raised his left hand into the air, and clenched his fist tightly. It was on that note that the speech came to an end, though some continued to applaud even as the party leadership began to beckon the new party leader into the main meeting room. Gerda wasn’t sure what to make of the scene even as Brandler indicated to her to come with the small group as Thaelmann patted the new party member on the back and led him away from the gathering.

“Gerda, can you come? We need someone to take minutes.”

He’s been a party member for two minutes and I’m still just the secretary. ​

She frowned as the central committee moved into Brandler’s office with this strange new figure, she had to push past her fellow comrades still huddled around the room, the man named Goebbels had to be nudged as if he was planted into the ground. There was a bizarrely stunned look on his face that made his usually mischievous features look rather stupid. It didn’t make him seem any more flattering as she pushed by him and closed the door behind her as she entered the meeting.

The number of people involved in tasks revolving around the Central Committee had varied for some time, and Gerda had certainly seen the room more cramped than this, all the same the atmosphere was rather claustrophobic. Without being prompted, Hitler had sat at the middle of the table, clearing papers that didn’t belong to him out of the way, before laying his own case out on the desk. The others in the room, Brandler, Fischer, Maslow, and Thalmann all sat huddled closer to each other, unconsciously across from him. Gerda found herself having to sit next to the man, for the first time a rather pungent reek of body odour coming from him. As she brought out her notebook, she privately hoped that this meeting wouldn’t be long, or at least that it could be moved to a room with windows.

“Comrade Hitler, let me be the first to officially congratulate you on your successful resistance against the French occupation.” Ruth Fischer spoke in a tone of adulation. She had called on direct action against the French months before Hitler’s group had started their own campaign, Gerda supposed that it only made sense that she would now regard him as a natural ally, yet Hitler only smiled back weakly. By the confused look on Fischer’s face it was clear that this was not quite the response she had been looking for. An awkward silence dwelled over the room, before the Chairman cleared his throat to call attention to himself.

“Well Comrades, I suppose we should start with the minutes of the last meeting...” Brandler looked to Gerda, who was about to point out that she didn’t have the minutes on her before another spoke

“Surely we can forgo the usual formalities Comrades? Comrade Hitler has travelled far and I’m sure we would all like to hear what he has to say?” The protest came from Maslow, a close ally of Fischer and, according to some gossip behind their backs, her secret lover. Brandler grew somewhat red in the face as he looked up at the two, sat together as their small clique demanded. Gerda couldn’t help but wonder if she was about to witness a coup.

“Well, I suppose…” Brandler seemed lost for words, it seemed he felt the same, “given the special circumstances of Comrade Hitler’s arrival, we should move toward the premier motion on the agenda!” There was a general noise of approval as Brandler looked down as his hastily scrawled agenda.

“In the wake of the continuous failure of the Berlin government to properly address the demands of the German proletariat, and the Social Democrats renewed attempts to attempt to cater to a constituency they continue to believe belongs to them, the Communist Party will embark on a policy of mass activism in preparation for fresh…”

“Are we really wasting our time on this?” Fischer noted as Brandler glared at her before going on to continue,

“For fresh elections expected in the Spring or Summer of this year. It is important that we build on our recent success in the regional elections by delivering a strong result that will build momentum, along with a new industrial strategy,”

“For what, Heinrech? For more time wasted on bourgeois elections? Is that what Comrade Hitler has been bothering himself with?” She motioned towards the newcomer but he only shared a glance with Thalmann before sitting back in his seat.

“Comrade Fischer, if there was something you’d like to add to the agenda, may I suggest you wait.”

“We’re missing a historic opportunity to finally smash the enemies of the German worker whilst we deliberate on how to cater to the fraud democracy of the bourgeoisie.”

“And what do you propose instead, Comrade?” Gerda noticed another strong odour on Hitler’s breath, as he spoke for what seemed to be the first time since his short speech outside.

“The preparation for armed rising across Germany, in coordination with the Red Front!” At this declaration, Maslow, and Thalmann along with several others banged their hands on the table. Brandler remained silent, usurped. It seemed that to Gerda that by their eagerness, this had been in the planning for some time, although she noticed that Hitler remained silent as Fischer continued to deliver what seemed like a prepared speech,

“The coalition of bourgeois industrialists and reactionary landowners that the Weimar republic continues to work in favour has continuously failed to take the necessary steps to end the present inflationary crisis. For this reason, the Communist Party shall rise up in a coordinated effort throughout Germany and call the oppressed workers and the unemployed masses to our side.” There was more clapping of hands, and Brandler seemed to be getting carried away in the moment.

“Once power has been seized, a provisional government under the leadership of our existing committee shall be established-”

“Do you honestly believe it is as simple as that?”

There was an indignant smile on Hitler’s but Fischer only smiled back, “I think you’ve proven that’s possible, wouldn’t you say?” Hitler waved his hand dismissively,

“We merely defended the workers against the French, an armed revolution across all of Germany is a far different act. This was what became clear to me during my time in the Ruhr. If you had been there, you would have accepted the same lesson.” Ruth Fischer now scowled, this man who was supposed to be agreeing with her.

“Comrade, perhaps it’s the fact that you have been in the Ruhr for too long that has made you so… pessimistic…” Fischer was smiled again, as if trying to forcefully transfer her optimism across the room. Maslow nodded alongside his ally, before motioning to Thalmann “Ernst has thousands of potential fighters in Hamburg, we have amassed a similar number in Berlin, a large number of new members have been asking when we are to rise up ever since your exploits began.” Maslow was aggressively trying to flatter Hitler, Gerda had seen this before. It was his own way of initiating a new member of Ruth Fischer’s clique.

“We also have comrades ready in Chemnitz. When the word is put out, Karl Radek from Moscow will spread the revolution amongst our other supporters in Saxony and Thuringia, which alongside your leadership in the Ruhr will allow us staging posts to take control of most of the industry and transport facilities around the country in the space of a fortnight. Surely those are grounds for optimisim?”

“I am no longer in the Ruhr, I am here, and it appears not a moment too soon, because you too appear to be living in a fantasy.” The smile had disappeared from Maslow’s face, and gone from Fischer’s as well.

“The time for world revolution is settling down, the time has now for national action on an unprecedented, to ensure that the working classes of Germany have taken to the red banner before the western capitalists find a way to try and distract them once more.”

“I don’t see why we cannot not do that immediately!” Maslow protested loudly, “We are ready now, we have the weapons, the German people have already seen what has been done, those that need to be convinced are already our enemies in any case!”

“You would be leading our movement to destruction!” Hitler’s voice had suddenly turned out a furious roar, silencing Maslow immediately as he went on. “We are Communists! We cannot allow ourselves to fall flat in the face of the history that is unfolding! Not! Any! Longer!” Hitler’s face had gone a violent shade of red, and the smell of his sweat was even stronger. Gerda couldn’t help but feel that the man was deranged, and yet wasn’t he calling for restraint?

Regardless of what he had actually said, it appeared that his belligerent tone had swung Ernst Thalmann over to his side. “We must harden this party,” the former dock worker said casually, “if we are to embark on any true revolutionary attempt.”

“Exactly!” Hitler now slammed his fist on the table in a far more violent manner than the casual motions on support had been beforehand. “There is no more time for petit-bourgeois indulgence, we must fuse this party to the German proletariat through collective strife! That is how we got on in the Ruhr!”

“If you’re all quite finished,” Hitler and Fischer continued to glare at each for more than a few moments after Brandler had cleared his throat, “I propose that we agree on a new electoral strategy which in tune with our work on building trade union support will place us in line with the working people of Germany and reduce the Social Democrats to the irrelevance that they have already become for the German worker. All agreed?”

Brandler raised his hand and Hitler quickly joined him, Thalmann was not long behind, as the rest of the room slowly followed. Fisher crossed her arms and continued to glare as Maslow also kept his own hand down.

“Motion carried!” Brandler announced in a light-hearted way before moving on to more administrative manners. Gerda had lost track of trying to keep notes of the events she had witnessed. For some reason she wondered if that was that was for the best, as she jotted down the result of the vote and moved over to the discussion which had inexplicably grown more civil. Hitler had calmed himself, and most of the rest of the room merely seemed relieved.

Gerda thought that she had been about to witness a coup, but now it seemed that a far longer game was about to commence. As the meeting came to a close, Hitler was the first to leave, he seemed to have had other business on his mind, leaving the room herself after collecting her notes, Gerda noticed that Goebbels had been waiting outside for the new party member. The two appeared to be engaged in an excitable conversation, it was a sight that made her feel uneasy. Here were two men who clearly had some sort of talent, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling as to whether they really had the worker’s interest in their minds. Then again, she thought back to the barricades and how she had had heard her comrades dying in an attempt to hold back wave after wave of Freikorps, and wondered whether the party needed such men after all.

“He really is something, isn’t he?” Ernst Thalmann’s tone sounded almost fascinated, as Gerda noticed him hanging behind her. The former docker was a military veteran like this Hitler claimed to be, but whilst the new member seemed desperate to put across a sense of rage and strength, Thalmann projected an inner steel flawlessly. It was for this reason that Gerda laughed, she found it funny that such a self-assured man could suddenly become enamoured with a loudmouth.

“He reminds me of a white guard of capitalism.” She whispered, and now Thalmann grinned as well.

“He’s a tough bastard certainly, and he’s angry. The people out on the streets are angry, and they want someone who can convey that anger. He might look like he’s got a screw loose but he managed to terrorise the French for months, that would suggest that our new friend has hidden depths. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Gerda looked at the way that the man was talking to Goebbels, or talking at him more precisely, both men were smiling now, and perhaps that indicated that the man was more bark than bite after all. She could only shrug.

“I just hope hat Moscow hasn’t left us with a child they can’t be bothered to take care of themselves.” Thalmann looked at her awkwardly, and she immediately thought of her Rosa. These were the people that would be responsible for her future, if Hitler was worthy of that cause then she wouldn’t try to find fault in him.

Thalmann was right after all,

The world could only get angrier.

---

I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

 

[The Red]

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.

~ Acts 4:32​

The racket from interior of the prison was even more deafening than usual, partly because of the French leaving, partly because of the prisoner’s anticipation at such as an event. Not for the first time, Johann was thankful that Captain de Gaulle had granted him a solitary cell.

He hadn’t given the Frenchman much information, it seemed that what he was telling him was merely a confirmation of what the Captain had already suspected, but Johann still had his doubts as to whether or not he had done the right thing. Had he been willing to die for the cause of the revolution? He supposed so, but when it had come to it hadn’t taken much for him to start talking, only an acknowledgement that the French were as terrified of the Red Front as the boss had intended for them to be.

Johann had no idea what Hitler was up to now, he could be in the next cell to him, or he could be about to storm into the prison to murder him for treachery to the cause. It was hard to gain a succinct picture of the outside world from a jail cell, all he knew was that the French were leaving, and who would replace them was anyone’s guess.

It was clear that Johann’s own fate was very much in the balance, and he couldn’t help but wonder whether or not it might be better for a German prison warden to replace his French captors rather than one of his own comrades, one of whom might have been able to accuse him of treachery. Then again, a few months in captivity had been long enough for him.

The noise outside the cell was overwhelmed by the clank of his own door being opened, a stern faced guard glowered at Johann, before stepping aside to reveal the French officer that had spared his life. Johann rose to greet him, the guard moved to stop him before de Gaulle, almost unflinchingly, ordered the man not to move.

“We’re leaving now.” The officer was only stating the obvious but the words made Johann shiver.

“We?”

“Am I to accompany you?” Johann was genuinely curious, perhaps the Frenchman wanted him as a long-term agent. The officer simply shook his head towards him and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Why would I take you to France when you can cause so much trouble here?” The grip on his shoulder increased as de Gaulle’s eyes narrowed.

“I will be in touch.”

With that the French officer made his way out, followed by the guard, who did not bother to lock the door. Johann poked his head out to see a row of emptying cells. It seemed as if the French were eager to release as many criminals as possible, he guessed that the act was more cynical than humanitarian. After all, they had shot everyone who had actually done them real damage.

Apart from himself.

Without being stopped, he walked through the corridors and into the courtyard, it’s gates now left hanging open as rows of his former inmates walked off, the French guards that were left merely watching the exodus. They took no more interest in Johann than in anyone else, as he also walked out into the free world.

He really knew what freedom meant now, and he wasn’t sure he had any interest in burning everything down any longer. The last four years of his life had been exhilarating, but where had it gotten him? Staring in the face of his dead comrades, hearing the screams of those he had once heard laugh, before being thrown into a damp cell, being told that he had the choice between death and treachery. He would never thank Captain de Gaulle but at the very least the Frenchman had given him a good kick up the arse. It was a feeling of clarity that coursed through him, as he walked out of the prison gates, and even as he saw the man that he knew must be waiting for him.

Freder was wearing the same coat and hat that he had been wearing, and for a moment Johann feared that he would be spotted by one of the French guards, only to remember that the French were now only interested in leaving. The French tricolour was gone from the prison roof, the German tricolour now fluttered once again. Johann couldn’t help but smile, it hadn’t been for nothing, even if it was time to move on.

He wondered if Freder would agree.

“Glad to see you’re still alive,” he murmured dismissively, “a lot of people didn’t leave that prison. What was your secret?”

Johann shuddered for a moment, how could they possibly have known? Unless de Gaulle had decided that he would leave the bother of killing him to the Red Front?

“They didn’t catch me in any violent act,” Johann summarised quickly, “I was grabbing myself some breakfast at the time and got flung in for taking some fat bastard’s rolls.”

“Imagine throwing a man in jail for months on end,” Freder scoffed, “vindictive pieces of shit!” Johann exhaled slowly, it appeared that his story had worked on his comrade. Another betrayal.

“What matters is that I’m out now, I hope that the boss is cooking something up whilst this is all going on. After the Frenchies have gone we’ll be able to take the entire region within a matter of days. It’ll be 1920 all over again!” Johann wasn’t as enthusiastic about this notion as he expressed, but knowing Hitler he would already be drilling this line into his men.

“The boss is...gone away, actually, he’s told us to lie low for the moment, and get out of the Ruhr. Apparently he wasn’t confident in our ability to launch a national uprising at the moment.”

“Didn’t he say that he wanted to rise up in Germany after we’d cleared out the French?”

“The French are leaving because the Americans bribed them into it and their Weimar lackeys gave them everything they wanted originally, this isn’t quite our victory comrade.”

“But still…” Johann could see the logic of it, but also that anger, the determination in those eyes that were as grizzled as the man’s beard. How could such a man now be stressing restraint?

“Look,” Freder interrupted, “we know that he can organise well and inspire the men, but I’m not going to pretend that I know how his mind works. If you want explanations, ask him when he get to Hamburg.”

“Hamburg?”

“He wants us in Hamburg, I’m here to take you to the station.” Johann felt a twist in his stomach at that.

He was barely out of prison and once again his life was no longer his own.

---

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

 

[The Red]

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..."

~ John Milton, Paradise Lost

​

Johann had managed a look of anticipation all throughout his train journey with Freder, who sat with him patiently, explaining the events of the last few months. There had not been much news from within the prison walls, and he was genuinely curious, but importantly his friend's tone re-assured him that the two of them were still part of the same scheme that Johann had so recently reevaluated.

The French were in the process of leaving the Ruhr. This was not, at least officially, due to the actions of the Red Front but thanks to an American businessman by the name of Dawes who had led an endeavour by the American government to end the occupation. Apparently France was almost as badly indebted to America as Germany was to the French and as a solution the Americans were proposing that they lend the Germans the money to pay reparations to the French, in order for the French to pay them back in turn. It was an ingenuous capitalist trap and it seemed that both the French and German governments had gratefully accepted the bait.

“Far better that both sell their souls to the Americans, that’s where the heart of capitalism is now. The boss hasn’t stopped going on about it.” Johann agreed with his friend’s conclusion, the entire deal was a racket and if the German people couldn’t see it then perhaps whatever they were doing in Hamburg would help reveal such a betrayal. The capitalists in power were holding an election to ask the people of Germany to agree to their country being sold down the river, Johann was happy to make sure that the Communist Party prevented that from happening.

It was only on the streets of Hamburg that the twist in Johann’s stomach returned. The posters of the KPD were everywhere and all seemed to have Hitler’s face on them. Staring, it seemed, at Johann, judging him for what he had done.

Hitler himself was nowhere to be seen as they entered the Hamburg offices of the Communist Party, a large building that looked like a dance hall that had recently been repainted, a scarlet banner outside openly proclaimed it as a centre of Communist activity and there was a flurry of activity from outside and from within. These scenes were alien from the scurrying around under the cover of darkness that had been the Red Front’s existence in the Ruhr. It was almost as bizarre as the sight of fellow comrades wearing uniforms.

“No more shuffling around in overcoats comrade, it’s proper uniforms from now on!” The baggy uniforms and coat were all done in beige, as were the caps being worn by those who went about in them. Freder explained that the Red Front was to be incorporated into the Communist Party as sort of worker's security force.

“The real power behind the party is derived from the workers of course, but we act as a representation of that strength.” As two of the uniformed men walked by, they raised their left fists at Freder before shooting a suspicious look at Johann.

“What was all that about?” Freder laughed at his friend’s confusion.

“The boss refers to it as the ‘Worker’s Fist’, it’s meant to act as a sign of our resolve. They’re eager lads, they were probably just suspicious as to why you didn’t salute back.”

“Salute?”

“We’re going to need a salute, to show which side we’re on. We’re not dealing with the French any longer, and whilst the Red Front might have uniforms, it’s easier to know where you stand with someone if they know the salute.”

Freder raised his left in the air with a clenched first once again. This time, Johann repeated the gesture.

In a sense, Johann could see how that would indeed come in handy for himself. At least this way no-one would ever doubt the fact that he had gone to prison for stealing rolls and wasn't still alive because he'd passed on information. Not if he wore that uniform and saluted often enough. What could be more loyal than that, after all?

He was soon to find out.

Apparently, as a member of the Red Front, Johann was entitled to his own beige uniform but today he was expected to wear plain clothes. The Communist Party was holding a rally, and it turned out that Hitler would be speaking. Despite the paramilitary force he had apparently set up in Johann’s absence, he wanted comrades from the Ruhr to perform security in plain clothes. Apparently the eager young recruits were considered better for display, regardless of their enthusiasm.

Johann attempted to remember the martial discipline he had learned during his brief months of training before the end of the First World War as he walked through the crowd had assembled through the St Paul quarter, waiting for the promised speech. Freder and he were to act as “stewards”, they did not not have the uniforms worn by those he had seen at the party offices. He was relieved that these were more for ceremony than for activity. He felt far more comfortable with the red piece of cloth tied around his arm, even if he had been given a baton to hide within his jacket.

The city had been hit hard by the impact of the economic crisis, having previously benefited from outside trade the port had fallen into idleness when the German economy had become unable to export or import anything rationally. The number of closed shop fronts heavily outnumbered those that were open, and most of them indicated that they would prefer an exchange of services than currency. For much of the battered city, capitalism had already been abandoned, an economic system that had not been overthrown but had instead chosen to commit suicide. The whole situation looked even more grotesque in the Summer sun.

The size of the crowd at the rally was staggering. This was meant to be a climatic event, the election was coming soon, after all but Johann couldn’t help but wonder how many people had come to see the leader of the Red Front in the flesh. Hitler was, after all, the most prominent on the posters, even though Freder had informed Johann that a man named Heinrich Brandler was still in charge of the day to day running of the party.

“This is the frontline now, comrade.” Freder sounded as if we getting carried away in the spectacle.

Amongst the workers? ​

Johann didn’t utter the thought out loud. Brandler might have been in charge of the party, but he was not what the crowd was here for. A small brass ensemble played The Internationale in front of an elaborate public address system. The slogan of the Communist Party, “For Bread And Freedom” was overshadowed by a larger banner that announced on black letters on a blood red background:

“HE FOUGHT FOR YOU!”​

The uniformed Red Front members arranged themselves in front of the podium like a sort of honour guard, detached from the curious glances of the crowd as they stood there in force. Johann felt somewhat underdressed with only his coat and his red armband. Perhaps the uniforms did give off a sign of strength after all, or perhaps it was just that the people in front of them were puzzled as to what would happen next. The music of the band had stopped, but it was not long before Hitler emerged in the flesh, walking onto the podium with his left fist raised.

His tone was almost hushed, as the loudhalers whined.

“Comrades, friends, fellow Germans. I am here today, to talk to you about slavery.”

Hitler removed a document from his coat and held it aloft.

“This is the so-called Dawes Plan, and it is the document that will condemn you and I to slavery!”

The document would have been impossible to see for most the crowd but the man broadcasting once again now had authority in his voice, and a tone of venom. It was one that mixed well amongst the desperate, gaunt faces of much of the crowd.

Aside, that was, for one red-faced man.

“They say this plan will save you! Those who line their pockets with the fruits of your labour already, throwing you over to new management! The French, the Americans, and those who were behind the entire war, International Capital!”

There was a broad murmur of agreement around the crowd, but the man Johann had spotted appeared to be almost snarling. Hitler was not appealing to his anger, he seemed to be the cause of it. He nudged Freder, and began to tighten his grip grip around his baton, as he motioned towards the suspicious individual.

“The most valuable thing in this world is the German people. My belief rests on it, I serve it with my will, and I give my life to it. However I am only one man, one of many workers who, like you, despise this great betrayal of the German people!”

This evoked louder cheers, although the man that Johann, Freder and two other men in beige were now focused on only scowled further, and reached into his pocket.

“Now.” Freder shouted above the noise of the crowd, as Johann marched towards the man and his arm under his, with another comrade doing the same to the assailants right, as the heckler began to shout. A rotten apple fell out of his hand as he began to scuffle. Hitler took no notice as Johann helped to drag him backwards, the crowd parting as they went.

“Those who now rule over us like tyrants are the same criminals who led your fathers and sons into the great slaughter in 1914, those who lost us that war, and those who decided that we would pay for their loss!"

The man continued to shout as the crowd thinned at the back, luckily it appeared as if the police were more focused on the riot being incited by the speaker. Hitler's words continued to echo, thankfully someone had invested in a proper loudspeaker system. Freder and his associates dragged the heckler behind an abandoned warehouse whilst Johann stood inconspicuously as a look out. There were a great number of such derelict buildings around, no doubt the effects of the hyperinflation. It was a good place to hold a rally, the once prosperous port shrouded in misery. A reality under capitalism that communism would sweep away.

"They have destroyed the economy, taken the food from our mouths, and are now proceeding to sell off the German nation once and for all! The Dawes Plan is not salvation.”

“It.”

“ Is.”

“SLAVERY!”

Freder and his associates emerged a few moments later as the crowd continued to cheer, and Johann noticed that his friend had burst the knuckles on his left hand.

“Those are the sorts of people we have to deal with, reactionaries, social democrats, anyone who would try and stop our message from getting to the people who need to hear it. The boss is keen that we silence them before they can disrupt things.” The entire situation was not alien to Johann, but it was himself who had been on the receiving ends of beatings by his French captors.

“Won’t he go to the police?”

“He’s probably with the police, now let’s go.”

With no more to it, they slipped back into the rapturous crowd, stirred up by a man who had led them against the French and was now having them assault his detractors.

It had only been an apple.

All the same, if he could get the people behind them, wasn’t it all worth it. Their aim was ultimately to hand power back to the people after all.

Until then, they had to defend the leader, follow their leader. All for a world where there would be no leaders.

Johann only hoped the people would wake up sooner rather than later.

---

Results of the German Federal Election (June, 1924)

​

---

The painting is The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg by R. B. Kitaj

Special thanks to @Utgard96 for his Wikibox help!

 

[The Red]

From dead machines assigned their place in production by capital, the proletarian masses must learn to transform themselves into the free and independent directors of this process. They have to acquire the feeling of responsibility proper to active members of the collectivity which alone possesses ownership of all social wealth. They have to develop industriousness without the capitalist whip, the highest productivity without slavedrivers, discipline without the yoke, order without authority. The highest idealism in the interest of the collectivity, the strictest self-discipline, the truest public spirit of the masses are the moral foundations of socialist society, just as stupidity, egotism, and corruption are the moral foundations of capitalist society.

All these socialist civic virtues, together with the knowledge and skills necessary to direct socialist enterprises, can be won by the mass of workers only through their own activity, their own experience.

~ Rosa Luxemburg

​

As he tore the final pages from the typewriter, Adolf Hitler couldn’t help but grin. It was a triumphant moment. A work of his own, one that would cement his position in the German Communist Party, and then in Germany itself. It would have to be a position of unassailable leadership. He knew that now.

Brandler would be the first to go, and Thaelmann was clearly skilled but may one day get ideas above his station. The party was like a military unit, and only he knew how to run it. Those who were willing to follow would be put to good use, those who would subvert his control, or proved to be counter-productive, could always be “recalled to Moscow” like poor old Ruth Fischer.

He was sitting in what had been her old office and it amused him to wonder if she had his room at the Hotel Lux, staring at the walls, doing nothing, whilst he made up for her wasted time and lack of accomplishment. It was the greatest proof that history was dialectical, that such poetry could exist and occasionally a person could revel in their accomplishments. If only for a moment.

Goebbels entered the room with the usual enthusiastic grin he always seemed to develop whenever he was in the room. He raised his fist into the air and Adolf repeated the gesture. It was good to see that some order had been introduced to this badly drilled organisation. As for Goebbels himself, Adolf couldn’t help but wonder why the man was so taken with him, but the propagandist can a keen eye for the public mood. If he could make the people view Adolf as he did, then the road to revolution would be all the easier.

“Is it finished?” The anticipation was clear in Goebbels’ voice.

Hitler nodded and smiled.

“The people will read this, and they will know what has to come next.”

Goebbels’ strange grin grew even wider and Adolf couldn’t help but feel affection for the man. He was efficient and he was loyal. The perfect template of what the party would need to become for him to succeed. For the reckoning that he would unleash on the individuals who had tormented him, jailed him, sent him off to die. He would destroy them, and their systems with it, and then he would usher in the new world. A new, purer, world, where the real people of Germany would be in control of their country. True control, rather than the sham elections the Weimar republic indulged in to distract them away from true power.

---

​

---

The result of the elections had been...disappointing.

The party had gone backwards and the reactionaries of the DNVP had now shed their fictional opposition to selling out the country to foreign interests. He had no interest in the Reichstag of course, but the time for total revolution was still far off and a loud voice for the workers in the bourgeois institution would be vital in the meantime. Thankfully the party could see that now.

Fischer had been the loudest advocate for the party to flippantly commit suicide. She had had to go first, but there would surely be others that would have to be removed. Those who could not see his vision.

It had taken him twelve years to arrive here. He could wait a few more yet. Goebbels picked up the last of the manuscript, the work of over a decade of struggle.

“We’ll get this printed out in the thousands, and have them on every stall. People will finally know the truth!”

The truth being spread, from my hand.​

Adolf felt that had a good ring to it.

His old days as a bohemian vagrant had been about that illusory search for truth, and Adolf couldn’t help but think of Franz, his old mentor back in Vienna, directing him towards causes. He had certainly been correct about the popularity of futurism but would he have know that they would all turn out to be fascists? Mussolini, that buffoonish puppet of the rich who the Italian futurists now all seemed to blindly adore as if the man was anything other than a joke. Could he have become a fascist if he had remained in Vienna?

The thought made Adolf shudder.

He had determined his own fate, and now he had climbed to a position where he could determine the fate of his people, and his class.

There was still much work to be done.

---

Thanks again to @Utgard96 for the wikibox help.

 

[The Red]

“Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.”

~ Leon Trotsky

​

Night was settling over Berlin.

Gerda squeezed Rosa’s hand tightly, the infant child wailed in protest. Election day had been and gone, and yet the demands of the party only ever seemed to increase. Hitler's Berlin operation was certainly better organised than Ruth Fischer's had been but Gerda found it increasingly hard to look after both her daughter and ferment a revolution. Hitler had made it that the lives of her and her comrades revolved around the party, mere satellites to the movement that he envisaged. She couldn’t believe that it had merely been a few weeks since she had cursed the lack of organisation in the party, now she only wanted a rest.

The fatigue left less time for her to spend with her daughter and although her role doing administrative work for the party was now official it was also not much more than she had received when relying on charity for her comrades. All that had changed was that she was now conjoined to the party, and if the leadership expected her to devote herself even more to the cause she was in a weak posiiton to disagree. Arguably this is was the "Wage Slavery" that the party often railed against, but what truly kept her motivated was the hope that for all of her work, she could create a better future for Rosa.

Her daughter’s previously fair hair had now gone dark like hers, although the little girl’s almost perpetual wide eyed expression was very different from anything Gerda had felt in the last five years. The things she had seen and done were only a part of this, she knew now that she had a better understanding of the world, what it might become, or what it could be otherwise.

The street lights brought the city back to life, revealing the many posters that her comrades had put up, new posters all in red and black, portraying the new leadership, the men who had fought against the French, those who would now fight against the class enemy and herald in the socialist utopia. Gerda could see Berlin in a communist society, what a paradise it would be, not unlike the city she had first seen at the end of 1918. Or at least what it had promised. Gerda could not help but also remember seeing the city under the control of the Freikorps, the steel capped, jackbooted nightmare, which would drag Germany back into a new dark age if they were given the chance.

Germany needed strength against such forces of reaction, people who would not only keep the nightmare at bay but also bring in the new age. She knew she could be one of those people, if only for her daughter. Men like Rosa’s father would be no help at all.


---


Outside of Cologne, German Workers Republic, 1936


Rosa’s anticipation grew as the train began to screech to a halt, the Power Through Joy camp awaited. She held the book her mother had given her closely, as it if was an extension of the woman who had given her so much in life.


It was a book that her mother already owned, and as a good communist she would usually have forbidden herself from indulging in such needless waste, nonetheless, Rosa expected her mother had a reason for doing so.

Unser Kampf was the written word of the Volksfuhrer, Comrade Hitler, a man who been leading the German revolution for over a decade. He had written his book at the very beginning of that period, and Rosa felt special for living in an age where it was still possible to see the theories and predictions unfold before her eyes, after having witnessed the defeat of the reactionary enemies of the German worker, and the traitors who claimed to be their ally.

Her mother had been with the Volksfuhrer from the beginning and whenever her comrades would come to the house to the coffee she would remind them of how incompetent the party had been before he had assumed leadership, and how the worker’s cause would not be served at all by complaining. Some of those friends had stopped coming to the house since the workers state had been established and she couldn’t help but wonder if their endless complaining had been exposed for the damage it was doing.

Just outside of the train station, Rosa noticed several new rail lines being laid by men in what seemed to be prison uniforms. She supposed this was a re-education squad, and the guard standing over them seemed to confirm her suspicions. The large group of men and smaller number of women appeared to be ill at ease in their new environment, one red faced man was covered in sweat to the extent that similar black patches had appeared all over his blue tunic, it made the patch crudely sewn onto the back of his uniform stand out all the more:

6079 - Goering H.​

Manual labour was part of the re-education that many Germans needed to go through to adjust to the new worker’s state, for within those who complained there was usually a bourgeois attitude that required the liberation of class consciousness to make them properly understand the goals of the society that was being built. The obese man named Goering didn’t seem to have got the idea into his head yet, as the guard berated him for his idleness. Rosa tried not to feel any sense of ill will towards these people, they were comrades in the making after all.

If they could help build it then they would realise their stake in it, and stop complaining.

“But why do we need so many new railway lines?”​

Rosa put the thought out of her mind, such questions were merely disruptive to the great economic plans being unveiled around Germany. The plans that had helped to create Power Through Joy would also enable the conditions for the revolution to be spread into both east and west when the time was right. Those who built those railways would be able to enjoy the benefits of the new society just as much as anyone thanks to the opportunities that their re-education allowed them.

As the train finally came to a halt she tried to put the thoughts of the coming revolutionary struggle out of her mind. That was a thought for the future, no matter how close it felt.

---

The still is from the Soviet film, The Cranes Are Flying.

 

[The Red]

"The imagination of the poets placed the Golden Age in the cradle of mankind, the ignorance and brutality of early times. It is rather the Iron Age that should be relegated there. The Golden Age of the human species is not behind us, it is before us."

~ Henri Saint-Simon

​

German Ideology, officially known as Marxism-Leninism-Hitlerism and occasionally referred to as Adolf Hitler Thought, is the unofficial ideology of the Communist Party of Germany and the German Workers Republic under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. In this regard it has achieved a great deal of notoriety from critics of Hitler and his regime on both the left and right of the political spectrum. The goals of German ideology itself have been prone to misinterpretation, not only because the outcomes of Hitler’s rule did not always match the stated aims of the ideology but also because much of its basis is taken from prior philosophies that often have little in common with the Marxist principles the theory claims to develop on. There has been frequent debate as to whether this was a strength or a weakness for the ideology, not only amongst its detractors but also many of its adherents.


The term “German Ideology” was initially used by Marx and was not overtly used to describe Hitler Thought until a speech by the propagandist Joseph Goebbels in 1929.

“The Communist Party will sweep away the old age and deliver the new society. We offer the creed of the new era, and a policy more than that. For we represent the German ideology that will propel our nation to glory!”​

German Ideology emphasises the German nation as an entity that is of its time, one that was misled by militarists who led it into a destructive war and was then taken over by international financiers who ran the country into ruin. The “German” essence of the belief, then, equates more to the communists positioning themselves as the only truly German party. The fact that Marx and Engels were both Germans was given extra emphasis in this regard.


This is not to say that German Ideology is overtly anti-internationalist, when prompted most adherents will argue that Germany was the foremost example of the international capitalist control that most industrialised countries suffer under. German Ideology, they would argue, is not only applicable to non-German countries but necessary to their development and there is more than lip service paid to this idea. Time and time again in European countries “liberated” by Comintern it is stressed that they must follow a similar path to Germany if they are to truly throw off the shackles of capitalist control. One fault in the ideology that even adherents will usually admit to is its Eurocentrism as a philosophy. German Ideology does not have much to say about imperialism other than that it hinders the development of socialist nation states both in the coloniser country and in the colonised. Imperialism, it argues, is a deliberate function of the international capitalist, to export the surplus of labour as far away from the worker as possible, leaving them at the point of starvation whilst the international financiers develop new means of recreation and resource exploitation in the developing world. There is no distinction made between the urban labourer in Berlin and the field worker in Matabeleland, both have the same enemy and as such the urban labourer, being as a more “advanced” state of consciousness, must take the lead in the fight.


Who is this enemy? German Ideology is vague in proving an international plot against the international proletariat and against Germany in particular, but remains repeatedly adamant that it does exist. Unlike the old feudal monarchies, Hitler and Goebbels have argued, the international financier does not have one concentrated power base but instead has a web of power and control across the globe from which it governs, in a non-linear fashion, the entire capitalist world. This overt description of capitalist conspiracy is one of the clearest ways in which German Ideology differs from the original Marxist-Leninist line, which is open about its belief that the state in capitalist society is an agent of capital, but does not dwell on the idea that all capitalist states are under the control of the same group. It is thus perhaps not surprising that German Ideology also differs from Marxism-Leninism, and indeed almost all forms of Marxist thought in its proposed solution to the problem of international capitalism.


Rather than merely press for and support worldwide revolution, German Ideology argues that military might is an absolute necessity for the destruction of the capitalist world. Whilst acknowledging that peacefully undermining the capitalist world until the workers in capitalist countries rise up is the preferred strategy for ending world capitalism, German Ideology maintains that a large and modern military is not only viable for the survival of socialist states but also must be maintained as an option for offensive action against the worldwide capitalist enemy. Having used the existing nation states to destroy global capitalism, German Ideology seeks to create the “New Society” envisaged by Hitler. A global community of socialist states that will together towards a communist utopia. How this will work in practice is arguably left deliberately speculative, for an ideology that is relentlessly focused on present and existing conflict with international capital.


Although German Ideology is not interested in implementing communism fully in the present, that is not to say that it doesn’t aim to take radical steps to “free” industrialised society from any remnants of capitalist control. Hitler’s words, conveyed relentlessly by Goebbels and Lang, feature a strong focus on collective leadership but emphasis on the individual battle to maintain the community and to fight off other evils, providing an example to others. It appears that this outlook, which some have described as Collective-Vanguardism, had been based the philosophy of French anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who argued that mankind had only one, unalterable, collectivist nature. This collectivist instinct could be easily broken away from but it would require a greater understanding to then return to it. In this sense, German Ideology argues that the vanguard is the collective, and vice versa. The economic and social implications of this outlook on German society will be discussed further in regards to practice later on in this work.


Although critics of German Ideology have pointed to Hitler’s mix of Proudhon and Lenin as a deliberate blurring of the line between democracy and dictatorship with the aim of justifying the latter. It would seem that Hitler did not much care about the distinction between the two modes of government or lack thereof. The position of Volksfuhrer (People’s Leader) that he appointed himself amongst the culmination of the communist seizure of power was a title that was already informally used within the KPD to describe Hitler as General Secretary. As grandiose as the title may appear, it seems that it serves a far more functional intent, German Ideology does not emphasise the need for a leading figure, only a state apparatus to facilitate the worker’s control of the economy and the military. It would appear that Hitler’s functionalist mindset has led him to believe that there is need for a leader to better realise the aims of the state as outlined above.


Functionalism as a theme permeates throughout the known works of German ideology, the reasons for which appear to be twofold. The first refers to the need for the socialist state to be ready as quickly as possible to face the capitalism, the second is a deeper belief that Germany is the natural home of socialism and as such there can be no excuses as to half measures or compromises that have been seen in the case of Russia, were the Soviet’s marxist intent has often had to compromise with the reality of a feudal state industrialising into a feudal economy. The role of woman in German Ideology would seem to highlight this. Whilst not explicitly a feminist text the adherents of Hitler Thought maintain that women must be “liberated”, not only for the betterment of themselves but also for the collective. Patriarchy is not viewed as a conflict in itself but as an archaic hangover from feudal society. There is no reason for mechanised society to keep gender roles when gender equality can lead to greater advancement and prosperity, and whilst it does not flaunt its feminist beliefs in the same way as Marxism-Leninism, adherents of German-Ideology do insist that their abolition of the patriarchy is evidence of their innate supremacy over what they view as an outdated capitalist world..


The framing of traditional Marxist aims and ideals necessary steps in the name of human advancement can be perhaps be seen as having been carried over from Hitler’s time as a futurism enthusiast, an ideology based around the symbiotic relationship between human society and the industrial economy. Many futurists became cynical about the prospects for technology after First World War seemed to indicate that technological advancement had only led to destruction but it seems that whilst Hitler was jaded by the experience the war the notion that society must in some way exist to serve the needs to the economy around it. In his semi-autobiographical, semi-philosophical work, he asserts that:

"The workers state is innately superior to the capitalist model, not only because it harnesses the collective energy of society into one aim for which all can share the benefits but also its allowance for the brilliant work of individual genius to be brought forward into the foreground without the unnecessary constraints of the capitalist caste system that restricts the arena of advancing society to the privileged few."
​

Hence, whilst German Ideology is without a doubt a socialist ideology in theory, it maintain that technological development is still the solution to the problems afflicting mankind in itself that the socialism conveniently allows the best means to achieve this. No distinction is made as to whether peaceful advancement or the violent destruction of the capitalist system would be the most superior position in the long-term but, as outlined above, German Ideology is far less apprehensive about the idea of another global conflict as it believes one already exists.



~ George F. Kennan, The Theory and Practice of "German Ideology"

---

The painting is Assembling Parts by Christopher Nevinson

 

[The Red]

"Language is much closer to film than painting is."

~ Sergei Eisenstein

​

There are few in the world of film who would dispute the fact that Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is the most ambitious, and arguably the most controversial, ever made. The fact that the movie almost never saw the light of day has only served to increase the mysterious aura that surrounds it, whilst the future work of its creator has led some to argue that it should never have been saved at all.

Fritz Lang was already well regarded in Europe prior to the release of Metropolis, as was his wife and creative partner Thea Von Harbou. Together the pair had already enjoyed a great deal of success with Dr Mabuse, the Gambler and The Nibelungs, both of which had led to the couple being regarded as leading lights in the expressionist film movement. It was a success which the pair intended to build upon, and to do so they cast their gaze across the Atlantic Ocean.

The glamour and and grandeur of New York City would act as the inspiration when Lang and Von Harbou first journeyed to the city in 1924. The German artistic world was thriving in the instability of the initial years of the Weimar Republic however in the United States the pair found a city in the centre of what would later be described as the “Roaring Twenties.” New York was the epicentre of a vast, booming, economy, a land of seemingly immeasurable wealth and splendour to match. It was the home of an ever growing wealth elite that seemed a million miles removed from the a continent struggling to rebuild from the ravages of the First World War, and equally indifferent to the packed slums full of workers who worked endlessly to maintain their places of leisure.

The notion of a contrasted and conflicted full city of wealth and poverty was the story Lang and Von Harbour wanted to tell, combining the dystopian societies of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine and Jack London’s The Iron Heel with the contemporary setting of New York as its template. Metropolis was born.

Von Harbou began to write the screenplay shortly after the couple had returned to Germany. The German economy was slowly recovering from disastrous hyperinflation and whilst the rich recovered their wealth fairly quickly, many formerly middle class individuals found themselves in the working class jobs of their fathers to get by, whilst the plight of the average worker was made worse by a coalition of the right-wing parties driving down wages and workers rights in the name of economic growth. It was in this atmosphere of division and resentment that the film grew out of. The German film giant UFA, impressed by Lang’s previous success, were keen to take on the project despite the large budget required. At the time Metropolis was the most expensive movie ever made, the vision of a futuristic city that could come alive amidst elaborate sets and props, a cast of over 300 and another 40,000 extras would bring Lang and Von Harbou’s vision to life but the studio would not see the benefit.

UFA had already been suffering from serious debt prior to beginning production on Metropolis and as the project began to experience delays almost from the outset due to Lang’s notorious perfectionism increasingly became a sinkhole for the company’s remaining capital. The shoot that had begun in May 1925 was still not finished in July 1926 when UFA was forced to declare bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by the powerful press magnate, Alfred Hugenberg.

Hugenberg was already the owner of several newspapers and radio stations in Germany and was eager to take control of UFA to expand his media empire and to promote his own political views and those of the far-right German National People’s Party, which he also led. Metropolis, the tale of an evil industrialist and an oppressed working class, was not part of this vision. It was primarily for this reason that Hugenberg ordered the film scrapped, although the spiralling cost also provided an excellent motivation for a studio that was being ordered to cut costs across the board. Metropolis, which had been forced to stop shooting for several months, now seemed doomed to never be completed.

It would be Fritz Lang’s perfectionist drive that would ultimately save the film. Determined to finish what they now considered to be their opus, an embittered Lang and Von Harbou bought the unfinished film from UFA at an administrative cost. Hugenberg reportedly found it amusing, the idea of getting his money returned by a left-wing director who was too egotistical to let his half-finished film rot away in a warehouse owned by the sort of man the film had set out to attack.

Lang had bigger plans of course, borrowing money and favours from individual investors, production was restarted in earnest in the final months of 1927 until he could convince another studio to take the film. With the threat of being closed down again at any moment, a more austere script had to be created by Von Harbou based on the existing footage and what Langs small crew of friends could accomplish. It was a rewrite that was clearly affected by Lang and Von Harbou’s experiences at UFA, with a plot that far more to say about what should really happen to those who ran the city of Metropolis.

Lang and Von Harbou almost bankrupted in their efforts, having to construct sets in their spare time and having to pay the actors out of their own pockets, many of whom were unable to reprise their roles due to binding contracts with UFA. Allegedly the lead actress, Brigitte Helm, had to put up the couple in her mother’s house for several weeks at a time. In the Summer of 1928, Nero-Film AG agreed to cover the costs for the rest of the film and pay off Lang’s outstanding debts the basis that they would control the films rights and distribution. Penniless and at his wits end, Lang agreed. Post-production finally began in the Autumn of that year.

The film was finally released in early 1929, heavily rewritten and with many actors inadvertently disappearing half way through the film on the basis of flimsy reasoning. In spite of these difficulties, the impressive sets, the unrivalled special effects and the powerful message of workers rising up against a powerful elite both excited and resonated with mass audiences whilst also receiving significant critical acclaim. The image of a glittering paradise above maintained by the slave conditions below would be one that would stick in many people’s minds.

The message the film emphasises throughout is one of venom towards the upper classes of society, personified by the evil Joh Fredersen as portrayed by Alfred Abel and his plot to kidnap the leader of the workers who toil in the underground city, Brigitte Helm’s almost angelic Maria. It is a message that becomes all the more pronounced when, having kidnapped Maria, Fredersen replicates her likeness using an advanced robot named the “Maschinenmensch” (Machine Man), who is then sent down to prevent the workers from improving their lot by dazzling them with seductive dances before ordering them to work longer hours for the good of their cause. Rotwang, the jealous inventor of the Maschinenmensch who Fredersen refuses to pay, makes his own journey down to the underground city, where he reveals the false Maria as an impostor.

The workers, momentarily distracted from their hedonistic activities, see “Maria” respond to Rotwang’s revelation by picking him up with one arm and attempting to strangle him to death. Realising that the mad scientist was correct, the workers turn on the machine, tying it to a hastily assembled bonfire and setting it alight.

Fredersen arrives with a large contingent of armed men from the upper city, he has been alerted to the destruction of the Maschinenmensch and now intends to crush the workers once and for all. He orders the soldiers to fire on the gathered men, women and children, only for the men to pause in horror at the sight unveiling before their eyes. The metallic Maschinenmensch, emerging from the flames.

The robot is burned at the stake, only to appear in metal form to kill Fredersen after realising pain of its own existence. With UFA claiming to have disposed of the original Maschinenmensch costume, and with the film’s limited budget unable to cover the further costs of reproducing a suit that could resemble the original and also move with ease, Lang instead turned to Russian filmmaker Ladislas Starevich. Starevich’s stop motion puppet of the Maschinenmensch emerging from the flames to kill Fredersen. For many, the slow mechanical creep the robotic puppet does as it walks out of the flames and towards Fredersen is the most memorable of the film.


To underline the message, the film ends with Rotwang and workers agreeing to work together for better society as revolution breaks out across the city. An ending card declares:

“WE MUST UNITE AGAINST THOSE WHO WOULD TURN US INTO MACHINES”​

Metropolis remained prolific in German cinemas by late October, when it was renewed for an even longer run.



~ German Expression: A Retrospective by Mark Hellman

---

The picture is from the original Metropolis, with Brigitte Helm as the "False Maria".

 

[The Red]

Weimar Germany conjures up fears of what can happen when there is simply no societal consensus on how to move forward and every minor difference becomes a cause of existential political battles

~ Eric D. Weitz

​

The so-called “Golden Years” of the Weimar Republic have been the subject of fond, if rather naive memories.


To many it was a time when it seemed as if Germany had successfully negotiated a path between the extremes of left and right and had left the archaic days of the past behind. It is a time that many consider as an era were Germany was working towards a glorious future in relative harmony, before international crises and homegrown forces of chaos and reaction conspired to tear down the promise of German democracy. This is a myth that has gained much attention from the dissidents that fled the German Workers Republic and praised the optimism and hope of the republic prior to the Great Depression. In doing so, this nostalgia completely overshadows the fact that the issues of economic and political strife that plagued the republic had not been overcome, even if they were seen to have been tempered.

There is no denying that Germany experienced some economic success between 1924 and 1929 but this was typically of benefit only to the white collar workers who had always formed the aspirational, socially mobile backbone of the republic. By 1928 productivity had returned to pre-war levels and wages were on average 12% higher than they had been under the Kaiser. However, the number of hours in the working day had also increased for most urban workers as German industrialists attempted to mimic the success of vast American corporations such as Ford. In a time when the Communist Party was having to deal with the fact that German capitalism seemed to be working, Hitler famously commented, “American hours but German working conditions and German wages.” Although wages increased, they were nowhere near comparable to the pay packet an American worker could hope for. It seemed to many those who controlled the means of production were trying to reap the benefits of American industrial strategy without having to invest in their workers.

Instead of higher wages German companies attempted to raise their workers stake in their employer by organising recreational activities, company sports teams, picnics, and other pursuits were designed to engender an image of “family” between the management and the workforce. However these were largely middle class pursuits, and were alien to the average German worker who found their working day becoming longer for little for insufficient compensation. In this regard, working class women were affected even more than working class men.

As the German economy grew women were working in the largest numbers since the end of the First World War but this was an achievement that also became a burden for many. Women in the workforce was still frowned upon in many areas of German society, but it was an utter necessity for many German families. Nonetheless women were still paid less than men for the same work and for the same hours, whilst usually also being expected to do all the household work when they returned home. The husband, employed or otherwise, was not expected to contribute. Although many white collar workers like to imagine an era of domestic bliss, there was nothing particularly golden for a woman who had to work eight hours a day only to return home to a further eight hours work. Government pronouncements of economic success were not much to be applauded when individuals did not have time to even read the newspaper before their day had to start again.

The economic success during the supposed “Golden Years” must also be put under greater scrutiny, although the German economy became a world leader in certain fields, particularly in chemicals, its overall economic growth did not match that of either France or Great Britain. Unemployment remained a serious problem, never going below 1.5 million people out of work. This was a figure had begun to grow even before the Autumn of 1929. The government attempted to alleviate the problems of unemployment or injury that families suffered from by increasing the rate of unemployment insurance and sickness benefit but these only added to the financial burden of a state that was spending on the basis that the economic growth would go on continuously, with little effort being made to ensure it would continue on a firm basis. The government was willing to support those out of work but it was wary of paying them instead to work on developing the infrastructure for a mass production economy or to modernise country’s infrastructure. The republic had driven itself into a great deal of debt to recover from the devastating hyperinflation of the early twenties and it had become reliant on American loans for much of its continued stability.

In this way the German government had tied itself to the success of the American economy. Like the inflationary consensus of the early twenties, it was a gamble that they had a great deal of faith in.


~ Kriegsphilosophie: Totalitarismus und Demokratie in der Deutschen Arbeiterrepublik, Annett Gerhardt


---


There would have been a time when a call from the state department would have thrown off Robert Oaks. Then again, there would have been a time when he would have shuddered at the title of “Washington’s man in Berlin” but the city had grown on him after his long spell as advisor to the United States Ambassador.

When Robert had moved to the city he had seen his appointment as some sort of cruel punishment for what he had hoped would be a promising diplomatic career. Germany had been stuck in the midst of the worst hyperinflation in human history and Berlin had appeared to be the eye of the storm. The French had invaded the industrial Ruhr to take the reparations the Germans pleaded that they could ill afford to give, only worsening the economy crisis.

The streets had been full of the destitute and the hungry, and the communist mobs whose numbers had swelled amidst the misery, their cause only growing in popularity as news came out of a communist veteran of the Great War fighting the French occupation in the Ruhr. It had seemed that the country was headed for another communist revolution, which unlike the previous attempts stood a strong chance of success.

Now the situation was entirely different, the economy was booming, the streets were no longer filled with beggars but with the patrons of cafes and bars. The communist presence was relegated to the occasional poster, and a handful of surly men and women selling newspapers. At the recent election their number of seats in the Reichstag had almost halved with the good economy causing voters to strengthen their trust in the pro-Weimar parties. Adolf Hitler, the man who had become a hero of the oppressed proletariat, appeared to be yesterday’s news as workers instead focused on climbing the social ladder, if not for themselves then for their children. The party’s beige covered thugs, the Red Front, were on the verge of being officially proscribed. The thoughts of revolution were increasingly expressed in fictional works, what had appeared to be a reality only a few years ago was now consigned to the picture house.

Robert was not a vain man but he couldn’t help feeling satisfied with the role he had played in bringing this prosperity about. The financial assistance that the United States had granted to both the French and the Germans then both both countries might have still been at each others throats, if not plunged into revolution by a restless working class sick of years of economic stagnation. Instead the American enabled agreement had not only gotten the French troops out of the Rhineland but had formed the basis for the Treaty of Locarno. The German Foreign Minister and former Chancellor, Gustav Stresemann, had been willing to recognise the post-war order determined by the Treaty of Versailles. At least on Germany’s western border.

Stresemann had dragged his government along with him. Germany had shown that it was willing to return to the world stage as a responsible and democratic power. Trade between France and Germany had now grown higher than at any point since before the First World War. Peace was working.

The new Labour government in the United Kingdom for a global move towards disarmament seemed to indicate that perhaps the idea of a world at peace was not so utopian overall. In last year’s election he had been glad that his German colleague, Ernst, had returned to the government with the Social Democrats. It seemed as if the governing coalition was even stronger with their presence and, after all, their party had largely written the republic’s constitution. With the confidence that German democracy was finally finding its feet, it was increasingly a pleasure to read the newspaper with such hope on the horizon.

Robert had been reading his morning copy of Der Tag when the receptionist had informed him that there was an incoming call from the state department. The American news in the popular albeit loudly nationalist paper had been brief, a fluff piece on preparations for Halloween and a brief report about a minor investor loss on Wall Street that was causing some consternation. As he moved from his well lit office to the cramped confines of the radio room the main issue on his mind was whether or not it would be feasible to one day lay down a telephone line from America to Europe. It would save the hassle of having to drop everything when there was a call from Washington.

The radio operator was hunched over the radiophone in an attempt to avoid losing the signal, the atmosphere was stuffy. Robert couldn’t help but wonder whether or not this was good for the man’s, spending all day by himself with a machine, before suddenly facing the stress of diplomatic events. As ever he simply nodded to Robert and handed him the microphone before leaving. Whoever it was, Robert decided he would try and keep whoever it was on the line for as long as possible. Having a leisurely chat would allow the man some time to go out and grab a coffee and a cigarette.

“Mr Oaks?”

“Good afternoon from Berlin, Mr Secretary”

It was the croaky, uncharacteristically sombre, voice of Henry L. Stimson. It was unusual for the Secretary of State to be calling him personally but it wasn’t particularly strange. Since being called out of the blue by President Harding six years beforehand, there was little that could surprise Robert.

“It’s morning in Washington. What time is it over there?”

“It’s almost four o’clock sir, I was actually planning to leave work early. Berlin is surprisingly vibrant on a Thursday evening.”

“I’m afraid you may have to cancel your plans.”

The secretary continued to go on, occasionally interrupted by static interference from the radio set. In Robert’s quivering hands he began to grasp the microphone tighter and tighter. The reason as to why Stimson was so downbeat became so clear all of a sudden. Robert knew that he would have to inform the ambassador, who in turn would have to inform Stimson’s German counterpart, for however long the man might keep his job.

His plans for October 24th, 1929, were now inevitably cancelled.

In the badly lit room, Robert could already see everything he had worked for disappearing before his eyes, as the news of what had happened at Wall Street continued to emanate from the radiophone.

---

The painting is Inside and Out by George Grosz

 

[The Red]

I've got a special announcement to make which I hope you will all find interesting. I've been a bit quiet recently in regards to this TL but that's because I've been spending most of my time working on its release.

The Red Fuhrer is now available.

As with Decisive Darkness, this isn't something I would have been able to do without the help and support from the readers of this TL. I can't emphasise enough how much you guys make this a pleasure to write, and I hope you all enjoy the book. I owe you all a great debt of gratitude.

​

 

[The Red]

Currently working on the next update and hope to have it out soon but until then, for your viewing pleasure, I present the trailer for The Red Fuhrer:

 

[The Red]

"Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red unite!"

~ Otto von Bismarck

When we consider the victory of communism in Germany, it is important to consider three factors:

The crash, when it came, did not have as initially devastating an impact as the hyperinflation of 1923-24 but unlike that crisis there was no international solution for Germany in what was now an international emergency. By the spring of 1930, as with much of the world, the Wall Street Crash had already begun to cause the German economy to fall into another death spiral. The prosperity of the Weimar Spring that had been ensured by American credit now faced a sudden disappearance of all American capital as investors instead began to demand urgent repayment for loans that had kept the German economy booming. Without capital, the prospects of German industry very quickly faded. As German economic production nosedived, hundreds of thousands were suddenly rendered unemployed. A demand crisis emerged, as both the consumer market and the industry that provided for it began to detract. Within a year, unemployment had quadrupled and men and women were queuing for bread in the shadow of empty factories where they had once worked.

The process of what some have called “proletarianisation” that had taken place during the hyperinflation crisis was reawakened, many who had grown comfortable during the period of growth between 1924 and 1929 now found themselves being stripped of everything they had worked for in a matter of months, whilst families who had merely lived from one day to the next with what wages their long hours of work allowed them were immediately thrown into destitution. The Golden Age of Weimar was beginning to be seen as a bad joke, and as the resentment and desperation spread it was class consciousness that was beginning to define Germany once more.

The second factor, just as important as the prevailing economic crisis, was the way in which the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) had developed itself during the relatively peaceful years of Weimar’s Golden Age. Waning electoral fortunes aside, the party had shed many of the problems it had suffered from in the years where they had been unable to exploit the turmoil facing the young republic. The joint leadership of Adolf Hitler and Ernst Thalmann had emerged with a revised party constitution that followed the purges of both opposition from both wings of the party of Joseph Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet Union and, effectively, the Comintern. With Heinrich Brandler’s largely symbolic leadership having ended in denouncement from Moscow, Hitler had taken his position as General Secretary whilst Thalmann had taken the newly created role of Party President, both roles technically checked the power of the other but in practice allowed the duo complete control over the KPD internal workings and external policy. The remaining politburo effectively became advisory positions with briefs to be carried out on orders from the duumvirate whilst the annual party congress became a rubber stamp for the diktats of the General Secretary and President.

In their appointed roles the two figures complimented each other greatly, as Thalmann pursued links with German trade unions and galvanised support throughout the country whilst Hitler brutally reformed the party into a relentless propaganda machine. Where the party declined in votes and membership its underlying structure had never been stronger when the crisis hit, and Hitler and Thalmann were ready to deliver a message that would resonate throughout a country devastated by what they could easily present as another disaster wrought on the German people by capitalism.

The third factor is also equally as important, for despite the global depression causing the German people to look for alternatives to capitalism in larger numbers than ever before, and despite the renewed vigour of the communists in exploiting this discontent, it is likely that had the German political class not been so fractured, it could have withstood both of these joint threats to Weimar democracy. Much is made of how the Weimar system was unloved, but its ultimate death came from those whose efforts had went into creating the republic in the first place.

~ Dr. Casey Johnson, The Anglo-American/Comintern War


---


Berlin, April 1930


The dust had been shaken off the offices within Karl Liebknecht Haus. For the first time since the underwhelming election campaign of 1928, and arguably going even before that, the activists and staff of the Communist Party of Germany were alive with revolutionary zeal. Their warnings about the American loans and the global financial system, dismissed for so long as apocalyptic, deranged, and even humorous, had been proved to be disturbingly accurate.

Instead of warnings there was now a flurry of activity that went by in a blur of red banners and posters throughout the large but spartan offices. Today a large banner would be unveiled in the square that the offices looked out across the plaza to the increasingly large soup kitchen run by the party and the listless wandering by,

“BREAD AND WORK WITH THE KPD - REMOVE THE CORRUPT AND RICH - WORKERS STATE NOW!”
​

The party had been vindicated and now the people were clamouring for answers on what to do.

Gerda found herself wondering the same thing whilst trying to maintain a semblance of order to the large swathes of activists and their assigned roles. She had always felt that Hitler’s speaking style was alienating people away from the party, his proclamations of doom reminded her more of her daughter’s tantrums. Rosa only occasionally got upset, but Adolf Hitler seemed to lack the same emotional depth of the ten year old. Now the party had a unique chance to rally the German people to their cause, she hoped more than ever that the party and the Comintern might take action and replace their effective but petulant General Secretary. If there was anyone who could achieve that it was Ernst Thalmann, who looked far more like the leader to take the party into the future. She knew such hopes shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Hitler had not been the founder behind the idea of opposing capitalist loans back in 1924, that had been self-evident from a Communist standpoint, but he had been the face of the opposition and as such he had reaped the rewards of having the foresight to condemn them. Furthermore the alliance between Hitler and Thalmann was as strong as it had ever been.

Hitler’s stature in the party had been shaken by the disappointing results of the 1928 election but his alliance with Thalmann had remained intact and ever since the two had worked together to remove Heinrich Brandler as General Secretary. The image of the veteran and the worker that Goebbels presented as an image of the two men seemed satisfactory to both, with Hitler being able to inspire resentment in the crowd at the way Germany had been treated by the foreign powers and how the German worker was treated by international financiers, whilst Thalmann emphasised the class solidarity of the German proletariat in the face of the enemies Hitler spoke of. The reverses the party faced as the economy had improved and people began to forget about the hyperinflation and French occupation hadn’t caused either man to turn on each other and it was unlikely their resolve would change now. Gerda resigned herself to the fact that she would have to muddle on regardless.

Six years working for the party part-time had not led to her role changing, even as Germany changed around her. Gerda still took the minutes of politburo meetings along with a factotum of other small jobs as the women of Berlin began to enjoy the new combination of social freedom and economic prosperity that had been alien to them beforehand. She was a single mother working for a party that seemed to be going nowhere and she had feared that she was watching her life go by in pursuit of a cause that she would never see borne out. Now the crisis had come and she couldn’t abandon the opportunity to help advance the revolution she had been dreaming of for more than a decade, regardless of the leadership or her role within the party.

The party was growing again, and unlike in the last period of crisis the leadership seemed less likely to sit on its hands and wait for the workers to come to them. The day had mainly been taken up with the preparation of a large march for May Day, bigger than any the Social Democrats had planned, in concert with several trade unions that had finally come round to Communist attempts to build relationships in the wake of the collapse of Muller’s government and the policies of the reactionary who had taken his place. Even after Heinrich Brandler had been formally put out to pasture by Hitler and Thalmann they had worked to maintain the former leader’s aim of building links with the trade unions rather than dismissing those that weren’t entirely behind their platform. It had been a frustrating experience for many within the party and even now it appeared to be working there were those in the Comintern who were criticising the KPD’s reluctance to take full control of the unions they had aligned themselves with. Gerda might have been apprehensive about Hitler’s leadership, but she also knew that Moscow could be completely out of touch. Several leading members of the Federation of German Trade Unions had begun to openly favour the KPD over the lacklustre Social Democrat response to the economic crisis, trying to force what was already happening naturally would be pointless. She feared that Hitler was too erratic to see that truth.

The speech Hitler was making today was apparently intended to be a historic one, so much to the extent that most party members had been left out of the loop, even as the podium was being assembled across the square from their offices. Goebbels, who seemingly fancied himself as a theatre director, was attempting to direct the construction from on top of the podium.

Gerda cursed as she noticed the propagandist hopping down from the stage on his good leg before walking in her direction. He would likely want to add even more tasks to her already packed diary, or worse, he would attempt small talk. He nodded to her and raised his left fist in salute. Gerda lit a cigarette in the hope it would drive him off.

“Good afternoon comrade, what do you think of our little presentation?” His face was impishly delighted, like a small child who had been told that they had done something that was very clever but also very bad.

“To think that you gave me my membership before Hitler was even a leader in our movement and now he’s the main event!”

Gerda still regretted that she had ever let the devious man into the party, no matter how successful he might have proven himself. His almost fatuous desire to talk about his beloved Hitler was almost as tiresome as his attempts at flirting with women in the party.

“Adolf Hitler is certainly an excellent speaker, comrade, but I hope you remember the cause he speaks for. His effectiveness lies in promoting the hopes and aspirations of the workers as a whole, we aren’t just here to provide a stage for him.” The smile disappeared from Goebbels’ face as he stared at his shoes. The little creep could talk about great men all day to her but he was hopeless when it came to ideology. Not for the first time, Gerda wondered if pressed enough whether he could be made to admit that without the propaganda sustaining his role in the party he wouldn’t really even be a communist. In the unfolding crisis he would have to prove himself, and Hitler too. These were no longer ultra patriotic hysterics rejoicing in blowing up French workers in the Ruhr, the collapsing German economy represented true class struggle.

“You are right, comrade,” Goebbels finally admitted, “with the announcement today I have gotten somewhat carried away. And after all, it is the man’s birthday.” The impish look had returned to his face as he turned around and went back to his stage assembly.

Gerda had forgotten it was Hitler’s birthday, and that she would likely have to endure praising him for the rest of the day, regardless of what he said. Chancellor Bruning was being forced to pass legislation by decree without the support of the Social Democrats, elections couldn’t be far off. This speech would likely be kicking off the beginning of a long Reichstag campaign. She could understand assembling a large crowd for an impromptu speech if that was the case but regardless of what the ‘announcement’ was Gerda didn’t think that sort of thing should be kept secret from the wider party. The crowd in the square began to assemble until it was a vast cauldron of workers and the unemployed.

And there he was, the usual grey, vaguely militaristic suit, the red armband carefully knotted around his left arm to look as if it had been tied effortlessly, the facade that he was merely another worker despite his privileged position that made him stand out even above Thalmann. In front of the microphone he appeared to grow larger, even more encompassing than his face on the posters that she had helped to spread all around Berlin. Gerda couldn’t help but feel intoxicated, but also ill.

If the assembled crowd sympathised with her view they did not show it, a cheer rose as the General Secretary of the Communist Party, vindicated, determined, ready for anything, prepared to unveil a renewed party ready to lead the workers towards victory. He limply raised his fist in response to the far more energetic gestures in the audience, as if he was above such gestures of loyalty to the cause.

“Fellow comrades, I can only congratulate you on your sacrifices these last few months. In spreading help for the destitute and sick where the state has abandoned them, in fighting the powers of international capital and the lackeys in the German bourgeoisie wherever they have attempted to persecute the German worker, for spreading the message of the communist party to the German worker. Your efforts have left our movement, and our party, stronger than ever!”

There was the usual cheer and as the speech went on more platitudes followed to more acclaim. Gerda couldn’t help but observe that the General Secretary was more measured in his tone than the usual bluster. His characteristically slow and measured tone that always began his speeches had continued whereas it usually would have become a ranting crescendo by now about the party storming to victory and stringing up the enemies of the German people.

Instead there was a great deal of reference to the “movement” and its importance.

Gerda had already began to join up the dots by the time it became clear that this was not one of Hitler’s ordinary speeches.

“Comrades, the workers movement is broad and is comprised of many different faiths. If we are to topple those who oppose us, we must not reject fellow workers with petty labels cooked up by spineless bohemians. The time has come to declare, loudly and unapologetically: “We must not allow capital to divide us!””

“WE MUST NOT ALLOW CAPITAL TO DIVIDE US” Hitler’s sycophants shouted somewhat half-heartedly, Hitler repeated the chant louder and this time the audience responded with full volume.

Satisfied, Hitler made a small motion with his hand, and to the gasp of the crowd he was joined on stage by a small bald man, one with sad eyes and a humble face betrayed somewhat by a crafty expression. It was the face of Paul Levi.


Paul Levi, the Social Democratic deputy.


Paul Levi, the former Communist


Paul Levi, the survivor of the Freikorps slaughter of the Spartacists in Berlin.

Paul Levi, the Social Fascist. ​

The two men clasped hands together and held them aloft triumphantly in the air, the crowd cheered with full volume once again, engulfing Gerda’s silent scream.


---


The Three Arrows symbol was used by the SPD and their militant wing, the Iron Front. Each arrow represents the forces the social democrats opposed: monarchists, fascists, and communists.

 

[The Red]

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

~ A Farewell To Arms

When it comes to the rise of Communism in Germany, there is a frequent tendency among historians to overly emphasise or even solely focus on the forces of anxiety and fear that swept the country in the face of the Great Depression. The great hope that many held for the future that the Communists described is rarely commented upon yet without this idealism the picture of Germany in 1930 is incomplete, for more than anything else Paul Levi was emboldened by an image of a brighter future that helped him recover from his own despair, only to help to plunge all of Europe into an even greater torment.


In the Spring of 1930, Levi was one of the most prominent members Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a leader of the party’s most left-wing members, however his stature in the party was compromised by a great deal of personal discomfort Levi felt for this role. Levi had began his political life as an adherent of Rosa Luxemburg and, having been one of the few prominent members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) to survive the failure of the Spartacist Revolt, he took control of what was left of the party in the name of rebuilding and keeping the ideals of Luxemburgism alive in the aftermath. Levi proved himself capable of centralising power around himself and his supporters, although the KPD made little progress due to these cliquish tendencies restricting the influx of new members alongside strategic blunders such as the leadership’s failure to support the 1920 General Strike against the Kapp Putsch. The party was largely deemed irrelevant by German workers and despite Levi’s friendship with Lenin (both had been exiles in Switzerland during the First World War) his failings could no longer be forgiven as the Soviet-dominated Comintern began to disregard many of Levi’s “Left-Communist” or Luxemburgist beliefs as an “infantile disorder”.


The party’s botched efforts in support an armed workers revolt, that had emerged from several strikes around central Germany in March 1921, dealth a fatal blow to Levi, and set in motion the events that would lead him to resign his leadership and shortly after leave the KPD altogether. Allegedly Lenin had not wanted to ostracise Levi to such an extent, only to ensure that the KPD would follow the Leninist line, but the damage had been done. Although the KPD had massively increased in size thanks to the incorporation of the left-wing of the Independent Social Democrats (USPD), Levi felt he was forced to find a new political home. After spending time in the remnant of the USPD that survived the communist merger Levi finally rejoined the SPD as it became increasingly clear that the “Independent” party was becoming nothing more than an extension of the larger and more moderate original. Though he still clung to many of the communist beliefs, Levi hoped that he could affect greater change with a larger platform and though he accomplished this to a large degree he also earned notoriety.


Levi who was a former communist who now embraced Weimar from a leftist perspective, he had been involved in the 1918 revolution on the ground, and he was a Jew. These facts made him anathema to many on the German far-right and within the German establishment. The KPD denounced him as a turncoat and class traitor for siding with the “bourgeoisie” Social Democrats, and as their rhetoric got even more heated he was lumped in with the rest of the party as being no better than the fascists he opposed. Even some within his own party questioned whether or not he was some form of communist sleeper agent, or more commonly an interloper into a party he had once left for not being radical enough. Although he was well regarded by many of his peers, these attacks as well as his own personal conflicts, possibly made worse by a battle with his mental health, caused Levi to fall into a deep depression by the time of the Wall Street Crash.


It is possible that Levi’s acceptance of Adolf Hitler’s clandestine offer to represent the SPD was purely based on his hopes of building a joint platform between Germany’s two largest Marxist parties. Of regaining the future he had once hoped to build after lingering in a party that had tied itself too close to a failed economic system. It was an attractive proposition.


Then again, it is possible that Hitler had made him aware of a very different alliance being made to take advantage of the republic’s sudden weakness. One that would would remain officially secret for several months, but was alarming enough to convince both parties of the need to unify the left.


~ David Irons, Bridging The Horseshoe


---


Limone, March 1930



The mist hung close to the surface of Lake Garda before seeping into the quiet town of Limone until the narrow streets and alleyways were almost impossible to navigate without a local guide. Tourist season would not be upon the townspeople for another several weeks, the main fruit harvest was even further away, and in the streets shrouded in dim light and silence, one could be assured of privacy. If you had something to hide however, that often isn’t enough, and pretenders often have much to hide.


Wilhelm, His Imperial and Royal Majesty The German Emperor, King of Prussia (in pretense), had seen a woman looking straight at him from a balcony chair through the fog and had immediately presumed that she had been looking out for him. If he had inquired it is possible that someone would have told him she had been looking in that direction for thirteen years, north towards the mountains that two sons and a husband had never returned from. In the mist he couldn’t see that her aged face was shaking, nor her anxious whispers that they would all be back home soon. The would-be Kaiser only tried to conceal his face as a plain clothes guard escorted him to a restaurant on the shorefront, where his Italian contact was waiting for him in a private room.


Galeazzo Ciano had a pudgy, aristocratic face with an expression that exuded too much innocence for his tough, bulky frame. He was young, and it seemed he had a bright future ahead of him, but Wilhelm could still see the street fighting teenager in the man even if he was the son of a Count and about to become the Duce’s Son-In-Law. He had feared a rebuff when he was offered a meeting with an attache rather than the Italian foreign minister or the Duce himself, but some digging on the young man's background had made it clear that Ciano and Mussolini shared a close bond, one which would make this meeting far more important than it might seem to those who the Duce and the pretender Emperor would prefer left in the dark about their dealings. The young diplomat dismissed Wilhelm’s escort and ordered him to stand guard outside the room before he had even stood up to greet his guest.


“I hope you will accept my apologies for the poor quality of my German, Your Majesty. It is a fault I am working hard to improve upon.” Wilhelm smiled at the young man’s impish modesty, his German was flawless.


“Your German is a pleasure to listen to my friend,” Wilhelm insisted. “and I’m sure our meeting here today will lead to you having far more of a chance to use it.” Ciano smirked at that before offering Wilhelm a seat.


“I must admit that the - well, the “change of power”, that your contacts had mentioned would be a development that would take up much of the Duce’s time, and likely my own as well. Of course, if it was advantageous to the Kingdom of Italy then it would be a price I would be happy to pay.”


“But of course it would be! If-” Wilhelm noticed that the Italian’s look of surprise at the amount of enthusiasm in his response and calmed himself. “If Germany were to fall into chaos, or worse, Bolshevism, all of Europe would suffer. There is no reason to fear, however. I feel that myself and like-minded patriots have come to an understanding about a potential solution, one that will allow Germany to follow the path that the Duce has shown to work so successfully for Italy.”


Wilhelm thought back to the meetings he had held in the Netherlands not so long ago, bringing together the disparate elements of the German right, ranging from those conservatives who had never gotten used to the idea of the republic to the militants who wanted to march on Rome in Berlin. All had been united under the banner of the Volkisch Bund, thanks to his promise of a renewed Germany and his leadership.


It was a group that had originally been gathered around ageing General Ludendorff, but it had become clear that the man had no talent for politics. Wilhelm had been in touch with them ever since their failure to capitalise on the hyperinflation crisis, he had waited on them to call him when the time of the next crisis came, as only he and the Communists seemed to understand, until the Wall Street Crash had made it clear that the time had come to show his hand to the German people.


Wilhelm was confident of his appeal, but he had lived long enough to know he would need allies both at home and abroad if he were to succeed.


Ciano, at the very least, seemed receptive to his pitch.


“I have no doubt that Germany could achieve a great deal if it were to follow the path of fascism, but the Duce is unsure as to whether such a radical shift would not trigger greater chaos accidentally.”


Wilhelm, shook his head reassuringly, “I simply cannot sit back in comfort and watch my country fall apart in the face of this “depression”, neither would you if you were in my posiiton. What I like most about your Duce is his patriotism, and how he allows himself to act only in the name of his nation. He has provided an example for all true patriots everywhere, that they must unite their nations in times of great strife. There are enough men, good men, within the current regime who will respond to the call when asked. There will be no need to worry about chaos, not even temporarily, if we have your support.”


Ciano smiled in silence for a moment, before seeming to remember his line of inquiry.


“I agree entirely in regards to patriotism, Your Majesty, although we both understand that our patriotisms may conflict on certain issues. Your movement is not quiet in calling for the reversal of much of the settlement that followed a conflict in which our nations were enemies. Would we not be naive in helping to enable such action?”


Wilhelm tried to match the young man’s smile.

The arrogant little shit. ​

“It is true that we were enemies in that conflict, and of course I could reassure you that now that is water under the bridge and you wouldn’t believe me for a second-” Ciano merely shrugged, “- and you would be right not too. The way the war ended has had a greater impact on the German people than no other event since unification. What I would say is, regardless of which side our nations were on, did we not both end up in the same situation after the war ended?”


“Italy was betrayed by incompetent politicians who failed to secure a proper peace settlement for our sacrifice, the Duce has taken steps to resolve this injustice ever since.” Ciano replied in a monotone, as if he were reading a prepared statement from a card. Wilhelm’s smile was genuine now.


“Both of your nations were left damaged and debt ridden, at the mercy of the Bolsheviks, and open for exploitation at the hands of the British and the French. It was only your movement that saved Italy from the further humiliation Germany has had to endure over the years but you are unable to progress on the international stage, why? Because your interests will never be the same as those of the British and the French. Italy, like Germany, is a young nation, a threat to the established order of things, so they fear you, but they know as well as you do that you’re alone. Help me to do for Germany what the Duce has done for Italy, and we will not just hold back chaos and Bolshevism. Together we will be in a position to rewrite the European balance of power, and this time we shall make sure it is on our terms.”


Ciano had lost his smile, as he called for the guard who had been stationed outside to fetch a telephone. It took several moments before the young man spoke again, but when he did it was with the seven words that Wilhelm had spent the last night praying for.


“How much did you say you needed?”


---

The painting is Bursting Shell by Christopher Nevinson

 

[The Red]

"The appalling thing about fascism is that you've got to use fascist methods to get rid of it."

~ Dr Richard Fletcher, It Happened Here

Lindenstrasse had once been part of Berlin’s newspaper quarter and whilst it now housed the vast ten story complex that made it the beating heart of the Social Democracy, one could still see the large Mousse publishing factory as well as editorial offices if one where to walk down from the street that made up the SPD's headquarters, publisher, newspaper office, and official party school.

Ernst wondered if the party’s days in the street would be remembered when they were gone. It seemed possible now that such an event was going to come sooner rather than later. The banners outside continued to encourage workers to join, but the place was already beginning to feel like a fortress.

He had been through this before but never had he felt as if the party was being accosted by so many enemies, it was not just the reactionary extremists of the Freikorps or the utopian anarchists of the Spartacists any longer, these enemies had morphed into forms that had become well organised, resourceful, and worryingly palatable for some members of this own party. The word that Paul Levi had been seen at a rally with the leader of the Communist Party of Germany required action, in case such instances became commonplace and the SPD found itself being eclipsed as the workers party by a group of people who only had Moscow’s interests at heart.

Ernst felt that it might have been best to just eject Levi from the SPD, but the rules of the party allowed the former communist the chance to have an internal hearing, which Ernst was now waiting on the results from as he tried to get through correspondence from his constituents. He had been a deputy in the Reichstag for over six years now, he hoped it would be enough to earn him some loyalty from Social Democratic voters who might be looking the other way. Unfortunately there had been a lot of those since the Depression, and the party’s exit from power hadn’t seemed to help. If there was a purity in opposition, they didn't embody it.

The Weimar Republic was still an ideal worth fighting for but he was aware that this time it might be dealt a fatal blow by the will of the people rather than by reactionary coups or leftist uprisings. The SPD, for better or for worse, was the largest party defending the republic even if people like Levi seemed to be reverting to their extremist roots.

Ernst had been halfway answering a constituents complaint about his neighbour's dog by the time the tribunal came out, along with most of those who had stopped working at their desks to see the sheepish looking Paul Levi standing amongst his adjudicators.


“Comrades, fellow colleagues, we have addressed the case of Comrade Levi and we believe that we have agreed upon a resolution. We have found that whilst association with an opposition is a cause for the termination of membership, in case we believe that the circumstances pertaining to the action have made it clear that Comrade Levi was not intending to harm the party even though he has acknowledged his mistake in this belief, for which he would now like to apologise.”


With his prompting, Levi hesitantly stepped forward. Like Ernst he was clearly not happy with this situation, albeit the two likely would have differed on their preferred outcomes.


“Comrades, I know that I have alarmed and confused many of you with my actions, for which I do truly apologise. However,” Ernst noticed the members of the tribunal raise their eyes,


“At this moment Hitler is also fighting a battle against those who would have the KPD become the parody of a Moscow puppet that many presume it already is. We must consider, in this outright rejection of the KPD, whether we are not also helping those in Moscow and in this very city who would rather have the left divided for their own purposes. Perhaps I did not have the right answer to that question in my actions, and I am very sorry for that, but that does not mean that the question should now be left without an answer.”


Levi smiled for a moment, only for his face to suddenly become full of foreboding.


“For I fear that the time is running out for us to find one.”


An awkward silence hung in the air. Levi appeared to be waiting for a reaction, approval or disapproval, but nothing came other than bewilderment and whispering. With this realisation, he slumped through the office and out of the door, the fearful look having never left his face. His adjudicators returned to the meeting room.

Ernst considered whether or not to continue with his own concerns about Levi’s communist sympathies or those of his constituent’s about dog excrement, before deciding on the former. He marched into his meeting room with the irate letter still in his hand, to the surprise of those discussing what had just happened.

“Is that it? The man embraces the General Secretary of the Communist Party and all that is required for him to do is make an insincere apology?!” Ernst’s voice was higher than normal, subconsciously conveying his exasperation.

Hermann Gott, the party’s secretary for internal discipline gave his characteristic sigh. It was a job where regardless of the verdict you made there would always be someone put out by it. Ernst supposed it must especially difficult when it was a verdict that the man appeared to be questioning himself.

“Levi has been a loyal friend of the party for many years, we know he has had a history with incorrect forms of Marxism in the past and his dalliance in the form of this Communist rally he attended must be understood in those terms. If he had been discovered to be conspiring with Hitler it would have been one thing but this little display is something we can move on from.

“After all, we are not as fond of purges as those in Moscow.” Gott reassured Ernst, causing a few of the committee to chuckle.

“I feel like you are being too complacent with this matter.” Ernst replied coolly, bringing the laughter to an end. “The crisis out there on the streets, it’s going on all over the industrial world. There’s no quick cure to this disaster, and there’s no American dollars coming to the rescue like there were in 1924. If Levi and other former communists were to organise against the party, this would be the time for them to do it,

“The matter is settled comrade,” Gott’s tone had become impatient. “As you say, there is a crisis out there and we must work to help solve it for the sake of the German people. Now is not the time for sectional interests, we are a party of the working class not one for the self-indulgent,”


Ernst began to feel as if he was living in a different world to these men, those who had gone to unimaginable lengths to contain the communist threat were now dismissing such claims as obsessive and paranoid. He felt he needed perspective, and found himself walking out of the offices of his party much like Levi had done, and into the streets of the troubled city.

It had been less than a year since the American stock exchange had fallen apart and yet the Berlin of Weimar’s Golden Age had already slipped away. Walking down the Lindenstrasse towards the train station he decided to walk through Berlin’s state park. The hustle and bustle of a thriving Germany had been replaced with a guttural, uncomfortable, silence that was only broken by the angry shouts in the distance, where a rally was under way. From this distance it was hard to tell what extremists were barking out their proposed solutions for the crisis and who they would have to kill to do so. Ernst was only interested in getting past the rabble, until he was close enough to see that they were something different entirely.

For a moment, it was unclear to Ernst whether he was in Berlin or in Rome. Hundreds of blackshirts were assembled in the park’s expanse, looking as if they might be ready to march into the Reichstag at a moment’s notice. Ernst had no doubt many amongst them wished they could. These impromptu rallies had become increasingly common, a show of force that seemed to hint at more serious action in the near future.

The Volkisch Bund, previously little more than a group of Bavarian drunks who liked to fight more than campaign, had recently been drilled into order in anticipation of what they could now achieve. There were many desperate people who could not stomach communism, and had turned to the far-right for salvation instead. Many of those appeared to be swelling the ranks of the blackshirts, as men thrown out of employment found a new purpose in their lives. The entire scene was a morbid theatre act as the blackshirts were reviewed by their commanders before all raising their right arms in unison, aping the style of Mussolini.

The figure who the blackshirts were saluting also seemed to be fashioning himself on the Italian dictator. Hermann Goering, the gaunt, severe looking war hero wore the same black shirt as the organised thugs with only his Blue Max to distinguish him. The decoration had been the highest honour in Imperial Germany, and it seemed that the reactionary wanted to remind everyone of his service. Ernst felt the mix of the old Imperial symbols with those of Italian fascism to be rather perverse, but many in the crowd applauded the war hero instead.

Some even joined the bizarre saluting display, such was their desperation to applaud a movement that had been a violent fringe group a few months beforehand. There were those who were desperate to see the radical ideals the Volkisch Bund proclaimed, a return to a powerful monarchy, the removal of all foreign “vampires” from German soil, the re-acquisition of all German lands and colonies lost at Versailles, all to be achieved under the banner of “Prussian-dom and Socialism”. A German model for the proclaimed success of Mussolini’s brutal regime.

Looking at the scale and sophistication of the rally, Ernst couldn’t help but wonder if there was funding coming from behind the Alps, or if more desperation was to blame. He couldn’t help but notice that many of the cheering supporters were rather too bourgeois to be regular beer hall enthusiasts. Ernst considered Levi’s veiled comment about the upper classes of German society allying themselves with the Volkisch Bund in the same way they had done in Italy out of fear of communism. He couldn’t help but admit this scene appeared to lend truth to that, although he resented the fact that only he seemed able to see that the Communists were just as worthy of suspicion, as if they hadn’t been in Berlin when the Spartacists had taken control of the city only for the Freikorps to attempt the same feat a year later. It only proved that Germany could not drive out the devil with beelzebub.

Goering was still rambling about the virtues of patriotism and sacrifice until he decided that both concepts were the same thing and expected his audience to applaud this presumption. A woman with a camera around her neck involuntarily yawned emitting a slightly embarrassed laugh as the yawn cascaded throughout the crowd. Ernst felt like saying to her at least the communists had some dynamic speakers and wondered if that was the sort of humour she might enjoy. Even if she was a Volkisch Bund sympathiser, she surely couldn’t be as bad as that nagging communist woman who continued to insist he was the father of her child regardless of the fact they had only ever spent one night together.

It was a line of inquiry that was far more interesting to Ernst than whatever was coming out of the Goering’s mouth, but before he could pursue he noticed that the blackshirted veteran had stopped speaking. A look of surprise on his face as he looked towards the park exits and a snarl as he realised who was blocking them. Ernst turned round with the other onlookers, the blackshirts, their supporters, those like himself who had been caught amidst the rally out of curiosity, and a female photographer. All ensnared by what was the largest group of Red Front militiamen he had seen ever since they had marched out of the Ruhr.


For a moment Ernst wondered if Paul Levi had somehow known he would be here, before trying to look for a way to get out before the fireworks began.

“There they are,” Goering snarled. Ernst turned back and realised that the blackshirt had regained his composure for the moment.


“The Marxist scum, the drunken and mentally ill parasites who dangle from the Jews' wires in order to please their masters in Moscow. We are not intimidated by your theatrics, come over here and face us!”


The Red Front advanced, seemingly at Goering’s beckoning, many of them grinning with bloodlust, others defiant, some seemingly rather uneasy, all chanting the Marsch der Antifaschisten together as the Blackshirts closed ranks and the onlookers fled, Ernst among them.


“This isn’t somewhere you want to be,” he shouted to the girl over Goering’s rants and the anti-fascist chorus but as he attempted to grab her hand she flung him off with a glare and raised the camera to her eye. Apparently she did want to be here after all.


The Red Front began to charge, Ernst realised that choice had been made for him as well.

---

The photomontage is The Face of Fascism by George Grosz.

 

[The Red]

"Man and fascism cannot co-exist. If fascism conquers, man will cease to exist and there will remain only man-like creatures that have undergone an internal transformation. But if man, man who is endowed with reason and kindness, should conquer, then Fascism must perish, and those who have submitted to it will once again become people."

~ Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

​

A stahlrute is a device made up of telescoping springs encased in a metal shell, each layered within the other, allowing a cigar shaped object concealed within a fist to become a baton with the flick of a wrist. For the wielder’s opponent, this usually isn’t long enough to cover one’s face or ones legs or any part of the human anatomy for that matter.

In the Berlin stadtpark, this example was playing out again and again and again.

The triumphalism of the Volkisch Bund rally and the bravado of their cause had been torn apart by the sudden clash between Red Front and Blackshirt. Heinrich Himmler had been preparing for this battle ever since he was a teenager, ready to defend Germany from enemies within and without, but he hadn’t expect this glorious stand to be taking place in a park, nor to see his comrades be swatted down on all sides by the batons of the Red Front. For a split second he tried to calculate how many actual veterans there were in the ranks of the Volkisch Bund, and how many of their Red Front assailants might have fought against the French.

The conclusions he came to made it evident that it was time for him to run.

Himmler noticed that Goering, the lead speaker for what had been meant to be another successful event, had made a similar calculation. He was still standing on the assembled stage, moving to and fro as several blackshirts and a handful of confused police attempted to prevent the communist militia from joining them. He was blowing a whistle over and over again and motioning to the assembled trucks at the edge of the park. The noise was piercing and caused Himmler to wince, it was the signal for the trucks to come to their rescue as quickly as possible. The war hero had been full of bravado a few moments beforehand, and his spirit had been infectious. Now both men had realised how outnumbered they were, even as the assorted ranks they had proudly led into the park fought a losing battle.


---


Johann kicked the gibbering mess in front of him one last time before narrowly avoiding getting thrown to the ground himself by another fascist. The man’s arms were still hugged around him as he struggled to keep his posture before trying to inflict as much pain as possible on his opponent until he yielded to fend off the blows from the stahlrute with his arms. This entire battle had been ordered from the top, and the point was to inflict a defeat so humiliating on the fascists that their movement would never be able to recover.

Most of Johann’s comrades had been enthusiastic about the chance to finally flex their muscles after being reined in so long, but he saw it far more as a job that had to be done. This wasn’t violence for the sake of violence after all.

“Knock them out, make sure they’re down, and keeping moving forward. We will finish off this rabble once their leaders are on the floor.”

The voice beckoning the protracted chaos further towards Goering and the other leading fascists was that of Eric Mielke. The man was a relative newcomer to the Red Front, but his enthusiasm for cracking skulls had apparently made him a lead candidate for this sort of job, one that Johann couldn’t help but feel was rather uncharacteristic of the Zentrale to order after years of keeping their powder dry and playing along with the Weimar game.

Apparently the time had come to finally show their strength.

---

The thuds and screams had begun to contort into noises of bone cracking and the sickly smacking sound of batons hitting against open wounds. It was a symphony that most would rather avoid hearing, if it wasn't so important to retain control of one’s senses.

Ernst thanked God for having survived the initial charge. He didn’t believe in such a being, but he was too exasperated to care all that much.

The hurricane of violence taking place around him had seemingly left non-participants in the eye of the storm for now. He would almost have credited the KPD with some tact if he hadn’t just seen them turn central Berlin into a battlefield. All the same he realised that being an SPD deputy was likely a worse crime than being a blackshirt in the eyes of many of these men. He hoped he wouldn’t be recognised by either side, it was a feeling that hadn’t been as visceral since the Freikorps had taken over Berlin in 1920, as the Red Front thugs continued to lay into their fascist contemporaries. Amidst the violence, the pretty brunette he had tried to help get out of the scene continued to take photographs, as if she was enraptured in the scene.

---

It wasn’t that Eva Braun didn’t know fear, it was more that something inside of her responded to it as if it were the most ambrosial feeling one could have. Power had its charms as well of course, but where was the thrill when it didn’t exhibit itself? The chaos that was unfolding was power being ripped to shreds and then reformed on the basis of a blood soaked weapon held in a shaking fist, surely that was true bliss?

These were mere subconscious urges, irrational and unfathomable, but they led her on to record the scene capriciously, already she was trying to work out what newspaper might buy them and how she would explain to her boss that there was a missing roll of film from the new Leica that she had borrowed. It was these less pressing concerns that put her mind off of the fact she was grinning as two men with red armbands bludgeoned a blackshirt half to death right in front of her before striding past her like they were late for a tram. The stage where a panicked Hermann Goering and several others still stood appeared to be their target. The lithe airman blew over and over again on a whistle, apparently unwilling to take part in the violence. Eva wouldn’t have been able to explain it, but she suddenly couldn’t help but wish to see him pulled from the stage and receive the same treatment that was being dealt to so many of those in the same uniform.

Eva prepared her camera in anticipation, only to see a truck charge through the park at great speed, causing bystanders and combatants alike to dive out of the way as it screeched up next to the besieged stage, throwing mud and freshly ground up cud over everyone nearby. Eva kept on snapping at the pilot who jumped onto the truck as if he were getting into a cockpit, and blew again on his whistle for the driver to move.

It was at this moment she felt herself being flung to the ground.

---

Heinrich Himmler wasn’t a man you wanted to leave behind. At least that was the impression the blackshirt was trying to build. Goering seemingly hadn’t got that message just yet, and he found himself yelling for the truck to wait for him. Channelling the same Aryan strength that had enabled him to conquer the bronze medal for the hundred metre sprint at the 1928 Association of the German Farmers Associations Sports Feier, he surged towards salvation, avoiding Red Front blows as he went, ignoring the shouts of his fellow Blackshirts, effortlessly brushing aside the woman obstructing his path-

A sharp object stabbed him into the lower thigh of his left leg, causing his lower body to turn to jelly and bring him crashing to the ground in a fit of bewilderment.

“There he is! He’s one of the leaders! I’m a journalist comrades, I know that he’s their leader!” A woman’s voice shrieked, Himmler looked in her direction and noticed that she was also on the ground. The one that had been in his way. Her scowl was full of venom, clear as day despite her face being covered in mud and a mess of dirty brown hair. An accusatory finger pointed at him, the Blackshirt “leader”, as the broken stiletto on her right shoe pointed to the sky. It was not long before the Red Front members he had evaded were converging on him. Apparently believing that they had bagged some sort of leader after all.


It was at this point that Heinrich Himmler wondered whether being important had really been a worthwhile goal in life.


---

Life and Fate is a brilliant book and I'd recommend you all read it.

The Antifa logo was originally designed by Max Gebhard and Max Keilson.

​

 

[The Red]

"There's twenty-two singers!
But one microphone,
Back in the garage!"

~ The Clash

​

The Red Front safe house was an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Berlin, as the economy continued to crumble such places had easier to find even as the paramilitary force grew larger and larger seemingly every day.


Johann wondered how yesterday’s battle might affect that recruitment.


A disused factory meant that there was more than enough space to fit all those who had opted to lay low in the event of a police crackdown. Many grinned jovially amongst the black eyes and broken teeth that they received from the state park riot, warm in the knowledge that their opponents had been dealt much worse.

“Hitler’s willing hangmen were happy to maim and murder the men, women, and children whose only crime was a love for Germany in these trying times.”

Laughter burst out at the Comrade reading out the story in an hysterical, high pitched voice, Eric Mielke seemed to be delighting in the panic amongst the German press he had helped to create. Now he was passing the time reading out the most hyperbolic headlines from the morning papers.

Die Rote Fahne, the paper of the Communist Party, had barely mentioned the scuffle, but the German press had otherwise been all over the story in a predatory fashion. Many within the present company were happy to hear the condemnations read out loud in mocking fashion. These articles were not designed for the working class of course and thus the Red Front didn’t need to care about what they thought

Johann could not help but feel as though their bravado was gained more in the exclamations of the capitalist press barons who had taken offence rather than the fascists they had dispatched. He was well aware of such feelings, they were the type that had caused him to crash planes trying fancy tricks against the Freikorps in the Ruhr. All the same, he did not feel it right to stop the revelry, they had done as they had been ordered to do, and Johann had followed Hitler’s orders ever since the insurgency against the French back in 1924. He could understand the triumphalism.

The laughter amongst the group was brought to a swift halt by the screech of the entry door being dragged open. Johann and his comrades arose from the concrete blocks that acted as their seats to see a shadowed figure appear from outside, his face silhouetted from the light shining in.

A moment later the soldiers of the Red Front snapped to attention with their left fists in the air. It was not every day the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Germany came to visit their little hidey hole. It was only as he got closer that it became clear that this was not a surprise courtesy call.


Johann couldn’t help but notice that the General Secretary was unshaven, his signature grey suit thrown on without the red cloth tied around his left arm. There was a newspaper clenched in his shaking fist. Adolf Hitler was seething.


Johann and the others stood frozen, waiting to be told to relax, but instead Hitler merely threw the paper to the the ground. A Hugenberg tabloid, just like the one that they had been making fun of in the moment that seemed it could have been a century ago.


“Why did I have to hear that the militant wing of the Communist Party undertook a major operation from A. CAPITALIST. RAG.” It was more of an outburst than a question, but Johann tried to avoid eye contact all the same.


“Who deemed themselves worthy to give orders to the organisation I crafted out of the worker’s sacrifice in the Ruhr? WHO?!” This time there was a question, with added venom, and Johann noticed that Mielke, the young enthusiast, had been chosen to be on the receiving end.


“The Zer-the Zentrale, the order came from the Zentrale, we were told you had given the go-ahead.” Johann realised that the tough street fighter who had happily led the charge against the fascists had suddenly been turned into a quivering schoolboy.


“There was no such order,” Hitler snarled in retort, “you are trying to cover up this mess with vague answers but it won’t work.”


“General Secretary, this is the truth, I was given the order by the Party President himself. He said that you had convinced the Zentrale that the time had come to start clearing the streets of the Blackshirts.” Mielke’s pleading voice sounded surprisingly similar to the one of feigned hysteria he had put on when reading the article condemning their assault on the Volkisch Bund, however there was a sincerity to it now, one that appeared to make Hitler pause for thought rather than continue to make accusations.


“You got your orders from the Party President?” He mumbled, anxiously scratching at his unshaven face.


“Yes, General Secretary.”


Something appeared to click in Adolf Hitler’s mind, with a dawn of realisation in his eyes that he had been betrayed. It seemed now that his vaunted relationship with Ernst Thalmann was no longer as strong as it had once been. Together they had removed the incompetents, the sectarians and the zealots from the KPD, now it seemed as if Hitler’s ally had decided that he could no longer share power.


Hitler turned and began to head towards the door, seemingly lost in his thoughts,


“General Secretary?”


This comment gave Hitler pause, but only momentarily, as he swung round again with the same manic expression.


“No, Leader. From now on you will all address me as leader. That way there will be no further mistakes. You will never listen to an order that this not directly from me ever again. If someone attempts to say that I have given approval you will consult me. If anyone gives you an order otherwise, you will report it. To. Me.” Hitler shot daggers towards Mielke.


“Jawohl, mein Fuhrer.” He shouted, Hitler seemed satisfied with the response. The man who had christened himself leader walked back out into the sunlight, leaving his comrades in the shadows once again.


This time they waited for him to leave before turning to Johann,


“You’ve known him the longest, what the hell was that all about?”


Johann looked around all of his new comrades, unable to calculate how to reassure them or give them any explanation. All that he could do was shrug.


“I think we’ve just been part of a coup.”


---


Clash song here.

The painting is Glad to be Back by George Grosz

 

[The Red]

History does not pamper the proletariat.

~ Rosa Luxemburg​

The time had come once more when it was no longer safe to be a Communist in Berlin.

The violent clashes between the Red Front and the Blackshirts had provoked an official position that was akin to hysteria in its aftermath. The police response to the riot had begun in earnest a few hours after the dust had settled around the park that had so recently been covered in blood and broken bodies. More violence was now being perpetuated throughout the city in a fashion so extensive that made Gerda sure that someone had been waiting for this opportunity to round-up Berlin’s Communists. She kept her head down with her eyes straight ahead, just as she had when the Freikorps had rampaged throughout the city, and held her daughter close as walked hurriedly through the streets towards a way out.

The pleasant Berlin evening was being disturbed by the screech of police whistles and the clamour of their wagons all over the city as they went out of their way to find the perpetrators of anti-fascist violence in the city. The police had been humiliated by their inability to keep order during the Stadtpark riot that day and now they were exacting vengeance. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that most members of the Red Front had the foresight to retreat to a safehouse rather than go to their address, it had quickly become a frustrating task for the police, frustrations that they took out on the families of the missing men, and anyone on the street who looked like they might have a Communist affiliation.

Gerda heard a distressed cry behind her and quickened her pace in the hope that their train still hadn’t left Potsdamer Platz, pulling her daughter by the hand all the while. A few hours beforehand she had wondered why she had to go out of Berlin at all, the call had come at an unsavoury hour for a single mother and the warnings of mass arrests of communists in Berlin hadn’t helped her to find someone to look after her daughter whilst she attended. All the same, she didn’t want Rosa to be in the city for the duration of the backlash, and was glad for the excuse to go to Hamburg with her.

“Does this mean I won’t be going to school tomorrow?”

Gerda couldn’t help but smile at her daughter’s hopeful tone. When she had grown up on her parent’s farm school hadn’t been something that was meant for girls, a fact she had tried to remind Rosa of whenever she had complained about how strict her teachers were or how much homework she had. Her daughter was a reminder to Gerdda of the progress that German women had made since she was a girl, even if Gerda had dressed as an old maid regardless. Her new woman attire didn’t feel correct in the climate, and her fear of arousing suspicion made her dress as matronly as possible, as if she were taking Rosa to an impromptu Christening. Working for the Communist Party meant repeated rendezvous with the police and if any were to spot her she might end up in a cell, but she was taking the risk anyway. Why would she hide when she could fulfill a crucial task in the name of getting the party one step closer to power?

The riots Hitler had brought about were the basis for her trip, not to flee Berlin but to do the party a favour instead. Gerda’s hopes that Thalmann would one day see that Hitler was unstable had come true but the timing had been awful and now that she was on the train she was keen to go through the documents that she had been asked to bring to an impromptu meeting in Hamburg to discuss the question of Hitler’s continuing role as General Secretary. She scanned through the documents, expecting that there would be some new information had discovered that had caused him to change his mind about Hitler, or perhaps even something he had had waiting for an opportune moment in case the time ever came to eject Hitler. In her frustration she lit a cigarette, and reopened her notebook to try and she if there was anything she might have missed. Comparing her own notes with the documents she had been ordered to bring, it seemed that the crux of the issues with Hitler were just her own misgivings typed up. She wondered if the case against Hitler would be strong enough based on her own opinions, or perhaps if his recent behaviour was simply damning in itself. It was a thought that gave her pause, before stomping boots brought her back to reality.

Gerda held her breath as the ticket inspector went through the carriage checking tickets, he was not escorted by any police, but he was nonetheless a man in uniform,
Rosa fidgeted uncomfortably, seemingly aware of her mother's alarm. The two remained silent as the inspector vacantly checked their tickets with a grunt of acknowledgement.

"Why were you afraid of that man?" Rosa whispered

"He might have been an agent of the state, it's always important to be careful when you're part of the workers movement."

"Is it safer for workers in Hamburg?"

Gerda noticed a policeman wandering up the platform before the train announced its departure with a heavy shunt. She inhaled deeply before breathing a sigh of relief.

"I hope so."


---

The painting is Hamburg Wharf Worker by Heinrich Vogeler.