by Merilyn Moos
Born in 1881, a building worker from the Sudetenland, with its profound mix of languages, national identities and cultures, he was an active SPD trade-unionist, He joined the Spartacus group, then the USPD in 1917, subsequently the KPD. He crucially supported Paul Levi, a long-time associate of the recently murdered Rosa Luxemburg, who had pushed a decision through the KPD’s October 1919 congress that all members had to take part in parliamentary elections and fight the union bureaucracy from inside the trade unions. The left wing could never be expected to accept this; indeed, the KPD quickly lost about half of its hundred thousand members. In 1920, the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany (KAPD) was founded in opposition to the KPD, initially drawing significant support among workers, but it did not flourish.
Brandler organised and subsequently chaired the election of workers councils in Chemnitz after the Kapp Putsch, a crucial activity in the Putsch’s defeat, and then started to develop his theme of the workers’ united front, a position with which he continues to be closely associated. He was elected to the CC in 1920 and took over from Levi as Chair in 1921 and assumed Party leadership during the March action. (Levi who saw himself as the heir to Luxemburg and had been the main spokesperson of the ‘right’, had already been expelled for breach of party discipline following his public criticism of the 1921 March Action and is seen by some as the leader who never was.) He called off the planned insurrection of 1923 at the Chemnitz Conference, after the Social Democrats retreated, and was subsequently held responsible for the defeat of the 1923 uprising.
From 1920 onwards, the Party was decimated by a series of splits and splinter groups but the failure of the 1923 uprising created divisions which were never resolved (Broué, 2004:964, van der Linden, 2004). Brandler (and Thaelheimer), critical of the bureaucratic nature and some of the policies of the KPD, founded the KPDO (or KPO) in late 1928 and, along with hundreds others, were expelled in 1929. It aimed to change the politics of the KPD, not to rival it. Brandler strongly favoured the immediate establishment of a united front against Nazism (something which would alone have appealed to Siegi and Lotte) to include trade-union and Social Democratic leaders as well as the rank and file.
Brandler fled early in 1933 and wandered the earth, finally returning to Germany in 1949, where he founded his own group ‘Arbeiterpolitik’ in Hamburg. He died in 1967.
56. There were exceptions to this, as LaPorte (2002) shows in parts of Saxony. Local communist support for the ‘united front’ policy was actually reinforced by the local ideological traditions of a radicalised SPD. The local KPD organisation had grown out of the Spartacus Bund and remained loyal to the early party leadership’s policy of working for revolution within the wider workers’ movement, above all at local level; a factor easing the political defection of radicalised Social Democrats. It even contributed to support for the ‘class war group’ around Max Seydewitz, Kurt Rosenfeld and, later, the former KPD chairman, Paul Levi. Those in the KPD who were still campaigning locally for united action, were already running up against the KPD’s CC’s ‘social fascist’ line. Although both party leaderships aimed to hold their distance at an official party level, their mutual belief in grass-roots ‘proletarian solidarity’ contributed to the local climate of viewing the other wing of the workers’ movement as misled class brothers to be won over. But in many districts in Saxony, the SPD closed the door on united front collaboration.
57. The statistics on meetings gives a bitter insight into what was happening on the ground: Nazi meetings in Greater Leipzig increased from 1,157 in 1931 to 2,386 in 1932; meetings held by the SPD, and its affiliated organisations, increased from 240 to 1056; meetings held by the KPD, and its auxiliary organisations rose from 695 to 1,575 (LaPorte, 2002).
58. In the Erzgebirge-Vogtland district of Saxony, left-wing activists were frequently members of the SAP who were strong in the textile industry. The SAP had absorbed the SPD’s membership and many KPD members attended SAP meetings-indeed there were no KPD local group This situation encouraged the local KPD to approach both the SAP and SPD for joint anti-Nazi collaboration. The KPD on the other hand failed to pull SPDers to it. At a regional KPD Conference in June 1932, from 264 delegates only three were members of the SPD, two were Reichsbanner members, five were in the SAP and three belonged to the SJV; one unemployed Nazi worker represented the other prong of Communist tactics. The fear of genuine co-operation became so acute that the local KPD leadership instructed local groups to end their discussions with the KPD (O) and the SAP and to concentrate on ‘unmasking’ the SPD leadership (LaPorte, 2002).
59. Ernst Thaelmannn, 1886-1944, came into KPD via the Hamburg USPD, where he played an important role in the 1923 uprising. Member of the CC from 1923 and president of the KPD after Fischer and Maslow pushed out. Arrested in March 1933, he was sent to Buchenwald where he was executed in August 1944 (Broué, 2005).
60. Hermann Remmele, 1880-1939, came into the KPD via the USPD; as a youth, in the SPD. In 1920, he was elected onto the CC, and played an important role in preparing for the insurrection in 1923, with some responsibility for the Hamburg rising. He supported the Centre tendency, then the Thaelmann faction, then opposed him. He fled to Moscow in 1933 where he ‘disappeared’ (Broué, 2005).
61. The bitter disputes about tactics in the CC culminated in the removal of two members of the three-man Secretariat, Neumann and Remmele, in the course of 1932(LaPorte 2002, from Weber).
62. Manuilsky’s report to the Executive of the Communist Youth International, February 1933 is a ‘good example’ of the social fascist line and I quote it as some length as an example:
‘That in a series of countries fascism is based on the petti-bourgeoisie cannot change the fundamental fact that it is an agency of monopoly capitalism. Every political party, whatever it may say about itself, is, inasmuch as it stands on the ground of capitalism, a party of bourgeois dictatorship, independently of whether it stands for the fascist or parliamentary form of this dictatorship. In fact social democracy is now a party whose whole post-war history shows that it is for the preservation of capitalism….To many social-democratic workers it still seems unjustified for us Communists to call social democracy a party of social fascism. But this characterisation does not contain the slightest shade of polemical exaggeration. It is a simple observation of a historical fact in the general evolution of social democracy. If the general tendencies of development of monopoly capitalism in the epoch of general crisis lead to fascistisation, i.e. to the suppression of the gains of the working class and the sharpening of terror methods, so it is quite impossible for a party, which has in practice renounced proletarian revolution and hence stands on the ground of capitalism, to do other than go along with the whole evolution of capitalism. (My thanks to Harald Marpe for drawing this quote to my attention and Ian Birchall for translating it).
Even at the end of 1933, Pieck was saying: “Germany is marching towards the proletarian revolution” and that the undefeated working class which would gain strength again. The Nazis had gained power only because the communist lost the majority of the working class through the policy of the social democrats.” (Beide Zitate nach Peter Lübbe: Kommunismus und Sozialdemokratie, J.H.W. Dietz Nachf., Berlin/Bonn 1978, S. 141. I wish to thank H. Marpe for the source provided by H. Marpe.)
Chapter 5
1928 - 1933 Resistance
It is difficult to follow all of Siegi’s activities during this period, not least because much of it was ‘underground’. But there will be an attempt to consider the three main areas of his activities in the movement: the Red Front, the Proletarian Freethinkers, and his considerable role in the agit-prop movement up till 1933. Each will be considered separately but will also be set against the politics of the KPD at the time. The section on agit-prop will include a discussion of Siegi’s significant theoretical writing on the nature of revolutionary agit prop and his work with the composer Stefan Wolpe. The three areas of his political work were interconnected, both in that Siegi in all
cases was representing KPD policy at some level, but also because Siegi himself embodied the connection between these different areas of work. The final section of this chapter: ‘Going underground’, will consider why Siegi fled in February 1933, within the context of KPD’s strategy, and why he finally came to the UK. The first section however will focus on May 1, 1929, the day which sealed the Third Period position as well as the relationship between my parents.
First, a quick overview of what was happening in the Reichstag between 1929-33 provides a useful guide to the parliamentary decline of democratic practices and the rise of the NSDAP. By 1928, the Nazis had only gained 12 seats, but, with unemployment again rising, in 1931, they had 107 seats, the second largest party. In the 1930 elections, the Nazis received 18.3%, the KPD 13.1% against the 24.5 for the SDP, the largest vote; in the presidential election of March 1932, Hindenburg got 49.6%, Hitler 30.1%, Thälmann 13.2; by July 1932, in the Reichstag elections, National Socialists got 37.4%, Social Democratic 21.6%, KPD 14.6% (marxists.org/archive).
Between the summer of 1930 and February 1932, the Reichstag was no longer functioning: it was in session for merely about 10 weeks, otherwise Weimar was ruled by emergency decree (Hobsbawm, 2002 op.cit). Brüning, the Chancellor from 1930 to 32, introduced what he called ‘authoritative democracy’, i.e. rule by Presidential decree; his policy of savage wage and welfare cuts combined with rising prices and unemployment, contributed to his fall. The ultra-right von Papen who had conspired to get rid of Brüning, briefly became Chancellor, but in those few months, pushed wide open the door to Hitler: he tried to form a pact with Hitler, repealed Brüning’s (far from implemented) ban on the SA and overthrew the Social Democratic Prussian government. Against a background of the Nazis picking up an ever increasing percentage of the vote in the three elections in 1932 (see earlier endnote), Hindenburg, the President, fired von Papen and brought in von Schleiser on the basis of forming a coalition with Hitler. This was the tumultuous background which Siegi was operating against.
May 1 1929
The demonstration of May 1st marks the beginning of Siegi’s relationship with Lotte as well as being a defining moment in the KPD’s policy towards Social Democrats and a political turning point for Germany (as well as forming my own politics).
In December 1928, the police chief, Karl Zörgiebel, a Social Democrat, banned all public demonstrations and then renewed the ban specifically for the 1929 May Day demonstrations, asking the trade unions to abstain from public demonstrations and to organise only indoor meetings. Unlike the Social Democrats, the Communists, however, decided to challenge the ban and to demonstrate on the streets. Significantly, the KPD leadership was reticent to challenge the SPD Police chief and hesitated before endorsing this move, but in a sign of what was to come, gave way to their members and local demand to go ahead with the march (Rosenhalt, 1983: 33). The police mounted a deliberate and violent attack, using their guns indiscriminately.
Both Siegi and Lotte were on the demonstration. Lotte often told me that the gutters ran with blood. It was a story which ran through my blood from a very early age.
The next day, barricades went up in working class parts of Berlin. For days, fighting broke out over much of the ‘communist’ working class areas of Berlin (Rosenhaft, 1983: 33). The RFB were at the forefront of the action locally (to be discussed later in this chapter), giving rise to a fear amongst the Party centre that they were losing control (Rosenhaft, 1983: 33). It took the police three days to restore order.
There is not a fine agreement on figures: Rosenhaft (1983:33) states there were thirty people dead, all of them demonstrators; 200 wounded; 1,200 people arrested. But LaPorte (2002) argues of the 33 dead and some 160 wounded, only one was a Communist, two were Social Democrats, while the vast majority were residents, even passers-by, who were not involved in the events organised by the KPD. But the precise figures hardly matter.
The KPD’s ambivalence to violence at this point is exemplified by their refusal to distribute arms, which the insurgents blamed them for, and indeed for their attempt to stop the action completely (Rosenhaft, 1983: 33). LaPorte (2002) tells a complimentary story: The ‘Class War’ group in the Saxon SPD, which advocated ‘proletarian unity’ wrote about the role of the KPD leadership:
There can be no doubt that the KPD leadership has heavy responsibility for this loss of blood. The workers were almost led into police fire. To the KPD’s Zentrale it was irrelevant whether people died or not. For them it was only about creating facts from which their poisoned agitation against the SPD could be supplied with new poison. […] The events of May Day in Berlin have filled the gulf between Social Democrats and Parteikommunisten with workers’ blood. The fissure in the working class is even greater than before. (LaPorte, 2002, quoting from K. Rosenfeld, ‘Berliner Blutmai’, in Klassenkampf, 3 (10) (15.5.1929), 292–3.)
May 1st was turned into a powerful symbol by the KPD but this lengthy quote from the time reveals how far these bloody events could be interpreted as damning the KPD, a position I strongly suspect Lotte held.
The Social Democrats were blamed for the slaughter on May 1st, indeed the onslaught on the May 1st demonstrators was turned by the KPD into an unassailable reason for its third Period line, and these factors all combined: the Communist leadership and sections of the rank-and-file wanting nothing more to do with the Social Democrats.63 The CC also used the defeat as a reason to eliminate opposition to the third period line.
1929 was an extension of the earlier events in Germany: the left who had been crushed during the different attempts at revolution not that many years earlier (1918 and 1923), became remobilised. But it was also a prelude to what was to come. For all the KPD leadership’s talk of social fascists, if one observes what is happening on the ground from then on, the rank and file of the Communist party generally saw the SA and the Nazis as their prime enemy, not the Social Democrats. Frequent street battles occurred in the period from 1929-1932, in which the Communist street fighters succeeded in killing some hundreds of Nazis and injuring many more (for all the good this did).
The slaughter on May 1st had one personal and beneficial outcome. Both Lotte and Siegi were on the demonstration. Siegi had been in Berlin for about eight months, and he and Lotte had met at an agit-prop performance (she was acting, Siegi directing). Lotte told me that she had become separated from Siegi. Indeed, as Siegi was a member of the RFB (see below), which played the leading role in confronting the police and the SA, Lotte had good cause for concern. Terrified that he had been hurt or even killed, she realised that she loved him. They seemed to have lived together from then on, getting married in October 1932, because, according to Lotte, they might need to flee. (Siegi was late for his wedding, one of the few stories Lotte regularly recounted).
Their concern about the need to plan for the possibility of flight from Germany was well founded. The Red Front was already illegal, followed soon after by the Proletarian Freethinkers (see later section). One month after their marriage, in November 1932, Siegi appears in a KPD list of “illegals”.
Rotfrontkämpferbund (RFB)
Earlier on, maybe as soon as Siegi, aged roughly 24, arrived in Berlin, he had joined the Rotfrontkämpferbund, which will now be referred to either as the RFB or the Red Front. My mother, when already very old, had mentioned Siegi’s involvement in the Red Front. She told me sardonically how the Red Front went off to the woods to practice shooting and that my father had a gun but was a useless shot, shrugging in the way only she knew how, which said more loudly than any words, that they had not been successful. Gestapo papers corroborated Siegi’s membership (kindly sent me by Dr Weber, from the archives on the SS) which showed that Siegi lost his German citizenship at least partly, according to the SS, because of ‘improper conduct’, associated with his membership of the RFB.
I have no definite clues as to why he became involved in an organisation, as will be discussed, which, after 1929, was primarily based on the ‘local community’ activel
y resisting (or defending) the SA’s intrusions into their area. I have no knowledge of what local group Siegi was attached to - he was living around Mitte at the time, as now an area of students and ‘bohemians’, though in the 1930s, probably with a higher Jewish constituency as it is near the main Berlin Synagogue.
How far the RFB changed from its offensive character prior to May 1929, and became an essentially defensive organisation is reflected rather than focused on here, but certainly it was not just my mother who saw 1929 as the point when the RFB turned away from its initial purpose of providing the ‘shock troops’ in a revolutionary situation. As the concern here is with 1929 onwards, the RFB was already entering its more defensive period.
The significance of the RFB is not usually appreciated – it was the primary local defence against Nazi thugs and, unlike the CC, it was operating on the ground where changes in Party line made little or no difference to daily experience. Moreover, though my father was almost certainly representing the KPD in his Red Front ‘unit’, the KPD regularly if not consistently distanced itself from the RFB and more profoundly, did not see the fight against the Nazis as the primary - and sometimes even secondary-issue (as discussed earlier). My suspicion as to why Siegi, actually an unlikely Red Front activist given his background and age, became involved in this group was that he had witnessed (or more) the early strutting of the Nazis in Bavaria. I have no further detail about Siegi’s role in the Red Front so the following section will consider this organisation in general and then draw out some probable implications for Siegi.