Social Democracy and the Working Class: In Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany by Stefan Berger

Author:Stefan Berger [Berger, Stefan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe
ISBN: 9781317885764
Google: RGnJAwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 14777603
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1999-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Social Democracy under Conditions of Illegality, 1933–1989

On 23 March 1933 pandemonium reigned outside the Reichstag – with SA units roaring, howling, and threatening the 94 SPD members of parliament who had come to vote against Hitler’s Enabling Law1 – not knowing whether they would be able to get to parliament or leave alive. They had been warned beforehand not to attend the session. Inside the chamber they were encircled by armed SS men. When Otto Wels, chairman of the SPD, stood up and walked to the lectern, he knew that his speech would not prevent the adoption of the law. The Catholic Centre Party, for so long the democratic ally of Social Democracy in the Weimar Republic, had struck a deal with the devil: they would vote for the law in return for promises by the Nazis that they would respect and tolerate organised Catholicism. As the Communist members of parliament were already in concentration camps or in hiding, Social Democracy was the only political force left in the Reichstag which defied the Nazis’ demand for total power in the state:

Ladies and Gentlemen! The foreign policy demands made by the Herr Reichskanzler for the full equality of Germany are supported by us Social Democrats, all the more so as we have always made similar demands. I may be allowed the personal remark that I was the first German to counter the lie about Germany’s war-guilt before an international audience at the Berne Conference on 3 February 1919. There has never been any basic principle which hindered our party from representing the just demands of the German nation vis-à-vis other nations or peoples of the world…. An unjust peace has never been able to lay the foundations for stable foreign and domestic policies. It does not sustain a true people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft) which needs, above all, equal rights at home and abroad. A government may protect itself against the worst lies, it may use all necessary force to prevent violence, but it has to do so on every occasion and without taking sides. And it has to do so without treating defeated opponents as if they were outlaws. You can rob us of our freedom and you can even kill us, but you cannot take away our honour. Following the recent wave of persecution which Social Democrats have suffered, no one can reasonably demand or expect that the party votes in favour of this Enabling Law. The elections of 5 March have brought a majority to the governing parties and have thus opened up the opportunity to govern strictly according to the letter and meaning of the constitution. Such an opportunity also means responsibility…. Never before, since the German parliament came into existence, have elected representatives of the people been so massively excluded from exercising any control over public affairs as now and as will come to be the case still more thanks to the new Enabling Law. The consequences of giving such total power to the government will be all the more grave as the press also lacks any degree of freedom….

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