Communism in Germany

The Truth about the Communist Conspiracy on the Eve of the National Revolution

By Adolf Ehrt

Published by the

General League of German Anti-Communist Associations

All rights reserved

The illustration on the front page of the cover was designed by Hans Martin Tibor, Leipzig, from original photographs.

Copyright 1933 by Eckart-Verlag, Berlin. Printed by Gebrüder Feyl, Berlin, Germany.

ment for the second

Why Americans Should Read This Book

The question of Communist propaganda and activities is of immediate importance to the American people in view of the consideration now being given to the question of recognition of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics by the Government of the United States.

Here is a challenging book, It should be read by every thoughtful citizen because it presents the history of the life and death struggle Germany has been waging against Communism. It reveals that the subversive methods and the destructive objectives of the Communists in Germany are the same as are employed in the United States by those enemies of civilized nations.

This book is not a defense of anti-Semitism nor is it a defense of the principles or measures of the Hitler Government. The bitter opposition of many to some phases of the Nazi domestic program should not blind us to the reality of the Communistic threats.

The value of this German exposé as an object lesson to other countries has led our committee to place it in the hands of leaders of public opinion throughout the United States.

The lessons to be gathered from this book, "Communism in Germany," should lead our citizens to demand more effective measures of defense for our system of government, and our moral and social standards.

Walter C. Cole
John Ross Delafield
Ralph M. Easley
Hamilton Fish, Jr.
Elon Huntington Hooker
F. O. Johnson

HARRY A. JUNG
SAMUEL MCROBERTS
C. G. NORMAN
ELLIS SEARLES
WALTER S. STEELE
ARCHIBALD E. STEVENSON
JOHN B. TREVOR
JOSIAH A. VAN ORSDEL

For the American Section of the International Committee to Combat the World Menace of Communism.

Contents

Preface

In the following pages we lay before the English-speaking public of the world a chapter from the recent history of Germany which has rightly attracted the attention of all civilized nations.

From the description in this brochure the reader will clearly realize what an important development in world history has occurred in Germany. In was in view of the key position between East and West occupied by Germany in the fight waged by Bolshevism against the civilized nations that the Moscow Third Communist Internationale wished that the decisive battle in the world revolution should be fought on Germany soil.

The lasting merit of the German National Revolution will be that it saved the world from Bolshevist chaos.

The revelations regarding the attempted Communist insurrection on the eve of the National Revolution will cause a considerable sensation. It must therefore be expressly stated that the description of the Bolshevistic conspiracy, of high treason and treason to the State, of the organized terrorization of the masses and of the plan for a rising is based exclusively on official material, of which the reliability is beyond all doubt. The General League of German Anti-Communist Associations will make the original material available for seriously interested students of public affairs. We desire to take this opportunity of expressing our special thanks to all the officials of the Reich and the Federal States who have permitted the author to examine the pertinent material.

The present work serves the purposes of nothing but the search for the truth; it avoids generalizations and exaggerations. The idea was to provide a pamphlet for the masses of the population written in an impartial and scientific spirit which will serve as the unshakeable foundation for the judgement of history. This pamphlet does not deal with the special matters connected with the burning of the Reichstag in order not to prejudice the case.

We are informed that it is intended to publish an official collection of the judgements of the Supreme Court in connection with the Communist conspiracy. It is to be hoped that the General League will be able to exhibit these documents in an Anti-Communist Museum which is shortly to be established in Berlin. By means of this and other works and publications the General League will be able to enlighten the German nation and international public opinion with regard to the real aims and doings of the Communist Internationale and to invite attention to the terrible danger which it represents for all nations.

General League
of German Anti-Communist Associations
Europa House, Berlin

"At the beginning of this year there were weeks when we were within a hair's breadth of Bolshevist chaos."

Chancellor Adolf Hitler in his Proclamation of the 1st September 1933

I. The System and History of Communism in Germany

An armed rising is not one method among others for the seizure of power by the Communist Internationale but the sole and decisive weapon in a struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The programme of the Communist Internationale which was accepted by the 6th World Congress of the Komintern in the year 1928 contains the following remarks with regard to this:—

"... When the ruling classes are disorganized, the masses in a state of revolutionary ferment, when the middle classes incline to join the proletariat and the masses have shown themselves ready to fight and make sacrifices, it is the task of the proletarian party to lead the masses in a frontal attack against the bourgeois state. This will be attained by the propagation of gradually intensified slogans (workmen's councils, control of production by the workmen, peasant committees for the forcible expropriation of the big landowners, disarmament of the bourgeoisie and arming of the proletariat, etc.) and by the organization of mass action.

Such mass action includes strikes, strikes in connection with demonstrations, strikes in connection with armed demonstrations, and, finally, the general strike combined with the armed rising against the government authority of the bourgeoisic. This highest form of the struggle follows the rules of warfare, and necessitates as a preliminary plan of campaign an offensive character in the fighting and unlimited devotion and heroism on the part of the proletariat."

It is owing to the peculiar mixture of brutality and cynicism, insane devotion to the purpose in view and ruthlessness of Bolshevism that these phrases in the Communist programme have been authoritative word by word for the entire work of disintegration pursued by the German Communist Party.

Everything undertaken by the German Communist Party and its numberless affiliated organizations acquired sense and value exclusively in so far as it could serve as a preparation for the armed rising. Whether it was a question of the sexual disintegration of the young during the nude bathing or of espionage in enterprises of military importance, whether the unemployed were encouraged to form bands to rob provision stores, or whether the church was abused and rendered despicable, or whether subversive pamphlets

(Photo Cross

Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

Photo Gircke)

were distributed in the army, or whether the peasants were encouraged to offer resistance to compulsory auctions, it was always a question of preparatory measures for the armed rising.

"The armed rising is the highest form of the political struggle of the proletariat."

Lenin, of course, never regarded the rising as an isolated act unconnected with the other features of class warfare. The rising is prepared by the entire previous struggle between the classes in any given country and represents the organic continuation of the latter. The entire activities of the revolutionary party, the fight for peace, against the imperialistic intervention in Soviet Russia, China, etc. (against the coming imperialistic war between Europe and America, etc.), against capitalistic rationalisation, for the raising of wages, for social insurance, for a higher standard of life of the proletariat as a whole, for the nationalisation of the soil, the parliamentary struggle, etc., etc., all that must be regarded from the perspective point of view of the preparation and mobilization of the masses for the highest form of struggle at the moment when the revolution is ripe — for the rising 1)".

A similar opinion was expressed by the other theoretical advocate of the armed rising, Hans Kippenberger, the well-known military leader of the German Communist Party.²)

A. Neuberg (Heinz Neumann); "Der bewaffnete Aufstand", 1928.
pp. XVII, 22.

²⁾ Alfred Langer (Hans Kippenberger); "Der Weg zum Sieg. Die Kunst des bewaffneten Aufslandes," pp. 3 aud 15.

The newspaper "Die Rote Front"

"The armed rising is the most decisive, most acute and highest form of class warfare which the proletariat must adopt at the suitable moment in every country in order to overthrow the domination of the bourgeoisie and to take the power into their own hands.

The armed rising is not a thing by itself; it is not an act isolated from the rest of class warfare, but the most acute form and the highest stage of a class warfare which becomes more acute and intense. It is only a special link in the chain of the struggles which end in the armed rising. It is not interrupted by the various partial struggles and preliminary struggles but prepared for by them. The armed forces of the revolution do not appear from nowhere by magic or at the mere command of the party but are consolidated and hardened in these struggles."

The armed rising is thus the last link in the chain of Bolshevization and the first link in the chain of civil war.

"The guiding idea of the first text: "If you wish for the victory of the armsd rising then do revolutionary mass work now" has by

The damaged Police Headquarters, March 1921.

House damaged in the Schützenstraße and Entrance to the Palace, 1919.

cowardly attacks and murder are just as practicable means as, on the other hand, music halls and tea parties, children's clubs and demonstrations, "red" sport and the study of the works of Marx and Engels.

"One must be ready to make any sacrifice and even, if necessary, to adopt all possible tricks, dodges and illegal methods for concealing the truth. . .".

This, says Lenin⁵), must be done when it appears suitable. The objective remains immovable, namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is to say of the Executive Committee of the Communist Internationale.

The history of the Communist revolutionary movement in Germany falls clearly into three parts, 1918—1923, 1924—1929, and 1930—1933.

b) Lenin: "Der Radikalismus, die Kinderkrankheit des Kommunismus," p. 42.

Die Räteherrschaft in München 1919

Karl Radek, Soviet-Propaganda Manager for Germany, Ernst Toller and Minister President Kurt Eisner.

Red Guards take hostages to prison

(Photo Hoffmann)

and the end. captured Red Guards led to judgment. (Photo Hoffmann,

The first period begins with the founding of the Spartakus League, at first as a group within the German Independent Social Democratic Party, to which the date 14. 12. 1918 can be assigned, the day of the publication of the proclamation and programme of the Spartakus League by Rosa Luxemburg in the "Rote Fahne" of that time. In that proclamation the decisive part played by the armed rising is described in unambiguous terms:—

"The struggle for Socialism is the greatest civil war in the history of the world, and the proletarian revolution must prepare the necessary arms for this civil war, learn to use them, to fight and to gain the victory." ⁶)

Hardly a month elapsed before the Spartakus League raised the banner of an armed rising in Berlin. The street fighting in January in Berlin was extremely sanguinary and could only be suppressed after days of heavy fighting by military units and artillery.

At the same time a Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Bremen while street fighting occurred in Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven.

In February 1919 Soviet Republics were proclaimed in Brunswick and Baden and had to be suppressed with great sacrifice of human life.

The general strike and the armed rising in Berlin at the beginning of March 1919 and the armed revolt at the same time in the Ruhr District are still generally remembered.

An outstanding position in the continous series of risings and fighting is occupied by the Communist revolution in Munich where, from the 7th April to the 2nd May, 1919, a Soviet Republic was set up under the leadership of the sailor Rudolf Eglhofer and the Jewish Soviet commissars Leviné, Levien and Axelrod. There was a general strike from the 14th to the 22nd April. Unter the leadership of the Communists, a red army was created and confiscations, expropriations and a telephone censorship carried out. On the 1st May began the march on "red" Munich. The street fighting lasted until the 8th May and even artillery had to be employed in order to overcome the resistance of the Communists. The number of casualties amounted to 927 dead and numberless wounded. On the last day of the Soviet rule nine Munich citizens and a woman were shot by the Communists as hostages in the courtyard of the Munich Luitpold Gymnasium. The "Commanderin-Chief" of the red army, Eglhofer, lost his life in the fighting. The spiritual father of the Munich rising, Eugen Leviné was arrested and shot on the 6th June, 1919, after a full trial.

^{6) &}quot;Was will der Spartakusbund?" quoted from the "Illustrierte Geschichte der deutschen Revolution". Internationaler Arbeiter-Verlag, Berlin 1929. p. 261.

Leviné-Nisson

M. Levien

(Photo Hoffmann)
The cellar in which the hostages were confined.

The spot where the hostages were murdered.

(Photo Hoffmann)

Incendiary placard in Falkenberg, Vogtland.

Text: If the Reichswehr comes . . . set the following buildings on fire!

Villa destroyed by Max Hölx, 1920.

The attempts of the Spartakus League who organized revolutionary risings were continued in Leipzig and Hamburg.

A year later, in March 1920, there was an attempted rising in the Ruhr District when a regular red army was also formed.

In the following month of the same year occurred the outrages committed by the notorious terrorist Max Hölz?) in the Vogtland. Numerous house-burnings, murders and acts of violence were committed by Max Hölz's bands of terrorists, and the rising could only be quelled after lengthy fighting in which troops were employed.

A year later there were again serious Communist disturbances

in Central Germany, Hamburg and the Ruhr District

In the meantime the economic and financial position of the Weimar Republic became worse owing to the unexampled inefficiency of its leaders until the inflation of the currency resulted in catastrophe in the autumn of 1923. The wave of Communist disturbances and attempted risings increased again on the same scale. In Saxony and Thuringia the German Communist Party took part in the local governments of the states. At the end of October 1923 an armed rising was attempted in Hamburg which at first led to the seizure of numerous police posts by the terrorist groups of the Communist Party and once again was only quelled after lengthy fighting.

The Hamburg rising deserves special attention because it was authoritative in later years for the theory of the armed rising, for the strategy and tactics of street-fighting and the organizing principles of the German Communist Party. The best known Communist terrorists and leaders of the civil war, Heinz Neumann alias Neuberg, Hans Kippenberger alias Alfred Langer and Burmeister alias Walter Zeutschel, derived their experience and

teachings from the Hamburg rising.

At the beginning of 1933 these teachings were to be put into practice and the mistakes formerly committed avoided. A certain element of tragic comedy is not lacking when one learns from Zeutschel's expert description how it then happened that the armed rising only broke out in Hamburg without being followed by others elsewhere.⁸)

"When it became known that the Social-Democratic Party did not wish to play the game of the Communist Party headquarters, Teddy (Thälmann), in a fit of passion, ordered the couriers to start, with the order for a rising. Immediately after the conference of the factory councils the Communist Party headquarters held a meeting to discuss

⁷⁾ For pictures of Max Hölz, see p. 375.

^*) Waller Zentschef; "Im Dienst der kommunistischen Terrororganisation" (Tscheka Arbeit in Deutschland). Berlin 1931, p. 15.

further steps. In their hearts they were all glad that the Social-Democrats had declined. Then suddenly Teddy announced that he had despatched the couriers and the news worked like a bomb. They all leapt from their seats and gazed at each other in blank amazement. Brandler was the first to recover his composure. He at once sent some of his men who were to stop the couriers. None of them had started except the man for Hamburg and the man for Mecklenburg. Their

Hans Kippenberger.

Hainz Neumann

Ernst Thälmann.

train must have started just at the moment when the messengers dashed off. But only the Hamburg man had started. The Mecklenburg man had drunk a cup of coffee in the waiting-room while waiting to start and had just come out on to the platform when the Hamburg train with which he ought to have travelled steamed out of the station. The messenger sent after him met him just as he was staring disconcertedly at the tail-lights of the train and asked him breathlessly where the Hamburg man was. 'There he goes', he replied."

It is worth noting that the agitation for a rising in Hamburg in 1923 was conducted under the same slogan of "anti-Fascism" as in 1932 and 1933. Russian Jews were again the leading persons concerned in the preparation of the rising. On this occasion they were Sobelsohn alias Karl Radek and Otto Marquardt, member of the Soviet Commercial Mission in Hamburg. The rising was preceded by numerous strikes and excesses. The reason given for the armed rising was also stated to be ten years ago the bogy of the "Counter-Revolution" which might overrun the Republic. A secret head-committee for running the rising was appointed to which the well-known communist Hugo Urbahns belonged.

Felled trees as barricades in the Hamburg-Barmbeck disturbances in 1923.

The order to strike the first blow was communicated to the terrorist groups who had been alarmed in the night from the 22nd to 23rd October. The surprise attacks on the outer posts of the Hamburg police occurred about 5 a.m. and these posts were mostly surprised and occupied, the weapons and ammunition falling into the hands of the attackers.

A single instance will give an idea of what occurred.

"In order to carry out the orders given by the heads of the Communist Party for the starting of the fighting, members of the Party in the Prussian communes of Stellingen and Lockstedt had hurried, by order given during the night, on the early morning of the 23rd October to the points of assembly indicated to them. The Lockstedt Communists, who had assembled near the local school, moved, after waiting for an order brought to them by a cyclist, to the water tower in Stellingen where they joined the Communists assembled there in order to march in small parties to Eimshüttel. When they had assembled again there, the attack began on police post No. 42 which lies close to the frontier between Prussia and Hamburg. In doing this they acted with brutality. The two station police officers Halemba and Roggenbuck who belonged to the station and were on patrol were attacked when the Communists reached the corner of the Oster Strasse and Metfessel Strasse. Three men attacked each of them obviously according to a pre-arranged plan. The police officers were seized on the right and the left while a third man attacked them from the front. Halemba was thrown to the ground and received three knife wounds on the head, the chest and the upper arm. His sword-belt with his bayonet and pistol was torn off and one of his assailants shot him in the chest with his own revolver. Halemba could return to duty after three month's hospital treatment, but the wounds received by Roggenbuck were so severe that he has become a permanent invalid and will probably never leave the bospital adive.

Street blocked by barricades, Barmbeck, 1923.

(Photo Otto Reich)

The officials in the police posts were completely surprised, so that the ringleaders were able to seize the police post without difficulty. It has been proved that the ringleaders learnt at latest at the point of assembly at the Stellingen water tower that it was a question of an attack on police post No. 42 at Eimsbüttel, and thus of action against the authority of the state." (Police report.)

The severest fighting occurred subsequently to this in the Hamburg suburb of Barmbeck which was completely in the hands of the insurgents who had erected barricades there. A short extract from the police report must also suffice in this case:—

"In order to break down this organized and very strong resistance in Barmbeck, uniform leadership with powerful forces was necessary. About 10 a.m. Police Major Hartenstein was put in command of the insurgent district of Barmbeck. He had at his disposal the detachments already there and further the 7th section next for duty, the 1st free harbour police post, 50 men of the permanent section and 3 armoured cars which were later supplemented by the 2 armoured cars from Eimsbüttel after they could be spared there. The organized employment of the forces at the disposal of Police Major Hartenstein was considerably hampered and partly rendered impossible by the fact the these forces were already fired upon and involved in fighting on their way to the point of assembly (they were ordered to police post No. 46). The insurgents put up powerful resistance from roofs, attic windows, recesses in the walls of the houses, cellar windows and from the street barricades. During the whole of the 23rd October, 1923, it was not possible to quell the rising in Barmbeck. The resistance was too strong for it to be possible to carry out operations or move the forces in the streets by daylight without considerable losses. It was only when darkness fell that it was possible to surround the centre of Communist resistance with strong points of support, in order to force a way from these points into the Communist nest on the 24th October and smoke them out."

The rising cost the assailants the lives of at least forty men, while the number of wounded is estimated at 150. The losses of

3.4

Barricades in the Hamburg-Barmbeck disturbances in 1923.

the police in recapturing police post 42 alone, were three dead and twelve wounded, while in recapturing Barmbeck-Nord and Barmbeck-Süd five police officers were killed and thirteen wounded.

Once again, in April 1925, the attention of Germany was directed to the criminal plans for violent action on the part of the Communists in connection with the trial of the Soviet Russian and German Chekists and Terrorists in the Supreme Court in Leipzig.")

Furthermore, the Communist Party had adopted a new line of strategy which they retained until 1929. The idea and purpose of their work consisted in the "conquest of the majority of the working class", as the programme of the Communist Internationale expresses it. They had realized that the healthy forces of the

The Russian Chekist Gorew-Skoblewski, who was condemned to death by the Supreme Court in 1925, and later exchanged against the German student Karl Kindermann and 10 other Germans.

nation were too strong for it to be possible to seize the power by a coup de main, in spite of the inefficiency of the government. What then followed was an almost boundless system of agitation, propaganda, individual action and organizations, which left no single class of the German people untouched, which poured the Bolshevist poison into every vein of the body corporate of the nation and had everywhere a disintegrating effect in order to put the feverish organism in the condition of an "immediately impending revolutionary situation". The procedure, the tactics and the methods of this persistent and well-aimed Bolshevist work of disintegration and propaganda among the work people, the

^<sup>9) cf. Kindermann, 2 Jahre in Moskaus Tolenhäusern, Eckart-Verlag, Berlin Steglitz 1931.

unemployed, the peasantry, the women, the young and the children, have been described in detail elsewhere. 10)

Alongside of Social Bolshevism with its incitement to class hatred and civil war, a quite special task was assigned during this period to cultural Bolshevism which was to disintegrate the moral power of resistance of the nation in books, pamphlets, periodicals, films, theatres and meetings, break up the social community and undermine and destroy the German character. The kernel of cultural Bolshevism was formed by the recklessly hateful and low godless movement, while the propaganda in favour of "free love", moral decay and moral perversity was able in the cleverest way to harness the sexual impulse for the political aims of the Communist Internationale.

Badges of the various Communist organizations, arm bands and the original tip of a Soviet flagstaff in the first National-Socialist Revolution Museum in Berlin.

(S. A.-Standarfe VI.)

^<sup>10) Adolf Ehrl und Julius Schweickert: "Entfessehung der Unterweit" Ein Querschuitt durch die Bolschewisierung Deutschlands Eckart Verlag, Berlin-Steglitz 1933.

It is, of course, obvious, that political Bolshevism was, at the same time, not neglected, but pumped every day into the nation in an edition running to millions of copies. Pacifism, treason, espionage, theft and crime were also at this period the usual weapons of the so-called "ideological offensive".

We must content ourselves here with providing a short survey

of the network of Communist organization in Germany

Conditions in 1932 were approximately as follows:—11

The organized core of militant Bolshevism in Germany is arranged according to the scale of its political ripeness, communistic purity and disciplined activity in three groups: the basic, the uniform front and the advance post organizations. For the sake of clarity, we have arranged this in tabular form.¹²}

¹¹⁾ Extract from Entfesselung der Unterwell" un 57 et seg

^<sup>12) All details are those given by the organizations, except the number of the intemployed delegates which is an estimate. The sources are given in the corresponding special sections of Part 11 (of the "Entfesseling").

Miscellaneous cultural organizations (singers, mandoline players, chess players, writers, actors, esperanto speakers, etc.) ...................................

?

Fighting Committees and Action Committees of all kinds (Anti-Imperialist League, German Peasants' League, Tenants'Committees, Anti-compulsory Education Committees, § 218, Fighting Committee for the Re-opening of the Zehlendorf Hindenburg Hospital, Fighting Committee for the Rescue of Ruegg, and another for the rescue of eight young negroes from the electric chair, etc., etc.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

v 9

The fundamental idea of the organization may be seen from the above diagram:—13)

The basic organizations are represented by the concentric circles 1, 2 and 3 grouped round the same centre, the ZK of the KPD. The uniform front organizations belonging to them are represented by the

⁽⁸⁾ Cf on all to: 60 61

three eccentric circles 4, 5 and 6. Each uniform front organization extends out of the original circle into the non-Communist masses; that is their idea and aim. Part of each circle, which has also the management in its hands and is called a "Communist fraction" in the language of the Komintern, overlaps the basic circles. Thus the Association of Proletarian Free-Thinkers (circle 4) includes among its 160,000 members about 30,000 Communists and 130,000 belonging to no party. The next uniform front organization, such as the International Workmen's Provident Society, represented by circle 5, overlaps the basic circles and also the first uniform front organization. It thus includes, in addition to the bulk of the non-party men, also those who are in the core or in the other uniform front organization or in both, etc. The whole arrangement is very reminiscent of the "Chinese box" system of modern concerns connected with share companies, in which the promoter, starting with a parent company, acquires shares in other companies and thus, with little capital of his own, controls several times as much outside capital. The German Communist Party is the political holding company of the uniform front organizations.

This system of organizations casts its nets, in the form of the advance post organizations, into the surrounding classes of the population. These are the nascent organizations, represented by the figures 7, 8 and 9 in the diagram, whose "membership figures" are no longer comparable with the figures for the mass organizations, for they have a different quality.

Taken all in all, the number of trained and organized Communists in Germany in 1932 may be estimated at about one million. This figure includes, of course, only the core troops of Communism, while, as is known, the number of Communist voters at that time was about six million. If we take into account the number of sympathizers, waverers, perverts and part of the indifferent, the result for 1932 is a terrible picture of the internal disintegration and weakness of republican Germany which, when considered absolutely calmly and impartially, can only be described as hopeless. It must not be forgotten that the Social-Democratic party, as the most important representative of republican authority, formed part of the same front of Marxism, Judaism and Pacifism as its hostile brother, the German Communist party. The lack of determination, the internal insecurity and the corruptness which characterized the Social-Democratic party rendered it an absolutely insufficient factor for resistance and one which the nation could not employ. It can therefore be said without exaggeration and purely on the basis of the facts that the really most dangerous opponent of Communism in Germany was not the state with the Social-Democratic party and the Centre party but the National-Socialist movement which threatened to throw this same helpless state off its balance with even greater force. Thus the rage and the hatred of the Communist Party were consequently concentrated

much less on the members of the Weimar state than on the S.A. and S.S. Bolshevism in Germany did not fight against the past but against the future of the Reich.

That was the situation in 1932. The steady advance of National Socialism confronted the Communist party with the question of its very existence. What the republic had tolerated and furthered for fourteen years would not be suffered by a National-Socialist Germany for a single day. In this sense the Communist party fell itself to be the ally of the Weimar state against the common hated enemy, National Socialism. The conquest of the republic was not the pass-word given out for the decisive struggle in the spring of 1932, but the pass-word was anti-Fascist action.

The more evident the cracks in the structure of the rotten republic and the clearer the alternative of Soviet Germany or Third Reich became, the more feverishly did the Communist party begin the preparations for an armed rising.

The period of a conditional stabilization of capitalism which was still spoken of at the last world congress of the Communist Internationale in the autumn of 1928 was apparently at an end and was followed by a profound disturbance of world business. The Marxist "analysis of the situation" led of necessity to the view that the situation would soon be ripe for a revolution. Serious revolutionary disturbances appeared inevitable. The task of the Communist party was to place itself at the head of the revolutionary movement and to bring about by force a decision in favour of the Communist Internationale. The 12th plenary meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist Internationale (EKKI) which was held in Moscow at the beginning of September 1932 said officially that there could be seen

"with absolute clearness the prospect of the most violent clash of class differences".

This same committee, the general staff of the world revolution, expressly emphasized the

"very increasing revolutionary movement in Germany and the rapidly developing conditions necessary for a revolutionary crisis".

In the resolutions adopted by this plenary meeting of the committee Germany is described in fateful words as "the wound in Europe". Their aim was to establish themselves in this wound and to use the gateway called Germany to bring about the irruption of Bolshevism all over the world. The committee triumphantly asserts in its resolutions that

"the German Revolution will decide the fate of the proletarian revolution in Western and Central Europe".

The world was to be conquered by marching through Germany. The eastern border states, wedged in between a Bolshevist Russia and a Communist Germany, would have been overrun irresistibly, and the frontier of the Soviet Union would have been advanced at one blow across the Rhine to the West. They felt no doubt that the conquest of Germany would be a preliminary victory in the world revolution. The executive committee were fully aware of these inevitable consequences when they recorded the assertion that

"the success of the German Revolution together with the victorious days of October 1917 constitute the most important step on the road to the world revolution".

The resolutions of the Communist general staff were adopted in their entirety by the 3rd Workmen's Conference of the German Communist Party in October 1932, the exact lines of guidance for its realization worked out and sent as instructions to the subsidiary organizations. The subsequent district party congresses accepted "unreservedly and entirely" the orders of the 12th plenary meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist Internationale and the instructions of the above Party Conference.

The Communist party which all its subsidiary organizations thereby placed itself at the services of the direct mobilization for civil war. Action en masse was to be taken to train, organize and arm the working classes for the seizure of power. The setting up of a German Soviet Republic with a workmen's and peasants' government was the goal proclaimed. To attain this goal and the destruction of the hated National Socialism there was both theoretically and practically only one way, namely, an armed rising.

II. Conspiracy

From the very start all Communist organizations in Germany had a double existence. On the one hand they were mass organizations for public propaganda and agitation, and had to stand the full light of the policy of the day and of public attention. But the roots of the uniform front or mass organizations ran without exception beneath the surface of the official party policy and deep into the mire of the political, criminal, and literary underworld. This principle of organization was intentionally followed and maintained in order to be able to disappear from the stage of public life at any time and work behind the scenes. It must also not be forgotten that the authoritative tradition had been taken over from the Russia of the Tsars where the party had worked illegally and under ground for decades. The teachers and teaders of Communism in Germany also came direct from the school of the old Russian Jewish revolution. The spirit of an invisible ghette impregnated from the start the German Communist party and also the spirit of mental reservation which apparently was the justification for this double game, for lying, treachery and for the idea that everything was allowable.

Since the elections in September 1930, the Communist Party had adopted illegal methods and accordingly did everything to train their whole apparatus, functionaries and members in the art of conspiracy.

Thus the Communist Party in Saxony issued the following strictly confidental orders at the end of September 1932:

• 1. During the period from the 5th to 15th October house to house searches are to be carried out even in the case of the highest functionaries. Two men must always go together. Do not forget the cellar and the attics. Confiscations are to be made just as if it was a real search. After every search a report is to be drawn up and signed by the two men and the house-owner in whose house some thing has been found or not.
• After the completion of the house searches a written report is to be sent to us at once.
• Every opportunity elementary courses, meetings of the leaders etc. is to be utilized for the preparation for illegal measures. There must be no elementary course in which at least one evening is not devoted to such matters.

In making house-searches do not forget the functionaries of the superior party organizations and the defence organizations.

The house-searches must be begun on the 6th October and completed on the 13th October when the report must reach us.

To be destroyed at once.

Thus long before the Government began with domiciliary searches in the quarters of adherents of the Communist Party, the latter had prepared for coming events and made house-searches among their own followers.

(Photo Scherl)
The Karl Liebknecht House in Berlin, decorated for the Communist First of May.

In November 1932 a trial alarm was carried out in Berlin. On the 23rd an order was issued that all organizations in Greater Berlin were to be reorganized within three days on the basis of illegal procedure. The connection between the various organizations and party offices was then only to be maintained by couriers. The meetings no longer took place at permanent points of assembly but only at so-called temporary points. The leaders of the mass organizations were no longer elected but appointed by the Communist party without the members learning the name of the leader. Instead of the regular functionaries dummy representatives sat in the offices, while the real leaders stayed in an unknown place. No one was even allowed to know who the courier was. Each organization had to select a neutral spot, such as a shop, to serve as a post office. Instead of names and addresses, only numbers were used from that time on. In Berlin, for instance, the numbers from 1 to 100 were used for factory cells, the numbers

from 101 to 200 for street cells and from 201 to 300 for country cells; for instance 12—106, meant street cell 106 in subdistrict 12.

The more the pressure on the Communist Party increased, the more speedily were all visible party organizations seemingly disbanded and withdrawn to the realm of illegal procedure. Order followed order for the purpose of rendering the entire organization completely invisible. After Adolf Hitler had been appointed Chancellor, this work of mystification was carried out with special energy because they felt that the decisive moment was coming near. At the beginning of February the invisible head quarters issued the following instructions for the strict carrying out of illegal measures:—

• a) The members of the courier service are to be trained with all possible means. Communication between the couriers and the units and also between themselves must work smoothly.
• b) The secretaries of the district leaders must already provide themselves with secret quarters distributed in all parts of the town.
• c) Every quarter of the town must select quarters for the couriers which must be kept absolutely secret and only reported to the district leaders.
• d) Presses for the printing of illegal leaflets, etc. must only be used once in the same place. In preparing manuscripts, typewriters belonging to neutral persons, acquaintances etc. are to be used.
• e) The balances of all postal cheque accounts of the organizations are to be withdrawn. Payments may no longer be made into these accounts.
• f) The weapons of the rifle-shooting sporting organizations are to be kept separately in private quarters.
• g) Known officials of the political police and the officers in charge of police stations are to be carefully watched when they move about in the town. If there is anything suspicious, the district leader is at once to be informed by courier or telephone. Officials of the political police who have telephones in their private quarters—the numbers will be found in the telephone book—are to be frequently rung up anonymously in the early morning and late in the evening and also during the night, in order to ascertain whether they are at home. In this way it can be deduced whether action is being taken.

The observation of the various police head-quarters is also especially valuable. If light is burning in the various rooms during the evening or at night, it is a sign that police forces are being held in readiness.

Shortly afterwards strict instructions were again issued for the final winding up of the former party offices. Every office of every subsidiary organization had to be vacated at once. All archives and depositories and, above all, all addresses, circulars,

etc. were to be destroyed immediately, and the members were even no longer to frequent their usual beer saloon. Meetings of several persons were not to be held; in any case the number of those present was never to exceed five.

Even private quarters were to be cleared of party matter. The functionaries left their apartments and disappeared without reporting their change of residence to the police. The protection of their apartments was to be taken over by the fighting associations and terrorist groups. A representative was appointed for every party functionary in case he should be arrested; every cell was made independent of central printing presses etc. in its propaganda work, being provided with a multiple copying apparatus of its own. The main part of the work was transferred from private houses and the streets to the factories. Even the uniform front organizations crept into the factories.

But they by no means restricted themselves to such measures of technical organization. The training of the members in conspiracy was carried on with the greatest energy. The rules of the conspiracy were impressed with especial intensity on those members of the party whose task it was to carry on the work of disintegration and espionage inside the National-Socialist party, for they had adopted the plan of disintegrating and undermining from within the National Socialism which it was difficult to attack by force. In February 1933, the central fighting managing committee in the Ruhr District issued the following orders regarding the conspiracy to all local and factory managing committees:—

• The combatting of foolish talk and boasting is an important task.
  Every member must observe the principle that every one, even he himself, does not require to know more of the organization of the comspiratorial work than is actually necessary for his own work.
• 2. Caution in telephonic conversations. The telephone is not suitable as a means of communication in conspiratorial work. Exceptions are only permissible when the conversation is conducted in a prearranged code. No more letters must be sent to dummy addresses than is in keeping with the standard of living of the real owner of the address.
• Cypher codes must be very carefully used, especially in communicating addresses.
• Couriers and revolutionary workers entrusted with special tasks must be quietly dressed and behave themselves according to their surroundings.
• Meeting places are to be frequently changed.
  Organization material and especially the names and addresses of co-workers may no longer be kept in private dwellings but must be

stored in safety in rooms specially rented by the fighting management for this purpose. Material must not be carried about unnecessarily in coat pockets. Addresses, in so far as they cannot be committed to memory, must be recorded in cypher.

All functionaries who cooperate in certain tasks do well to avoid all superfluous personal relations with each other. Mutual control with due caution, which must not be allowed to become a panicky fear of spies, increases the safety of the work.

Comrades, the situation is very serious, but we are ready to meet it. Our battle-cry is: Down with the brown plague, across barricades, and on to socialism by revolutionary flighting. Red Front.

On the basis of the experience gained in Russia and for the most part under the direct orders of the Communist Internationale a complete system with regard of conspiratorial methods was set up, of which only a few points, as explained in the classes for functionaries, are cited here:—

• Inquisitive people must be treated as suspect. Comrades must not
  be sentimental in dealing with easily offended or hot-tempered
  comrades, never speak about their own work, let the other comrade continue to play the part of the offended person and point out
  to him that even the best comrade does not require to know\neverything.
• Pseudonym. All members of the organization are obliged to have a party name. Anyone who is dealing with various districts at the same time must use a different name in each district.
• Punctuality. The conspiratorial work demands extraordinary punctuality in the carrying out of all work undertaken, however slight,
• 4. Illegal residences. The addresses of illegal residences must only be told to trustworthy comrades. Care must be taken in burning lights there, as this attracts the attention of the neighbours. Telephones are unsuitable for illegal residences as conversations can be overheard. Only initiated comrades may be admitted into the illegal residence. Behave quietly, and go out and in as little as possible.
• 5. Signals and signs for the safety of the illegal residence. A sign must be agreed upon, to be made, for instance, with the curtains or pot plants, to show whether the illegal residence is clear, so that the visitor can see from the street whether there is any danger or not.
• Addresses in illegal residences. It must be constantly reiterated that neither addresses nor notes may be kept in illegal residences. Comrades must learn by heart the addresses, times and details required for the work.
• 7. Preparations for illegal meetings. Behaviour in the streets, Before going to a meeting, a point of assembly or an illegal residence, all pockets must be carefully examined in order to see that they contain nothing that might serve us a cine. When you go out into

the street always convince yourself that there is no spy there, but do this without attracting attention. Pay attention to the dress worn by passers-by, in order to be able to recognize them again. Pay particular attention to young people, for they are much used by the police. Examine the street by looking into a shopwindow or by lighting a cigarette or by crossing the street (looking back to see that you are not followed by a vehicle or a spy).

• Exchange of greetings on the street. If it cannot be entirely avoided, comrades should at least not greet each other on the street or otherwise in the presence of other people.
• 9. The conspiratorial minute. In the case of every illegal meeting, a so-called "conspiratorial minute" must be observed before dealing with the affairs of the organization. During this "conspiratorial minute" a discussion is to take place to decide what is to be said in the event of the meeting being broken up by the police.
     Make use of crowded means of transport.

12. Some general rules: -

a) Addresses, assumed names and details regarding the affairs of the organization must not be communicated by post or telephone.

b) Do not give away any photographs.

• d) The illegal worker must not pose or affect a mysterious air; his behaviour must be normal.
  • The mode of life must be adapted to the set to which the owner of the identity paper is supposed to belong.

g) Do not drink too much, do not let anyone impose upon you, etc.

Written material is the most dangerous enemy of a conspiratorial organization. In cases in which a written statement is quite unavoidable it must be written in cypher. There is hardly anything so characteristic of the underworld character of the Communist party as the general use of cypher codes by the responsible functionaries of the party, of the communist youth of the fighting organizations, etc. The fact that they used cyphers, assumed names and a secret language is the best proof of the treacherous and criminal intentions of the communists.

The cyphering first begins with the use of assumed names and catchwords for certain party grades, political opponents, state departments, etc., which it is not desired to mention openly. Many kinds of assumed names were in use in the Communist party before the March revolution. For instance, the following code was found in the possession of the communist Adele Stein:—

Max Hölz in four different disguises.

As a "privite citizen" in Vienna . . , and as a dynamiter in 1921.

Among the fighting workmen in Central Germany (March, 1921),

In hiding in Berlin before his arrest (April, 1921).

Also the following eatchwords: —
Municipality — officials
Ebert — SPD
Hörsing — Reichsbanner
Immertreu — criminal police
wet — navy

According to secret instructions issued by the Red-Front Fighting League of Greater Hamburg which were to be adopted generally later on, the following assumed names were to be used:—

KPD - WFD (Wilhelmsburger Fußball-Verband 09

RHD — allotment garden society

Revolver — photograph

Cartridge — plate

walking stick — film roll

RFB - uniform association

courier - our friend

defence man — sportsman

criminal police official - dog

In East-Prussia the following assumed names were laid down among others:—

Mercantile technical school — Reichswehr

Joint class — Reichswehr garrison

Class — Reichswehr barracks

Professional school - police

Teacher in professional school — police officer

In the autumn of 1932 another system of assumed names was adopted here and there:—

Courier — announcement

Spy — grumbler

Cypher — rule of the game

Police — doctor

Legal — old

Illegal — new

Dole-office — group — Bridge club

Resignation of church membership - fullston

Public meeting — coloured ribbon

The so-called importance of this mystification which is after all lacking in skill does not become evident until it is regarded in complete connection with the Communist conspiracy. These catchwords may appear simple and somewhat naive, but the effect of the carefully thought out real cypher system of the Communist Party, built up in accordance with all the rules of the art of cyphering, is astonishing. Government departments succeded on several occasions in obtaining possession of the keys to such cyphers which were then, of course, immediately replaced by new

cypher in a primitive way by taking a catchword for each number or various key systems can be utilized in a complicated way.

An illegal organization is just as dependent as a legal organization on a system for the circulation of news that works well. The delivery of messages, orders, circulars, literature, etc. is first necessary in order that the organization may become a living whole. We have already seen that since about September 1932 the Communist Party no longer made use of the German Post Office. They had organized a party post of their own with assumed addresses, agencies and couriers. The courier service represented the nervous system of the party. Its functions extended far beyond the smaller sphere of the communication of news. It became a component part of the distribution of literature and of the counter-work and work of disintegration. Ordinary and special couriers shared the more or less secret functions. The couriers were constantly under way between two secret party offices, using bicycles in Berlin and, in the provinces, motor cycles with side cars or even motor cars. To the courier himself the sender and the recipient were to remain unknown. By the interpolation of several couriers they completely lost any grasp of the extent of their own doings. The lowest unit of organization of the party, which was the so-called group of five in a period of illegal measures, received all messages by word of mouth through the party courier.

It was obvious that they made use of the sporting organizations of the red sport units in particular for the courier service, as for example the motor cycle sections of the "Fichte" Workmen's Sporting Club. They bore the name of "Red Cavalry". The motor cyclists received five pfennig for every kilometer travelled. Another special concession which they enjoyed was the grant of a reduction of from 40—50% on the price of motor spirit from the well-known "Derop" tank stations which, as is well known, was then a Soviet Russian firm. This cheap Russian oil was also issued at the delivery agencies of the party papers.

It was only possible in part to ascertain what motor vehicles were used by the Communist couriers; in many cases stolen cars were probably used and the number plates altered. But in any case the following courier vehicles were ascertained in Bavaria in February 1932:—

A. Passenger Cars

II N 6285 passenger cary counterfeit number plate. To be arrested when met and report sent to the police in Nürnberg-Fürth.

II N 8079 (Chevrolet) Karl Lehrburger, merchant, Hochstr. 8/L Nürnberg. II N 13025 (Ford) II U 7002 (Chrysler) II U 67 (Hanomag) ditto. Dr. Kurt Kellner, Würzburg.

B. Motor cycles:

II N 0252

Countermanded trial number plate. To be arrested when met and report sent to the police in Nürnberg-Fürth.

II N 0690 (DKW)

George Friedrich Streng, mechanic, Hohe Marter 5, Nürnberg. (born 15, 11, 11 in Nürnberg).

II N 0787

Friedrich Ertl, Hegelstrasse 5/II, Nürnberg (agitation propaganda leader of the KJVD Northern Bavaria). The number plate was said to have been lost. To be arrested when met and report sent to the police in Nürnberg-Fürth.

A single example may be selected from the mass of facts regarding the courier service of the Communist Party:—

"On the 3rd March, 1933 the express courier of the German Communist Party, a man called Molsberger accused in the enclosed documents was temporarily arrested by the ...................................

With regard to the communications between the individual groups of five or other units of the Communist Party organization, the following details are given in the letter: The post is no longer to be used but only couriers. The first point for the establishment of communications is to be in front of the railway station of Ehrenbreitstein between 3 and 3,30 o'clock on the 4th March, 1933. The representative of the central office in Coblence will be recognized by a small white rose worn in the left buttonhole of his coat.

In view of the details in the letter the witness . . . went to the railway station of Ehrenbreitstein on the 4th March, 1933. He himself wore a white rose in his buttonhole. In reply to the summons in the letter, the accused Zimmerschied and Engel appeared at Ehrenbreitstein station. Zimmerschied greeted the witness . . . with the words "Red Front" and Engel said that he was the courier from Metternich. Later on, the accused Köpping and Wirges also appeared. The accused Zimmerschied, Engel, Köpping and Wirges are therefore to be regarded as guilty of having worked in the sense of the summons contained in the letter of the Coblence Central Office of the Communist Party dated 2nd March, 1933. They were couriers of the Communist Party."

The short-wave transmitters belonging to the members of the "Free Radio League" were also made use of for the intelligence

Communist secret broadcasting apparatus in Berlin in November and December, 1932.

service. The training was in the hands of so-called "Red Technical Experts". Readers will recall the discovery of a Communist secret transmitter in Berlin in December 1932 which was used at that time for propaganda purposes.

If the conspiracy is carried out strictly it is extremely difficult to get at the illegal organization, to obtain inside information, to learn its intentions and to forestall its actions. Externally, it has been disguised to such an extent that it seems as if the organization had disappeared from the face of the earth; it is only now and again that it gives a sign of life by the commission of some deeds on which occasions the intervention of the police comes too late.

Karl Bastian, c/o Preiss, 124b Skalitzer Strasse, Berlin, was a member of the party and has joined the National Socialist Party. He committed several assaults on members and attempted to persuade his wife to commit treachery.

Personal description: born 8th October, 1907 in Berlin, height about 5 ft. 4 in. Slight built, oval face, grey eyes, thick eyebrows, nose and ears normal, light brown hair, small scar on upper lip.

Photograph available.

Bauer, Walter, 22 Höchstestrasse, Berlin, is a police spy. He associated with comrades from the Karl Liebknecht house and in the cell beer saloon, 23. Linieustrasse.

Personal description: Height 5 ft. 4 in., born 28th December 1886 at Eutritzsch near Leipzig; grey hair, bald patch. Large triangle scar on his head; full-faced with a scar on his face. Speaks Saxon dialect.

Beck, Walter, espionage agent of the German officials, and spies on the proletarian organizations in the Ruhr District on their behalf. Last residence 18 Weiher Strasse, Dortmund, which he has left; his present address is not known. It is a case of a clever spy with plenty of assurance.

Personal description: Born 31st July 1896 in Cannstatt near Stuttgart; light brown hair; grey eyes; height ca. 5 ft. 7½ in.; is chauffeur by profession.

Fritze, Ernst, 17 Hermannstrasse, Berlin-Neukölln. Fritze was expelled from the KJVD three years ago and joined the National Socialist Party. He now visits meetings in districts where he is not known.

Description: Height 5 ft. 10½ in.; powerfully and broadly built; full-faced with round cheeks; brown hair parted on the left; age 24.

Micrendorf, Erich, 61 Frankfurter Allee, Berlin O 112. He attracted attention owing to his provocative nature in the KJVD; is a police and Nazi spy. Beware of his sister also.

Description: Height ca. 5 ft. 7½ in.; dark hair (brown when combed back); clean-shaven, hooked nose and neatly dressed.

Moser, Hermann (alias Feld and Neumann)

Münzel, Eberhard.

Both work as spies in the Kottbus Youth Association.

Description: Moser: ca. 20 years of age; brunette; 5 ft. 6½ in.; narrow face; parted hair. Says he is Austrian.

Münzel: 18 or 19 years old; height 5 ft. 4½ in.; oval face; dark hair, Photograph available.

Nier, Walter, c/o Schneidereit, 3b, An der Jerusalemer Kirche, Berlin. Is in touch with the criminal police. He joined the National Socialist Party because he enjoys more advantages there. He embezzled 4 marks out of the cell cash box.

Description: Born 21st January, 1910; sculptor by profession; height 5 ft. 4½ in.; smooth brown hair, combed back; brown eyes with dark rings round them; well-dressed appearance.

Otto, Willi and his wife Frieda, 66 Gartenstrasse, Berlin. Was already in the black list for October 1929. He was then expelled from the party in Kolberg for embezzlement. He now sells arms in Berlin together with Gerhard Reimer. Born 21st May, 1901 in Kolberg; wife born 19th September, 1906.

Podalski, Philipp, 8 Plenitzer Weg, Wusterhausen-on-the-Dosse. Associates with members of the National Socialist Party and will betray members of the Communist Party to the police.

Description: Between 28 and 30 years old; height 5 ft. 4½ in.; fair-haired and clean-shaven; scar on the right hand side of his face.

It is impossible in individual cases to decide whether the accusation of embezzlement is really justified or only serves as a means for a political attack. If the details in the black list, of which we give more below, really represent the facts, this throws an unusually significant light on the bad characters who appear to be so numerous in the Communist Party.

November - December, 1932. Coast districts.

Assmus, Willi, Hamburg, was head cashier in Rothenburgsort and embezzled ca. 75 marks there. In order to conceal his embezzlement he pretended that there had been a burglary.

Description: 5 ft. 1 in.; fair-haired; growing bald; full ashy pale face and hydrocephalous head.

Barbers, Richard, denounced his fellow workers to the factory management and the customs office.

No description or photograph available.

Bollman, Lübeck, embezzled money for newspapers and badges and did subversive work in the party by spreading false runnoms about leading comrades. Probably also a spy, as he has been seen in the company of superior criminal police officials.

Description: height 5 ft. 10½ in.; getting fat; between 35 and 38 years old; light brown hair; grey-blue eyes. No photograph available,

Borgmann, Hans, Lübeck, police spy; systematically disseminated rumours about leading party functionaries.

Decription: born 17th June, 1906 in Stargard; height 5 ft. 10½ in.; light brown hair; blue eyes: cyclids often inflamed; drooping shoulders.

No photograph available.

Doss, Ewald, August, Robert, Hamburg, commits constant swindles by telling shopkeepers that he is commissioned by the R.H. and LA H and has been able in this way to clear them out of considerable sums.

Description: born 9th April, 1915 in Kiel, height ca. 5 ft. 5 in.; narrow pimply face, fair haired; blue eyes.

Photograph available

Feldten, Harry, has embezzled about 150 marks in mass organizations.

No description or photograph available.

Frohnert, Willy, Hamburg, uniform association; made away with general lists and stole a rubber stamp belonging to the association. It is suspected that he will commit other swindles with the aid of this stamp, and it must be therefore taken away from him when he makes his appearance.

Description: born 12th July, 1894 in Memel. No details or photography available,

Fischer, Neumünster, embezzled party funds amounting to about 200 marks.

No description or photograph available.

Fischer, Wilhelm, also calls himself Fritz Schröder and attempts to swindle comrades by saying that he is an emigrant; says that he was persecuted by the police owing to a political murder; has already been condemned to 10 years' penal servitude but succeeded in escaping in Göttingen. In reality he is a National Socialist.

Description: Born 17th February, 1902 in Clausthal-Zellerfeld Details lacking. Photograph available.

An original Communist card index (black list) in the National-Socialist Revolution Museum, Berlin

In view of what happened during the Bolshevist revolution in Russia, there can be no doubt as to what measures the Communist Party and its Cheka would adopt against all their opponents in the event of their seizing the reins of authority.

"Among the circumstances investigated by us, street fighting is of a very pitiless character, in the sense of the physical destruction of the enemy. Any inclination to humanity dealing with the class enemy which seizes the proletariat during the armed struggle gives rise to superfluous difficulties in the fight and, under unfavourable conditions, results in a catastrophe for the rising."

Communism understands nothing but a physical destruction and annihilation of its opponents.²)

"It has already been pointed out in an earlier passage that one of the most pressing tasks of the rising, of which the solution will at once provide the insurgents with great advantages, may be the task of disposing of the leaders of the counter-revolution: the capture of the staffs, the arrest of the most important government officials (ministers, police presidents, etc.), getting rid of the reactionary commanders of bodies of troops, of the leaders of anti-revolutionary parties, etc.

This getting rid of the leaders is possible if carefully prepared diversions which include terroristic acts (physical destruction and arrest) are undertaken in good time." ³)

The Communist Party considers as its opponents not only the police, the defence force and the officials, but also the entire nation of all classes not included within the narrow limits of the Communist organization. In particular, the fate of all those whose names are on the black lists of the Communist Party would be remorselessly sealed. Such black lists were drawn up by no means only for government officials and members of national associations; on the contrary, they included the names of respected citizens and other persons who, owing to their character and the esteem in which they are held by their fellow countrymen, constitute a hindrance in the way of the Bolshevization of Germany. In many cases such black lists have been seized upon which many a peaceful citizen would find his own name. For instance, such a list was confiscated in Nierstein in the Oppenheim district and also in other villages in that district. The citizens whose names were on the lists of the condemned were to be arrested as soon as power had been seized and then "polished off". A similar list was found in the rooms of the district

¹⁾ A. Nenberg: "Der bewaffnete Aufstand", p. 242.

Ibidem, pp. 215 and 217.

A. Neuberg Der bewäffnete Aufstand", pp. 215 and 217.

managing committee of the Communist Party for the Ruhr District at 16, Rotter Strasse, Essen, which contains the following remark:—

"We now require quantities of photographs, but we cannot get hold of them at present and are forced to try our luck with the street snapshotter. I believe that we have now got photographs of fifty of these pests."

The fifty "pests", that is to say intentional or unintentional opponents of Bolshevism, were therefore not only noted by the Essen terrorist headquarters but had also been photographed through the agency of a street photographer.

This was entirely in accordance with the Bolshevist principle of ruthlessness:—

"In dealing with the outspoken opponents of the revolution, it is necessary to apply the severest revolutionary discipline and even terrorism. The degree to which terrorism is to be adopted is purely a question of expediency. This also applied to the question of hostages."4)

The drawing up of black lists and the "opponent work" altogether is one of the most important spheres of activity of the Communistic intelligence service, a special apparatus for collecting and distributing news which gradually merges into Bolshevist organization for disintegration, espionage and high treason.

From the very start, the Communist Party devoted special attention to the intelligence service, if for no other reason than because it is after all the agent in Germany of an alien and hostile power and, among other things, also serves to provide information for the Soviet Union. The more the Communist Party felt the approach of the fatal hour, the more intense was the organization of all details of their intelligence service. An excellent idea of the way in which it was organized and worked is provided by the following lines of guidance issued by headquarters for the intelligence service in times of crisis. I reproduce them word for word and without cuts, in order to give a complete idea of the systematic methods and the unscrupulousness of this treacherous work:—

A. Tasks.

Preliminary remarks: All the tasks dealt with above which are
to be carried out in "peaceful" times are retained to their full\nextent. In conformity with the increasing activity of the entire
class of workers in acute situations, the work of the intelligence

⁴⁾ Alfred Langer: "Der Weg zum Sieg", p. 27

service also extend both quantitatively and qualitatively. Within the scope of the entire tasks of the intelligence service certain spheres come more to the front and increase in importance. In addition to this, there are also a number of fresh tasks.

2. Tasks which come more to the front.

• a) Questions of military strategy, both tactical and technical. (Plans for the advance and employment of the Reichswehr, police and defensive associations, the concentration of their forces, their tactics, and the state of their training and armament.)
• b) Political reliability of all hostile formations, (Symptoms of disintegration, ascertaining of the causes of differences and dissatisfaction in the various formations, in order to enhance the propaganda work.)
• c) Discovery (and in individual cases even interruption) of the network of communications of the enemy (telephone, telegraph, and especially police cables, with regard to their position and the most favourable points for attacks. Wireless including both the public broadcasting stations and also the special police broadcasting stations).
• d) The creation of new and the development of old frontier communications (for the crossing of the frontier by individuals and for the exchange of printed matter and parcels in both directions).
• e) Defence (more severe methods in the treatment of those who are discovered to be spies and agents provocateurs).
• f) Misinforming of opponents by all possible means.

3. Fresh tasks.

• a) Collection of material and preparation of diversions and action by partisans. (Provision of structual plans of important art centres and industrial plant. Determination of the most favourable points of attack, and the laying down of the technical details for action against these objectives.)
• b) Provision of the necessary information for the work of armament. (For the disarmament of individual and small groups of police and other armed persons, seizure of stocks of arms and the utilization of favourable opportunities for purchasing arms.)
• e) Preparation and organization of terrorism on a large scale in connection with the formation of special groups. (Drawing up of corresponding lists and familiarization with the habits of specially important people.)
• d) Tactical enlightenment of the military organization which will be created in the form of companies or self-protection organi

zations (meeting places and offices of the enemy, police stations, barracks, important buildings, their local situation, strength of the defence and favourable points of attack for a coup de main and for systematic attack).

B. Methods of work.

The entire intelligence service work assumes (downwards), when the situation becomes acute, a general character to a still larger extent than formerly, and demands (upwards) a still greater refinement and specialization of the activity of the section, and thus an especially careful and also technical training of the workers. In general, the working methods which were already adopted in "peaceful" time will also be retained to their full extent in the new situation. The centre of gravity of their importance is, however, shifted in the following directions:—

• 1. As the situation becomes more acute, voluntary assistants approach the organization from all sides with offers to supply material. For the most part they apply to official quarters (secretariats, editorial offices, and well-known friends). The reasons for their voluntary cooperation are of very different kinds (their own precarious position, indignation at the state of affairs, difference in office or in their organization and, not least of all, a re-insurance in case the working classes triumph). The more actively the working classes come forward, the greater will be the voluntary cooperation in masses, and thus valuable material will be supplied.
• 2. In the work of the section itself greater importance will have to be attached to the utilization of agents whose recruitment in times of increasing struggles is especially full of promise.

C. Organization.

• 1. Preliminary remarks. On the occurrence of a revolutionary situation, a military organization will doubtless once more be created which will have at its disposal strictly disciplined and firmly organized cadres within the organization on the one hand, and which, on the other hand, must lead and direct the companies and self-protection organizations that will be formed. The details of the organization of these leading military corporations will be in accordance with the situation arising out of the revolutionary position. But the various formations will undoubtedly also require, in order to carry out their tasks, an intelligence service which will have to carry out tactical enlightenment. In this connection the leaders will have to be selected from among the workers in the old intelligence service by which the training of the new intelligence service is to be carried out. Thus, on the creation of the military organization, the following picture will be presented:
     • a) The stationary intelligence service which must deal with the entire above-mentioned group of tasks, with the exception of the tactical enlightenment of the individual military formations.

b) The mobile news service which is linked with the formation in connection with which it has been formed and which has to provide for the tactical enlightenment of this formation on the one hand, and, on the other hand, will be summoned for the closer examination of details coming to the knowledge of the stationary intelligence service either through reports from agents or in other ways.

The tasks of the intelligence service thus include military espionage and sabotage, high treason, support of the armed rising, preparation of mass terrorism, and, finally, rendering assistance to the "Red Army".

The intelligence service is, alongside of the military fighting organizations, the most important component of the illegal party apparatus, which itself, again, so long as the party is not forbidden, constitutes the frequently disguised core of the official Communist Party. The preparations of the Communist Party for the impending armed rising led to the fact that, alongside of the news service and the fighting organizations, a number of other special formations were also built up which no longer had to do with general agitation and propaganda, but were exclusively devoted to the direct preparation of the revolution. Alongside of the intelligence service, mention must be made of the illegal party organization in a narrower sense and further of the "Am" (Anti-Military) organization and the so-called "O.S.N.A." which we will deal with later.

The illegal party organization in a narrower sense was formed in accordance with the instructions issued by headquarters at the beginning of September, 1932, out of various departments which were always indicated by letters and whose members worked under assumed names.

The following sections existed:--

• Defence, lettered A, charged with the supervision of the party functionaries and the further examination of new members.

• 2. Courier service, lettered J, with the usual functions.

• Literature, lettered L, with the special function of establishing lending libraries for illegal literature.

• Police, lettered K, with the function of subversive work among the police.

• 5. Defence force, lettered W, with the corresponding functions.

• N.S.D.A.P., lettered Nazi, espionage and subversion in the Hitler Movement.

• Unit (Red Front Fighting League) lettered E, for preparation of terrorist action

• 8. Military policy, lettered R, preparation of the armed rising with the following sub-committees:
     • a) "Rising" working group, lettered AAK
     • b) Managing Commission, lettered LEIKO, which works strictly conspiratorially and constitutes the real brain of the armed rising. The members are former officers who form the general staff of the revolution in this case.
     • c) Miscellaneous sub-committees for the National-Socialist Party.— The Stahlhelm, the issue of subversive literature, for dealing with specially difficult tasks ("shock brigade"), an information expert and a communication and liaison expert.

In pursuit of the growing preparation for the rising the subsidiary organizations of the party were also reorganized and disguised, as is shown by the following circular:—

Intelligence service Lower Rhine District Section 25

List of the numerical index of the sections.

Political Office of the Communist Party in charge of
Lambert Horn No. XV

Organization Office of the Communist Party in charge
of Hans Fladung No. XVI

Culture of the Communist Party in charge of
Hans Fladung No. XVI

Representative of Lambert Horn, Rudi Hennig No. XV

Trade Union Konrad Skrentni No. XVIII

Sub-District has only one number No. U. B. X

K. g. d. F. in charge of H No. K. B. XX

Red Provident Society in charge of Weber No. R. H. XXX

IAH, in charge of Arnold Krone
All other Sub-Districts under their respective numbers.
Intelligence Service Math, and Peter Klingen No. 25

M. organization Erich Günter Oberbilk No. 26

Tactical Apparatus Prinz Oberbilk No. 26

Opponents Section II. No. 27

Association (RFR)

The last active groups were given the form of groups of five,

The whole structure of the organization was from top to bottom carefully disguised and rigidly coordinated. In particular, the supreme management was to be concealed under so many disguises that it could conduct the entire preparations for the rising undisturbed, without it being possible to attack or recognize it.

Not yet satisfied with the structure of such an illegal party organization, the Communist Party at once began to build up further means of protection and special sections which were strictly adapted to the requirements of an eventual armed rising. At the end of December, 1932, instructions were issued for the immediate formation of special Organization Protection and Intelligence Sections (O.S.N.A.). The O.S.N.A. were entrusted with the function of assisting the intelligence service in the case of specially difficult tasks (section G of the O.S.N.A.); and further with carrying out a permanent protection of the organization (section O.S.) and finally with protecting the leading functionaries, their dwellings, the meeting places and offices of the party, points of assembly, etc. (section F.S.).

Willi Münzenberg, the "red Hugenberg" (Photo Grass)

The idea of the O.S.N.A. was to create an absolutely reliable elite organization which was to work as a special organism not alongside of but in the party. About 10% of the members were to be enrolled in the O.S.N.A., special importance being attached to the length of time they had been members of the party and to other proofs of reliability. Its organization was to be completed on the 20th December, as they intended to appear fully equipped on the scene of civil war in the coming weeks. Close communication of a personal kind was established between the O.S.N.A. and the Red Front Fighters League. Section leaders of the O.S.N.A. were attached to the section staffs of the Red Front Fighters League.

The practical work of the O.S.N.A. may be gathered from a single instance. On the 28th February the Communist and member of the O.S.N.A. Paul Lederer was arrested in Nuremberg. He was found to be in possession of instructions from the O.S.N.A.

leaders, a list of the Nuremberg police stations and of the National-Socialist Party and S.A. leaders, and further of documents in cypher and a 08 army pistol. It therefore appeared from this that in February 1932 this extraordinary fighting organization of the Communist Party was also in full working order. Finally, parallel to the illegal party organization, the so-called "Am" organization (Am = anti-military) was built up as the sharpest political offensive weapon; it was also previously described as the M organization or also as the G.K. (mixed commission).

The importance of the Am-organization is obvious from the fact that the leadership for the Reich was in the hands of Münzenberg and Schneller, while the presumptive head of the illegal party organization, Kippenberger, was obviously summoned to give advice. The supposed leader of the Berlin district council is said to have been the Yugoslavian subject Dr. Karl Theodor F...., who made use of an assumed name.

The structure of the "Am" organization consisted of district committees and sub-district committee under whose orders the so-called "active groups" were placed who had to fulfill the most dangerous and most difficult tasks connected with the preparation of the rising. The spheres of the work of the "Am" organization were closely related to those of the O.S.N.A. in a certain respect but had a stronger military emphasis. The following spheres of work were dealt with with special energy:—

• 1. Espionage and subversion of the parties of the Right,
• 2. ditto in the parties of the Left.
• 3. ditto in the Police, Army and Navy.
• 4. Provision of weapons and explosives.
• 5. Defence against attacks by the state or by opponents.
• Spying on public authorities, industrial undertakings, intelligence service.
• 7. Recruiting work among former members of the Army and Police.

In the middle of February instructions were once more issued to develop the work among the former members of the Army with the greatest energy. Out of them a reliable staff for the civil war army was to be formed which was at the same time to form the backbone of the "Am" organization.

In the "Am" organization too there was a certain overlapping with the circles of the Red Front Fighters League. Thus various elements of treason and violence were thrown together and mixed until the invisible headquarter staff held in their hands an explosive for military purposes, of which the effects were a menace to the whole structure of the Reich. Everything was done to bring about an early decision. The preparatory work of

organization in the sphere of political work was completed. The organization was ready to undertake the fully prepared rising. They were also quite clear as to what had to be done at the moment when civil war broke out. Detailed instructions existed according to which the preparatory organizations were to be reorganised during the struggle and after its successful conclusion and to be adapted to the new state of affairs. After power had been seized its undisturbed enjoyment was to be secured. The germs of the Cheka and of the Red Army were contained in the illegal insurrectionary organizations themselves and they were to fructify on that day.

With regard to this there is also authentic material available emanating from the Communist headquarters of which I reproduce an example textually and unabridged:—

The Intelligence Service during the Armed Rising

A. Functions.

In the armed rising, both at the start and also during the fighting the work of the intelligence service is not eliminated but, on the contrary, its functions are further augmented. It is then to concentrate on the questions dealing with the direct political and military over throw of the enemy and his formations.

This means the following tasks, in addition to those already mentioned:—

• The stationary intelligence service: suppression of the enemy press, discovery of secret printing presses, conduct of mass terrorism in conjunction with the special groups and, subsequently, supporting the revolutionary tribunals by the production of suitable material.
• The mobile intelligence service: tactical enlightenment of all organizations of the fighting formations, searching the public and prisoners and assisting the courts martial.

B. Working Methods

For the working methods during the fighting the sole line of guidance is to be the goal to be aimed at. To achieve it, all means are justified. Details must depend upon the situation at the moment and the special circumstances. The points that are already clear are as follows:—

• The pressing necessity of being informed regarding the enemy's plans demands the most extensive use of agents and reliable men. This entails the drafting of a large number of party friends to positions that cannot be seized in the ordinary way.
• The rapidity with which decisions must be taken and the constantly changing situation makes the safe functioning of the means of communication between the apparatus and the connection a

(Photo: Horlemann,

What was still possible recently:

Fifth District Conference of the Berlin=Brandenburg section of the
Red Front=Fighters League in the Assembly Hall of the Plussian Diet, Berlin

decisive question. Hence one line of communication is not enough, because it can be only too easily interrupted. What is necessary is the establishment of two or three parallel lines of communication.

3. During the fighting the enemy will also employ every form of cunning, even the dissemination of false information. It is therefore particularly important that all information received should be carefully examined with regard to its correctness.

C. Organisation.

During the first stages of the fighting the form of organization will remain the same as during the previous period (stationary and mobile intelligence service). When power has been consolidated in large areas (districts) and when the Red Army has been organized, the character of both branches of the intelligence service will be changed.

The stationary intelligence service, augmented by the best men in the organization, merged with the special groups formed for mass terrorism and with the addition of permanent military units, will form the Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) which will carry out the severest measures to combat the counter-revolution. The details of the organization for this cannot yet be foreseen.

The mobile intelligence service will become a purely military intelligence service with the progressive development of the Red Army, with all the functions assigned to the intelligence service of a regular army. From that point onwards it will work independently with its own direct connections (agents).

The official, even if secret, lines of guidance for the intelligence service during the armed rising leave nothing to be desired as regards unmistakable clearness. During the rising the stationary intelligence service in conjunction with the special groups is to take over the management of mass terrorism, while the mobile intelligence service in conjunction with the special groups is to said perfectly frankly that all means, that is to say torture and murder on a vast scale, are to be employed. As a reward for their hangman's work during the fighting the stationary intelligence service, on the day after power has been seized, is to become a Cheka, an organization of which the inhuman cruelty is historically attested by the Russian example. The mobile news service, on the other hand, is to take over the work of military espionage.

In considering this document and the Communist plans it must never be forgotten that all the members of the pre-revolutionary intelligence service of the Communist Party are future Chekists and wholesale murderers who have a perfectly clear idea of their future "task". It ought to be made perfectly clear to these reckless and unscrupulous political criminals that the authorities are fully informed regarding their murderous intentions and that they must regard the sparing of their lives as a gift from the new Germany.

At the beginning of February the Altenburg local group of the Communist Party received an order that all young men who had performed military service were to report to the district head-quarters of the Communist Party of Thuringia at Erfurt by the 15th February. Similar instructions were doubtless received by the other local groups of the Communist Party. A secret meeting at which soldiers were to be present was to have been held in Dresden in the house of a certain Bondemann on the 22nd February. At the same time the Red Front-Fighters League in Hamburg issued the following proclamation:—

"Workers and anti-Fascists of Hamburg! Hitler's brown S.A. murderers are on the march! Red Hamburg is being mobilized! Police officers! You too are proletarians in uniform. Do not let them use you wrongfully to fire on the workers, on your fathers, brothers, mothers and staters! We warn you. Hamburg will remain "red" in

spite of all terrorism. The Red Front-Fighters League is on the watch. Although forbidden for years, it is now stronger than ever. To arms, anti-Fascits! The day is at hand when our victorious Red Army which requires no police protection will use its arms to drive the deadly enemies of the working classes to the devil.

Red Front-Fighters League."

That was the sheet lightning that presaged the Bolshevist revolution. The avalanche was on the move. Was it going to crush the German nation?

"Red Front" mass meeting in the Sportpalast, Berlin.

III. Treason.

It would take up too much time to quote the endless examples of the Soviet obsession of the German Communist Party. It will suffice when I say that not a single copy of a newspaper, not a single pamphlet, gramophone record, or book of pictures was produced, not a single film, theatrical performance, or meeting and, generally, not a single meeting of the German Communist Party ever took place but that Germany was insulted and betrayed in the most abominable manner, the Soviet Union, on the other hand, being extravagantly praised sky-high and represented as the real Fatherland of the German workers. Communism in Germany was and is in its essence and effect an uninterrupted and organized betrayal of land and people.

It is quite natural that above all things the Intelligence Service of the K.P.D., in fact the whole organization of millions itself, was in the Secret Service of a foreign country. The result was the incredible and unbearable condition of affairs whereby a foreign country had at its beck and call an organization containing a million alien subjects, which let itself be misused as the betrayer of its own nation. Thanks to the Communist parliamentary groups in the municipal and state parliaments, ultimately in the Reichstag itself and in the Reichstag committees, Moscow was always excellently informed regarding the internal occurrences in the German Reich. The factory cells gave details of German industrial works; the cells in the factories of military importance, in barracks and on ships, were well-disciplined and poorly paid agents in the service of Moscow. The whole of Germany was interpenetrated by an army of agents and spies of the Communist Internationale.

At no time of her history has Russia herself conceived and created her industrial and military works. It has always been foreign countries which supplied the ideas, the processes, the inventions and the experts. The Five Years' Plan and the industrialization of Soviet Russia made it especially urgent for her to obtain exact details of Germany's latest technical and scientific achievements. For this purpose all the Communist factory and trade-union organizations with their many hundreds of thousands of more or less unsuspecting members were engaged in the service of the Soviet-Russian factory espionage. It was a question of a centrally formed and systematically organized secret service system whose members had to proceed under definite instructions and on the basis of certain questionnaires.

We give below an example of such an espionage questionnaire:—

Is there a special security service in connexion with the firm? If this is not the case, how are the premises guarded?

Does a company supply men for the guard? Name of company?

What are the hours of the working shifts?

How strongly are the gates guarded

• a) during the day?
• b) by night?

What is the political attitude of the security service

• a) in general?
• b) as an organization (Fascist organizations?)?

Are there any R.G.O. (Revolutionary Trade Unions Opposition) comrades or agents amongst them?

Is the security service armed? State nature of arms, in the case of fire-arms, if possible, calibre or pattern.

Are the weapons always carried or only at night?

Total number of pistols?

Total quantity of ammunition?

Where are the reserve stores of weapons and ammunition situated?

(to be marked in sketch)

Are members of the security service massed as a reserve when the watchmen on duty are being relieved? Where? (to be marked in sketch).

Have the watchmen dogs with them? How many?

The above questions should be gone into thoroughly and accurately answered even when watch and ward companies are employed.

Are there any special fire pickets on duty?

What is their strength

• a) by night?
• b) by day?

Vhat is the political attitude of the men of the fire pickets

• a) in general?
• b) as an organization?

Are there any political relations between the fire pickets and the security service?

Is there a common management?

What alarm-contrivances are there in the factory? (fire-alarms, steam or electric sirens. Exact positions to be marked in sketch).

Are there direct police-alarms? Where are the alarm points?

How far away is the nearest police station?

What attitude did the fire pickets and the security service adopt on the occasion of former strikes?

In case of action, what does the R.G.O. works management consider important?

All questions are to be gone into thoroughly and utmost care must be taken.

On 25th April, 1932, in the first criminal division of the court of appeal at Frankenthal, the trial was held of Eric Steffen, Karl Dienstbach and Friedrich Oehlenschläger who were charged with works-espionage at the I. G. Farbenwerke at Ludwigshafen. The evidence showed that for some years a central office for industrial espionage had existed in Berlin from which the individual Communist sub-districts received instructions for getting hold of the works' secrets of the individual industrial untertakings in Germany and to pass those secrets on to the central office in Berlin.

The evidence showed that the object of the activity of the accused was works' espionage, planned on a large scale and aiming at the betrayal of secrets for the purpose of competition, and that in favour of the Soviet industry. All processes connected with the production of ammonia, carbamide, methane, artificial resin, etc. are comprised in the up-grading of the raw materials present in Bussia in large quantities, namely, chiefly, charcoal

and tar and within the compass of the building up of a chemical industry within in the Five Years' Plan. According to Schmidt's confession, many important secret processes and patents were betrayed to the Soviet-Russian espionage whence they were passed on to Russia. According to Schmidt's statements, industrial espionage is of two different kinds: the theoretical and the practical. All members of the party working in industrial undertakings are pledged to the first. They are instructed to inform their party of all important events and changes in the working of the works which come to their notice. For practical espionage which aims at getting possession of valuable manufacturing secrets only a small number of specially gifted and trustworthy members of the party are employed. Steffen's case was obviously one of practical espionage. The trial ended by Steffen, Dienstbach and Schmidt being sentenced each to 2 years', Oehlenschläger to 5 months' imprisonment.

The attitude of the culprits is revealed in one of Steffen's intercepted letters which ran as follows:

"We don't call it espionage, but economic assistance."

In the report on this case the "Bayerische Staatszeitung", No. 85 of 15.4.1931 mentioned, among other things, that the fact that in a single German large-sized undertaking between the years 1926 and 1930 no fewer than 134 serious cases of factory espionage were discovered, and that in the year 1927 alone, some 3,500 legal actions were necessitated by such crimes, ought to make both, authorities and private undertakings, consider the matter seriously.

A further example of works' espionage was brought to light by the trial of the electrician Friedr. Thiele for works' espionage carried out by him at the I. G. Farbenwerke, near Bitterfeld in February, 1931. Thiele was sentenced to 3 years' penal servitude. Thiele was president of the I. G.'s workmen's council and a member of the I. G.'s works' council. His fellow-accused were, without exception, members of the German Communist Party and the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition. Thiele tried to get hold of the whole manufacturing process of the Bitterfeld works of the I. G. Farbenindustrie A.G. and to obtain possession of details, especially of the production of magnesium, nitric acid, phosphorus and light metal. The knowledge obtained by such spying was to reach the central office of the German Communist Party by roundabout ways and eventually Soviet Russia. In the de facto as well as in the legal appreciation the judgment proceeded from the fact that the foreign governments, especially Soviet Russia, have been trying to keep themselves well posted as to what is being manufactured in Germany and what methods of production are being used. Russia prefers to make use of the

members of the German Communist Party, because the latter consider it their duty to place themselves at the disposal of a country which serves them as a model in political, economic and cultural respects and whose example they follow as a matter of course.

That the individual authors were acting on the instructions of the German Communist Party is proved by the fact that the Criminal Police succeeded in discovering, but not arresting, the supposed leader of the gang, a man living under an assumed name. This man was a member of the Communist Central Office in Berlin and, in this capacity, an agent of the Russian Intelligence Service, who had been instructed to find out details of the working of the German industry, above all things of military importance. We have proofs of this.

It is clear, even from these few examples, how close the co-operation of Soviet espionage was with the Communist organizations in Germany. Thanks to numberless police investigations and trials before the Supreme Court, it has been proved that 1. a foreign section of the Muscovite G.P.U. was working in Germany and that 2. this Soviet-Russian organization controls and manages the Communist espionage in Germany.

A case is well known of the Soviet Russian Secretary to the Embassy in Paris, Bessedowski, who, in the beginning of 1930, had to climb over the walls of the Paris Embassy building in order to avoid being arrested by the Cheka agent Roisemann. At that time, the Berlin as well as the Hamburg Sections of the G.P.U. had "flying detachments" at their disposal.

Names do not play an important part with the agents of the political demi-monde. They change from day to day without the right name being known at all. This is especially true of one of the most dangerous G.P.U. agents in Germany, Boris Nikolajewitsch, alias Iwanow, alias Krassnopolski. In February 1933, this Boris Nicolaevich came into contact with a number of highly suspicious persons, e.g. the Russian Communist Volodiya, the Russian Jew Scherzmann, the German Communist Kunst. Just before 27th February Boris Nicolaevitch went back to Moscow.

The G.P.U. agents are no novices in their profession. They proceed with the greatest smartness and have acquired the art of protecting themselves against police observation. When caught, such an agent refuses to speak. His obstinacy goes so far that at times, as, for example, in the case of the Communist Otto P., he avoids cross-examination by committing suicide.

The professional agents approach a member of the German Communist Party and try to induce him to get for them news out of the works in which he is engaged. Lady-typists and employees in the drawing-offices are frequently approached. The victim starts working for the Moscow espionage voluntarily or compulsorily. The News Clearing Stations are found in illegal flats with a dummy owner. Such was the case with the Communist Member of the Reichstag J. Sch. who was working in a flat supposed to be occupied by a certain Mr. Braun, who, however, had departed to Russia long ago. When this Intelligence Headquarters was raided the police found courier's parcels containing a report on the Berlin-Karlsruher Industriewerke.

A similar part was played by the Communist Landtag Member Siegel, who was approached by the chauffeur Johannes M. and the locksmith Kurt D. with information regarding the German frontier protection. He referred them to the Reichstag Member Kippenberger, who regularly received and paid these agents. It is known to the courts that the manager of the News Clearing Station passed on the espionage material to Russia via the head-quarters of the German Communist Party.

Soviet-Russian espionage is interested not only in German patents, industrial factories and chemical processes, but especially in the Reichswehr, their armament and training and in all other matters in connexion with the defence of the country. It is the most shameful chapter in the history of the Communist party, so rich in treachery, that they served in the military espionage section of a foreign power. The betrayal of military secrets goes hand in hand with the work of disintegration in the German army and navy, and betrayal seems to be a fruit of Communist disintegration. The Communist espionage tries to obtain information about the organization and the armament of the German army and navy, especially about the construction of guns and men-of-war and other military details.

Between June 1931 and December 1932 no fewer than 111 main trials were held for treason. Almost 150 persons were sentenced for the betrayal of military secrets.

In most cases Communistic subversive literature prepared the betrayal. Some of the culprits acted out of purely Communistic conviction. As they themselves declared, there was for them no fatherland; in case of war, they would side with the Soviet Union against Germany. But, often enough, the motive for betrayal was personal profit. High bribes were promised, though seldom paid. In one case the bribe was a new pair of boot soles; this however, leaked out and the new owner of the soles received a long stretch of penal servitude.

Again and again, the threads of espionage could be traced to some Communist Member of the Reichstag who used his immunity

for the purpose of selling his own fatherland, and protected himself against police investigations by means of numerous false addresses, false names, go-betweens and camouflaged meeting places. The ample fees and allowances of Reichstag Members made such persons financially independent and permitted them to utilize especially impudent methods.

Whenever a Communist spy was at last discovered and arrested, there were regularly found in his dwelling great

(1. und 3: Photo Horlemann)
Prominent Reichstag Members of the German Communist Party:
Wilhelm Pieck: Ernst Torpler: Hugo Eberlein.

quantities of subversive literature, weapons or explosives, in a word, all the tools of a well-equipped Bolshevist.

If one considers the extend of the Communist net of espionage over the whole territory of Germany, one realises that here a million organized German nationals have worked for the military intelligence service of a foreign power, and it is quite impossible to dispute the extraordinarily dangerous quality of Communist spying It is a matter of course that the Ino G.P.U. worked with all the tricks of cunning conspirators operating under assumed names or false addresses, four or five at a time, with secret lodgings, forged passports, secret codes, disguises as commercial travellers or tourists, last not least with provocation, counter-espionage, denunciation, terrorism secret courts and all the other more or less cunning means of a well thought-out organization of the political underworld.

If, from time to time, all these things are reminiscent of a fantastic detective novel, it is true that here, as often, facts are much more fantastic, more complicated, and more gruesome than the most daring fancy.

Out of the wealth of authentic material only a few cases can be quoted.

As is well known, there has existed in Germany for nearly ten, years the so-called "Red Provident Society of Germany", a section of the International Red Provident Society, known by the Russian abbreviated name of "MOPR", to all outward seeming, an organization for humanitarian and almost charitable purposes, whose sole official function consisted in giving help to political prisoners and their dependants. But this society, like every Bolshevist organization, had a second, illegal face. The deficit in its 1931 budget amounted in all to 231,000 marks which was paid by Moscow. But the whole of the Society's expenditure amounts to 3,700,000 marks which was also paid by Moscow. The complete organization is managed by Walter Stöcker and Willi Münzenberg, the notorious "Red Hugenberg", who, on his visit to Moscow in November 1931, received no less than one million gold roubles to spend on the development of Communist propaganda in Germany. The secret organization of the Society organized, with the help of the G.P.U., passport-forging centres, so that in Berlin, Hamburg and Danzig no fewer than 5,000 passports and 10,000 certificates were issued in the course of four years.

The Red Provident Society secretly stood in close connexion with the Derutra (German Russian Transport Company Ltd.), which ostensibly, carried on a genuine transport business with Russia. Kaolin, the Hamburg agent of the Derutra, was at the same time the representative of the Central Committee of the MOPR for Germany. The forging of passports and the close connexion with the transport company had a quite definite purpose: to free political prisoners and get them out of the country, especially to Russia. Horst Wessel's murderer found refuge in such a centre in Prague which was under the management of the Ukrainian Communist Wapuhl.

The hiding of prisoners etc. was generally effected in the following way:

As soon as a Communist had escaped from prison or was expecting to be arrested, he was taken by motor car to one of the various frontier-crossing places, either in the north to Lauen, in the south to Reichenbach-Glatz or in the west to Meppen. Here he obtained without difficulty a temporary frontier passport for one day, whereupon he promptly disappeared with the help of friends.

In case of threatening arrest, the following course was pursued: The refugee went to Danzig, whence he proceeded to Soviet Russia on a Soviet steamer. In other cases, the refugee took the route from Stettin via Sassnitz to Bornholm, where he was landed at a definite, so-called "conspirators' base" of the MOPR. The second way has, up to now, caused no difficulties; the transport of the refugees was automatically and carefully organized and no failures have been reported.

The more the revolutionary situation in Germany ripened in the opinion of the Komintern, the more was the "Red Provident Society" committed to illegal action. Specially selected persons were sent from Moscow to Germany, among them:—

• A certain woman named ....... who from 1922 to 1926 worked in the Balkans under the instructions of the OGPU and later on in the commissary department of the OGPU "on special missions". She was attached to a special group which deals with questions connected with the Provident Society.
• an former old female assistant in the Razvedupr and in the EKKI office for international communications; she was a member of the special group from the start.
• ....................................

A Lithuanian woman; a German; a Polish Jew

In addition to its visible management the Red Provident Society had a secret headquarters of its illegal organization, corresponding to the illegal organization of the party. Very probably this headquarters was composed of the following persons:

• Kurt Furtwendler, Social Democrat (left wing), member of the central office of the trade unions as well as one of the heads of the statistical section.

• Dr. Hacklander, Cologne-Wermelskirchen, who was in touch for many years with the EKKI in connection with the MOPR. He enjoyed the fullest confidence of the EKKI. As he is above all suspicion, his person seems of great importance.

• Paul Baumann, Ludwigshafen (exact address and profession unknown). As a rule, moneys for the various party funds were remitted through him.

• Günther Hoppe, Berlin; cooperated with the MOPR for many years.

• 5. Meta Kraus-Fessel, Berlin, woman journalist
• 6. Dr. Paul Friedländer, Berlin, panel doctor.

• Erna Halle, daughter of Professor Halle. She was one of the managers of the central offices for the Marxist schools in Berlin.

• 8. Hahnenschild, functionary of the MOPR and of the International Workmen's Provident Society (IAH), Berlin, Weidenweg 68.
• 9. Pogede, Berlin, Genterstrasse 52, party functionary.

• Wanske, Berlin-Pankow, Bremerstrasse 25.

The Communist member of the Reichstag, Siegfried Redel, at the same time manager of the Working Community of socialpolitical organizations (Arso), was the liaison officer between the official management and the secret headquarters.

Two examples of liberation of criminals:

• a) Willy Simon, living in Berlin NW 87. Siemensstrasse 8, was suspected of taking part in the murder of the schoolboy Norkus. When on 24th January 1932 he was sitting in a beer saloon in the Wiclefstrasse serving as a meeting place of the party, a man is alleged to have come up to him and to have said that he would have to be got out of the country as he was suspected of having murdered Norkus. The stranger gave his name as Langer. They went in a taxi towards Grünau, changing taxis at Baumschulenweg. He, Simon, was hidden for a few weeks in a settlement. On 13th February the unknown man brought him a passport made out in the name of Kurt Bärwald. The personal description corresponded with his own. The passport was issued in Berlin, and Simon travelled with it to the Soviet Union.
• b) Paul Michaelis, having his last residence at Wittstock, Ringmeinerstrasse 4, was a member of the Communist Youth League and on 1st October 1931 got mixed up in a shooting affray with S.A. people. He went to Berlin. While he was reading a Communist paper on Bülowplatz, he was accosted by a man who stated that he was a member of the R.F.B. M. said he was afraid of being arrested. After a few days the stranger gave him a passport made out in the name of Ed. Fischer. The personal description of the letter agreed with his own down to the date of his birth. The passport was dated from Berlin. After he had received a railway-ticket and RM. 20 travellingmoney, he went to Russia via Tilsit-Königsberg with this passport.

With and without the support of the Red Providence Society numerous centres for falsifications were established by the German Communist Party. Forgeries were made of entrance cards for election meetings and conferences of all kinds, admission-tickets to police dwellings and barracks, S.A. identity-cards, police identity-cards, even coins and bills of all denominations which were manufactured in Communist forger's dens. A forger's den of this nature was discovered in August 1932 in the so-called Gänge district at Hamburg, when 16 fire-arms, 3 military rifles, steel hawsers, rubber truncheons, iron truncheons, daggers, knuckledusters and ammunition were found in the same building.

A similar discovery was made in Stuttgart. This kind of "financing" the party by fraud, forgery or expropriation, i.e. theft or robbery method, is, moreover, a traditional Bolshevism in which Comrade Stalin had excelled.

A popular trick consisted in the numerous German experts employed in Russia "losing" their passports which were then used for Communist agents travelling to Germany. A special "Black Cabinet" at the G.P.U. in Moscow was working this trick, and at the same time, supervised the members of the Ino G.P.U. abroad, of whom we have already heard. The following method of procedure was adopted for the procuring of foreign passports:—

A Prussian national, K. B., was engaged at a factory in Leningrad. On 15th October, 1931, K. B. gave his passport to a man named Batygin and empowered this man to arrange with the Aliens' Office for the prolongation of his (K. B.'s) certificate of residence. The validity of that certificate having duly been extended, K. B.'s passport was returned to Batygin who thereupon decamped. There was a certain resemblance between K. B. and Batygin.

The discovery by the police, at Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Kaiserallee 48a of the huge headquarters for passport forging on 28th November, 1932 is still within the memory of all.

The following details are taken from the police report on this affair:—

".... This collection was housed in a cupboard with four shelves and containing all the necessary material for forging purposes. On the central shelf two transportable boxes were found, consisting each of eight drawers filled with forged rubber stamps.

The stamps were neatly arranged under varying headings and served the purposes of German consulates abroad, frontier traffic, passport offices, and of that section of the Police Headquarters in Berlin which issues foreign residents' licences. Among them were stamps of various other sections of the Berlin Police Headquarters, of the police administrative sections of foreign countries, of the registry offices of the Reich and foreign countries as well as numerous facsimiles and stamps of business firms. Altogether 213 rubber and

11 embossing stamps of the sorts named were found in these boxes together with photograms of inland and foreign passports and passport stamps.

A special file contained numerous birth certificates, police testimonials, school and teaching certificates, police registration papers and other important papers for personal identification. Other inof the passport together with the duration of validity of the passport, regulations or details regarding the dealings between central offices and local frontier stations are dealt with by ministerial decrees.

Investigations show that the forgers have usually forged passports issued by the passport authorities by taking out pages, especially those containing the name and description of the person of the owner of the passport together with the duration of validity of the passport, new pages with forged contents being substituted. The passport forms used for this purpose appear to have been genuine.

The forgers did not limit their activities to the production of passports but birth-certificates, unemployment and tax cards, and certificates of employment were also forged, the signatures of the original officials being forged by tracing them over.

The organization of the forgers was divided into four separately located groups. In the above-quoted case only the "Office" of the passport forgers was discovered. The other three divisions consisted of the so-called "Workshop" in which the tools are made, also a "Drawing Department" and "Photographic Department" in which drawings of stamps and photograms of passports etc. were made. A "Storeroom" in which spare material and passports ready for issuing were stored, completes the picture.

The organization discovered in Kaiserallee 48a was run by two persons who were of Communist convictions.

They were the tool-maker Karl W., born on 7. 5. 02 at Charlottenburg, and the painter Erwin K., born at Neu-Ruppin on 6. 4. 06. Though these were arrested, two others were able to make good their escape. They occupy in the Communist Party high and important positions and may be described as the men at the back of the passport forging activities.

From enquiries undertaken as a result of going through the material found, it appears that within the Communist party in structions have been given to their members requesting them or their relatives to obtain from the passport authorities passports which were then used by the passport forging organization.

The necessary forms, documents, stamps etc. for such forging headquarters are, as a rule, obtained from the authorities by means of theft.

From the sentence of the Supreme Court of 8, 12, 1931, on Walter Nestler, the following facts may be concluded:—

The Communist Passport Forgers' Workshop, discovered on 28.11.1932 in the flat of Richard Gartmann, merchant, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Kaiserallee 48a.

Hahn, watchmaker in Chemnitz, member of the German Communist Party, arrested. Seven forged stamps of district administrations and many copies of official documents confiscated. Hahn escapes to Leningrad.

Nestler admits having made copies and sold pass forms to the German Communist Party.

On 28. 2. 1933 the negative of an official document was found at 25, Lindowerstrasse, Berlin. In the cellar there was a completely equipped photographic dark room.

Finally it may be mentioned that the smuggling of P.G.U. agents into, and of refugees out of, Germany, the smuggling of illegal material etc. necessitated a special section of Communist work, that is to say, the organization of a protected and safe frontier traffic. For the most part this took place through so-called "sponsors" over definite parts of the frontier. I give herewith extracts from the working plan of the German Communist Party for the second quarter of 1932, regarding instructions for the security of the Saxon—Czecho-Slovakian border. It is proposed to arrange for working cells and Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition groups in the forest undertakings of the frontier districts, the following sub-departments being noted:

• UB. 2: Thorwald District.
• UB. 4: Forest District Kühnheide-Ansprung-Rübenau
• UB. 8: Crottendorfer Forest.
• UB. 9: Heroldwald, Schönebecker Wald, Auerbacher Wald, Döhler Wald.

Creation of strong local groups in the frontier district, especially where a frontier is crossed by roads and railways.

• UB. 2: Kleingießhübel, Rosenthal X, Hellendorf X, Ölsengrund X, Ölsen, Fürstenwalde, Rudolphsdorf, Fürstenau X, Gottgetreu, Geising +, Löwenhain +, Rehefeld X, Launestein X.

• UB. 4: Deutschgeorgenthal X, Deutschkatharinenberg X +, Satzung X, Ansprung X, Pfaffrotha-Schönfeld X, Sayda X +.

• UB. 8: Jöhstadt X +, Jugel X, Steinbach X, Wildenthal X, Glashütte — Weiteres X.

• UB. 9: Schönberg X +, Hennebach, Landwüst X, Wernitzgrün X, Eubabrunn X, Jägersgrün, Steindöbra, Sohl-Mühlhausen X +, Bad Elster X +.

• = Railways: X = Roads.

All the details quoted combine to make the terrible picture of the thoroughly organized, centrally directed, impudent espionage work, possessing a thousand ramifications, of the German Communist Party and its collateral organizations, in the interests of a foreign power, to be exact, of an enemy power, the Communist Internationale in Moscow. The idea is monstrous that this network of fraud, spying, forgery, subversion and force has lain for years over Germany without the government ever having made a serious attempt to break the net in whose meshes they have long enough been unwittingly entangled.

It became very obvious that the intention was to concentrate the G.P.U. work in Germany more and more, to prepare it more and more for the coming decision as one of the most important instruments of the armed rising and of the coming dictatorship of the Communist clique.

IV. High Treason.

The next stage of the immediate preparation of the armed rising consists in the subversion of the opponent, and, first and foremost, of his organizations for attack and defence. Important objectives of the Communistic subversion work were S.A., S.S., Stahlhelm, army and police.

The fundamental document about the strategy and tactics of the armed rising which in the year 1928 is said to have been published by Otto Meyer, Zürich and written by the notorious Communist terrorist and expert in subversive literature Heinz Neumann who uses the assumed name A. Neuberg, contains a detailed theory of the work under "Fighting Forces of the Bourgeoisie". The book of Neumann-Neuberg "Der Bewaffnete Aufstand, Versuch einer theoretischen Darstellung" is one of the most important documents for the training of the Communist defence organizations for military purposes. Taking this book as a basis, the training of the future soldier of the red army and Cheka in Germany has been proceeded with. Besides this book, the library of a Bolshevist terrorist had to contain two other works — "Die militärpolitischen Schriften von Engels und Lenin", published by Internationaler Arbeiterverlag, and the equally illegal book of Hans Kippenberger, alias Alfred Langer, "Der Weg zum Sieg — Die Kunst des bewaffneten Aufstandes", said to be published by P. Meier, Zürich.

Published by the same firm, behind which, naturally, a Communist organization took cover, there also appeared in the illegal monthly magazine "Oktober", Militärpolitische Zeitschrift, edited by Ernst Schneller, Member of the Reichstag. Amongst the collaborators of this strictly secret leaders' periodical are a number of authors who sign their contributions with pseudonyms, e. g. "Adolf", "Max", "Theo" etc.

Naturally all the rules of conspirators were observed when sending out these periodicals which are seldom despatched through the post, or, when they are, in a misleading envelope, normally by courier to intermediate or false addresses. The card-index of the subscribers is written in cypher and made safe many times over so that the distributing centres have not yet been discovered, nor has it been possible to confiscate and destroy these papers.

Neuberg-Neumann speaks of the necessity of the work of subverting the army, the method of work being as follows:—

"The attitude of the revolutionary proletariat to the imperialistic war in keeping with Lenin's principle is the transmutation of this war into civil war. Towards the army, which is the most important factor of the imperialistic war, the attitude of the party and of the whole revolutionary proletariat must be such that they work for the complete subversion of the imperialistic army and the going over of masses of soldiers to the side of the revolutionary proletariat. That is the aim and object of the work of the party in the army, but it is achievable only with the complete victory of the proletarian revolution. As long as the power is in the hands of the bourgeois state, the bourgeois army will remain one of the decisive components of that state.

It is the task of the proletariat, no matter what the political situation in the country may be, to subvert the bourgeois army as far as possible and to revolutionize it.¹)

Alfred Langer expresses himself in very much the same way:—
"One of the most important preliminaries to this fight is tireless, obstinate, systematic work, shrinking from no terrorism, within the armed forces of the bourgeoisie, a continuous revolutionary education of the soldier-masses."²)

The German Communist Party has, in the spirit of these theories, issued many times exact directions for the work in the national associations, army and police. The already well-known illegal special organizations, especially the intelligence service, the enemy observation section, the O.S.N.A., the R.F.B and, above all, the Am-organization carried out the work of subversion.

A circular of the Am - organization contains the following paragraph:

¹⁾ A. Neuberg "Der Bewaffnete Aufstand", p. 157.

"At first, it is necessary to get the wrong idea out of the heads of comrades that all policemen are bloodthirsty hounds. There are naturally swine amongst them and these should be particularly noted. At demonstrations as well as on other days, there are always chances of arguing with police officers. For example, there was such a possibility at the last disturbances in Moabit. Observation showed that such chances are made use of only in a few cases. What subjects should be discussed with police officers?

First of all, our programme and demands in general. Then the conversation will, as a rule, turn to the present situation. Strikes — meetings — illegal demonstrations etc.

In harmony with the theoretical principles of Neuberg, however, the subversion of the army, police and of the national associations was undertaken by the Am-organisation professionally. At the same time, the whole organization of Communism was used for this treasonable activity.

I quote the following sentences from the circular of the German Communist Party, Information Section, regarding the work among the relatives of members of the army.

"Besides work among the Fascist formations, work among members of the army is absolutely necessary not only where they are stationed, but where they have their homes. With us, it is not only the task of individuals, but of the whole organization.

The officers are reactionary almost to a man. With the rank and file the following attitudes have been observed: with some (fairly large) bodies, dislike of the Nazis, who are regarded as competitors. Besides this everywhere keen interest for everything that happens in the Soviet Union. There is a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the pay. The system of promotion is a further cause of discontent.

In our public meetings, everywhere where we come into contact with workers, the material mentioned here must be exploited to the

In our newspapers for factories and blocks of houses, especially in undertakings vital in war, and in army garrisons, these facts must be published and commented upon, special reference being made to their value for the bourgeoisie in preparing for war and civil war."

This document is a striking proof not only for the theoretical, but also for the purely practical, treasonable work of all Communist organizations, however harmless they may seem.

The following questionnaire is another proof. It was distributed amongst the members of a party conference held in Berlin at the beginning of February, 1933 and had to be given back immediately after being filled in. It reads word for word as follows:—

"Have you thought how important it is for the party to be informed of the plans of the bourgeoisie in good time, and to know the feelings of the classes which they are putting against us? We want to help you:-

• 1. Have you any acquaintances or relations in opponent organizations of any kind, of whom you know that they are already uncertain or sympathize with us?
• 2. Do you know any technical workers, engineers or chemists in undertakings vital in war or who work in research institutes?
• 3. Have you any relations, acquaintances or school friends in concerns vital in war and peace who control the life blood of such concerns?
• 4. Have you any connexions with the Social Democratic Party, Reichsbanner or free-trade-union functionaries?
• 5. Have you any connexions with members of the S.A., S.S. or N.S.D.A.P. or with the Teno, Stahlhelm or members of the Arbeitsdienst?

• who work in our ranks?

  Do you know that the police are trying might and main to smuggle elements of this nature into the party?

• 7. Have you any acquaintances who do business with such people?
• 8. Have you reflected that umpteen comrades have friendships with members of the army and navy?

Have you any such friends?

Have you girl friends or acquaintances who are employed by people who are of importance to us? Don't think that your information is not important. Even the smallest bit of news is valuable.

Name

NT.

Cell

Day

With unsurpassed energy and minuteness of detail, opposing organizations were spied upon and the way paved for their subversion

. Such questionnaires were frequently distributed, with the object of their being collected in some central office, gone through and made use of. They were carefully studied when it was a matter of spying upon the police forces, the S.A. and S.S. The following sheet of questions was distributed by the head office of the enemy observation section to all members of the Intelligence Service and the enemy observation section with the request for an immediate answer:

• 1. Is there a section of the N.S.D.A.P. in your local group?
     • a) A storm troop of the S.A. and S.S.?
     • b) Number of the troop and its strength.
     • c) Name of the leader.
     • d) What are the subdivisions of the troop, troops of runners, intelligence section etc.?
     • a) Is there a mounted section?
• 2. How many police stations are there in your district?
     • a) Number of the station.
     • b) Strength.
     • c) Name of officer.
• 3. Is there a Nazi barracks in your sphere of work?
     • b) Number of men. How armed, carbines, machine-guns &c.?
     • c) Have we any connexions with the Nazi barracks through our liaison men?
     • d) What opportunities are there for attack?
• 4. Automobile park of the police and auxiliary police.
     • a) Where are the police cars garaged? How are they guarded?
     • b) Where are the S.S. and S.A. cars garaged? How are they guarded?
     • c) Are there any armoured cars near the police station? If so, how many are there and where are they garaged?
• 5. Do the formations of the S.A., S.S. and Stahlhelm work together? How do they work together? Is there any possibility of getting subversive literature into the sections? If so, to whom should it be delivered? Give exact address.

The chiefs of the enemy observation sections must at once expel reliable comrades for certain definite reasons. The expulsion of the men in question must be made known to all members. The duty of the expelled men is as follows: to gain entrance into opposing organizations, all necessary precautions being observed, organization of the intelligence service.

• A. How is the organization armed? Are the members of the organization trained in military fashion? Where? If possible, state training ground.

• B. Where are the stocks of arms kept?

  How strong is the guard of the building where the arms are kept

• C. Are there any machine guns, carbines, machine pistols, 08 pistols &c?

If possible, give number.

Further observation and reporting on the opponent follows naturally from the observation. Money from the fund of the enemy observation sections is at the disposal of the comrade concerned on his stating for what purpose.

The comrade concerned will receive further information on reporting.

Section 25/27.

Results of the Communist espionage have been seized in many cases, e.g. in the trial of Emil Voget for high treason. The sketches here reproduced were found in Voget's flat.

Sketches produced at the trial of Emil Vogel for high treason. For further sketches, see page 80.

Naturally, if properly conducted subversive work is to produce valuable results, spies must be properly trained. This training was carried out in special military courses of the Am-organization, for which very detailed instructions were distributed by the Head Office of the Am-management as late as February, 1933.

1. Strictly confidential. Not suitable for the normal run of business.

Details of course for the military tasks of the revolutionary proletariat.

Contents: page

I. Introduction ....................................

meeting of the functionaries of the Am-organization at the command of the Berlin-Brandenburg district took place, and amongst other things the following statement was made:—

It is of the greatest value to get hold of former members of the army. They must be used to get connexions with soldiers under the colours. In the event of an armed rising their military knowledge must be used by appointing them leaders of separate groups.

......................................

This sphere of Communist work is little known to the general public, so that it has been possible for the impression to get abroad that army and police are immune against such attempts at subversion and that the German Communist Party had given up the idea of undermining these two most important pillars of the state and of the nation. The truth is exactly the opposite. What has actually taken place on this fighting section may be compared only to an incalculable flood of subversive attempts of all kinds which uninterruptedly inundated the armed forces of the country. No police squad, no police station, no barracks, no warship was spared subversive treatment. Insufficient public attention was directed to this procedure of the German Communist Party until it was too late. Thus it is that it has been possible only recently to get a clear survey of the extent of Communist attempts at subversion in army and police, and that naturally only so far as certain facts have come to light.

Survey of Communist subversion activity in army and police between January 1st and December 31st, 1932.

Criminal Cases:

Total

According to the above, there were in 1932 in all 1,225 Communist attempts at subversion investigated by the police of which roughly two thirds were among the police forces. In this one year there were thus almost 100 criminal cases of subversion handed over to the Public Prosecutor. In spite of the notoriously complicated and protracted proceedings in the Supreme Court, no

Subversive literature distributed in the army and navy.

fewer than 169 persons were sentenced on account of subversive work among army and police. On an average, then, last year, there were 3—4 cases of subversive work per day, a sentence was pronounced by the Supreme Court every other day, and every week no fewer than four arrests were made.

How over the whole field of Communist activity, the Bolshevization in this special section increased from month to month and reached its highest point in the first quarter of 1933 may be seen from the following table:—

Thus the number of subversive attempts investigated by the police was almost doubled between the last quarter of 1932 and the first quarter of 1933 and the number of arrests was considerably larger. The number of police investigations made on account of subversive attempts among the police forces and that of the arrests made in the army for the same reason are specially striking.

The commonest form of subversive work within army and police is the distribution of subversive literature of all kinds, illegal brochures, leaflets, cell periodicals &c. In the year 1932, 1,367 cases of the distribution of subversive literature among army and police were known officially. In 235 cases subversive literature was confiscated by the police, and in 620 cases criminal cases were handed over to the Public Prosecutor on account of the distribution of literature of that class. Again the great mass of this literature falls to the share of the police (885 against 482 in the army).

A considerable increase of Communist activity about the end of 1932 and the beginning of 1933 may be seen from the following survey:—

In the above figures, too, the almost doubled number of cases of distribution of subversive literature within the police forces is specially striking. The number of criminal proceedings instituted had also almost doubled.

In February 1933, the subversive activity in army and police reached its highest point. During the year 1932, there were roughly 40 cases of distribution of subversive literature within the army and 74 among the police. These figures rose in Frbruary 1933 to 53 and 130 respectively.

Whereas the number of cases of distribution in the army had increased by more than 25 per cent, it had almost doubled among the police. For the rest, the following are the figures of cases of distribution in February, 1933.

The following examples show how the agents generally went to work.

• 22. 12. 1932: Several parcels of the leaflet "Down with Schleicher" were delivered at the Kommandantur and to the 5th Pioneer Bataillion at Ulm.
• 25. 12. 1932: Wacht-Truppe Berlin: 4 parcels of leaflets were thrown over the barrack wall. "Hallo! Hallo! The revolutionary comrades of the Cavalry Detachment calling."
• 12. 1932: Leaflets "On the advance!" smuggled into the 2rd torpedo-boat half flotiila at Lübeck.

• 23, 12, 1932: "The Police Officer" forwarded through the post to Hamburg policemen and publicly distributed

• 25. 12. 1932: "Alarm! Look out! Police Officers, look out!" Put into the letter-boxes of the Hamburg policemen's homes.
• 12. 1. 1933: Army soldier is requested in Beeskow to get weapons and literature for the German Communist Party on payment.

As we have already seen, the work of subversion went hand in hand with the betrayal of military secrets.

From a judgement of the Supreme Court in the year 1933:—

In July, 1932, in the course of a search by the police in the home of the accused, there was found unlocked, in the right drawer of his writing desk, under Communist papers and publications, a sketch representing the vertical section of a military building. According to the statement and expert opinion of Captain N. N., it has been ascertained that the drawing represents the troops' building XY of the barracks in ZZ, occupied by the X Company of the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment X. It is true there are a few unimportant differences between the sketch found in the accused's house and the authentic plan of the barracks which suggests the thought that the sketch has been made from memory or from the description of a third person, but there was no disputing the statement that it represented the barracks mentioned in Z.Z.

Charge of the Public Prosecutor against the locksmith X. Y. in the year 1933, on account of the organization of the Red Youth Front, the holding of military courses and drill, organization of a revolutionary intelligence service, drawing up of a plan of the position and black lists.

Subversive literature distributed among the police

The following hectographed document, among other things, belonged to the plan of the position:—

"Plan of position:-

• Make a sketch of the principal entrances into the town, size in sqr. metres.
• 2. Put in police barracks, how armed
• 3. How many men in each barracks?
• 4. Where are the flying squads stationed?
• Anmy barracks, depots, garages?
• 6. What are the strategic parts of the town?
• 7. Tramways, depots.
• 8. Factories and works with description (gas, electricity. &c), strength of personnel, and of our influence, is there a cell?
• 9. Post, telegraph, railway, motor vehicle parks, aerodrome.
• 10. Motor car firms, telephone numbers, how many cars, where, what are the political opinions of the drivers and their social position?
• 11. Enemy organizations, their strength, their distribution in the strees. Where are their leaders to be found, where accommodated, sub-leaders, points of alarm, agents and spies?
• 12. What is the social composition of the population?
• 13. Political opinions. (Make use of the election results.)
• 14a) Our influence, strength of the party, our organization and all organizations affiliated.
  • b) Points of alarm
  • c) Where housed?
  • d) Stores?
  • e) What means of transport?

A list with exact figures must be given with each item. List: as per sample enclosed.

In the black list were included, among other things: addresses and telephone numbers of the police officers, army officers and soldiers, civil servants, judges, legal officials, members of enemy associations and organizations, their meeting places and quarters, addresses of motor car owners and their political party, list of numbers of motor cars with political opinions of the owners. Information of the supervision of enemy organizations. Lists of names and addresses to be arranged for the most part according to streets.

Case of the turner Heinrich M., Hanover, on whom were found instructions regarding the organization and activity of the special section for work among armed forces.

The numerous judgements pronounced by the Supreme Court which are to be found in the archives of the League of German Anti-Communist-Associations permit of a deep insight into the treasonable results of the Communist work of subversion.

Subversive literature has frequently been put into the entrances of police stations or the letter-boxes of policemen's homes. It has often been pushed under the doors of flats, written on walls, thrown into the wells of staircases or even into lavatories. Leaflets and proclamations of subversive character have often been posted up or even attached to the walls of military hospitals. During the army manoeuvres the subversive organization worked with inscriptions on walls, claque groups, transparencies and literature through the post. Attempts were made to sabotage and cripple the military forces of the country.

Thus, for example, during the day set aside for the "Protection against gas" in January, 1933, a leaflet in the apparent form of an official announcement and with a circulation of 20,000 was posted early in the morning on the walls of houses. The organization department of the central committee of the German Communist Party remarked, in this connexion, in a confidential circular about "experiences gained and lessons to be learned in the action against gas and air manoeuvres":—

"It must be possible for us, by virtue of still better mobilization work, completely to hinder the execution of such war manoeuvres by the power of mass movement."

The type for leaflets and subversive literature of this kind is composed by reliable members of the party. Harmless and ignorant unemployed then take it to a busy beer saloon where it is handed over to a liaison man on giving a password. Generally the transport goes on still further without the individual links of the chain knowing the beginning or end of the chain. Printing is done at night, mostly in small economically dependent printing establishments on payment of a bribe. All traces are immediately destroyed. At the hour agreed upon, a motor car is driven up and loads the printed matter which is brought to its destination in due course, drivers and vehicles being changed on the way. The literature is also frequently sent by means of couriers to intermediate places in small parcels from various post offices and then, naturally, with a disguised address and misleading envelope. The distribution to the lowest subversion unit is ultimately made from the quarters of an uninterested party. The agents never carry the literature in the form of a parcel, but always loose in their pockets. Frequently the subversive literature bears harmless and attractive outside covers, e.g. "Technique of Love, by van der Velde", or "A motor cycle for you, too. Latest news from the Motor Show", a title which concealed the illegal periodical for the Third Army Command, 3rd year of publication, No. 1 of February 1933.

How cunning the camouflage of the subversive literature has been may be seen from cases in which such pamphlets were hidden even in matchboxes or eigarette packets and given to little children to take to certain addresses.

The lowest subversive unit, the active group, is appointed to a definite place, e.g. a barracks, or the men's quarters in a police station. This place is then worked on uninterruptedly, systematically and deliberately. The members of the active group are supposedly non-party. They also serve as spying organization insomuch as they gain the confidence of the officials over a game of cards or a glass of beer.

Recently the German Communist Party organized special girls' clubs whose members were thoroughly trained as spies. They were then sent to various places of amusement to act as decoys to the troops and frequently to the officers as well.

Such a penetrating and comprehensive subversive work could not remain without effect, in spite of the atmost reliability of the

troops and the keenest supervision. It is quite certain that the formation of Communist cells within the police force has made considerable progress. In the year 1931, at an unknown place and time, a conference of red police took place.

A report of this found in the military gazette of the German Communist Party "Oktober" of December, 1931.¹}

The First Reich Conference of the Red Police. K. Oppel.

Have not subversions of whole formations and individual officials taken place throughout Prussia in the last few weeks as never before? Did not two squads of police in the Berlin "Maikäfer" barracks refuse to go on duty? Was not the "Internationale" sung in police barracks? Did not a whole platoon in the Bouchéstrasse Barracks refuse to go on duty? Did not the Berlin Linden unit refuse to take part in field exercises?

Have there not been wild scenes and rioting of the squads in the Berlin Wrangel Barracks? Have not disciplinary punishments been inflicted in various Berlin police stations on officials who rebelled against salary cuts? Were not three officers dismissed from the Wrangel Barracks in Berlin on account of Communist subversion? This selection must suffice for the present. Lack of space forbids us to repeat a great number of expressions of opinion from officials in all parts of the Reich with regard to revolutionary workers. They would make your hair stand on end, Herr Severing-Groener. And a still larger number of facts we are saving up for later occasions for very obvious reasons..

The holding of this conference introduces a new chapter of the revolutionary anti-militarist work in Germany. It is of historical importance because at it — in the words of one of its own resolutions — "for the first time since 1919, members of the armed forces of the bourgeois state have come together in order to debate as to how they may use the weapons, given them for fighting against the people, for fighting for the people. The conference represents the transition from the hitherto almost exclusive agitation for the creation of a definite revolutionary organization in the police."

Ex-soldiers and policemen, many of whom have been dismissed without a claim to a government position, appear to be specially susceptible to agitation.

At the beginning of 1933 it was possible to obtain a glimpse into the files of Mr. Kraus, Communist district leader and member of the Reichstag. These papers contained a list of police officers and army soldiers stated to be "convinced members of the German Communist Party". These extraordinarily impressive figures of red army men and police officers are as follows:—

³⁾ In order to camonflage this "Oktober"number, a cover with the title "Neue Architektur, by Architect Otto Diebel, Zürich" was used.

The figures quoted are certainly right to a high degree. Interesting is above all the territorial distribution which about corresponds to that of the German Communist Party itself. It

The illegal periodical "Oktober" in its new appearance as "Modern Architecture.

cannot be denied that the number of police officers of Communist convictions was exceedingly high and disquieting, especially when one considers that the great mass of policemen did not consist of conscious enemies of Bolshevism but of "neutral officials" of the Republic. And now, what means were used for the purposes of subversion? Even if we disregard the handbills, pamphlets, posters and other literature which were specially produced and used for the purpose of subverting the army and police forces, if we take no notice whatever of the incalculable quantity of press productions and of Communist literature which always served the additional purpose of disintegrating the armed forces, there are many hundred productions of that sort.

Within the army the following were distributed:-

"Die Reichswehr", the revolutionary soldier's journal, 4th year of issue, No. 2 — in 43 cases; 4th year of issue, No. 4 — in 32 cases, 96 copies altogether.

The booklet "Man liebt den Verrat und verachtet den Verräter" in 11 cases. Principal distribution centres Berlin, Königsberg, Saxony and Breslau.

The booklet "Der Feind steht im eigenen Lande" in 22 cases,

The booklet "Rote Sturmfahne" in 18 cases

"Die Reichswehr und die Arbeiterschaft" in 31 cases.

"Technik der Liebe" - by van der Velde, in 12 cases.

The following cases of distribution were discovered among the police:—

"Der Polizeibeamte", No. 2/32, in 21 cases,

"To the mothers, wives and fiancées of police officers" (handbill), in

"Was Goerdeler nicht schaffte" in 15 cases.

"Polizeibeamte! Kollegen!" (handbill) in 26 cases.

"Ob jung - ob alt" (handbill) in 22 cases.

A typical production of subversive literature is the "Wehrkreis-Zeitung" for the third district of the 3rd Command, 3rd year of issue, No. 1 February, 1933, bearing the title: "A motor cycle for you too. — Latest news from the Motor Show". 4)

A few examples of the contents, taken at random:-

News from the garrisons.

Our "Cross-word Puzzle Journal" has had the effect of a bomb. Our comrades were delighted, their officers furious. This time we can publish letters from many garrisons from which we have hitherto had no reports.

P. . . . . K. . . . .:-

"Incredible conditions exist here. Captain M. ....., Lieutenant Sch. . . . and regimental sergeant major Sch. . . . of the . . . Com-

⁴⁾ Publishers, C. P. Pilger & Co., Berlin, S.O. 16, Köpenickerstr, 86. Printed by Haack'sche Printing Works, Berlin, S.O. 16, Köpemckerstr, 86.

pany are pitiless slave-drivers. We have to do extra drill for every trifle, such as a button missing on the pants or a nail out of a boot. 95 per cent of the troops have already been in clink. Captain M. . . . . . . is a notorious drunkard. A comrade got 14 days c. b. for saying this. At the autumn manoeuvres in Silesia this fellow behaved like a swine. At N. . . . . . . he forbade the soldiers to go to the latrine and struck Lance-Corporal J. . . . in the face for attempting to disobey the order.

But what does the Hitler government threaten us with'. Hitler is for national conscription. That means good-bye to our hopes of a government job.

. . . . . .

All senior comrades, lance-corporals, N. C. O.s etc. should stop the bullying of recruits and stick together with them like comrades against the slave-drivers and the officers.

If you don't get fair treatment, you must, all of you, to a man, refuse to go on duty!"

The "Cross-word Puzzle Journal" referred to is a sort of camouflaged subversion product. The cover shows a picture of a cross-word puzzle with the heading: "Competition number 10 pfennigs. Puzzle Corner, Berlin. Obtainable at all booksellers stationers and newspaper stalls or through the post." The following is printed on the first page of reading matter: "Journal for the Command III district" followed by an invitation to participate in anti-Fascist propaganda and the anti-war congress. The publishers are again said to be Pilger & Co, but the address is different: Berlin, S.W. 68, Puttkamerstr. 19.

Several handbills were distributed during the autumn manoeuvres 1932 and in addition, detailed directions for subversive work in the Army, under the title: "Rote Manöver-Kritik".

This document contains the following practical hints:—

Admission of soldiers into red quarters

Accosting soldiers during field exercises.

Exploiting manoeuvre incidents for purposes of agitation.

Distribution of subversive literature in billets, baggage wagons, tank stations, in the field, at road crossings and street bends.

Distribution of subversive literature by children. Sticking up of posters on power circuit pylons; organization of chanting choruses with the following words:

"We greet you soldiers, our class-brothers, with three cheers for Red Front"

Subversive pamphlets were, however, published quite openly too, as, for example, by the Central Committee of the K.P.D. "Die Reichswehr und die Arbeiterschaft". The most important in struments of subversion also in this special field, however, were the illegal cell-periodicals, sometimes printed matter too, but mostly handbills with caricatures, printed from wax sheets, and letters to the editor inciting the readers in the filthiest manner against nationally minded officers and soldiers.

As examples for the Army, we may mention:-

"Die Reichswehr", a newspaper for revolutionary soldiers.

"Der Rote Kraftfahrer" for the Commissariat barracks at Lankwitz.

"Der gute Kamerad", soldiers' journal for the Third Command.

"Die Wacht", a periodical specially for revolutionary soldiers and N. C. O.s.

"Das Rote Wacht-Regiment", soldiers' journal for the regiment on guard duty in Berlin.

"Die roten Sand-Hasen"

"Der Beobachter", soldiers' journal for the garrisons of Schleswig-Holstein and East Hanover.

As examples for the Navy:--

"Der Rote Reichswehrsoldat", periodical representing the interests of the Army,

"Die Reichsmarine", garrison journal at Kiel.

"Die Reichsmarine", red journal for the half-flotillas

Examples for the police:-

"H. P. Z." — Hanseatic Police Officers' Journal, periodical of the revolutionary police officers of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen.

"Unterkunfts-Wacht", revolutionary police officers' journal of the 15-20 W.B.

"Roter Polizei-Funk", journal of the lower and middle ranks of police inspection No. 6. — December, 1932.

"Der Feind steht im eigenen Land", journal of the revolutionary young workers of Germany.

Besides the regular publications illegal subversive handbills and pamphlets were smuggled into the army, navy and police forces from time to time:—

October, 1932: "Manöverzeit - fröhliche Zeit!"

The handbill ends with the following words: "Long live the common fight of the workers, peasants and soldiers for a free, socialistic Germany!"

November, 1932: "Die Herbstmanöver", an imperialistic demonstration. November, 1932: "Police officers! Colleagues! Organize the anti-Fascist committees in the billets."

Christmas, 1932: "Police officers! Hunger! Bread! Refuse to go on duty! Muliny! Join the workers."

February, 1933: "Die roten Schupozellen an das rote Berlin": Hitler chancellor. Do revolutionary work amongst the lower and middle ranks of the police forces. Down with the Hitler government! Anti-Enscist petion is the order of the hour.

• February, 1933: "Schupo! Augen auf, nachdenken, wohin geht der Kurs!" 13 dead, 7 seriously wounded in Dresden. In cases of affrays, shoot in the air! Use side streets when workers have demonstrations.
• February, 1933: "Polizeibeamte! Kollegen!" Hitler chancellor. He is going to ban the Communist Party. Defend yourselves. Combine with the anti-fascist workers! No shooting, no striking the working people! Refuse to obey orders. Provide the working classes with weapons for the final affray! Answer with open mutiny. Form action committees!
• February, 1933: "Marinesoldaten! Klassenbrüder!" Hitler chancellor...
  What can we do to stop it?... Example of the "7 Provinces"
  (Open mutiny).
• February, 1933: "Appell der roten Schupozellen." Police officers sing the Internationale. Our fight is yours! For the workmen's and peasants' republic, Red Front! The red police of Berlin.
• February, 1933: "Hitler Kanzler!" What will become of the army?
  We are fighting with the revolutionary working classes for the
  worker' and peasants' republic! The revolutionary soldiers.
• February, 1933: "Hitler Reichskanzler." Shoot in the air! Passive resistance! Join the workers!

The revolutionary soldiers of the III Command

22nd February, 1933: "A.B.C.-Tour" against Hitler, Fascism, S.A. terror! Secure the weapons for the anti-fascist fight. Send us full details of all that happens in the billets.

Very popular too, were the small adhesive propaganda labels which were kept loose in the pocket, and when nobody was looking, with a swift movement of the hand stuck on barrack doors, walls or in lavatories.

• November, 1932: "Police officers!" Support the working classes in their fight! Refuse to protect strike-breakers. Fight against cuts and fight for the increase of your pay by refusing to obey orders. Join hands in the common fight of workers and police officers! Vote for List 3.
• December, 1932: "Police Officers-Colleagues" Giving power to Hitler means.... salary cuts, no franchise.... Answer by refusing to obey orders.
• December, 1932: "Will Hitler come to power?" Appeal for forming a united front.
• January, 1933: "Police officers!" An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! — Don't shoot the hungry! No rubber truncheons against those left in the cold.
• January, 1933 "Alarm." Look out, policemen! Look out! Exercise practical solidarity. Don't strike your fellows! Don't shoot!

The Revolutionary Police Officials of Hamburg

The numerous subversive leaflets and handbills, destined for the S.A. and S.S. were written in much the same style. We mention

The double face of Red Pacifism, (reproduced from "Entfesselung der Unterwelt" p. 241 which contains details of the shown publications. The pictures in the middle show the editor of the "Weltbühne", Carl von Ossietzky, who was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for betrayal of military secrets, and ex-Reichswehr Lieut. Richard Scheringer who joined the German Communist Party.

only "Sturmbanner", periodical of revolutionary 8.A and S.S. comrades, and "Der S.A. Proletar", S.A. and S.S. opposition journal, North-West District.

The special danger of the subversive work in the army and police consists of the fact that it was destined to cripple decisive instruments of power in the hands of the government. Almost all subversive literature ends with the demand: "Don't strike your fellows! Don't shoot? Refuse to obey orders! Join the united red front!"

The history of revolutions shows how tremendously important the refusal to obey orders may be at a decisive moment even though it may be only a small detachment of troops. Treason is an infectious disease. The example leads to temptation, rumour exaggerates the event, strengthens the ranks of the aggressor and has a demoralizing effect upon the defence.

On the other hand, the work of subversion, even if considered as a special function, was, however, still organized in the closest connexion with all other communist actions: subversion and spying, subversion and theft of arms, providing of explosives, military training, organization of red terrorist groups etc., all these worked hand in hand, like the clockwork of an infernal machine which is destined at a suitable moment to blow the enemy fortress into the air.

V. The Armed Rising.

a) Mobilization.

The first chapter of the preparations for civil war is concerned with intelligence service, the employment of secret agents and spies, and with the building up of an illegal organization. These different activities are closely connected and are under one leadership. They aim at finding out about the enemy, discovering his plans, revealing his weak spots, at wearing him down and making him as incapable as possible of putting up a fight.

The second chapter of the preparations for civil war is logically connected with the first and deals with positive work in the Communist ranks themselves. It aims at setting up against a weakened opponent a strong, well-disciplined, well-organized, courageous, resolute and, finally, well-armed Red Front.

If things come to a crisis and the day of armed rising approaches, the greatest emphasis is to be laid on procuring an adequate supply of arms and ammunition. Although the armed rising must always and everywhere be a mass action and must only give the enemy the final death blow, nevertheless the result depends on the fighting, man to man, in the open street and on the barricades. At the last resort the fate of the Revolution depends on the terrorist group.

"Now revolution is an art just like war and other arts and is subject to certain rules. Any party which neglects these rules brings about its own destruction. The rules are logically deduced from the nature of parties and the circumstances of the particular case. They are so clear and simple that the short experience of 1848 has made them familiar to the Germans. Firstly, one should never play with the idea of a rising unless one is prepared to defy all the consequences. A rising implies reckoning with unknown factors the value of which may change every day; the fighting forces to which one is opposed have the advantage of organization, discipline and traditional authority entirely on their side. Unless strong forces are brought against them one will be beaten and destroyed. Secondly, when once the rising has begun one must act with the greatest determination and seize the offensive. The defensive means death to any armed revolt it is lost before battle is joined. Surprise the enemy when his troops are dispersed; try and get daily new, even though small, successes; maintain the moral superiority which the first successful rising has given you; bring all those elements over to your side who are at first uncertain but who always follow the strongest

they can rally their forces against you, in short, in the words of Danton, the greatest known master of revolutionary tactics, 'de l'andace, de l'audace, encore de l'andace!' ('boldness, boldness and still more boldness!') "1)

"The Way to Victory" says further concerning the armed rising:2)

"We do not believe in an unarmed but in an armed rising. The most burning central question of the rising is the problem of arming the proletariat... The question of arms must in the first place be solved by the masses themselves, who must provide themselves with whatever weapons they can get hold of.

One could add indefinitely to Lenin's list of examples of primitive weapons available to the proletariat. To "knives, knuckle-dusters, rags soaked in petrol" etc. one could add perhaps "axes, bricks, boiling water for pouring on to the bestial police raging in the working class quarters, simple hand-grenades of dynamite" to mention only the most primitive of the almost infinite possibilities available everywhere for the arming of the proletariat...

It is proletarians who work in chemical factories and in mines and have to handle poison gases and explosives, or who have to transport on the railways and water-ways the bourgeoisie's instruments of murder. If, for the sake of their freedom, they make use of these possibilities given to them they are only doing their duty."

Then as Neuberg3) frankly says:

"The armed rising to destroy the apparatus of government and to seize power for the proletariat takes the form of a ruthless armed struggle between the militarily organized part of the proletariat and its allies on the one hand and the likewise militarily organized forces of the governing classes on the other hand."

Alfred Langer continually emphasizes that the proletariat must not wait until it is presented with weapons from some quarter or other; it must rather procure them itself in every conceivable way — by theft, robbery, murder, etc.

The Communist party in Germany acted according to these principles. Apart from the delivery of arms from abroad—either by courier from the east or through smugglers from the west—the Communist fighting and terrorist organizations procured all their weapons themselves. The theft of explosives and weapons was the favourite method of self-arming for the proletariat.

The smuggling of weapons was a permanent "branch" of the K.P.D. On many occasions the Customs officials have been able to

3) A. Neuberg: "Der bewaffnete Aufstand." page 192.

^{1) &}quot;Der Weg zum Sieg." Die Kunst des bewaffneten Aufstandes by Alfred Langer, page 1 Quotation from Karl Marx, Revolution und Konterrevolution.

snow and the w.r.o. have tried so sninggie inrough weapons from Czecho Slovnkia, Belgium or Holland,

On April 9th, 1932 a revolver with cartridges was found in the house of a worker in Marienburg (Saxony) together with other weapons of the same kind, all of which had been smuggled into Germany.

On January 20th 1932 on the Belgian—Dutch frontier near Maeseyck the unemployed Herbert Rotter of Moers, Albert Foerster of Meerbeck and Robert Rückert of Moers were arrested by the Dutch police while attempting to smuggle weapons from Belgium into Holland, and 16 Belgian pistols and 115 cartridges were taken from them. The smugglers who were all keen members of the K.P.D. admitted that the weapons were to be introduced through Holland into Germany.

The president of the Hamburg Fiscal Office stated in a report at the beginning of 1932 that many weapons had been illegally introduced by sailors. Also the President of Police of Hamburg expressed the opinion that Russian ships were smuggling in arms.

The miner Robert Pilz of Aix-la-Chapelle, who was closely connected with the K.P.D. was sentenced in May 1932 to 7 months' imprisonment for smuggling arms.

The frontier station of Liegnitz of the state police succeeded in March 1933 in arresting 6 Communists in Scidenberg. Silesia, who, in alliance with Czecho-Slovakian Communists, were bringing arms and literature from Czecho-Slovakia into Germany.

The most important sources of arms and explosives were nevertheless the armament factories at home, the shops where weapons are sold and the chemical concerns, all of which were systematically stolen from by the fighting organizations of the K.P.D. and their weapon-procuring sections.

One gets the best idea of what was going on from the extraordinarily numerous trials before the Supreme Court⁴), which of

⁴⁾ Compare, for example, the legal actions against Kohnen of August 5, 1930; Seidel of October 14, 1930; Mettin and accomplices of March 13, 1931; Audehm and accomplices of June 6, 1931; Frölich of July 17, 1931; Wilms of July 22, 1931; Wörpel of August 4, 1931; Kopp and accomplices of August 21, 1931; Sakowski of August 28, 1931; Manns of December 15, 1931; Eisele of January 22, 1932; Pelzer and accomplices of February 6, 1932; Estermann of February 9, 1932; Loehrke of February 26, 1932; Zeller and accomplices of March 1, 1932; Schneege and accomplices of May 6, 1932; Meyer and accomplices of March 23, 1932; Becker of April 5, 1932; Hoffmann of March 11, 1932; Langheim of April 29, 1932; Wenninger of May 11, 1932; Pfaff and accomplices of June 7, 1932; Wyschka of June 14, 1932; Lenhardt and accomplices of June 21, 1932; Rabenmüller (Groß), Überbrück and accomplices of July 9, 1932; Willuweit and accomplices of July 29, 1932; Kricsel and accomplices of July 29, 1932; Pirmann of August 17, 1932; Behring and accomplices of October 26, 1932; Liedtke of November 14, 1932; Bude and

In the years 1929/1930 alone no less than 70 thefts of explosives became known to the police. We cannot estimate how many undis covered thefts of explosives and arms were successfully carried out

Fairly well known is the great trial before the Supreme Court of those accused of stealing in February 1933 from a Leipzig Army Depot one heavy machine gun. 36 light machine guns and 217 rifles. The greater part of the accused, particularly P... and Mettin were given long sentences of imprisonment. The accused were nearly all members of the K.P.D. or closely allied to it. Only in the case of the army employee P. was it impossible to prove this. Certain of the accused, such as Lindau, Wiedemann, Thaler and others, admitted in the preliminary examination that the weapons were to be procured for the "Party". One may take it therefore as proved that the theft took place at the instance of the K.P.D.

In the case of the thatcher August Rabenmüller and accomplices of Erfurt the deliberate attempt to procure explosives and arms for the K.P.D. was also proved.

On January 3rd, 1931 52.5 kg. of ammonite were stolen in a most cunning way from the powder-magazine of the chalk-works in Oepitz near Pössnick in the Erfurt district, although the magazine was built into the rock and closed with three doors. During the trial it was also revealed that in the period from the 9th to the 16th January 1931 7 packages, each containing 2.5 kg. of ammonite, 80 blasting cartridges and 4 metres of fuse had been stolen from the locked magazine of the limekiln owner. Ludwig Fuldner near Elxleben. On the 26th of February 1932 33 military rifles converted into sporting rifles, 3 infantry rifles, 9 carbines with about 750 S-cartridges, 250 model 88 cartridges and a machine-gun belt with about 250 S-cartridges were found in the summer but of a certain Groß in Erfurt. The explosives from Oepitz were conveyed to Berlin a short time after the theft. Several of the accused in February 1931 converted, or tried to convert, the stolen explosives into ammunition which could be used by them. A particularly in-

accomplices of November 18, 1932; Mehs and accomplices of October 13, 1932; Strack and accomplices of November 18, 1932; Lücker of October 19, 1932; as also the indictment bill against Hohl of May 25, 1932; Land and accomplices of June 9, 1932; Biebusch and accomplices of July 9, 1932; Hasselbring and accomplices of July 11, 1932; Funk and accomplices of July 12, 1932; Heyer and accomplices of July 15, 1932; Schumacher of August 1, 1932; Hermannski and accomplices of August 6, 1932; Neubert and accomplices of August 12, 1932; Thies and accomplices of August 12, 1932; Hugo of August 16, 1932; Koch and accomplices of August 14, 1932; Geissler and accomplices of August 18, 1932; Bernin of August 25, 1932; Hesse of August 27, 1932; Knöchel and accomplices of September 7, 1932; Schelinsky and accomplices of October 11, 1932; Kronenberg of November 23, 1932.

Berlin Schöncberg, Siedlung Ländenhof, Exthetraße 49, as revealed in this trial

Ueberbrück was arrested on the 23rd of October 1931 at the station in Berlin on his arrival from Breslau. He had with him two trunks filled with explosives. When his house was thereupon searched considerable quantities of Communist literature were found as well as materials for making instruments etc. for committing outrages as for instance, fuses, blasting cartridges, fuse-cord, drawings of explosive ammunition and cartridges, hand-grenades, hand-grenade fuses, etc. The explosive which was discovered, chloratite 3, had been stolen from the magazine of the firm of Süßmilch on the night from the 5th to the 6th February 1931. The tin boxes discovered in Ueberbrück's house and made by him corresponded in size to the cross-section of a railway rail and therefore were particularly adapted to be fixed to a rail. In shape they were in fact similar to what is used for blasting rails. A periodical was also found entitled "Strategy and Tacties of Civil War, Part I, Partisans' Warfare", which dealt especially with the blowing up of rails. Ueberbrück confessed that he had belonged to a certain circle whose aims were political and included procuring and eventually using explosives.

Rabenmüller was sentenced to 4 years' penal servitude and 5 years' loss of civil rights, Ueberbrück to 8 years' penal servitude and 4 years' loss of civil rights.

In passing sentence the Supreme Court stated among other things:—

"The extraordinary extent of Ueberbrück's activity in collecting and distributing explosives (over 1 cwt. of explosives and about 3,000 blasting eartridges were found in his possession in addition to other explosive material) and his defence that he and his companions were working for defence against Fascist attacks prove that Ueberbrück was determined to make use of the explosives accumulated by him at the next opportunity or to allow his companions to use them — and thereby to endanger property, life and limb of others; it also proves that he and his accomplices who brought him the explosives and sent him on his journeys, were conspiring by consultation and actual preparations to do this at a given moment."

And further: "It was not only at Bethmann's (one of the accused) instance that an organization was formed which directed from Berlin the preparations for arming with explosives...

This group had its centre in Berlin, but appealed for help in procuring weapons and explosives to other local groups of the K.P.D. in many different places in the Reich. But the aim of the organization started and directed from Berlin was not merely defence against the supposed threat of Fascism...

Bethmatur programme emphasizes the intensitional of the industrial crisis and the dauger of the legal seizure of power by the National Socialists by way of a parliamentary majority, and indicates therefore that those about Bethmann were not to let the anticipated agitation of the masses at their ever-increasingly depressed condition go mexploited. On the other hand they were resolved under all circumstances to impose their will by force on those of a different political complexion, even if the latter should form a constitutional government.

Those who are preparing the way for the revolution have two tasks: to recruit soldiers of the Revolution and to obtain weapons for the attack...

Various pamphlets and leaflets published or approved and quoted from by the party leaders demand the fulfillment of the latter task...

This coincidence of the theoretical discussion in the "Oktoberhefte", the "Military News" of the Communist Party and in lectures given to the local branches of the practical realization by the accused seems to be the reason why the defending council was more concerned to disprove any connection between the acts of the accused and the leaders of the K.P.D. than to deal with what the accused themselves had actually done. The accused Ueberbrück had, on his arrival with the explosives in Berlin, been in possession of an identity card from the Z.K. Secretary. Gutsche and Ueberbrück had, on each of their journeys to Breslau to procure explosives, visited the district headquarters of the K.P.D. According to the accused, the explosives and weapons in Erfurt and Pössneck had also been procured not without the knowledge of the party officials. In the trial of Neumann and his accomplices it was established that August Maier, heavily implicated in this case also, had been the "Wumbo" official for procuring weapons and ammunitions in the then existing partisan organizations for the chief district Berlin-Brandenburg."

Whilst the Ueberbrück case gives one a clear view of the political background to the thefts of explosives, the following more plainly shows what details of explosive technique were taken into consideration in such thefts.

In the judgement passed on the taxi-driver Klemens Schelinsky of Hagen by the Supreme Court on January 6th, 1933, the following passage occurs:—

"... The expert, an artificer heutenant (retired) named N., certified in the main proceedings that the explosive in the possession of the accused, Wagener, was a so-called "brisant" explosive, that the instantaneous fuses were electric quick fuses, being attached to aluminiumring blasting cartridges with double-insulated wire; that is to say they were explosives within the meaning of the Explosives Act. The Court is satisfied that N.'s statement is correct. The examination of four samples of each had shown them to be ready for use. The cartridges, each containing 75 gm., are of the year 1932 and are therefore in extremely good condition. For any single explosion they would be fully effective. The fuses from the Electric Fuse Works Ltd., Cologne, fac-

Explosives confiscated in the case Nicolaus Ueberbrück and accomplices

tory in Troisdorf, are each fitted with two 4½ m, double insulated timplated copper wires and may therefore be used also under water. The firmly fixed blasting cartridge, size No. 10 is the most powerful of its kind.

Chloratite 3 is used for blasting in quarries, clay-pits, potash-works and also for blasting under water. Together with the electric underwater quick fuse, bridges, traffic facilities on river banks, canal docks, canalisation pipes, gas and water pipes and so on can be easily and unobtrusively blown up from a safe hiding-place. But it can also be used to load and explode hand-grenades, bombs, mines, etc. Attached to a blasting-cartridge of 75 g. of chloratite 3, this explosive charge is equivalent to a heavy hand-grenade or the shell of a light field-gun. Even the layman would recognize without difficulty from the seal 'Chloratite 3' the dangerous nature of the cartridges.'

On account of the danger of transporting explosives of this nature those persons who were to undertake it were most carefully picked in accordance with their reliability and courage. But, even so, the transport often took place in a most careless way and seriously endangered the lives of those in the neighbourhood. The explosives were often carried simply in the hand or in the pocket, or even hung between the legs. Weapons were also concealed in this way. In one case a linen band was tied round the hips; to this a second band was attached which led through between the legs. To the second band a cloth case containing a pistol was attached.

On the 27th December 1932 at 7.45 p. m. two police sergeants on their beat in Hamburg-St. Pauli saw a red delivery-van HH-41284 stop in front of the house No. 62 Bernhard-Nocht-Strasse. Three men unloaded a heavy case and carried it into the house, while a fourth remained behind the car. The policeman challenged the men just as they were carrying the case into the cellar. Since they refused to answer questions as to the contents of the case and why they were transporting it, one of the policemen opened it and found that it contained arms.

An examination of the cellar into which the case was being carried revealed among other things:—

• 2 Army pistols 08,
• 34 pistol cartridges,
  • 1 pamphlet "The Way to Victory" by Alfred Langer.
  • 3 Communist leaflets with the Morse alphabet written by hand on the back,
• 18 unfilled collection lists of the "Red Mass Self-Defence".

By means of theft and smuggling the K.P.D. and its fighting organizations had, according to all appearances, provided themselves amply with explosives and weapons. At the end of the year 1932 there could be no question of an absence or scarcity of weapons

Right: Weapons found in the house of the pensioner, Paul Schnitter, Berlin, Stralauer Platz 3, Sept. 2nd, 1931.

eft above: Armoury of the K.P.D. Bottron i. W. district group

Middle: Drawing of explosive bomb from the case Groß and accomplices. 1931.

Below: Weapons found on the property of the deceased official of the K.P.D.

Otto Krause in Schwanebeck, October 1930.

-- as had been the case in the Hamburg rising of 1923. The red revolutionary army was richly provided with the most deadly instruments of murder. Daggers, rubber truncheons, knuckle-dusters, axes, etc. were an ordinary part of the equipment of the rank and file Communist. In addition, every member of the fighting organizations proper and of the party was undoubtedly supplied with fire-arms and explosives, and the organizations themselves had in many parts of the country secret arms depots, which could be used fit out to terrorists on the day of the armed rising.

It is obviously impossible to draw up a list of all the arms depôts and munition dumps of the K.P.D. in Germany. Here we can only judge from the evidence which has been given of the various cases of depôts which have been discovered. In spite of much eagerness on the part of the people to report Communist arms and explosive dumps, the general public has hardly an idea of the enormous quantity of weapons actually discovered. I will therefore give some examples:—

In May, 1932, while searching the house of the miner Bierowski in Beuthen, who was said to have been a member of the Anti-Fascist League, the police found 50 dynamite bombs made out of 1 lb. jam tins, 8 detonators, 28 dynamite blasting-cartridges, 191 rounds of ammunition, 2 rifle locks, a machine-gun case with oiled machine-gun parts, 50 detonators with fuses, 10 pieces of insulated wire with detonators for electric detonation from a distance, 3 rolls of fuse and a tin of dynamite. These objects were found in a cellar, access to which was through a trap-door on which a sofa stood.

In November 1932 the house and grounds of the Communist town-counciller Springer in Tilsit were searched, and in the grounds was found a pit — 50 cm. deep — full of closed wine-bottles. The bottles contained rifle ammunition.

Four Communists who had, in the night of the 18th August, 1932, stolen 100 lb. of ammoniac and 4 lb. of powder from the explosive depôt in Daufenbach were condemned by the Court of Justice at Trier to sentences of 2 to 3 years' imprisonment.

In January 1933, as a result of searching the houses of 3 Communists in Essen, 12 gas-masks, 11 tear-gas containers, 4 packets of smoke powder, 3 pistols with ammunition and subversive propaganda were found. The gas-masks, tear-gas containers and the powder had been stolen by one of the accused from his employer. The gas-masks eventually found were 25 in number. The contents of one of the seized tear-gas containers would have been sufficient to put a whole department store, or in the open street, an entire police detachment out of action. One package of smoke powder would be enough to hide in fog a whole street-procession. The accused were said already to have made experiments with the smoke-powder in remote parts of the town at night. In February a cigar shop was searched and the following objects were confiscated: 1 rifle, pattern 98, 5 pistols,

1 dummy pixtol, 1 five "egg" hand grenade and 600 rounds of pistol

Worthy of note is a find near Bottrop-Recklinghausen in March 1933 of which the report states:—

"Here were found buried in the railway embankment a milk-can with 40 tins made up as hand-grenades, large quantities of detonite and ammon-salpetre, 6 "egg" hand grenades, a large sack with 66 tins filled with explosive, 12 short tubes for hand-grenades, 1 zinc case with a pound box of detonite, a 10 cm. shell with detonator and 3 hand-grenades."

I will only extract a few typical examples out of an almost endless official list of weapons confiscated from Communists in 1932 and at the beginning of 1933:—

• 24. 4. 32 When searching the K.P.D. restaurants in the Blumental-strasse 1 pistol, 7 cartridges, etc. were found and confiscated
• 26. 4. 32 On account of a Swastika flag in the Biesenhorst near Biesdorf a shooting affray occurred between K.P.D. and N.S.D.A.P. The weapons stated opposite were confiscated
• 23. 6. 32 The National Socialist Otto
         Müller was shot at in Lichtenberg and the following weapons
         were confiscated at the place
         where the deed was committed
         • 6. 7. 32 The following weapons were found and confiscated in the house of Kreitloff, Kolberger Strasse 11
• 15. 7. 32 At an attack planned on the N.S.D.A.P. colony "Fuchsberge" members of the K.P.D. were found armed. The weapons stated opposite were confiscated
• 20. 7. 32 Armed Communists were discovered at an attack planned on the N.S.D.A.P. restaurant "Black Cat" in Mahlsdorf. The weapons stated opposite were confiscated. The stones were to be used for throwing, the wooden club for hitting

Weapons confiscated

• 1 pistol

• 7 cartridges

• 1 steel rod

• 2 life-preservers

• 1 pistol

• 1 carbina

• 1 magazine

• 1 cartridge

• 2 cartridge-cases

• 1 dagger

  • pistols

• 1 magazine with

• 13 hullate and

• 6 cartridge-cases

• 2 pistols

• 20 contridance

• 1 1 ..................................

• 1 lif. processor

• 1 pick-axe

• 9 hovemete

• 1 rubber truncheen

• 3 wooden clubs

  • 1 gimlet

• 2 pistols

• 3 magazines

• 7 cartridges

• 2 knuckle-dusters

• 1 pocket-knife

• 1 piece of iron wire

• 1 spiral spring

• 4 stones

• l wooden club

• 23. 7. 32 The following weapons were found in searching K.P.D. restaurants in Görlitzer Strasse 58 and 7a, Reichenberger Strasse 124, Glogauer Strasse 29, Liegnitzer Strasse 18 and Pücklerstrasse 50
         • 3. 8. 32 Weapons found at a meeting of K.P.D. men for terrorist action and in searching the K.P.D.
• 29. 8. 32 Weapons found on the occasion of a fight and shooting affray between K.P.D. and N.S.D.A.P. in Charlottenburg, Röntgenstrasse
         • 5. 9. 32 A bayonet and other weapons were found and confiscated at a shooting affray in the Buttmanustrasse. The dog-whip was used for hitting
• 27. 10. 32 On searching the dwellings of Michaelis, Ritterstrasse 124 and of the workman Reimann Fürstenstrasse 21
          • 1. 33 Weapons found on a search carried out in Spandau because the R.F.B. was suspected of continuing illegally
          • 14. 1. 33 Weapons found on the occasion of an attack by about 40 Communists on the N.S.D.A.P. restaurant Reuther, Boyenstrasse 12 On searching the house Tegel, Schloßstrasse 20 a revolver was found
• 22. 2. 33 On the closing of K.P.D. restaurants in Berlin weapons were found in many places and confiscated

Weapons confiscated

3 pistois

35 cartridges

1 knowledge ductor

1 bayone!

• 1 bayonet
• 1 life-preserver
• 1 dagger
• 1 broken rubber truncheon
• 2 pistols
• 1 dagger
• 14 cartridges cases
  • 1 cartridge
  • 5 deformed bullets
• 1 revolver
• 3 cartridges
• 5 cartridges cases
• 3 bullets
• 1 steel rod
• dog-whip
• 1 infantry rifle
• 2 carbines
• 1 bayonet
• 463 rounds ammunition
  • 2 daggers
  • 1 life-preserver
  • army pistol 08
  • 10 rounds of ammunition
  • loading strips
  • 1 revolver
  • 1 pistol 6.35
  • 1 pistol 09
  • 4 cartridges
  • 1 revolver
  • 7 cartridges cases
  • 2 rubber truncheons
  • 1 revolver
  • 6 cartridges
  • 11 pistols
  • 6 rubber truncheons
  • 2 bayonets
  • 2 swords
  • 2 air-guns

⁵⁾ The 1st National Socialist Revolution Museum is an exhibition of confiscated weapons. This museum has been organized by Standarte 6 of the Berlin S.A. in the pre mises of the former Anti-War Museum, Berlin C. Jüdenstraße, corner of Parochialstraße

The systematic character of the preparations for a rising can be seen from the fact that, for instance, the procuring of explosives had begun already in the year 1929. But a few examples from that time must suffice.

• 19. 1. 31 Hartstein Factory Weißweiler: 36 Ammonite cartridges stolen.
         • 2. 4. 30 Quarry in Vicht: 36 blasting cartridges stolen.
• 5. 29 Steinfurth-Königswalde: 8 kg. Ammonite, 153 detonators,
     64 metres fuse stolen.
• 1. 31 Vetschau Explosives Ltd.: 982 blasting cartridges No. 8 and 20 pieces No. 6 stolen.
• detonating cartridges, etc. with explanations stolen.
  Clay-pit on the Schmückenhöhe near Coblenz: 45 kg. Ammonite, 60 detonators, 8 metres "T" and 60 metres "black" fuse stolen.
  Selze Overry, Sügmileh: 15 kg. Chleretite, 15 kg. Ammonite.
  • Salza Quarry, Süßmilch: 15 kg. Chloratite, 15 kg. Ammonite, 2,000 detonators.
  • 16. 9. 31 Markusmühle: 44 blasting cartridges, 3 detonating cartridges, 9 explosive cartridges, 23 detonators and 8 further detonating cartridges.
  • 8. 31 In Cologne-Clodwippl 4: 6 dynamite cartridges with detonators, 7 detonators, 4 metres fuse stolen.
  • 28. 3. 31 Quarry in Goslar: 5 kg. Ammonite, 2 kg. gunpowder, fuse stolen.

Some apparently harmless, but very dangerous, weapons captured by the S.A.Storm 6 and exhibited in their museum. Cane-gun, cross-bow and iron club.

The short summary shows that the K.P.D. has taken to heart Lenin's teaching: —

"The bomb has ceased to be the weapon of the isolated 'bomb thrower'. It secures the essential weapon for the arming of the people. The methods and instruments of street fighting must be modified in accordance with the change in the technique of war." 6)

⁶⁾ Militurpolitische Schriften, Engels-Lenin pp. 61-62 Intern. Arb. Verlag Berlin.

In considering the finds of weapons and explosives one must remember that the K.P.D. had already given very strict directions for removing weapons from the party restaurants, dwellings, and offices. In transforming itself into an illegal and conspiratorial organization it was clear that weapons and explosives were the most important things they wished to hide safely. It is therefore quite certain that the police has, up to now, succeeded in finding only a small portion of the Communists' arms and ammunition which really exist. Even now the greater part will be hidden in disused mines, in allotment gardens and woods, in the beds of canals and rivers waiting for the day of the armed rising. The countless assaults and murders committed by the K.P.D. on S.A. men and police officers prove conclusively that Communism in Germany was an extremely determined armed force at war with the whole nation.

Neuberg, whom we have already quoted several times, rightly maintains that the armed rising does not begin with street-fighting but with the period of immediate preparation for the general attack.^6a)

"One must remember that, in the widest sense of the word, the rising does not begin with the attack of the fighting organizations of the proletariat (Red Guard), but rather some days, even weeks, before. It begins when the time for the general attack has been fixed and when the party is working at feverish speed to win over the troops, to arm the proletariat and the semi-proletarian elements for the decivise struggle for power. It begins when the masses take up the fight of their own initiative against the forces of the counter-revolution."

In this sense Germany was, since the middle of December 1932, in the period of the Communist rising. Therewith the necessity arose—the indisputable necessity, according to Neuberg (cf. p. 175)—for the Communist Party to create its own proletarian armed forces. According to Lenin's theory of revolution, the organ of the rising must be the Red Guard as armed mass organization of the Proletariat. At the moment when the party takes over the immediate preparations for the seizure of power such a mass fighting organization must be created. This moment occurred for the K.P.D. in the last half of 1932, and so it began to organize the Red Guard as the Red Mass Self-Defence (R.M.S.S.). According to Communist reports they had succeeded in 1923 in organizing about 250,000 Red Guards men into proletarian "hundreds", in the course of a few months (cf. op. cit. p. 177). One hoped now for the same result.

⁶a) op. cit. page 207

How the "Red Front" lived.

In connection with the anti-Fascist action and the factics of the red united front with the non-party Social Democratic workmen, the Anti-Fascist Fighting League was feverishly developed as a half military, half propagandist fighting organization.

The peculiar conditions of street-fighting from the technical military point of view brought it about that, besides such mass organizations, special terrorist groups, varying in strength from 10 to 200 men, were formed partly of party members to carry out special tasks in the intricate battlefield of towns.

The leader's staff of all such Communist fighting organizations had not only to be militarily trained, but also politically trained and reliable. In accordance with the theory of civil war, these leaders should, as far as possible, be taken from the illegal German Red Front Fighters' League. Contrary to the usual conception, the Red Fighters' League was not so much a military as a political nucleus, not the organ of direct fighting but an elite organization and

"at the same time the representatives of the idea of civil war and a strong means of propaganda for this idea in the working-class as a whole"

)

Altogether the following scheme of organization for the period of armed rising emerged: The Red Front Fighters' League was to be the central nucleus of the K.P.D. and leaders' unit for the other fighting organizations; the Anti-Fascist-Fighting League was to win over and train the broader masses of the people for the fight against Fascism, the Red Masses Self-Defence was to be an immediate mass fighting organization; and finally, as military backbone and sharpest weapon of revolt, the numerous terrorist groups with their purely military tasks.

As is well known, the Red Front Fighters' League was forbidden after the disorders of the 1st May, 1929 when its membership, according to Neuberg, was about 100,000. From many sources of information, trials, actions, and publications of an illegal nature it is clear that the R.F.B. continued to exist illegally with an unknown membership. It organized leaders' meetings, military training courses and went in for "defensive sport". It supplied the men for the Am-organizations and the O.S.N.A and worked intensively to subvert army and police. For instance, in the Altona district in January 1933 a subversive pamphlet was found with the heading "Red Front" and the badge of the R.F.B., in which the police were called upon to disobey orders. Also in different places in Saxony

⁷⁾ Neuberg p. 179.

Pictures of the Red Front Fighters' Rally. Beilin, May, 1926.

in January and February 1933 R.F.B. tenflets and placards were distributed in which police and army were called upon to ally themselves with the R.F.B. A special edition of the "Red Front" may be taken as an example. It begins with the words "Mobilization. The Red Front League calls you!" That is quite in harmony with Neuberg's directions, according to which: —

"In this period which begins with the approach of the general battle, in the period of preparation for the attack on the State, the Party must concentrate its attention on the task of subverting and winning over the troops." 8)

and this alone makes it possible to "convert imperialistic war into civil war".

The more the general situation, in the opinion of the K.P.D., changed to an "immediate revolutionary situation" the stronger was the emphasis on purely military training. In the winter of 1932-33 the political training of the R.F.B. members was accordingly second to military training. The members were trained particularly in "defensive sport" and in the use and theory of arms. Particular emphasis was laid on the blocking of streets, the raising of barricades, on shooting and throwing hand-grenades. According to the already quoted works of Neuberg, Langer etc., the future leaders of the army for the Red rising were trained in the strategy and tactics of civil war before, during and after the rising itself.

The training was carried out in accordance with special "schemes for a rising" which were published by the management of the R.F.B. in the middle of December 1932. The leaders themselves say about these schemes: —

"These schemes must be the basis for the ideological work of our groups of five, of the political university of our organization. They must be the main theoretical weapons in all the 545 groups of the nucleus organizations and training squads, as well as in the reserve formations, in the courses which, under conspirational conditions, are organized in the factories by our shock troops. Our presentation follows closely Neuberg's "Der bewaffnete Aufstand" and articles in "Oktober" so that the lack of these books in no longer of importance. It is at the same time your task is to communicate to us any experience you acquire in your training work and to mention any defects or mistakes in our schemes. Continue the training of those comrades who show a keen interest through further special courses, make them propagandists and agitators for our Army of Freedom....

It is absolutely necessary that all revolutionary parties who are preparing to secure the political power should ponder the lessons of the proletarian rising in Reval on 1, 12, 24."

⁸⁾ Neuberg p. 207.

The instruction usually took place in the so-called training squads, which were built up according to the principle laid down by the leaders of the R.F.B. in Sept. 1932, According to these principles, the training squad consists of all newly joined members of a Storm Troop district and is divided into groups of five. The period of training is two months. From now on the fourth squad of every Storm Troop must be a training squad. Regulations as to commands and orders and other details of organization were distributed in the so-called "Wehrpolitische Schriftenreihe" Nr. 2 and 3, a new edition of the booklet "Proletarischer Wehrsport, Kommando- und Befehlsordnung für proletarische Wehrverbände".9)

In the instructions of the R.F.B. "Why Defensive Sport?" the following exercises are ordered:

Physical drill — Sports — Boxing — Shooting — Cross-country marching — Field Exercises — Calculation of Distances — Practice in holding demonstrations — Map-reading — Finding one's way by compass and stars — Morse code — Jiu-jitsu.

With what thoroughness military training was carried through we can see from the Rules as to "Auxiliary Trench Mortars in the Armed Rising".

"In the armed rising enemy strong points, e.g. barracks and rail way stations, will have to be taken by force. Instead of artillery, trench mortars or large-calibre iron lubes will be used.

The two types of auxiliary bomb-throwers, viz. the trench mortars and the mortar in the shape of a large-calibre iron tube, are therefore to a high degree suited to hasten or to render possible the conquest of fortified points. The moral effect of such mines filled with high explosives is so great that an enemy who is politically not hetrogeneous will probably surrender after a few heavy mines have exploded. In addition to that, one must consider the extraordinarily strong destructive effect of heavy mines within a narrow complex of buildings."

In connection with the theoretical training there was practical military drill which took place under the greatest secrecy. Such "Manoeuvres of the Red Army" did not always pass off as the future Red generals and instructors would wish, as the following example from 15th and 16th October 1932 shows:—

The White detachment consisted of the groups from Stuttgart, Esslingen, Cannstadt, Backnang, Plochingen and Mettingen. Its strength was 100–110 men. The Red detachment consisted of the

^{9) &}quot;Brücke", Verlag Anton Huber, Danzig 1931.

groups from Ludwigsburg, Fenerbuch, Auttenhausen, Ettingen and Weilendorf and was about 90 strong. On each side there were further, as runners, 3 motor-cyclists and 9-10 ordinary cyclists.

The Red detachment collected on the 15th October at 9 o'clock under great secrecy on the Common and marched from there in columns to Undertürkheim, Mettingen, Brühl, in the direction of Deizisau and then along the road to Denkendorf to a spot north-west of this road and about 1½ km. south of the cross-roads Esslingen-Deizisau, Esslingen-Denkendorf. There a camp was set up near Friedrichsmühle. Here the detachment arrived at about 1 o'clock at night and immediately retired to rest. Through the towns and villages marching was in loose order. At 3 o'clock the alarm was sounded and the whole detachment was drawn up on the road between Deizisau and Denkendorf. The division into groups and sections followed. The 4 sections were formed into 2 fighting lines which kept at a distance of 400 to 500 metres from each other. The position and the objective were as follows: The enemy has occupied hill 326 in the Lauer Hölzle, about 3 km. south of Zell. Red has first to discover by means of patrols the position and strength of the enemy outposts and the position of the enemy. Rifle-fire will be indicated by the clapping of hands and the flashing of electric torches and machine-gun fire by rattles. Since up to 8 o'clock in the morning no contact with the enemy had been found the manoeuvres were suspended and the detachment marched back to the camp in the wood near Beckheim in loose order. There tea was made, a rest was taken, sporting exercises were carried out and at 11.30 a.m. lunch was provided. Towards 2 o'clock the various local groups marched home in loose order.

The discipline of the majority of those who took part was extremely bad. As the exercises gradually took up more and more time, the orders of the leaders were only reluctantly obeyed and in some cases not obeyed at all. The field training must be considered as very poor, and the leaders especially, being for the most part young and unknown, seemed quite ignorant of military operations. The high command was held by an unknown youth of 23 to 24 about 5 ft 6 in. in height with blond hair and a haggard face. The manoeuvres must be considered as a failure. As appeared afterwards, the Reds never occupied hill 326 against which the Whites had advanced, but held hill 344.8 about 1,300 metres south of Deizisau. Hill 344.8 lies about 2 km. south-west of hill 326."

When it was still legal the R.F.B. had adopted the following organisation:—10)

¹⁰⁾ Richtlinien über den Aufbau der Organisation und Ausführungsbestimmungen. Rot-Front Verlag, Ernst Thälmann 1929.

The most important unit of the League seems to be the group consisting of 8 men, who, as far as possible would work in the same factory or live in the same block of houses, and thus be able to keep in constant contact.

The "Soldiers of the Red Front" must separate themselves from the German community and submit unconditionally to the Communist Internationale. Proof of this is the Red military oath of the R.F.B. which is as follows:—¹¹)

"We class-conscious proletarians swear to use all our strength in the fight for the freeing of the workers from capitalist exploitation, oppression and persecution.

In iron discipline and with the strictest obedience we submit to all orders and regulations which may be necessary in the fight for the interests of the proletariat.

He who is unfaithful to the Red Front or betrays the interests of the proletariat will suffer the deepest contempt of the working class and the most severe sentence of revolutionary justice."

On the 15th January 1933 there was a great recruiting drive to build up Youth Storm Troops. The young workmen were to be quickly mobilized and systematically trained for the armed rising.¹²)

After the party organisations had turned illegal, the groups of 8 were transformed into groups of 5. A circular letter from the

From a confiscated membership book of the RFB., Judgment of Supreme Court of the 30th September 1932.

¹²⁾ Roter Jugend-Pressedienst, illegal, early in February 1933

League Management to all district leaders which was sent round on February 25th, 1933, by courier explains the significance of this basic fighting unit of the R.F.B.

"It must be clear to every leader that in this sense the group is the decisive formation. All work must be carried out with the help of the group. The greatest initiative and the greatest responsibility lie with the group leader. A very efficient intelligence and alarm service must be organized from group to group and within the group itself. This must make it possible to bring the group into action at any time of the day or night. Through its individual members the group itself must be able to join up and mobilize with the other masses and organizations of workers. This organization combined with firm determination on the part of our staffs and leaders will enable us to prove in the coming weeks that our enemies cannot destroy us and that we are in a position to deal them the decisive blow."

A decisive turn in the work of the organization of the R.F.B. was noticeable at the end of February 1933, since it was now thought that the critical hour had arrived. The R.F.B. had to show that it was equal to the task of leading the other mass fighting organizations. For the second half of February the Red Mass Self-Defence was placed under the leadership of the R.F.B. and thus was formed a well-prepared mass organization politically and military reliable in its leadership. The street battle could begin.

Already at the beginning of December 1932 the leaders of the R.F.B. had recognized that the decisive hour was rapidly approaching. They called a secret conference of the entire Reich organisations at Brunswick which was held so secretly and with such precautions that not until some weeks later, when the resolutions and directions of this conference were passed on to the lower grades of the R.F.B., did the officials of the state realize that it had been held. This Reich conference issued a "call to the German working class" in which the "General staff of the Socialist Army of Freedom" urged the Red fighters to remain in a "state of intense preparedness" and called upon to prepare for the political general strike "as the first stage of the armed rising".

"Workers in Armament Factories, Railway and Transport Workers.

Proletarians in Mines, Factories and Farms. Policemen and Soldiers.

Unite all the offensive and defensive elements of the working people in the defensive revolutionary battle of the masses against the Fascist general dictatorship."

This last appeal for armed revolt derives its terms and plans from a detailed resolution of the Reich conference in which the following passage occurs:— "The RFB must play a leading part in all aspects of the daily class was. The R.F.B. must grow to an even greater mass organization. It must become the organization of all proletarians fit for defensive action. — Forward to the fulfilment of the three months' plan (i.e. till the end of February 1933). — Forward in the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat."

The resolution lays down further that the lower units for particular tasks should take the leadership into their own hands e.g. in the practical fight against sentences of the courts, against forced sales, in strikes, demonstrations, etc.

In a political speech "comrade Paul" declared that the red fighters must "lead the fight for a free socialist fatherland".

"The 12th session of the E.K.K.I. proclaimed that a period of new wars is at hand. We are therefore faced with the question of intensifying work among the masses above all among the S.A., Reichsbanner, Stahlhelm, Reichswehr and police. We must also intensify our efforts among the railway workers, the workers in industries vital in war and among the unemployed. We can prove scientifically that there is no other way out of the crisis but that of revolution . . .

We are for defensive preparations, for the fight for Socialism. Better and more vigorously than before we must popularize our dead leaders, the heroes of the revolution. We must work up such a mood among the workers that they grasp the idea that rifles must be in the workers' hands. Only the proletarian revolution can defeat capitalism and overcome war and the danger of war."

In the speech dealing with the work of organization it is stated among other things that the illegal central periodical of the R.F.B. must in future appear in an edition of 300,000 and that on the anniversary of the Russian Red Army on 23th February 1933 the R.F.B. would transfer 10,000 functionaries as a "gift" to the K.P.D. In the speech the following passage occurs:—

"There must be greater cooperation. We have addressed a circular letter with 4 questions to all districts. The answers to this letter have been received from 22 districts. 17 telegrams of greeting to the Red Army were sent off. We have received 20 telegrams expressing confidence in the league management. All that shows solidarity between the central organization and the district leaders. We stand now before the great offensive; this must thunder like a storm through Germany. We must be the best helpers of the Party in the fight against the Versailles Treaty in the industrial struggle."

The close solidarity of the R.F.B. with the Red Army of Soviet Russia is strikingly proved by these extracts. The "gift" of 10,000 officials shows in the same way as the circulation of the periodical, its organ, that the R.F.B. was organizing revolution in the grand style.

If one adds to this a resolution of the Reich conference the circular issued by the Würtlemberg district of the R.F.B. which begins with the words:—

"Red soldiers of Freedom, join up for the fulfilment of the three-months' storm plan."

then it becomes quite clear that the R.F.B. was the most important factor in the immediate preparations for revolution in Germany and that it had succeeded, in spite of it being forbidden, in becoming the best organized fighting troop of the civil war.

The directions of the Württemberg district dealing with the political and organizational tasks which the R.F.B., in accordance with the resolution of the Reich conference, had to fulfil are imbued with the most violent radicalism. They show that the organizational and propaganda work of the "Red Soldiers of Freedom" is aimed at the political and technical "arming of the proletariat for the civil war". The most suitable way of arming the civil war troop of the K.P.D. for the final battle lies in "antimilitarist work among soldiers, policemen, railway-guards and in the bourgeois defensive organizations", in the preparing of the revolution in the factories, particularly in the vital ones and the ones important in war, in getting hold of youth, in physical training and the study of defensive technique, and in training for military purposes under the newest revolutionary instructions.

The secret district conference of the R.F.B. of Hesse-Frankfurt on the 17th and 18th December 1932 which took place in connection with the Reich conference issued a similar appeal.

"Every proletarian who is capable of defending himself and has the fighting spirit should be in our ranks. Get him for us. Forward to the attack! There can be no peace or tranquillity until the red flag of the freedom of the peoples flies over us who are the Red Army of a free socialist Soviet Germany!

Red Front!"

It was stated at the same conference that the subversive work of the R.F.B. among the police had by no means been unsuccessful. A R.F.B. member from Pfungstadt declared that they the police on their side. If propaganda bills were to be posted in the night, the police were informed beforehand. During that time the latter kept out of the way.

One representative of the R.F.B. from Mayence gave the impression that he was a police official. He explained among other things that when the police were called out one should make a note of those who did not act ruthlessly. These should be the first

to be approached with subversive material, in order to win them over to the organization.

On the 28th December the North-West District headquarters of the K.P.D. published "urgent instructions" which called for the closest connection between the work in the party and the military work. The masses were to be called upon to protect the party, and the preliminaries for the revolutionary situation were to be accelerated.

At the end of January 1933 the question of procuring arms for the coming rising was already being discussed at meetings of the officials of the R.F.B. On the 31st January the leading R.F.B. member Schubert declared at a secret meeting of leading officials at the party headquarters of the K.P.D. in Hamburg that a general strike was inevitable. He said that the preliminary stage of the armed rising had come, and might at any moment lead to the armed rising itself. The terrorist organizations of the scaboard provinces were to take action as rapidly as possible and the unemployed might, for instance, begin to procure fuel by force. It would do no harm if direct collisions with the police took place in this connection.

The "Data relating to the launching of and reporting on our 1933 offensive" published by the R.G.O. is entitled: "Make all preparations to be ready", and continues:—

"Events are occurring at increased speed. There is not much time left. All fighting proletarians must join us. The Communists are ready to take advantage of all occasions to organize the masses and thus make possible the victory of the proletariat. The revolutionary crisis may really occur at any moment."

The organ of the R.F.B. in its 36th illegal number of the ninth year of issue¹³) (incidentally with an alleged circulation of 500,000) is still plainer:—

"Mobilization Order. All young workers fit for military service are ordered to report themselves for service in the formations of the red Youth Front. General examination is from to-day until the 15th March. Enlist at once.

We are going to attack with Luxemburg, Liebknecht and Lenin.

To all former comrades of the red army of the Ruhr-District

To all members of the proletarian "hundreds"!

Hold meetings everywhere, organize yourselves and join the union of Red Front Fighters' League."

¹³⁾ Another organ of the R.F.B. "Der Rote Frontsoldat", dealing with the politics of proletarian defence, published by Kurt Heiss, Berlin, Sieger-Press, Berlin NW., Turmstrasse 87. There is also manuscript material such as "Graue Kolomen greifen an" and the already mentioned "Wehrpolitische Schriftenreihe" and the numerous subversive writings partly published by the R.F.B.

On the 25th February 1933 the following "special edition" of the "Rote Front" was distributed: —

"Organize a continuous alarm service; organize day and night patrols and guards! Watch the S.A. beer saloons... Remain together in groups, sleep in groups, defend yourselves in groups and die for freedom if necessary. Organize yourselves in the tried formations of the R.F.B. Rally round them."

The language becomes ever plainer. They consider it no longer necessary to disguise their real intentions. To-morrow they will fight on the barricades! "Der rote Matrose" writes: —

"To arms! The victory will be ours. Reload your rifles, pull the fuses of your hand-grenades and off to the barricades ... hang the fascist murderers and incendiaries ... do not shout "Germany awake", but "workers to the barricades"! Forward to victory!"

The final preparations were feverishly made. In the Ruhr District a system of successive stages of alarm was arranged:—

"Different stages of alarm are indicated by a number 50, 100, 150 or 200.

When 50 is signalled, every member of the R.F.B. must remain at home. The courier service has to stand ready in order to mobilize the whole organization and to alarm the party as events take place.

When 100 is signalled, patrols of single groups must be on the watch.

When 150 is signalled, the whole organization must get ready for action, and each group of five must be concentrated in a dwelling and wait for further orders. Apart from that, the instructions for the numbers 50 and 100 apply.

When 200 is signalled, armed patrols will also be sent out in accordance with party orders or those of the R.F.B. leaders.

At each of the various stages of alarm the groups of five have to get into touch with each other and at the same time to supply the local party headquarters with information about the situation. Further, the closest contact is to be kept with the subdistrict headquarters by means of additional courier stations to be kept open day and night."

On the 25th February 1933 the couriers of the union leaders took the orders of the day to all district staffs: —

"We, the central headquarters, invite all leaders and comrades to do their utmost to get all that is possible out of the organization. We must show that we can redeem our oath and carry out the resolutions of the last Reich Conference that we should be the best servants of the revolutionary party."

Words are followed by deeds. The alarm is given by the leaders of the R.F.B.: the armed rising is to take place at the end of February:—

To all Section Staffal

Our organization, the whole of the working class fit for military service, is confronted by the decisive task. Courage, boldness and determination. At any moment all the leaders must be capable of mobilizing the masses through the organization. It is not only a question of calling upon the masses to passively defend the K.P.D. and the rights of the workers, but we must also stir up the battle of the masses and direct a mass attack against the Fascist dictatorship. The League headquarters at this decisive moment expect every leader and comrade to do his utmost and to risk his life in the struggle for our class. We therefore order:—

• The whole organization must be constantly ready for immediate action.
• At any moment the party may be forbidden or other brutal measures adopted.
• 3. Nothing can or may hinder our work for a minute.
• As long as we remain in permanent solidarity and are inseparably connected with the working masses we are invincible.
• 5. Safest protection of operations and communications and the maintenance of contact are indispensible conditions.
• All discussions and big meetings are forbidden. The chie command and the leader's orders are not to be questioned Whoever disobeys them is a traitor.
• Maintain continuous contact with the Reichsbanner, the formations and head-quarters; there the atmosphere is favourable. Cooperation should be organized in this respect.
• The national front is not so united as they would have us believe. Large numbers are disappointed, others will become so. Therefore propaganda among the masses must now be intensified with all possible energy.
• Ruthless opposition against isolated acts of terrorism. The most decisive battle of the masses on the broadest front.
• Organization and defence of the working-class quarters. Water patrols.
• 11. Insure the safety of the apparatus of organization
• Deputy leaders are to be appointed everywhere. Mass distribution of materials and the sale of newspapers.
• 13. In this decisive hour every leader and comrade must show whether he is really ready to fight on fearlessly and to make the utmost sacrifice. Report on everything through the quickest channels.

Leaders and comrades, unfurl the banner of our mass action. Forward to the most advanced outposts. Show that you are fighters and also, if the revolution demands it, that you can die as heroes in battle. Bound for ever to all leaders and comrades, remembering our common pledge:—

Forward, long live our victory.

League Headquarters.'

After the longed-for success of the rising, the R.F.B., was to receive its great reward. It was not to play the part of a Red Army in Germany, but account was to be taken of the fact that it consisted of picked men and it was destined to become a Cheka or G.P.U. in the future Soviet Germany. The Red Mass Self-Defence Organizations, the so-called "Red Guard" on the other hand, and the Anti-Fascist Fighting League (KgF) were to form the Red Army.

Even in its uniform the Anti-Fascist League gave an indication of its plans for the future. Its members wore black Russian blouses with dark red collar-patches, black breeches and leggings, shoulder-straps and swordbelts, and dark-blue yachting caps. On the collar there was a red Soviet star made of metal.

In spite of the important task it was to have in the future, the Anti-Fascist League was by no means so well organized and disguised as the R.F.B. Right up to the end it was able to carry on openly and was not forbidden.

In § 1 of its statutes we read:—

"The league is called the KGF. Its object is to bring together in one organization all anti-Fascist forces to form a broad anti-Fascist mass movement. It will train its members for the fight against Fascism and will carry on this fight with the most suitable political and organizational means."

There is no doubt as to what means the KgF thought "suitable". Quite naturally there was only one "suitable" means of carrying on fight, and that was the armed rising.

In the first months of 1932 the KgF hesitated between two purposes, to win a broad measure of support among the masses and at the same time to create well-trained closely organized fighting units. In its work among the masses it even went so far as to form womens' and girls' detachment which appeared at "anti-Fascist congresses". There were, for instance, in Jena in September 1932 six squads, one youth squad and one of women and girls consisting of from three to six groups of eight or nine members each. In addition to that there was a cyclist squad. The purely military aspect was, on the other hand, most clearly shown by the custom of not carrying papers, but tin identification discs on which the number of the group and of the man were stamped, and which they carried on a string round their necks.

In the autumn of 1932, the transformation to illegality was begun in the case of the Anti-Fascist League also, but propaganda among the masses was not abandoned. As late as December 1932 "Das Sturmbanner", the officials' organ of the KgF wrote:—

"The revolutionary wave is rising. — The masses are learning to widen the strike movement, and to develop it to large scale political strikes and even a general strike." In close connection with the R.F.B. and with the principles laid down by the Reich Conference in Brunswick, the KgF adopted a three months' plan up to the end of February 1933, in the course of which 50,000 new members were to be enrolled and new squads and local groups organized.

The similarity between the two plans of attack at the beginning of the year is very striking. This indicates too that the pass-word had been given out from a common centre to be ready for the action by the end of February.

The year 1933 brought to the front the necessity for reorganizing the Anti-Fascist League in its illegal form, in strict accordance with what had been done in the R.F.B. and in the illegal party organization. The group of five was set up as the fundamental unit in the Anti-Fascist League as well. The directions as to organizations issued by the league at the beginning of January 1933 lay down the following principles.

"Together with the greatest possible decentralization of our forces so as to extend our work among the masses, there must be at the same time the greatest concentration of the whole organization on the tasks to be fulfilled."

At the end of January they had got so far as to be prepared to let the Anti-Fascist League hide behind illegality. Agitation and propaganda were discontinued because street-fighting was soon to begin. League head quarters issued orders to ensure the safety of the organization and to disguise it. I quote the order as it appears in the announcement of the North-West district headquarters of the league on the 23rd January:—

• "1. No member of the organization may give any information about it to an outsider.
  • 2. Except at the meetings of the organization, members and officials, there must be no discussion of internal affairs either in restaurants or in the streets or in railway carriages or tram-cars, or elsewhere.
• 3. Members of the organization are forbidden to put up or to give information, money or any other assistance to persons who say that they are members, even if they produce a membership book.
• In connection with that, it may be pointed out that such people, often provided with every conceivable forged paper of indentification, give as a reason for their wanting shelter and assistance that they have committed some offence and expect heavy punishment. This is always an absolute swindle, only calculated to exploit the feelings of some of the organization members. Above all things, we warn members against such people.
• 4. Whenever the organization makes a public appearance, whether at meetings, demonstrations, or public social evenings, members must be specially on their guard against the activity of secret agents and agents provocateurs.

5. In every case it must be remembered that only the directions and commands of the appointed leaders of the organization are to be obeyed. Information, communications etc. may be conveyed to the proper official either through the usual channels or through such members as are personally known to the source of information.

Final Remarks fo Comrades, Leaders and Staffs.

These directions indicate the least that must be done to ensure the safety of the organization, without creating a spy psychosis. The greatest safety for the organization lies in its activity, its hold on the masses and its foundation in the factories. If, from now on, members or representatives of the district headquarters are detached to inspect etc., we shall in each case announce their arrival in due time, and, in so far as they are not personally known to you, they will be supplied with the requisite identity papers, which will have been arranged beforehand with the individual local headquarters.

Ready for the attack! Reich Headquarters.

We point out once more that for special reasons we require the following from each local group:— one address for letters, one address for parcels, one information office for couriers and, at the same time, alternatives, so that, if need be, we can use the alternative addresses. These addresses will soon be fetched by messenger or communicated to Reich headquarters in some other way to be arranged."

Two days later the first shots were fired and nine persons were killed. The official report of the Police President in Dresden on what occurred at the meeting of the Anti-Fascist League in the "Keglerheim" on January 25th, 1933 states:—

"The chief speaker was the Communist, retired lieutenant Frädrich from Bautzen. He spoke in such an inflammatory way that the audience of 800 became more and more excited. At 10.35 p.m. the police officer on duty declared the meeting dissolved and called up police reinforcements. As the speaker protested against the meeting being dissolved, those present were once more loudly informed that the meeting was dissolved and called upon to disperse. But although they at first only protested by gesticulating, resistance became greater because they were excited by Frädrich's behaviour. Groups, chiefly in the gallery, shouted in unison that the people were to keep their seats. Thereupon the officer commanding the police mounted on a chair and ordered those present once more and in a specially loud and clear voice to leave the hall. Groups of men started to shout again in unison, and, at the same time, beer-glasses, chairs, etc. were thrown at the police from the gallery facing the platform; one or two shots were also fired from the gallery. Thereupon the police made use of their revolvers, firing chiefly at those who had shot from the gallery. It has been proved beyond doubt that the Communists fired at the police from two different points in the gallery.

After those in the gallery had retreated before the firing of the police, the order was given to cease fire. But as the police were again bombarded with various objects and further shots were fired from the gallery, the police officials had again, in self-defence, to use their revolvers. 21 of 29 policemen present used their weapons and fired in all 36 shots.

Of those who took part in the meeting 9 were killed, but only 4 of them died of gunshot wounds.

The illegal Anti-Fascist League had fought its first battle. It had come out of its ambush and had shed the first blood. War had begun.

On the 30th January the new Government was formed with Adolf Hitler at its head. On the same day the Anti-Fascist League issued its alarm orders:—

"To-day at noon the new government was formed. The greatest vigilance is urgently required. We therefore issue the following orders:—

• 1. All League squads and mass self-defence formations are to hold themselves in readiness until further notice.
• Every local group and squad must at once establish a courier information office. Every local group must at once have a dummy address which will only be valid for these few days.
• All that is still necessary for organization must be protected from enemy interference. Comrades must also conceal their membership books.
• 5. Only members of headquarters who are known as such and comrades with special papers of identification may be given information as to the state of and measures adopted by the organization.
• 6. Strict discipline and obedience to the leaders' orders.
• If it should be forbidden, the organization will be continued illegally.
• 8. Comrades must remain absolutely cool and display no nervousness.
• Precautionary measures must be taken at once to protect the houses of the chief officials. Remember what happened after the 31st July in Königsberg.
• 10. Take off uniforms and badges at night.
• Do not stand about in groups in front of officials' houses, but watch the house, place comrades in the vicinity and patrol it.
• 12. Headquarters must also be searched at night in the Hankenstrasse.
• 13. We stand for the political mass strike against Hitler's dictatorship. The organization of "political choruses" and discussion groups in the factories is of extreme urgency.
• 14. Immediate contact is to be established with the "comradeships" and sections of the Reichsbanner who are also prepared for action. They must be told where they can reach us, and that we are ready to fight with them against the national Fascists.

  Besides the houses of the chief functionnries, workers' restaurants and distribution centres of "cooperatives" must be guarded.

After reading and discussing this document with the immediate leaders it must be at once destroyed.

Ready for the attack! District Headquarters.

Safely protected on all sides, ready to take any action required, the Anti-Fascist League crossed the invisible frontier between peace from war. On the 1st February 1933 it was at war with the German nation.

At the same time the formations of the "Red Guard", the real revolutionary army, were also made ready for the attack. The K.P.D. had already in the summer of 1932 begun to form these mass organizations, which were, so to speak, the revolutionary regiments of the line. It was the kernel of the Anti-Fascist Action which had been called into life by the proclamation of the central committee of the K.P.D. of the 25th May, 1932.¹⁴) The germs of such self-defence organizations were of course already in existence. There were for instance:—

1290 members of the Anti-Fascist League and 183 self-defence men in Essen; 1622 members of the Anti-Fascist League and 1132 Self-Defence men in Duisburg, etc. (Circular of the local command of the Ruhr District Anti-Fascist League, dated 18th May, 1932.)

The spirit which animated these Red Mass Self-Defence (R.M.S.S.) organizations may be seen very clearly from the following remarks of the illegal central organ of the Anti-Fascist League, dated June, 1932:—15)

"Bitter hatred and furious anger against the Hitler gangs — those are the most important weapons of the working class. One must not allow them to be blunted by individual acts of terrorism. Infect the whole working-class with your hatred and anger ...

Organize this mass self-defence! By means of the masses drive the brown pest from the streets and from all workers' quarters! Then you will have laid the foundations for the final judgment on these criminal exploiters of the people, the reactionary barons and their swastika band of murderers."

The armed rising — the Bolshevist mass murder — was to be born of this senseless rage against fellow-countrymen and of a blind hatred of the overwhelming majority of the German people Mass terrorism and civil war had already been decided upon as the goal of the Red Mass Self-Defence. What had been proclaimed already in August 1932 by the central organ of the R.F.B., "Die Rote Front":—

(**) Cf. "Rotes Sturmbanner", No. 7

¹⁴⁾ Cf. "Rote Fahne", issue of 26, 5, 32,

Barricades in Moabit in June, 1932

"The mass terrorism of the working class and of the other exploited classes must be opposed by the terrorism of the Fascist organizations. To organize a fighting front of millions is the only way, not only to treat the bourgeoisie in the separate skirmishes of the civil war, but to destroy terrorism altogether and, at the same time, to destroy the foundations on which the capitalist exploiters rest."

At the beginning of July 1932 the official rules as to the formation of the R.M.S.S. were issued by the Party. Here we find stated:16)

"The Red Self-Defence is a part of the great Anti-Fascist action of the millions of the united militant "Red Front"

The Red Mass Self-Defence is neither an organization nor a society but a non-party union of all workers..."

Groups or squads of the R.M.S.S. were, according to these rules, to be formed in every factory, in the "dole" offices, in every block of houses and in the country. The task of the R.M.S.S. had already been set as "to fight for the complete destruction of all strike-breaker and terrorist organizations of the Nazis in the factories and Labour Exchanges."

"It is fighting to clear Nazi cells out of the factories and to build up Self-Defence squads of all workers in all factories and Labour Exchanges.

The R.M.S.S. is fighting against Fascist terror on the streets, against S.A. beer saloons, S.A. Homes, S.A. bases and for the protection of the dwellings and beer-saloons of the workers, and of the workers property, their press and Cooperative Societies.

¹⁶⁾ Rules for Self-Defence Hamburg 11, 7, 1932. See also "Roter Massen-Selbst schutz, marschiert mit". Einst Schneller.

The R.M.S.S. is organizing continuous propaganda among the employees and the working middle class, above all among the small shopkeepers; but it wages ruthless war against those Fascist shopkeepers who support the Nazi agitation.

How is the R.M.S.S. mobilized?

The Mass Self-Defence squads are to be alarmed by squad headquarters and, while performing the tasks allotted to them, they must obey the orders of the leader, who has been appointed by the squad command for the performance of the particular task undertaken."

The badge of the R.M.S.S. was a pentagon pointing downwards (the Soviet Star) with a silver background on which was a fist clasping a red flag. The inscription was "Red Mass Self-Defence".

The external form of organization was kept as close as possible. The members were given no membership cards and had no subscriptions to pay. The R.M.S.S. was subdivided in much the same way as the R.F.B.: groups of five, comradeships and sections. Great emphasis was laid on discipline and punctuality. Squad evening meetings took place regularly for purposes of military instruction.

"On the 14th and 15th January 1933, a military-political course was held in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, and was attended by 23 K.P.D. functionaries.

The following subjects were discussed:-

• 1. Preparation for the armed rising.
• 2. Armed rising as an art.
• The situation in the seaboard provinces and the strength of the enemy.

The meeting discussed in detail the rules of street-fighting, the disarming of police pickets, surprising of guards and the occupation of important strategic points, particularly those in the suburbs. The uses of various weapons were also discussed:—

Firearms, hand-grenades, bombs, mines and, finally, gas.

The necessity of making maps of the streets (details of houses, roofs and courtyards, and position and nature of police stations) was especially emphasized. These maps were to be conveyed to the Party organization.

Above all they discussed the forces of police present in Hamburg, Hamburg and Altona — Wandsbeck (arms, number of armoured cars: Hamburg . . . — Harburg . . . — Wandsbeck . . .) and also how to procure weapons by finding and robbing enemy armament depots. Examples were given from 1923.

Reliable information was given that, although at the moment the danger of an armed attack by the K.P.D. was not imminent, nevertheless it was felt that party headquarters were making increased preparation, for the armed rising. The speaker emphasized that the leaders had given particular attention to the arrangement of the courses and had

selected the participants in order to tenin functionaries who should prepare the masses by influencing the cells and squads for an armed rising.

The speaker spoke from typed notes,

The course which lasted seven hours was to be repeated in four weeks.

The following books were recommended by the speaker:-

"Der Weg zum Sieg" — "Kriegsthesen des VI. Weltkongresses"
"Der bewaffnete Aufstand!" — "Militärische Schriften" by Engels
Lenin — "Beschlüsse des XII. Ekki-Plenums" — "Soldaten-Fibel"
"Die neue Gruppe" — "Der Straßenkampf", (Police Report)

The judgment of the fourth division of the Supreme Court against Placzek of the 31st May 1932 and against Meyer and ne complices of the 3th September 1932 show how this training was put into practice.

In the judgment against Placzek a leaflet of the "Red Front Fighters Union Withelmsburg" is reproduced. This leaflet calls for the same activity which the accused Holert was charged with: during the period in which the revolution was being organized groups of five comrades—the well-known smallest union in the R.F.B.—must come together to "acquire knowledge of the art of the armed rising (Engels-Lenin, Militärpolitische Schriften) and in addition to that to see to the provision of arms"....

The judgment against Meyer and accomplices mentions much material from the district command Upper Silesia of the R.F.B. from the year 1931 which also mentions courses and training evenings and calls for political and war fraining on the part of the Union members.....

The judgment of the High Court 15 J 24.32 against Barneti, 14 b/45 J. 203./31. — against Roscher and 14 b/15 J. 80.31. — against Rembte deal with similar proceedings. But the training courses which this judgment refers to deal primarily with the armed rising from a political point of view, whereas the courses arranged by the R.F.B. deal with the same question chiefly from its military aspect.

The theoretical teaching was supplemented by field exercises and marches. The training in the use of weapons was on quite u high level. The Parabellum pistol, the Mauser, the hand-grenade, rifle model 98, carbines, machine-pistols and machine guns were studied. Instruction in the use of the weapons themselves was carried out only under the strictest precautions.

It was seldom possible actually to observe shooting practice on the part of terrorist groups, as for instance that of the terrorist group Neurath in Köln Mühlheim which was held in the cellar of the barracks in the Hacketäuerstraße 23. Fifteen uniformed terrorists took part and shot with 6.22 Flobert rifles, long rifles and 7.65 pistots. In the surrounding streets Communist double patrols with bicycles kept guard, while at the same time the police were kept busy in another part of the lown.

In August, after the Reichstag elections, the groups of five received the name "Star", the street squads were called from now on "Pennant", and the town districts "Banner". The squad leaders organized the service of couriers and had to see that more defensive sport practice took place. In accordance with the instructions of the R.M.S.S. the house defence and factory divisions were given the following concrete tasks:—

Active struggle against all Nazis by the organization of mass action and the avoidance of individual terrorist acts.

Concentration on the nearest Nazi base. The arrangement of barracks for the squads in reading rooms, party beer saloons, gardens etc.

The sounding of alarms by horn or whistle signals.

Three stages of alarm were laid down, according as to whether it was a matter of big national socialist action, of local disturbances, or, finally, of small incidents "which could be dealt with by the street squads themselves". These instructions state literally:—

"At the first alarm stage A, the house squads move to their places which they have to secure by sending forward, if possible, cyclists and motor cyclists to insure against all eventualities. The necessary orders for action are issued after a short time. At the highest alarm stage our comrades must provide themselves as far as possible with haversacks or rucksacks and the necessary food. The squad leader must also provide tools, axes, picks, spades, etc. All house squads must try to form independent cyclist groups."

By the end of September there were in Berlin about 500 squads of the R.M.S.S. with a varying membership up to about 80.

In Stuttgart the number of squads was already about 50. The best organized were those in the seaboard provinces. Here at the end of February 1932 there were about 13,000 Anti-Fascists in 260 squads. The allotment garden owners squad in Altona - Lurup numbering 220 men represented a considerable force. Almost two thirds of the squad members were non-party, e.g.:—

Sailors division 450 men, 60 of them K.P.D. members, St. Pauli South 350 men, 95 of them K.P.D. members, Centre District 1,125 men, 330 of them K.P.D. members.

At the beginning of February 1933 there were in Hamburg about 150 house squads with about 5,500 men. Of these about 2,500 could be used for any purpose. As regards the technique of defence, the house squads had reached a high state of efficiency particularly on account of the well-attended shooting evenings.

The German Young Communists League (K.J.V.D.) had an important part to play in the preparations for the armed rising, since it brought together all the youthful and active forces in the movement. According to its programme, it was bound to undertake subversive activity in the army and navy and to carry on military espionage. Apart from that, it formed an important cadre within the Bolshevist defence force and was most carefully trained. I take the following example from a police report from Nuremberg, dated October 1932:

Apart from questions of internal organization and politics of the day, the regularly held group evenings and "educational" lectures dealt chiefly with military subjects (armed rising, civil war, sabotage, etc.). In the field exercises, among other things, action in the event of a police attack was specially practised.

A new method is the holding of week-end courses in small towns and villages, at which the participants appear under the name of some apparently barmless society. Thus a short time ago the Young Communist League, having given itself the name of a national science society, held young Communist leader Andreas Pant of Natemberg. The subject of the week-end course was the "Armed Rising". The lacturers were Joseph Blöth of Fürth and Martin Stiebel of Natemberg.

Apart from the above mentioned mass organizations, the K.P.D. formed, partly, as we have seen, from its own members, numerous terrorist groups in order to be able to meet the requirements of an armed rising and of the technique of street fighting. The so-called Scheringen squads became known at the beginning of February 1933; they consisted in Berlin of 100 men and in Hannover of 140 men each. There were even larger squads in Hamburg and Cologne. In these squads were brought together ex-members of the Red Youth Front, and the R.F.B. It sometimes happened that the members of the Scheringer squads wore S.A. uniforms. Otherwise the uniform consisted of a blue cap, a black Russian blouse, a soft black collar with a tie of the same colour, black breeches, shoes and leather leggings, sword-belt and shoulderstraps. On the left arm of the shirt there was a round black cloth badge with the words "Scheringer Squad" in red and the squad number in Roman numerals. The particular task of the Scheringer squads was subversive activity within the S.A. and S.S.; they were placed under the command of the R.F.B.

was founded in honour of the shot Communist Hammer. Other terrorist groups were named in the same way. The terrorist groups were also used for guarding meetings. They held shooting practice. In particular, shooting at night was practised, in order to destroy the enemy in the dark. Countless little terrorist groups of from 6 to 8 men existed in all industrial towns, as for instance in Nuremberg where the leaders were Jean Wohlfahrt, Karl Riemer, Richard Schumann and Franz Tanzburger. The members of the terrorist groups were partly ex-convicts, who had previously been sentenced, as for instance, the above-mentioned Franz Tanzberger and also Johann Michael Lunz, Jugelstrasse 155, Nuremberg. The latter had attempted to murder the police inspector on duty at a demonstration on the 11th June 1932. He missed the inspector and killed a certain Falkner. After the deed, Lunz succeeded in escaping to Russia, although he was already wanted by the police for a serious theft. A similar attempt to murder a mounted policeman was committed by Tanzberger, who was later arrested for burglary.

These attempts at murder were by no means the personal acts of the two criminals, but were an important part of the tasks of the terrorist groups. As has frequently been shown in high treason cases before the Supreme Court, the terrorist groups and groups of

five form the "fighting skeleton" of the demonstrating proletariat. They are to use all possible forms of violence and crime, in order to attain their terrorist ends. To this end, not only are outrages committed, but also robbing with violence and even village wells poisoned in order to get money for the K.P.D.

The Communist terrorist groups had also made preparations for wholesale poisoning. At the end of March 1933 about 8 lb. of sodium cyanide and ½ lb. of copper sulphate were confiscated from a terrorist group in Düsseldorf. Half of this quantity would have been sufficient to poison the whole of Düsseldorf. The following were members of this terrorist group who were working in close contact with the Anti-Fascist Fighting League: August Hillgraf, Heinrich Weisziehr, Hans Wienke. Ernst Saalwächter and others. The parcel with the poison was first hidden in the rubbish heap of the house Beerenstrasse 1 and was then taken out again and put into another hiding-place. Finally it reached Hillgraf's dwelling, where it could be confiscated.

b) Mass Terrorism.

The activities of the terror-groups in connection with communist demonstrations were subject to strict instructions and orders of the terrorist headquarters. It was these initiative-groups which were systematically employed, according to the tactical demands of the street-fights. One of the many orders of the day of the terrorist headquarters, for the carrying out of demonstrations, states:—

"Each group of five is assigned a certain spot where they have to appear punctually at a given time. At a given signal the groups of five have to form immediately, as quick as lightning, into squads

Riot in front of the Hamburg Labour bureau.

or detachments. At the same time cyclists are to be employed who are to guard the neighbouring streets against the police; in case of danger they must immediately notify the squad which is then to disperse at once and disappear from the danger zone. When dispersing, however, the groups are always to keep together in loose formation. Beforehand, a definite route is to be arranged for the demonstration, as also for the guard of cyclists.

Each group, according to order 2, has to send the report, immediately it is completed, to the leader of the squad by courier, the leader of the squad to the leader of the storm-detachment, the storm-detachment of the division, the division to the sub-group and the sub-group leader to the group-leaders.

Alarm devices must be present everywhere: buglers, sirens, loudspeakers etc.

The couriers have proved to be good. The groups are instructed to use only reliable comrades for this function and also to provide for cycles, light etc. New systems of control will be employed and the instructions concerning them are to be strictly observed.

In cases of alarm a new meeting-place for the relay-couriers is always to be arranged. The couriers are to keep up hourly communication between their base and the block. In special cases the couriers naturally act immediately."

The practical execution of such plans and instructions is shown in an exceptionally typical case:—

"On the 26th. February 1933 Hamburg was in the midst of a lively election-propaganda. About 8,000 to 10,000 persons took part in a demonstration of the S.A. (storm detachments) in the forenoon; about 15,000 persons took part in a march of the Iron Front at noon. The demonstration of the "Black-White-Red Fighting-front", at which Vice-Chancellor von Papen spoke, was visited by from 8,000 to 9,000 persons. In spite of the outrages planned by the Communists, against which extensive safeguarding measures were taken by the police, the day ended here in comparative quiet, apart from a few single cases of shooting. Minor cases of fighting, smashing of windows of various business premises and of the Karstadt building, occurred during the whole of the day. Among the more serious cases the following are

1. At about 8,20 a. m. S.A. men were fired at by Communists, in Lock-stedterweg, whereby 2 S.A. men were injured by shots through the pelvis and the upper thigh. The culprits escaped. In the course of the investigations made by the criminal police, however, the machine-maker Walter Robert Rohde, pretending to belong to no party, born 9, 3, 1913 in Klein-Grabau, was arrested on strong suspicion, and was recognized by one of the injured men as the culprit.

• 2. Marbout 11:50 a.m. an S.A. squad was hombarded with stones in the Barmbecker Strasse. As the S.A. men thereupon were preparing to advance upon Pfister's beer saloon, frequently by the Reichsbanner shots were fired from within, whereby a woman was injured by a shot through the jaw and an S.A. man by a shot into the abdomen. 3 members of the Reichsbanner were arrested, being strongly suspected of having committed the crime.
• 3. At 12.10 p. m. 6 or 8 well-dressed young people entered the "Falkenburg" beer saloon, Falkenried 45, frequented by the members of the N.S.D.A.P., overturned several tables and fired at random, whereby 2 National Socialists, who were on the premises, were shot through the neck and the abdomen respectively. One of the persons injured died in hospital. The culprits escaped unrecognised, but later on the joiner Alexander Adolf Emil Schwert, born 24, 11, 1910 in Hamburg, member of the communistic "House defence corps", was arrested on strong suspicion and brought before the court.
• 4. At about 10.40 p.m. meeting-place of the N.S.D.A.P., Krüger's beer saloon, Brodschrangen, was fired upon by a Communist terrorist group, whereby one shot entered the premises and caused slight damage.

A policeman who appeared was shot at and wounded in the upper thigh. Other policemen took up the pursuit, whereby some firing took place in which one of the culprits, the dock-worker Johann Wilhelm Jasper, born 28. 1. 1898 in Meldorf, was injured by two shots through the leg.

Further, the following were arrested:-

• 1. Franz Hesse, blacksmith, born 23. 6. 1904 at Schwerte,
• 2. Walter Adolf Bennies, tailor, born 5. 9. 1911 at Hamburg,
• Richard Wesselowsky, ordinary seaman, born 20, 4, 1911 at Königsberg,
• Ernst Adolf Louis Wendt, metal-worker, born 16. 5. 1898 at Altona in Altona.

The following articles were found in the possession of the persons arrested and confiscated:—

1 army pistol 08, 1 large Mauser pistol, 1 live-bomb, 1 Saner pistol and a number of cartridges.

Later on, two more large Mauser pistols were found which were thrown away during the flight. During the shooting four more persons were injured who apparently had nothing to do with the affair." (Police report.)

A dangerous terrorist group was captured, after a shooting affair, in Düsseldorf, Kölner Strasse, on the 20th. June 1932 at 11.15 p.m. After searching a few houses and making a few arrests it was possible to capture a whole armed terrorist group of the K.P.D. Among others the following persons belonged to this group: Karl Hoffmann, Heinrich Hesshaus, Joseph Hesshaus, Heinrich Jörgens elc.

The following report of the trial serves as another clear example:—

"The six accused were members of the "Red Defence Squad" in Chemnitz, which was organised in the summer of 1930, after the disbandment of the "Red Front-fighters Leagne". The duties of the squad included military training, especially in the use of fire-arms and explosives, the procuring of such arms and instructions for their use for acts of sabotage and terrorism. For the purpose of fulfilling the tactical and strategic tasks, the leaders of the squad gave the members careful military training; twice a week lessons were given, by comrades who had seen active service, in the handling of fire-arms and explosives, especially in the attaching of the latter to bridges, railway-junctions, and buildings, as also in military movements on the field. For teaching purposes revolvers and military regulations for the use of fire-arms were used, whilst the explosives and the handling of them were explained in object lessons by means of illustrations. In order to provide the defence-squad with the necessary munitions for their illegal activities, thefts of explosives were carried out. The portable fire-arms with which the "storm-squads" were armed, originate — at least part of them — from Czecho-Slovakia; besides that, it was intended to try to get arms from Belgium. The "Red Defence-Squad", which did not only function in Chemnitz, but which also had groups in several places of the Chemnitz district, that also gave their members a military training, especially in the

Such terrorist or initiative groups were also recruited from the ranks of the self-defence corps and organised into a fighting-group, which had to perform special duties in the case of street-fights and demonstrations.

For instance, within the House-block Defence Corps of Cannstatt a special group of reliable "daredevils" was formed which was to be set against the police motor-cars, in order to hold the guard in check with pistols.

Such terrorist groups often lie in readiness in some place or other in the case of a massed Communist action. The leaders of the street action issue their orders for the intervention of these groups through cyclist-couriers, who often use small wooden discs with a number burnt into them as badges of identity.

The terrorist groups have also to terrorize the inhabitants of the district and to hold them in fear and subjection. Among them are also to be found the writers of anonymous threatening letters, through which the political opponents in the neighbourhood are to be frightened. The following letter from the terrorist organization of Wedding to a certain Mr. B., Pasewalker Strasse, is one of the many examples:

"Dear Mr. B.

In consequence of the ever increasing brown mirrder-pest, to which your three brats also belong, we are obliged to resort to means, in self-defence, which deeply affect the parental heart; but it can't be helped. We are in peril and on the defensive against the brown mob. Your daughter has repeatedly had sexual interconrse with the brown murder bandits. The youngest scamp provokes the workmen of Wedding in a most insolent manner. Very well then, We accept the challence. The cup is filled to the brim. From to-day on we shall send all the Nazi bandits, whom we know, to where one wants to send us in the Third Reich. We draw your attention to the fact that also your Nazi brats will have to take this journey. Whether right or wrong is not a matter for us to judge. Our patience is exhausted. Caught together — hanged together.

There is no returning to the working class.

It is already too late.

This is not meant as a threat, but a notification to the parents to be prepared for something, if not to-day, then in a few days. We must stick to our oath, in spite of everything.

Both your scamps, as well as that Nazi whore, get ready for your journey to the Fifth Reich. It is five minutes to twelve!"

Smashed window of a Berlin store

Tombstone desecrated by Communists

The same terrorist groups are also probably responsible for the smaller actions, as, for instance, the desecration of churches and tombstones, the setting fire to numerous advertisement pillars which occurred in Berlin in 1932, interrupting wireless transmissions, looting of shops and smashing of shop windows.

On December 3, 1932, large gatherings of Communists took place in various districts of Berlin, for instance in the Danziger Strasse, Admiral Strasse and Petersburger Strasse. During a large demonstration in the Grosse Frankfurter Strasse the demonstrators smashed a show-case outside Nikolai's gunsmith's shop, and made off with a number of arms. In Goldacker's adjoining provision store a window-pane was smashed and a quantity of sausages etc. stolen.

At Christmas-time, 1932, looting of provision stores became exceptionally frequent in Berlin. It was obvious from the start that these outrages were not perpetrated by distressed members of the working class, but were directed by a central Communist action committee. Shortly after Christmas the criminal police raided the workmen's home of the Communist Party, 19 Veteranstrasse, and arrested the instigator and nine youths there, some of whom participated in the looting of stores in Berlin in December 1932. It was ascertained, without any doubt, that a Communist was among this crowd who had collected these youngsters at a labour exchange and led them finally to the "Bolle Dairy" at 45 Schönhauser Strasse, after many unsuccessful attempts at looting. It is significant that in this case none of the culprits acted out of dire need. One of these youths, for example, who had stolen 4 tins of sardines, sold one of them for 50 pfennigs, gave the second away and finished off the last two with a couple of friends. In numerous cases provocative hand-bills of the K.P.D. were found, inciting the unemployed and youths to acts of theft and robbery. The following is an example:—

To the Unemployed!

In Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, etc. the shop-windows of the big provision stores are being smashed day after day; in the towns of the Ruhr district the coal-yards are being raided and looted by hundred of unemployed. These unemployed proletarians have realised that it is only by revolutionary self-help that they can save themselves from starvation and cold. They simply take what they need. Proletarians! These actions should and must be a signal for the unemployed throughout Germany. These stocks of provisions etc. in Germany were produced by workmen, and they belong to the workmen, to you.

This is not theft, as the law says it is, but only taking possession of the results of your own labours.

All of you who are starving and suffering from the cold, gather in front of the big shops and coal-yards and take what you need.

Make for the supplies!!"

As already mentioned, many attempts were made by the terrorist groups to obtain money for the K.P.D. by robbery. Take the attack which was made in Hamburg upon Sühr the bookmaker's office in the Wex Strasse, by Walter Radatz, Willi Albertz and others. A part of the money was placed at the disposal of the Communist organization by the culprits. In another case in which judgement was passed, it was stated in the reasons for the judgement on the basis of information given by the police in Hamburg, that all the participants in a robbery were members of the "Red Front-Fighter League". Further, the Attorney General maintained, in the bill of indictment in a criminal case against fourteen members of a Communist terrorist group from Herford, that the accused did not

May disturbances on the Hermannplatz, Berlin, in 1932.

only discuss the question of civil war at their meetings, but that also ways and means were discussed by which arms, explosives and money could be obtained for the party, and for a time the plan was discussed of robbing the Herford branch of the Reichsbank.

The principal duty of the initiative-groups, however, was to get rid of their political opponents.

The criminal police in Döbeln (Saxony) found out that the Communists had a large quantity of cyanide in readiness in Döbeln, with which certain persons were to be poisoned by the Communist terrorist groups. The quantity of poison — it was pure potassium cyanide — which the police confiscated would have been enough to poison from 100 to 150 persons. The murderous plans of the Döbeln Communists were so far developed, that trusted agents were appointed by the R.P.D. who were to administer the "sugar" to their intended victims in a most cunning manner. It was ascertained

that the cyanide was stolen by a K.P.D. functionary of the Döbeln district group from a firm which uses such poison.

It is quite impossible to go into each single item of the endless chain of assaults and murders which the Communist terrorist groups practised on policeman and S. A. men in the course of the year 1932 and in the first months of 1933. In these last few months there were days on which six persons were killed and several dozen seriously injured. The civil war was actually in full swing, a guerilla war and political street-fight, of which the police and the members of the S.A. were hourly victims.

A few of these cases, which have become especially well known, must be recalled to memory.

On the 24th October, 1932, an attempt was made by the Communists Berner and Oesselmann to blow up the house of the gendarme G. in Hemelingen, in that the accused threw bottles filled with explosives through the windows of the gendarme's house. Fortunately no lives were lost. When he was arrested on the 27th October 1931, Berner, who was armed, sought to defend himself.

On the 18th January 1932 a troop of National Socialists marched from Waidmannslust near Hermsdorf, where they had held a meeting, through Schönholzer Weg in Reinickendorf-Ost. Several shots were fired from the neighbouring colony of Felseneck. In an attempt to capture the culprits, the National Socialist Professor Ernst Schwarz and the labourer Fritz Klemke were shot. The twenty-one year old National Socialist Bernhard Wittkowski and the employee Mandala and also two police officials were injured. It was only after strong police reinforcements had arrived that this night battle could be ended.

Some days later, on the 21st January 1932, at 11.30 p.m. in the Grönland colony, in the north-east of Berlin, eleven Communists were arrested who had formed a terrorist group and treacherously lay in ambush to fire upon some National Socialists returning from a meeting at Hohenschönhausen.

"On their way home the National Socialists wished to take the route Berlin-Hohenschönhausen — Oderbruchstraße — Landsberger Allee to the centre of the town. The members of the terrorist group met at the spot marked on the sketch. From this point couriers were sent on bievcles, from time to time, to the place where the meeting was held in order to inform the terrorist group in good time when the meeting was finished. After the meeting was over the terrorist group intended to make their way, as shown in the sketch, to the place where the crime was committed, in the cutting. From the spot marked "o" the National Socialists were to be shot at with nine pistols, mostly 9 mm. From the strategical point of view of the Communists the place was very favour-

ably thosen. The narrow cutting led through allotment gardens. The natural surroundings hid them well from the unsuspecting National So cialists. Above all, a well covered retreat was available for the culprits after the attack, Pursuit would have been absolutely useless.

The police received information of this intended attack shortly beforehand. The first steps which were taken were the closing of the
Schönhausener Straße and the directing of the National Socialists to go
via the Weißenseer Weg and Lichtenberg, in order to keep those who
took part in the meeting away from the spot where the shooting was to
take place, in case the efforts to capture the culprits should not be\nsuccessful. Arrangements were then made for the arrests. A thick
fog made the action easier, so that, at the spot market "x", the arrest
of the whole terrorist group was accomplished so unexpectedly that,
when the searchlights were suddenly turned on, beads of perspiration
were to be seen on the faces of several of the terrified Communists.
Each of the persons arrested carried a loaded pistol ready cocked.

If we consider the exceptional fighting strength of the terrorist group by itself — 11 mostly large calibre portable arms loaded with 7—9 rounds, i. e. about 90 rounds which could be fired in a very short time—it can clearly be seen what a disaster would have befallen the unsuspecting National Socialists if the attempted attack had been carried out.

The defence of the accused was placed in the hands of the notorious partner of the still more notorious lawyer Litten, the Jew Barbasch, by the Red Provident Society. In the court of appeal nine of the accused were sentenced to heavy terms of imprisonment and penal servitude. Unfortunately the amnesty law has come to the rescue of these criminals so that these bestial attempts at murder have remained unpunished.¹⁹)

¹⁹⁾ Police report

The murdered police captains Lenk and Anlauf.

The murder of the police captains Anlauf and Lenk in front of the Karl-Liebknecht House in Berlin on the 9th of August 1931 will still be in the recollection of all.

"In front of the stronghold of the Communists in Berlin, on the Bülow Platz, where the Karl Liebknecht House with the publishing offices of the "Rote Fahne" is situated, a very large crowd of people gathered together about 8 p.m. The Communists intended making a demonstration there. The police were attacked as soon as they appeared on the scene. When the nine squads of police which were then called to clear the Bülow Platz began their work, shots were suddenly fired from the houses next to the Babylon Cinema, seriously injuring the inspector of the 7th district, Police Captain Anlauf and Police Captain Lenk, as well as Police Sergeant Willig. Both the police captains died on the way to hospital. The police thereupon first took energetic measures, and orders were issued for all windows to be closed. Shooting was the result in all cases of neglect to carry out these orders. The police had a fourth casualty and were fired upon from the windows and house entrances. It was not possible to ascertain the numbers of killed and wounded demonstrators, as the Communists carried off their wounded to a place of safety.

It was ascertained that small handbills had been posted on the walls of the houses and advertising hoardings in the neighbourhood of the Schönhauser Tor and the Alexander Platz, and elsewhere in recent times, bearing the threat: "Look out, pighead, hussar and death's head! We'll catch you!" We are informed that "pighead" and "hussar" were the nicknames given by the Communists to Captain Anlauf and Sergeant Willig." (Extract from Police Report)

Another proof of the manner in which the Communists incited the masses to murder police officials, may be seen in the words painted in large red letters on the pavement in the Friedrich Strasse and Rolke Straße, near the school in Weißensee, reading "Lieutenaut Becker, set your watch, the R.F.B. is on your track! For every worker shot, two police officers will be taken! R.F.B. takes revenge!"

When members of the police force removed bills with political matter from walls in the Nehring Strasse in Charlottenburg, further bills were subsequently found posted to the same places bearing the words: "Greenhorn! If you dare to again tear down our bills, you will follow your knavish colleagues Anlauf and Lenk! Signed. Comrade Grzesinski, on behalf of Zörrgiebel."

The murdered S.A. man Hermann Thielsch

The carefully prepared attack by the Communist terrorist group on the S.A. beer saloon "Zur Hochburg", 17, Gneisenau Strasse, Berlin on the 9th September 1931, took place entirely according to plan: —

"Hermann Tschäge, leader of the sub-district "Zentrum" of the prohibited Red Front Fighters League, who had hitherto been in hiding, carefully prepared the plans of the shooting outrage, A shock troop was formed with instructions to surround the S.A. beer saloon "Zur Hochburg" in the Gneisenau Strasse, and to open fire at a given signal. Other members of this shock troop, besides Tschäge, were the head of the organization, Erwin Rätsch, the head of the literary section of the R.F.B., Emil Beilfuß, and the Communist Schoel. On reaching the S.A. beer saloon shortly before midnight on 9th September 1931, the Communists first of all shot down the S.A. sentries Thielsch and Seelig from a distance, as they stood in front of the saloon, and then turned their fire on the interior, severely wounding the S.A. men Ihlenfeld and Appholy seriously in the forearm. Thielsch died shortly after being admitted to the Urban Hospital, whilst the physicians suc-

ceeded in saving the life of the S.A. men Scelig, who was wounded in the liver and kidneys. At the present time he is however, still 70 per cent unfit for work, Beilfuß and Schoel were smuggled over the frontier into Russia with the aid of the Red Provident Society. They returned of their own free-will to Germany later, however, and Beilfuß made a clean breast of everything. The connection with the K.P.D. was proved up to the hilt. Schoel received 15 years' penal pervitude, and Beilfuß the maximum imprisonment permissable for persons not of age, viz. ten years."

A particularly diabolical crime was perpetrated by a Communist terrorist group in Bremen on the 10th July 1932. On the occasion of a S.A. parade, large numbers of Communists gathered in groups in the streets, clearly indicating an intention to disturb the peace.

"After the police force had been put into action, one of its members, when examining the ground, found a small length of iron piping in a little ditch immediately adjacent to the highway. The said piping was partly wrapped in paper, and, on being lifted from the ground, exploded, tearing the police official to pieces. A second policeman was severely injured. Three further bombs were also found. It was intended to explode these bombs under S.A. vans. The bombs were made of a mixture of chlorate of potash, powdered sugar and black powder in iron piping, the end of which were filled with fragments of iron. In another part of Bremen, Communists also took up the manufacture of bombs very similar in design and construction to those just described. One of the accused, whose name is Schaible, of 2 Droste Strasse, Bremen, stated that that he knew of the making of the above-mentioned bombs and was told by one of the participants, on enquiry, that the party headquarters must not have anything to do with the matter in connection with which one could only approach the prohibited Red Front Fighters League.

The similarity in the composition of the bombs made at various places and by different persons leads to the conclusion that the instructions for making such bombs have been issued uniformly by one central administration."

Only a few days later the well-known Bloody Sunday took place in Altona, on the 17th July 1932. The report is as follows:—

"On the occasion of a march for popularizing the S.A. movement, from the southern part of Schleswig-Holstein through Altona, very serious excesses were committed by adherents of anti-Fascist action in the vicinty of the Hamburg frontier. The participants in the march, well as the police accompanying it, were shot at by the anti-Fascists from the roofs, balconies and dwellings. The police returned the fire. A barricade had been erected by the communists in the Kleine Freiheit; it consisted of three coal-carts from which fire was opened on the police. An electric tramcar was stopped by the Communists in the Elb Strasse, the conductor, driver and passengers ordered off the car,

The scene of the "Bloody Sunday" in Altona on the 17th June, 1932.

Lower inset: Russian passport found in possession of the Communist leader

Lütgens, bearing photograph of Lütgens, but made out in the name of a Captain Lange.

Upper inset: A sketch found in possession of Lütgens showing the thoroughfares
\nin which the main fighting took place.

and the inter then allowed to run on mattended. In the immediate vicinity another street car was overlarned. Ninety one arrests have hitherto been made. Even the Social-Democratic Potice President Eggerstädt had to admit to the press representatives that the disturbances had been carefully organized, and that the police forces had actually been unable to deal with the Communists. The Communist snipers on the roofs were well arranged, so that their fire swept the streets. Most of the injuries caused were the result of cross-shots. Prepared bullets were also employed. Four National Socialists were killed. The total number of killed was seventeen, while over fifty were wounded."

It is an extremely remarkable fact that the Communist paper the "Hamburger Volkszeitung" on the previous day (No. 163 of the 16th July 1932) printed an article with the title "Whats's going to happen in Altona tomorrow?" In the concluding paragraph of that article an indication of the coming terrorist attack is given in the following words:—

"The workers of Altona have every reason to increase their preparations. Red Altona must not be left unprotected against the murderous terrorism of the S.A. The Mass Self-Protection of the Anti-Fascist Action must be put on the maximum alarm footing in common with the entire class-inspired proletariat of Altona to prevent Altona becoming a second Eckernförde."

During the night of the 31st July 1932, the so-called "Gänge-viertel" in Hamburg was the scene of the following disturbance:—

"About 1.15 a.m. police officials noticed a crowd of about 30 people—apparently Communists—who rushed forwards shouting "The Nazis are on the move! At them! Go for them!" After the police had received reinforcements, they pressed forward, only to be met by about 100 persons with cries of "bloodhounds", and "worker murderers", whilst fire was opened on them out of the crowd and houses, and a hail of stones and pieces of iron descended on them. One member of the police force was shot in the abdomen and seriously wounded; a second was shot in the leg. The former is in danger of losing his life, whilst the surgeons have been able to remove the bullet from the leg of the latter official.

It was only by lively firing that the police were able to hold the mob at bay and bring the two wounded officials into safety. Of the attackers, one man was killed by a shot, and four injured persons were taken to the Harbour Hospital. All the civilians in question wore badges of the "Anti-Fascist Action". The dead man had a whistle in his pocket and was characterized as the leader by a woman with whom he was closely connected.

In these circumstances there is little doubt that the whole thing was a well-prepared and systematic assault on the police forces."

The organized murder of the storm-troop leader Maikowski and the policeman Zauritz on the historical 30th of January 1933 still remains unforgotten. "Following the torchlight procession past Hindenburg and Hitler on the 30th of January 1933, the Storm Troop 33 encountered a miniber of Communists in the Wall Strasse in Chartottenburg. The S.A men took no notice of them. All of a sudden about 100 shots were fired out of the windows of the adjacent houses. The Storm-leader Eberhard Maikowski and the policeman Zauritz fell dead on the spot. The fact that the fire was opened simultaneously from the doors of the saloen as well as from the windows of the adjacent houses shows without any doubt that the outrage was previously planned and systematically worked out.

The storm-troop leader Eberhard Maikowski, shot in Berlin on the 30th January 1933

The subsequent days saw numerous acts of terrorism on the part of the Red Front, some on an almost unprecedented scale. It will suffice to mention the case in Dresden already mentioned and the various attacks with firearms already described, in which Communist terrorist troops opened fire on passing National Socialist formations.

On the 12th of February, sanguinary fighting took place in Eisleben in connection with a S.A. demonstration, Communists being on the one side, and S.A. men as well as police on the other. Shots were fired into a procession of S.A. demonstrators from the Communist party quarters, whereupon the S.A.men and the police stormed the house and the adjoining school. One S.A. man was killed and 20 persons seriously injured.

Finally no less than six fives were lost on the 13th February 1933, all six people being killed exclusively by Communists.

Between the 1st January 1928 and the end of October 1932, eight police officials were murdered and 870 other police officials

Scene during the fighting at Eisleben on the 12th February 1933.

injured more or less seriously by the terrorist organisations of the K.P.D.

In conclusion an abridged selection of communist terrorist acts and assaults which occurred in 1931 is given below; this by no means exhausts the list of Bolshevist crimes, but only gives an idea of the manifoldness, methodicalness and brutality of the methods of armed fighting used by the K.P.D. in Germany.

On the 12th January 1931 search in the living rooms of the carter Werpel. 64 Georgenkirchstrasse; confiscated: 3 infantry rifles, 7 egg-form hand-bombs with fuses, 3 bombs, 6 machine-gun locks, 1 revolver, 5 machine-gun belts, 7 drums, 4 automatic machine pistols, 4,249 rounds for infantry rifle 88,170 rounds for rifle 88,597 pistol cartridges 9 mm., 34 Very lights and diverse accessories for weapons.

On the 17th February 1931 the mourners at a funeral in Röntgental, who subsequently visited the "Edelweiss" beerhouse, were fired upon, and the painter Theodor Amt as well as the mail-guard Rudolf Pohlmann were injured. Amt died as the result of his injuries. 6 bullets, 8 cartridges, 7 cartridge cases, 1 pistol. 6 small-bore rifle cal. 6 m. and various percussion weapons were subsequently found.

On the 13th March 1931 N.S.D.A.P. men were assaulted and fired upon by K.P.D. men at the corner of the Mehlitz Strasse and Wilhelmsaue; 4 pistols and 26 cartridges were found.

On the 24th March 1931, after a N.S.D.A.P. meeting held at 92, Berliner Straße in Hohenschönhausen, those returning from it were

The Communist armoury discovered in August 1931 at 85, Tilsiter Strasse, Berlin.

attacked and fired upon by 40 K.P.D. men. Police officials who intervened were threatened by armed K.P.D. men. 3 pistots, 6 eartridges and 3 spent cartridges were confiscated

On the 27th March 1931 the following articles were confiscated in connection with the Gloth and others explosive case:

2 boxes of explosives, 9 metres of fuse, 1 parcel of loose explosives, 27 pistol cartridges, 1 impact fuses, 2 pistols, 8 cartridges, and one box containing explosives.

On the 29th May 1931 Stahlhelm men were shot at by K.P.D. men on the Senefelder Platz. Head Constable Zänkert wounded in abdomen and died afterwards. Constable Schottstedt wounded in upper arm. In following up the case of Zänkert, the following articles were discovered in the dwelling of Hermann Becker, shoemaker, Feld Strasse, Berlin: 16 army pistols 08, 1 Mauser pistol, 2 pistols of 7.65 and 1 of 6.35 calibre, 17 charging strips for army pistol 08, 1,349 rounds of 9 mm. pistol ammunition, 170 rounds of 7.65 mm. dilto, 23 packet each containing 25 rounds of 6.35 pistol ammunition, 3 packet each containing 50 rounds of parabellum ammunition, 64 rounds of pistol ammunition. army pistol 08, 40 round of ammunition for Mauser pistols, 150 rounds of 7.65 mm. pistol ammunition, 3 cartridges for an 11 mm. revolver. Instructions for all kinds of weapons were also found at Becker's house. The instructional tables had been issued by the Reichswehr. Becker was also in possession of much printed subversive material.

On the 30th June 1931, on the occasion of a forbidden demonstration of the K.P.D. in the Frankfurter Allee, Head Constable Kuhfeld was fatally wounded by a shot in the abdomen. He died on the way to hospital. The K.P.D. fired about 40 shots at the policemen. The investigations in the Kuhfeld case led to the discovery of the following weapons, explosives and ammunition in the house, 85 Tilsiter Strasse: 1 case containing 17 heads of hand-grenades with handle, 1 case containing aluminium powder and 3 pistol cases, 1 case with powdered aluminium, 1 case containing 13 drums for machine-pistols as well as 3 stoppers, 1 box containing 19 pistols of various calibres, various pistol barrels, 3 pistol magazines and 3 reserve springs, 3 rifle-locks, 5 side-arms, 2 side-arms pockets, 1 compass, 766 rounds of pistol ammunition, 3 shot-cartridges for sporting guns, 1 belt for a machine-pistols, 2 magazines for Ortgies pistols, 1 case containing 6 bearing blocks, 1 case with 10 machine-pistol drums and 2 stoppers, 1 case containing 1 Belgian pistol, 4 machine-pistol, 3 stoppers, and 1 machine-gun lock, 1 case with 31 flasks of explosives (sodium) and 544 pistol cartridges, 1 case containing 3 machine-pistol cases, 1 machine-pistol barrel, 1 machine-pistol lock, 1 spiral spring, 1 bolt, spare parts for machine-pistols, 1 case containing 2 pistols, 11 barrels with forks and frames, two frames, 4 Parabellum 08, 4 handles, 2 magazines, 10 handle scales, 4 machine-pistol drums, 3 stoppers, 1 case containing 5 leather cases for Parabellum 08, 1 box with 26 machine-pistol drums and 2 stoppers. 1 case containing 35 machine-pistol drums and 1 box of

machine pistol drums and 5 stoppers, and 1 case with 3 safety locks and various packing materials.

On the 1st August 1931 the carpenter Fritz Schröder was beaten to death by members of the K.P.D. in the Müller Strasse. He died on the spot.

On the same date, at the corner of the Frankfurler Allee, and the Mainzer Strasse, on the occasion of a congregation of K.P.D. adherents and assaults on the police, Head Constable Fiebig was shot and severely injured. During the subsequent exchange of shots Rudi Toffel was shot through the heart and killed, Perpetrator unknown.

On the 8th August 1931 K.P.D. men gathered on the Bülow Platz when police officials were violently attacked and injured. Fritz Auge was taken to the No. 15 ambulance station in the Landsberger Strasse by civilians, where he was found to have received a bullet wound.

Even in those days the "sullen hatred and rage" of the Red Front was concentrated against members of the National-Socialist movement, in particular against the S.A.men. The K.P.D. clearly recognized that the rotten official apparatus of the Republic was quite unable to resist any serious armed rising of the masses. Long before the old state, the Bolshevists realized that the German nation was not to be saved by the Weimar Republic, but solely by the followers of Adolf Hitler, the only factor of any real promise and strength in the great struggle in recent years. This explains why the nominally neutral state looked on as helpless third party in the struggle for life and death between the sons of the nation in S.A. uniform and the deadly enemies of the people, wearing the Soviet badge. No fewer than 200 S.A.men fell whilst defending Germany against the Communist Internationale; 20,319 S.A. and S.S.men were beaten and injured for life by the Communist terror ist troops, or otherwise wounded or seriously injured. The fight in which they fell was no less honourable and vital than the German defensive war of 1914-8, with the difference that the other sides of the barricades were not manned by honourable soldiers of a foreign nation, but by criminal cliques of the lower orders and misled members of our own people in the service of a rootless, international group of Jewish and Marxist intellectuals.

Some authentic cases taken from the list of the dead S.A. and N.S.D.A.P. adherents, together with pictures of the fallen National Socialist heroes, and some of the red terrorists, are given below.

The National-Socialist Theodor Sanders, born 20th May 1909, was thrown from his cycle during an excursion on 2nd December 1930, struck on the head with some blunt object and then slashed with a knife. He died of his wounds two days later.

On the 24th January 1932 the school-boy Herbert Norkus, Member of the Hitler Youth, was attacked by Young Communists and killed by being stabbed in six places.

Right: The perpetrator, the labourer Willy Simon, who fled to Soviet Russia.

On the 7th April 1932 the S.A. man Fritz Hellmann, born 20th April 1901, was shot dead by Communist terrorists at the corner of the Christburger Strasse and Greifswalder Strasse.

Above: Two of the probable perpetrators, the labourers W. Koppitz and A. Klein.

Right: Door of Eckstein's saloon, pierced by bullets.

On the 3rd August 1932, Friedrich Schulz, member of the N.S.D.A.P., born on 26th Jan. 1893, was killed by a shot in the head fired during a Communist attack at 1.50 a.m. in front of the house 67, Trift Strasse. Three further persons were wounded by shots and stabs.

Left: One of the perpetrators, Karl Blumreuter, wall-paperer, Berlin.

On the 24th April 1932, at 4.30 p. m., the member of the N.S.D.A.P. Udo Curth, born on 30th October 1909, was shot dead in front of the house No. 64 Möckern Strasse by Franz Mels, member of the Anti-Fascist Fighting League.

Right: The perpetrator, Franz Mehls, labourer, Berlin.
Centre: The probable accomplice, fitter Karl Hoffmann.
Left: The escaped accomplice A. Weinitz, Berlin.

On the 29th August 1932, Herbert Gatschke, member of the N.S.D.A.P., born 14th October 1906, was shot by Communists in the Röntgen Strasse, Charlottenburg, and died two weeks later.

Left: two of the probable perpetrators, Walter Calm,

Below: The scene of the crime.

The following accurate data dealing with National Socialists murdered and wounded by Communists have been supplied by the Provident Fund of the N.S.D.A.P.:

Table shoving number of National Socialists murdered and injured by Communists between 1923 and 1933 (January).

Number of injured

Grand Total: 20,319

The progressive rise in the curve of murders is certainly the most staggering proof of the Communist preparations for revolution:

1928 — 5 killed, 1929 — 9 killed, 1930 — 17 killed, 1931 — 42 killed, 1932 — 84 killed.

During the same period the numbers of National Socialists injured increased from 2,506 in 1930 to 9,715 in 1932. What might have been the numbers to be counted on the days following the intended armed rising?

²⁰⁾ The numbers of S.A., S.S. and H.J. cases during the time the S.A. was forbidden in April 1932 have been included in the other months in proportion. For the years 1928—1931 only the totals are given.

The total casualties suffered by the Prussian Police in the struggle against Communism were almost the same. The following figures are taken from an official compilation.

Table showing the number of Prussian police officials (protective police, gendarmerie, criminal police and communal bailiffs) killed or wounded in the fight against the K.P.D. from 1918 to 1933.

a) Killed

b) Wounded

a) Percentage of killed to the entire police force = 0.25

b) Percentage of wounded to the entire police force = 2.33

These statistics of the Prussian police officials of all ranks killed or wounded while faithfully doing their duty clearly prove the steady growth of red terrorism, which cost the lives of 67 officials in 1928 but of 306 in 1932.

C. The Final Encounter.

At the end of February 1933 all preparations had been made to strike as soon as the signal was given. The Red Front attacked on the whole front, naturally under the responsible leadership of the KPD

"The Bolshevist principles of organization demand the complete subordination of the military (and fighting) organs, just as every other organization of the party (for instance the Parliament and Trade Union etc.), to the General Party Leadership."²¹)

The actual date for the attack was naturally not definitely fixed upon in advance, in keeping with the doctrine:

"The theory of fixing the calendar day for the revolution in advance results from an inclination to overestimate the importance of bureaucratic and mechanical methods of conducting the revolution. A revolutionary movement of the masses does not develop in accordance with the calendar.²²)

The principle of surprise and tactics was to be applied:

Take the opponents by surprise as long as their troops are scattered.23

Early in February 1933 the secret leaders of the armed rising met. As representatives of the K.P.D., the leaders of the Communist Fighting Associations, Olbrich, Schneller and Hans Kippenberger attented the meeting. They received their orders from the Communist Internationale through the leader of the Western Section, the Jew Manuilski. The greater part of the plan has become known. The rising was to start in the demobilized Rhineland. The signal for the start was to be the murder of the Chancellor on the occasion of his intended visit to the Rhineland.

It was arranged that, simultaneously with the murder of the Chancellor or of the Reich President, all the principal broadcasting stations were to be occupied, from which the call to the masses of the proletariat to rise in arms was to be broadcast. At the same time all important public utility works were to be immediately blown up or shut down; public buildings, railways, bridges, military

23) Karl Marx cited by Alfred Langer: "Der Weg zum Sieg", p. 29

^<sup>21) Alfred Neuberg: "Der Bewaffnete Aufstand", p. 191.

barracks and police quarters were to be seized. The secret headquarters of the Bolshevist revolution was to be in Crefeld and Düren, but the Committee of Action was not all to meet at one place, so as to avoid the possibility of a police raid. The military leadership was apparently to be in the hands of the Russian Jew

Barricade erected in the Rostocker Strasse, Moabit, Berlin, in June 1932.

Wollenberg who was to be assisted by another Jew of the name of Landesmann. The name Bloch was also mentioned in this connection.

The next stage of the rising was to take place in the industrial district of Upper Silesia, whilst Berlin was to follow shortly afterwards.

Notwithstanding the detailed description of the far reaching preparations for an armed rising given in the preceding pages, the news of this Bolshevist conspiracy will perhaps be difficult for some to believe, because one can only conceive such an extreme degree of criminal madness with very great difficulty. The above facts are not only authentic and can be vouched for, but absolutely reliable material proves that those orders and decisions were not only issued on paper, but were immediately put into operation.

On the 13th of February 1933 the general order had reached the provinces. On that date a special meeting or conference of carefully chosen Communist leaders was observed in Auc, in Saxony, at which the "big things which were about to happen" in a short time were openly discussed. An armed attacking party was formed out of the most reliable members of the R.M.S.S. Special emphasis was laid on the fact that all orders had to be strictly obeyed, as the decisive struggle was at hand. The armed revolt was to commence within a few days.

Shortly afterwards the police in Flensburg received information that armed active groups provided with explosives had been formed, chiefly from among the worst characters to be found in the Hamburg district, for the purpose of supporting the revolt of the proletariat in the large cities, by setting fire to buildings blowing up bridges and committing other acts of vandalism and terrorism, and for splitting up the police forces. In many places inscriptions appeared on the walls, such as "Workers, provide yourselves with weapons!" etc., written with some indelible paint.

A few days later the authorities in the Ruhr district received information to the effect that the terrorist group of the K.P.D. intended attacking the police forces during the night. Two terrorists were to shoot without warning at passing policemen from the doorways, whilst two others were to stand in readiness to ponuce upon the wounded officers and deprive them of their weapons.

The signs of an impending Communist revolt became more frequent and threatening from day to day. On making a domiciliary search for weapons in Cammin (Pomerania) the police came across a cyphered plan for the local armed rising. The terrorist groups of that district were placed under the charge of the Stettin Headquarters. Led by the bricklayer Dumann, a group of 25 men received instructions to capture the leading public officials, the leaders of the national associations and the medical men and to hold them as hostages. Public buildings and important public utility works were to be occupied, whilst the railway bridges were to be blown up.

A similar terrorist group was discovered in Burscheid, where nearly a hundredweight of dynamite was confiscated. In Schleswig-Holstein at about the same time written instructions for all revolt leaders were confiscated which contained the following sentences: —

"Armed mass action in defence against the Fascist Terror! Disarm the Fascist terrorist troops! Arm the workers and the poor peasants! Anti-Fascist police officials, join your brothers, the workers!"

A circular issued by the local K.P.D. group of Halle, about the end of February, was couched in similar words and stated that the chief aim must be "to break up the terror!"

An order of the day addressed about the same time to the military leaders of the local groups contained the following instructions: —

"Do your very best to instruct your comrades in the use of weapons of all kinds from a pistol to a machine-guin."

In connection with the discovery of a terrorist secret organisation in Herdecke, Schwerte and Hagen, 43 Communists were convicted of having been connected with direct preparations for overthrowing the government party. They were well equipped with fire-arms, explosives and bombs, possessing 7 military rifles, 42 pistols, 8 live bombs, ammunition and explosives.

From all parts of the country similar news was received. About the middle of February a secret discussion took place in the quarters of a Communist functionary in Seidenberg, at which it was decided to cut off the town from all connection with the outer world by destroying the railway lines, telephone and telegraph lines, to blow up the post-office and to forcibly open up the frontier to Czecho-Slovakia. A similar plot was formed in Schönberg, Liebau (Silesia) and Landshut (Silesia). The police in Recklinghausen (Westphalia) made similar discoveries. In Bochum an Am-organization was discovered which was diligently occupied with the manufacture of explosives and the carrying out of explosions. Explosives were discovered in no fewer than 7 hiding places. Also in Hessen the K.P.D. developed in January and February 1933 feverish activity in prohibited demonstrations and handbill distribution, in forming fighting terrorist organizations and special fighting groups which also indulged in practical activity in daily assaults upon National Socialists.

On the 2nd of February the Communists in Wurtemberg attacked the factory in Mössigen. No fewer than 5 large thefts of explosives took place in Wurtemberg between September 1932 and the 1st of March 1933. Even in such strictly rural districts as the frontier province of Posen—West Prussia, the preparations for revolution were keenly carried on. In Schneidemühl a storm section of 50 men was formed and the men told to provide

themselves with weapons. In exactly the same manner as in Silesia etc., the Schneidemühl terrorists received orders from head-quarters to seize hostages, occupy the public utility works, and to cause as much destruction as possible. Similar information was received from East Prussia where everyone was in hourly expectation of the signal to start.

Altona was again one of the most dangerous centres of revolt, and not only the Red Front Fighters' League but also the Red Marine, and the Anti-Fascist Fighting League, were well organized and armed. The leadership lay partly in the hands of functionaries who had received military training in Russia. In addition to fire arms, swords and daggers, these terrorist groups had provided themselves with glass bottles containing acids. All these groups were in a state of constant alarm. Some time after the "Bloody Sunday" previously described, an organized attack on a large scale was directed by a strong party of snipers against the S.A. premises at the corner of Schaumburger and Weiden Strasse. No fewer than 200 terrorists marched up to cover the tracks of the assassins. On this occasion a school-boy named Hans Graack was killed. On the 20th December 1932 a similar shooting attack was made on the S. A. premises in 155 k Breite Strasse. About 50 shots were fired, the S.S. man Ludwig Scharf being seriously wounded. During February, Switalla, the leader of the K.P.D. in Altona, together with Heins and Reschke, the leaders of the R.F.B., systematically prepared the overthrow of the national government. All the terrorist formations and groups were armed and ready for immediate action. Special groups were charged with the blowing up of bridges etc., others with attacking police stations. From June 1932 till January 1933 no fewer than 36 cases of robbery with violence and of burglary occurred.

In Hanover, too, the preparations for the revolution were complete. At the meeting of the leading functionaries on 23rd November 1932, the time for the rising was fixed for the day on which Adolf Hitler was to assume office. Towards the end of February 3,500 detonators and a large quantity of explosives and fuse were stolen from the chief forester's house at Bad Grund. Shortly afterwards a number of petrol tanks were forcibly opened, whereby about 200,000 litres of petrol were lost. A few days later an attempt was made to put the overland high-tension lines out of action.

The revolutionary troops of the K.P.D. were taught all the very latest improvements in the art of street-fighting.

"In the case of street-fighting we shall have to depart in many cases from our methods as hitherto employed; firearms and explosives no longer suffice, we must in the main employ chemicals. The police generally jump down from their lorries with such a lack of precaution that they can easily and quickly be overpowered before they are able to do anything. By pouring strong salammoniac, sulphuric acid or similar gaseous liquids out of wide-necked bottles or metplat flasks over the policemen, they will immediately be put out of action. The more absorbent the policeman's coat is, the better will be the effect. Counter measure: waterproof garment, so that the liquid will run off.

In the case of police squads having thus been overcome, the authorities will probably send out armoured police cars fitted with machineguns. These cars can be attacked in the following manner: comrades moving in the crowd are provided with similar bottles filled with petrol, benzole or other inflammable liquids and, when they are unobserved, throw these bottles at the cars. The bottles should be smashed by the impact. The bottles may also be thrown into the car from the houses. Beforehand or immediately afterwards other comrades should throw burning rags or handkerchiefs which have been soaked in petrol into the vehicles. The car will then immediately be enveloped in flames, and the quicker it moves the more the fire will spread; the fire can be continually fed by throwing fresh fuel on the car. The throwers must therefore be judiciously placed in the streets beforehand. In the same way police stations, municipal buildings and barracks can be rapidly cleared. Empty milk tins with a hole in them can be well used for this purpose. If the attackers are systematically placed and act according to plan, great confusion will take place among the crowd and this is of great assistance in such a fight."

The above instructions in the technicalities of street-fighting are taken from the frequently quoted books of Neumann and Kippenberger, which, in their turn, are based upon the teachings of Lenin and Marx and on the regulations of the Red Army of Soviet Russia.

"Hand-grenades and bombs with great explosive force are very important mediums of attack against buildings. They can be used with great effect, both against the living forces of the defenders and against machine-guns (provided one can approach the gun unobserved) and also such minor obstructions as doors, gates etc.

Every sub-group must be provided with sufficient hand-grenades and bombs of great explosive force. Furthermore, each group must have a large supply of axes, jemmies, spades, rope-ladders, etc. which are necessary for fighting at close quarters, in and about houses (the breaking open of doors, the breaking down of partition walls, garden walls, stair-cases etc., and thus making it possible to pass from one storey or room to another).

Attacks upon streets consist of the capture, step by step, of the respective blocks of houses and open places, as well as of the capture of and fight at the barricades. The attack may be carried forward in

the street marked for attacks, or, when the street is empty, by advancing through the houses, yards and gardens. The former method is quicker, the latter safer and causes fewer losses. The choice of the method remains with the leaders and depends upon the general situation and the supply of the necessary material.²⁴)"

Original Soviet decorations exhibited at the First National Socialist Revolution Museum, The large decoration in the centre of the upper row bears the inscription "For good marksmanship" (1)

On the 28th February 1933 the secret revolutionary K.P.D. head quarters issued the following general fighting orders to the terrorist and fighting organizations:—

"Dear Friends.

We have discussed the present situation with other friends and have come to a number of decisions. Herewith we make you acquainted with those of interest to you:—

• In the fight against the Fascist terror make use of arms in self defence.
• 2. Disarm the Fascist terrorist troops.
• 3. Arm the workers and poor peasantry.
• Chase the brown shirts out of the labour exchanges and the working men's living districts.
• 5. Anti-Fascist policemen! Join your brother workers.
• 6. Meet Fascist terrorism and assaults with protest strikes. Break down the Fascist prohibition of demonstrations. — Fight for the right to hold meetings, freedom of the press and the right to demonstrate. In accordance with these instructions attempts must be made in all

districts to give examples of the wholesale disurming of S.A. men, S.A. premises, etc., and to make such action popular among the masses. Steps must be immediately taken to popularize the idea of self-pro-

²⁴⁾ Provisional Field Orders of the Red Army of the Soviet Union, p. 414. Extract from Neuberg: "Der bewallnete Aufstand", pp. 277 et seq.

tection, to form a regular patrol service together with the Reichsbanner, S.P.D. or Christian Workers, for the protection of the workers' residential quarters, the party and trade union premises etc. Various methods of quickly mobilizing the masses must be employed in case of Fascist attacks; this can be achieved by means of sirens, horns, whistles etc. In connection with the other forms of mass-fighting, the fighting, demonstrations, mobilizations and processions must be suitably practised."

On the very same day the order was issued for the highest state of alarm. It was only a matter of days or even hours before the signal for revolution was to be expected.

• "1. The fighters' league is to be immediately divided into two formations. The comrades with weapons are to form one formation under the command of one of them who was formerly a soldier. The comrades without weapons are to serve as couriers, pickets etc.
  • 2. Not later than on Saturday the Reich courier must be informed of the number of weapons available in your districts. Whether carbines, rifles, pistols, hand-grenades, and machine guns are available and the quantity of ammunition for each. In addition separate report on the supply of explosives, which are to be reported to the defence organization.
  • The fighters league, Verein (assumed name for R.F.B.), party and R.M.S. must be immediately placed in the highest state of alarm.
  • 4. Our comrades are to be told at once that the auxiliary police are to be wiped out with every means at their disposal, when and where they are met. It must be made impossible for any Fascist to walk along the streets.
  • The position of the Nazi barracks and all Nazi strategical points must be ascertained.
  • Uniform advance of the entire organization against the Fascists and all their auxiliary organizations.
  • 7. No pardon is to be extended to the Nazis.

The local groups are to have a free hand in all actions, except in cases concerning the police force, their barracks and all technical works. In such cases permission must be obtained from the B.L. of the M. section.

Highest state of alarm, 5. 3., 12 midnight. Arrival of the alarm report. Positive instructions regarding operations in the Reich. Arrival of the Reich courier. We expect that our instructions will be immediately carried out for the downfall of the Hitler government."

The first signal for the armed rising had been given the previous night by setting fire to the Reichstag. This immense conflagration, which destroyed the dome and the plenary hall of the

Reichstag in the night of the 27th to 28th February 1933, glaringly illuminated the political situation in Germany like an enormous torch.

Van der Lubbe, the man who set fire to the Reichstag, and a view of the gutted plenary hall of the Reichstag.

Parallel to the simultaneous breaking out of civil war in many places, with the intention of splitting up and confusing the powers of the state and the S.A. and S.S. formations, a very accurately and minutely worked out plan of action, for the time subsequent to the 5th of March 1933, was drawn up by the general staff of the revolution, particularly for the Berlin district. As will be seen from that plan, the latter is somewhat similar to the so-called "diversions", about which A. Neuberg says the following: —

"In street-fighting, scouting operations (diversions) play a very important part.

The functions of scouting during street fighting are as follows: -

• a) The organization of blockades around commissariats, the blocking of bridges and stoppage of river-shipping, the destruction of railway embankments, the planning of collisions between military trains, etc. within the lines of the enemy.
• b) Destruction of the lines of communication,
• c) Organizing of assaults on small groups of soldiers, disarming of same, and organizing acts of terrorism against the leaders and against all powers fighting against the revolution.

d) Organizing of revolts among the military forces within the lines of

the enemy

e) Deceiving the enemy by spreading false information (news favourable to us).

f) Organizing the tapping of enemy telephone lines by connecting a telephone apparatus to their lines."²⁵)

The exactness with which the plan of action provides for the carrying out of acts of wilful destruction and violence in the capital is almost admirable.

From the 5th to the 9th of March 1933, the blowing up of railway bridges, the demolition of overhead high-tension lines, the shutting down and destruction of electricitiy works and other power plants were to take place in rapid succession. The police barracks in the Chaussee Strasse, at the Kreuzberg, and in the Wrangel Strasse were apparently to be held in check during this time by R.F.B. troops and groups of terrorists. Couriers were already appointed and special telephone lines laid for securing united action. Assaults and robberies were apparantly to be carried out by large bodies of workless in the country district near Krummer Lanke. Although it has not been possible to completely decypher the plan of action, the latter presents incontrovertible proof of the impending terrorism and wilful destruction which was to be carried out methodically and systematically according to a preconceived plan.

The police barracks in the Wrangel Strasse, marked in the plan of action, had previously been under close observation. The Communist spies had drawn up the following sketch:—

Finally, the following instructions of the K.P.D. leaders in Middle Rhine district are reproduced: —

"To all sub-district leaders!"

"To all instructors at Greater Cologne!

Alarm in the whole of the Middle Rhine district! Alarm in the whole of Germany! Alarm at every work-bench, in every labour-exchange, in every office! Alarm in all mines, pits and factories! Alarm in all

²⁵⁾ A. Neuberg: "Der bewaffnete Aufstand", p. 253.

Plan of the police barracks, Wrangel Strasse, Berlin, exhibited in the National Socialist Revolution Museum in Berlin.

living quarters! The terrorist Fascists are about to deliver an awful blow. Our brothers and young comrades are daily falling victims to the murderous axe of cowardly, cunning Fascist terrorists. The swastika bandits are about to give us an example of the most bloodthirsty sort of Fascist tribunal. The gigantic power of red Berlin is to be smashed and beaten down by their terror.

Anti-Fascists of the Middle-Rhine! No dilly-dallying now!

Anti-Fascists of the Middle Rhine! Now show your power!

Anti-Fascists of the Middle Rhine! Now form up into an armed united front! Now is the time for action!

Class comrades of the S.P.D., the A.D.G.B., the Reichsbanner and all you, Christian workers! The formations of the Fascists are marching against us. We dare not move singly or split up; we must march shoulder to shoulder against the Fascists, and fight our way to Berlin.

We Communists propose immediately to call anti-Fascist meetings in the factories, labour-exchanges and of local house blocks associations.

We Communists propose joint anti-Pascist committees of action in all works and blocks of dwelling-houses,

In view of Goering's recent shooting orders directed against the proletariat, in view of the hecatombs of workers who have fallen under the steel of the Fascists, we now proclaim the

right of the masses to arm and defend themselves against the Easeist terror. Arms in the hands of the workers and poor peasants mean protection to the workers' families and quarters

Anti-Fascist policemen! Join your brothers, the workers, in their fight against the Fascist murderous bandits!

When they advance, stop them with every means in your power! Stop the lorries! Prevent the Nazis from using motor transport! Break up the pavement! Block their march routes with trees! Build barricades in they way of the advancing Nazi columns! Form a joint organization for the armed attack against the Nazi transports to Berlin! Strictly control all highways and railways in the whole district! The dictate of the hour is action — immediate action!

Order of the day: The united anti-Fascist masses must ward off the frontal attack of the Fascists against Berlin with all means at their disposal and break it down! The masses to the front in self-protection! Mobilize the works! Up and at the enemy! We Communists sound the assembly."

If we, at this point, once more survey all the extensive preparations of the intelligence service and the O.S.N.A., the Amorganization and the party in the state of self-imposed illegality, the Cheka and the R.F.B., the alarming of the Fighters' League against the Fascists, and the merging of the Red Mass Self-Protection organizations with the R.F.B., the immeasurable increase of the supplies of weapons and explosives, the countless armed assaults and the increasing number of murders of policemen, S.A. and S.S. members, it will be realized that these plans of action form logical links in the chain of the Communist preparations for revolution. In the long run the K.P.D. really had no other choice than to stake everything on the one card, and to attempt immediate revolt with all the means known to violence and crime. Their only choice was to sink or swim, i. e. defeat or victory. They decided to run the risk of a revolution and took to arms. Within a few days the attempted revolt was crushed and the K.P.D. destroyed. They had underestimated the strength of the National Socialist movement, and consequently suffered the fate described by their foremost theorist Lenin in his "Good Advice from Afar":—

"It is no good playing with revolution; when it is once started one must be quite clear that one must go on with it to the bitter end." 26',

The determination to hold out to the last was certainly not lacking; what was lacking, however, was the possibility to do so! For, in the "first one or two hours" mentioned in the "Theory of armed Revolt", the decision had fallen, and the scales had turned in favour of National Socialist Germany.

7) Op. cit. p. 220.

²⁶⁾ Quoted from Neuberg-Neumann; op. cit. p. 231.

The entrance leading to the secret passages in the Karl Liebknecht House in Berlin

The K.P.D. had foreseen and known the consequences of defeat—they had most probably reckoned with much more drastic measures on the part of their opponents:—

"In case of armed revolt the retreat is always accompanied by heavy losses. The retreat from a revolution once started leads unavoidably to a relentless annihilation, the destruction of the best powers of the revolutionary class by white terror, quite immaterial whether the retreat takes place after a very bitter struggle, or when the armed workers capitulates without fighting. The counter-revolution knows no mercy." ²⁸

²⁸⁾ Alfred Langer: "Der Weg zum Sieg", p. 11.

The first flag of the K.P.D. of the year 1919, which was first found in July 1933 and is now exhibited in the Museum of the National-Socialist Revolution

VI. The Task.

The decisive days of the year 1933 saw a peculiar historical drama in Germany — the clashing of two revolutions, a renaissance and an insurrection, the violent collision of which crushed and destroyed the hitherto existing form of government. The nation remained triumphant on the field. It had not fought only for itself, for its freedom and future; it felt it was bearing arms for all western Christian nations in a war against Bolshevism. The decisive buttle between faith and godlessness, between national consciousness and internationalism, between spirit, honor and character—on the one side and bestiality, dishonour and crime on the other, was fought on German soil. The Communist Internationale suffered a crushing defeat in Germany; the world-revolution had collapsed. The offensive of the Internationale was to have begun in Germany, but it found its untimely end here. Herein lies the world wide historical significance of the events in Germany in February 1933.

A successful revolution requires no justification. It could not have been successful if it had not been the movement of the historical hour, which gave birth to it and perfected it. Now for a narrow-minded person the importance of National Socialism may exhaust itself in the fact it has saved Germany from Communism. The sign of the swastika was not carried to victory in defence, but in attack; not negative "reasons", but positive aims inspired the S.A. and S.S.

in their fight for Germany. The destruction of Communism was a result of the victory of the N.S.D.A.P., this victory, however, was not only the result of the defeat of Communism. In its search for the real Germany, National Socialism found a corrupt system, which was about to be overrun by Bolshevism. It could not and dare not be a witness to the way in which the people, thanks to the incompetency of the Weimar liquidators, became a prey to international exploiters. That system had to be removed in order to corner the enemy. Thus, the destruction of Communism is not a "justification", but a historical fact and a by-product of the National-Socialist revolution, which, after all, is sufficient in itself to make the leader of this national movement unforgettable.

If things are so, then also the final extermination of Bolshevism in Germany is not only a question of rigorous defence and police action, but principally a task for the positive building-up of the National-Socialist State. If the extermination of Bolshevism began with the National-Socialist revolution, it will end with its completion. Neither the capitalistically corrupt Social-Democratic party nor its confederates, the Centre Party, were in a position to oppose the closed system of Bolshevism with a similarly convincing system, to say nothing of the liberal middle-class, whose "tole-rance" was a result of their modest wish to be tolerated themselves. The total contrast to Jewish-Marxist Bolshevism is exclusively represented by German National Socialism. It is the mighty antithesis and opponent of the Communist Internationale in every fibre of its being, opposed to it in the sharpest contrast, in the ponderabilities and imponderabilities of its purpose. It opposes the principles of class warfare with a national community, it abolishes the principle of self-interest by demanding public utility, it opposes the sham philosophy of economic materialism and godlessness with a pure idealism and belief in God, clarified by a full understanding of realities. All this is focussed and caught up into one idea — the nation. Thus, from its desire to build up it has become the bitterest enemy of Communism. The Communist Internationale in Moscow found a mighty master in German National Socialism.

The great and decisive problems of Germany at present, the dividing of the people into classes, its proletarian shallowness and transformation into a shapeless mass of humanity, the exploitation and suppression of a nation through the imperilistic system of Versailles and, at the same time, the advancing Bolshevism and decay, are unseparably bound together. Nobody could dare seriously to attack Bolshevism who did not know the way out of the social

in their fight for Germany. The destruction of Communism was a result of the victory of the N.S.D.A.P., this victory, however, was not only the result of the defeat of Communism. In its search for the real Germany, National Socialism found a corrupt system, which was about to be overrun by Bolshevism. It could not and dare not be a witness to the way in which the people, thanks to the incompetency of the Weimar liquidators, became a prey to international exploiters. That system had to be removed in order to corner the enemy. Thus, the destruction of Communism is not a "justification", but a historical fact and a by-product of the National-Socialist revolution, which, after all, is sufficient in itself to make the leader of this national movement unforgettable.

If things are so, then also the final extermination of Bolshevism in Germany is not only a question of rigorous defence and police action, but principally a task for the positive building-up of the National-Socialist State. If the extermination of Bolshevism began with the National-Socialist revolution, it will end with its completion. Neither the capitalistically corrupt Social-Democratic party nor its confederates, the Centre Party, were in a position to oppose the closed system of Bolshevism with a similarly convincing system, to say nothing of the liberal middle-class, whose "tole-rance" was a result of their modest wish to be tolerated themselves. The total contrast to Jewish-Marxist Bolshevism is exclusively represented by German National Socialism. It is the mighty antithesis and opponent of the Communist Infernationale in every fibre of its being, opposed to it in the sharpest contrast, in the ponderabilities and imponderabilities of its purpose. It opposes the principles of class warfare with a national community, it abolishes the principle of self-interest by demanding public utility, it opposes the sham philosophy of economic materialism and godlessness with a pure idealism and belief in God, clarified by a full understanding of realities. All this is focussed and caught up into one idea — the nation. Thus, from its desire to build up it has become the bitterest enemy of Communism. The Communist Internationale in Moscow found a mighty master in German National Socialism.

The great and decisive problems of Germany at present, the dividing of the people into classes, its proletarian shallowness and transformation into a shapeless mass of humanity, the exploitation and suppression of a nation through the imperilistic system of Versailles and, at the same time, the advancing Bolshevism and decay, are unseparably bound together. Nobody could dare seriously to attack Bolshevism who did not know the way out of the social