Evening star., 1933-08-13
BY COUNT CARLO SFORZA,

more than enough to destroy all
the organizations of German
i workers and to remove all their
treasured legal systems for pro-
| lection against wage reductions. For a
! few weeks the bourgeois allies of the
Nazis-the Nationalists and the Junk
ers-thought that through Hitler,
whom they despised at heart, they had
! been able to destroy "Marxism" and
| that any resistance from Socialists and
| Communists had been nipped in the
bud. In which they were right-at least
as far as Democratic Socialism was
concerned
! But the joy of the German feudal
and nationalistic leaders was to be
short. BY a strange irony, their dis
covery of a more bitter reality came to
them at the very time last month when
| Chancellor Hitler by a presidential
lecree legally dissolved the Social
Democratic party and seized its cor
porate property. Hitlers decision, in
deed. was due to the fact that in his
position it was necessary to suppress
even shadow of legal opposition And,
| just as easily as he had disposed Of
the despised Socialists, he dissolved the
phalanxes merged into the troubled
ocean Of Nazi troops. A few days
/ later Herr Hugenberg, the once power
ful Minister of Commerce and proud
! leader CT the Nationalist, was forced
to resign his place in the cabinet
Let us note. incidentally, that just the
same sequence of events took place in
/ Fascist Italy. There the "Conserva-
/ tives" began by helping Fascism and
went on entering the Fascist cabinet
! and after a few months they were
| ouSted, all of them. Certainly the
Germans cannot make any claim of
originality in this; any court would
sentence Herr Hitler t. pay substantial
royalties to Signor Mussolini for au-
| thors rights!
More Dangerous Than Ebert.
! Again, like the great landowners and
inoustrialists in Italy, the German Ma
! tionalists and Junkers discovered too
late that NaZlsm is going to confront
them with worse dangers than when a
mild Socialist like Ebert was president
OF the Reich. At least Ebert, though
he may have been a menace, had some
existence of his own-but the majestic
Hindenburg has become no more than
a rubber stamp in the hands of Nazi
leaders.
1t Is true-aS Nationalist and Junk
erS are beginning to realiZe-that the
Socialists are no longer a force; that
almost all their leaders are in exile
in France, in the Saar or in SWitzer-
land, and that the few who have
chosen to remain in Germany are
either prisoners in concentration camps
or hidden IN their own houses, or. even
worse, have lost all self-reSpeCt through
their shameful capltulation to Hitler
But at the same time the German
reactlonary groups have discovered that
1t is Hitler who tries to offer himself
TO the hungry, eXpectant masses as a
champion and savior of the workers
Every morning. every evening and
all day long the most perfect publicity
organization ever seen lit is, in fact,
,, blend of Mussolinian theatrical skill
and Bolshevik efficiency goes on shout
and workers: Adolf Hitler is your
friend; Adolf Hitler is fighting for
your freedom and dignity: Adolf Hitler
IS going to give you bread"
The Nazi' complete control of the
press Gust as in Italy and in Russia
and their fantastic use of the radio,
make it impossible for the Germans
to know any other voice or to learn
what is going on in the concentration
camps; fed day by day on Hitlers
southern eloquence, dazzled with pic
I'LL VI SiOl lOllS NItl IIldIl PAST ana
of an even more glorious pure Aryan"
future. the Germans have lost all YES
tiges of critical sense. What they hap
pen to read in American. British and
French papers is considered a proof
of international jealousy
A few weeks of this propaganda have
been sufficient to destroy, to bury
perhaps forever-what had seemed
since Bismarcks time the colossal,
prudent, admired organization of the
German Social-Democracy
I'VE Are Not Italians"
During the last four or five years I
have heard the German Social-Demo-
crat leaders speak with hardly hid
den contempt of the misadventures of
the liberal parties in Italy under
FaSciSm; and when reminded that in
Nazi-ism they also had, in Germany, a
growing menace against all essential
liberties, they used to answer, with ex-
quisite tact and a complacent smile:
"Wir sind keine Italiener" (We are
not Italians
I happened to meet some of those
leaders in Switzerland last month: and
a just rejoinder came at once to my
mind: Yes, you were right, you are
not Italians; the Italians fought for
years in the Senate, in the Chamber,
against Fascism; in spite of perSecu-
ton and prison they went on strug-
Cling: but you-you were beaten in
two days; none of you dared to risk
his life: many of you, when ordered
to approve Hitler after his 'pacifist'
speech in the Reichstag, obeyed imme-
diately. thereby losing not only liberty,
but. what matters more, honor
But the poor devils looked SO lost. so
humiliated. SO like beaten slaves. that
I felt it would be unsportsmanlike to
put my thoughts into words.
What matters more than their fate
is that millions of their former follow
ers are now leaderless, confused,
wavering Friends just back from Ger
many tell me that Communism is
already recognizing itself in the form
of secret societies Perhaps. But it
is certain that the once well organ
ized Social-Democrats are going over,
in woolly- minded groups, to HitleriSm.
This is more than political problem;
it is one of the most surprising psycolo-
gical cases of the day It's explanation
lies in the authentic history of the Ger
man Socialist party, such as it has
, never been written either by friends,
who are too enthusiastic, or by foes,
who are too bitter The rise and fall
of the German Social-Democracy is one
of the most typical lessons one can take
out Of present history.
Nazi-ism is making the German nation
a dangerously pliable and deadly instru
mentor home oppression today, per-
haps for war tomorrow. But a great
amount of the responsibility for this
pliability rests with past rulers. Pri-
marily it rests with Bismarck who-it
some day will be realized-brought his
, country a moral evil greater than his
diplomatic victories and conquests. An
other part of this responsibility rests,
strange as it may seem, with the
founders, organizers and most renowned
leaders of German Socialism itself.
Bismarck'S responsibility should be
: evident: the great Junker never be-