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Volk Ans Gewehr! (1931) |
El Pueblo Gallego. April 18, 1937, page 12 (left). Deutsche Geschichte (right)
Berlin, 30. The Führer and supreme commander of the Army will address the troops with the following message on New Year's day:
"Soldiers: The Army of the great Reich has in 1939 responded with pride to the hopes placed on it. You have wielded the weapons which the German people entrusted you with victoriously in this combat that our enemies compelled us to fight. With everyone's cooperation you have successfully smashed the injustice of Versailles in eighteen days.
"At the close of this historical year we remember with gratitude our comrades who paid at the cost of blood their loyalty to the people and to the Reich. We beseech the Almighty to protect us next year as He has patently done so during this preceding one and to grant us the strength to fulfill our duty. Because we are entangled in the definitive life-and-death struggle of the German people."
Berlin, 30. The Führer has delivered the following New Year's message to the National-Socialist Party:
"When National-Socialism arose after a great struggle to direct the destinies of the German people seven years ago, Germany floundered in a condition that Clemenceau summed up in these terms, 'There are twenty million Germans too many on the earth.' The Treaty of Versailles was imposed on us to make that wish a reality. The unemployed numbered seven million men who together with their families represented twenty-four million people who could not afford to live. Democratic Germany implored during fifteen years a revision of the greatest injustice ever suffered by any one people. But the sole answer that the representatives of the plutocratic democracies gave were rebuffs and ironic turns of phrase. But National-Socialism was bent on resolving with or without the world's consent and in adherence to its program all the problems that concerned our people. After the attempts over the long years to obtain a friendlier agreement with the plutocratic powers had foundered in every aspect, the new Reich appropriated itself of its rights. The intention, as criminal as stupid, of wishing to exclude a nation of eighty million inhabitants from participation in all the bounties of the earth and of wishing to deprive her of her political rights can not constitute a law that obligates morally or the Nation.
"From the first day of my coming to power I have tried without pause to obtain the political and economic revisions needed by Germany. All the attempts to achieve this objective in agreement with the rest of the powers succumbed before the selfishness, the stupidity and the ill will of the Western powers and their statesmen. Therefore the liberation of the German nation had to be accomplished by resorting to that legal force which has always been esteemed sacred in forlorn epochs of the peoples: Legitimate defence.
"After eradicating our internal fractures, National-Socialist Germany cast off her shackles successively and resolutely attained the union of all Germans in the Greater Germany: the fulfilment of a thousand-year-long desire and the reward for a struggle unique in history. All these measures did not steal aught from the world nor could they have infuriated it. They merely gave the German people what other nations had enjoyed long since.
"Despite this, Jewish international capitalism together with the social reactionary media of Western States succeeded in inciting the world versus Germany. The publication of the documents pertinent to the Germano-Polish conflict has demonstrated today that the inciters and the warmongers did not merely oppose a peaceful solution to Germano-Polish issues but did everything possible to find a means of humiliating Germany and for declaring war. Since humiliation failed, the second option was adopted: Poland let herself be seduced by the warmongers into defending injustice with violence. The force of arms has delivered the verdict after eighteen days of warfare. The Poland born of the Treaty of Versailles no longer exists.
"The year 1939 fetched many milestones for our people:
"1.— To pacify Central Europe and to guarantee Germany's security and German vital space, the olden territories of Bohemia and Moravia were incorporated to Greater Germany as protectorates. In future the German and Czech peoples will live and work peaceably side by side as they did in the past for centuries.
"2.— Repatriation of Memel.
"3.— The former borders of Germany were re-established with the dissolution of the former Polish State.
"The three milestones abolished the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles that were destined to disappear.
"This year's fourth milestone has been the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
"The stabs of plutocratic statesmen at exciting Germany and Russia to mutual war in benefit of a third actor were parried and therefore was also dismantled the attempt to 'besiege Germany.' This success has been due to the domestic reorganization of the German people wrought by National-Socialism.
"Let us start the new year united, prepared from the angle of the national economy and with a supreme military readiness. This will be the decisive year in the History of Germany.
"We are all united on this one issue: the enemy has just one goal, i.e., the destruction of Germany and of the German people. Despite their cracks at refuting these goals with prattle their true intentions shine through. First they declared that they wished to assist Poland, but they could have easily helped Poland by not pushing her to war irresponsibly. When the Polish army had felt through the strength of our Army the consequences of her daft attitude, the goal of the war ceased being Poland's defence. And now they proposed my own elimination, i.e., the extirpation of National-Socialism. But as soon as they realized that the German people do not fall prey to such imbecile blare, on account of their experience of 1918, they decided at last to confess the truth: it is all about eradicating the German nation, dissolving the Reich and destroying it. In the craven illusion of enlisting accomplices for this task they did not hesitate to make use of so-called neutral states or paid assassins.
"The German nation has not desired this fracas and until the last minute endeavoured to offer Germany's friendship to England, and tabled proposals for establishing a lasting peace in Europe after the liquidation of Poland.
"The Duce of fascist Italy was the one who lent me his assistance and laboured to stop the situation from evolving as it did and which is the cause of the current wretched state of all Europe. But Jewish inciters and the reactionaries of the capitalist democracies had been waiting for this moment. They were prepared for this occasion and were unwilling to discard their plans for the destruction of Germany.
"The warmongers have unleashed the war. Very well, they shall have it. The first phase of the conflict has already demonstrated two facts:
"1.— They have not dared to attack the fortifications to the west of Germany.
"2.— Wherever German soldiers met adversaries the glory of the German Army as well as the reputation of our arms were fully upheld.
"May the year 1940 fetch our victory. Come what may, all the sacrifices demanded of everyone during this time will be minimal compared with the sacrifice made by the German nation and compared with the fate awaiting us if the Versailles falsifiers gain the upper hand again.
"This is why the goal of the war is crystal clear: Germany and Europe must be set free from the unremitting threats spewed by yesterday's England and by the England of today.
"It is paramount that the weapons of war be this time definitively wrested from the hands of the warmongers and of those who declared war. We do not combat solely against the injustice of Versailles but also to preclude a weightier injustice coming in its stead. On a positive twist: we combat for a new Europe because, contrary to what Chamberlain thinks, we are persuaded that this new Europe can not be forged with the forces of a world in decay nor by so-called men of state who are unable to resolve the most primeval problems in their own country.
"Only the peoples who and the forces which can be considered young and creative for their outlook and for their projects can reorganize Europe. The future belongs to these nations and to those projects. The Jewish capitalist world will not outlive the twentieth century."
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El Pueblo Gallego. December 31, 1939, page 1 (left). El Pueblo Gallego. August 3, 1934, page 1 (right)
On December 28 Alcázar publishes the following article,
Franco and Hitler. Hitler is the head of the German State. Hitler is the foremost soldier of his Fatherland. He started the war and donned military uniform. He has not taken it off since. He has accompanied his comrades and shared the fatigue and calamities of the campaign. He has triumphed.
Victorious over the Poles he went over to the Western front. He inspires the Germans. He eats regular soldier's bread and feeds on mess-hall chow. He lives and sleeps in the field, in his army tents, in the trenches. He consecrates his existence to the happiness of his country which he must defend and does so with weapons in hand, wielding the firearm and brandishing his sword.
He is a head of State like our glorious Chieftain, like our Franco. The Führer and the Generalissimo are today the two outstanding figures of History. Our Chieftain has with his actions saved Western civilization, liberating it from the Red pest. The Führer defends his nation and tries to save her in the face of threats from the democracies, the pest spread by revolutions from the French to the communist one.
And in the days of Christmas and on the night anniversary of the birth of GOD THE SON [sic] Hitler crosses the battlefields and on the vanguard's frontline facing the Franco-British batteries, in keeping with the ancient traditions of great German chieftains like Emperor Barbarossa of the Third Crusade, and Frederick the Third, and Hindenburg, he seats beside him on Christmas Eve a sergeant and two lance corporals, and surrounded by the soldiers, dines on French territory and enlivens them with reminders of the holiday and of his wishes that soon, after the victory, the former foes will embrace and celebrate peace among the peoples.
(Written on September 5, 1939. Published in Socialist Appeal, 3, 68. September 11, 1939)
Yesterday I talked on the immediate responsibility for the war. Hitler started the bloody military operations, Stalin helped Hitler to start. This time the immediate, so to say "judicial" responsibility for beginning military action, is clearer than it was in the last war. The question of responsibility plays, as is known, a great role in the international propaganda of both warring camps. Every state participating in the war attempts to shift the responsibility onto the enemy.
From the historical and political point of view, however, this legal (or diplomatic) criterion is of absolutely second-rank importance. There are progressive just wars and there are reactionary unjust wars, independently of who "started" first. From the scientific historical point of view, progressive just wars are those that serve the liberation of oppressed classes or oppressed nations and thus propel human culture forward. On the contrary, those wars are reactionary which serve the preservation of an antiquated social order, which serve the enslavement of the working class or of backward and weak nations. Consequently the question of who "started" first, who appeared as an "aggressor," is not of decisive importance. It's which class leads the war and on behalf of what historical ends. We will always welcome aggression if an oppressed class or an oppressed nation adopts the role of "aggressor" on behalf of its liberation.
The attempts to picture the next war as a war between democracies and Fascism were shattered by the real march of events. The present war sprang from imperialist contradictions. Its participants started it before they signed the Treaty of Versailles. It was inevitable as inevitable is the crash of two trains let loose, one toward the other, on the same track.
The chief antagonists on the European continent are Germany and France. In the contest for hegemony in Europe and for ownership of its colonial possessions, France endeavoured to keep Germany (not fascist but democratic Germany) in a state of fracture and weakness. In this sense French imperialism was the midwife of German National-Socialism. On the contrary England, interested in dissevering the European hegemony of France and its international pretensions, began soon after Versailles to support Berlin against Paris. The re-arming of Nazi Germany would have been impossible without the direct help of England. Thus the masked but profound antagonism between democracies was the springboard for Hitler.
England supported Hitler in Munich in the hope that he would be satisfied with central Europe. But a couple of weeks later, England "finally discovered" that German imperialism strives toward world domination. Great Britain, in its role of global colonial power, could not fail to answer the unrestrained pretensions of Hitler with war.
Diplomatic machinations, juggling with the formula, "Democracy versus Fascism," sophism concerning responsibility for starting the war, can not make us forget that the ongoing struggle is between the imperialist slave-holders of different camps for a new division of the world. According to its ends and methods the present war is a direct prolongation of the Great War with much greater putrescence of the capitalist economy and with far more terrible means of destruction and extermination.
Hence I don't see the slightest reason for altering the principles regarding war elaborated between 1914 and 1917 by the best representatives of the workers' movement under Lenin's leadership. The current war is reactionary on either side. Humanity will be shoved back a long way whichever camp wins.
The task of the authentic representatives of the working class and of the oppressed nations does not consist in helping one imperialist camp against the other, but in teaching the toilers of all countries to grasp the reactionary nature of the present war and to raise their own agenda—the world socialist federation of nations—and prepare to replace the regime of robbery with a regime of general cooperation.
This is the program of the Fourth International. It seems Utopian to so-called "realists" who do not fathom the logic of historical evolution. The Fourth International is now a small minority. But the Party of Lenin was also an insignificant minority at the beginning of the last War and received nothing but spite from cheap heroes of the phrase. War is a severe school. The old prejudices and habits of the slaves will be cremated in its fire! The nations will come out of this war changed and will reconstruct our planet according to the laws of reason.
Leon Trotsky
Coyoacán, D.F.
September 5, 1939
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Apocalypse 1914 & Galiciana |
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