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German Social Democracy and Hitler's “National Revolution” of 1933: A Study in Democratic Leadership

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Lewis J. Edinger
Lewis J. Edinger
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina.
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Extract

The comparative ease with which authoritarian groups have come to power in nations where large parties stood pledged to defend the democratic order to the bitter end has become one of the most disturbing elements in modern world politics. Such developments have brought into question the validity of accepted liberal-democratic norms governing the behavior of responsible leaders, both in the domestic opposition to the authoritarian regime and in foreign governments whose security arrangements are adversely affected by the suppression of free institutions. Basically, these traditional norms have implied non-interference with constitutional political processes and acceptance of their consequences. On June 23, 1933, Hitler outlawed the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which for over four decades, until 1932, had been the largest German party and, since the founding of the Weimar Republic iri 1918, the principal advocate and defender of the democratic system and a peaceful foreign policy. In considering the actions of its leadership from the accession of Hitler to the outlawing of the party, this article seeks to contribute to a re-examination of these accepted norms, particularly insofar as they concern the behavior of a liberal-democratic mass party faced with a government seeking total power.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , April 1953 , pp. 330 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1953

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References

1 Chakotin, Serge, The Rape of the Masses, New York, 1940, p. 246.Google Scholar See also various articles by Carl Mierendorff, principal spokesman of this group, in Die Gesellschaft and Sozialistische Monatshefte during the period 1930–1933.

2 In 1932 the average age of the twelve most prominent leaders of the SPD (Wels, Vogel, Crispien, Löbe, Braun, Severing, Breitscheid, Hilferding, Stelling, Scheidemann, Stampfer, Dittmann) was fifty-eight, that of the twelve Nazi party Reichsführer thirty-seven. Twelve per cent of the SPD Reichstag deputies, but only 1 per cent of the Communist and 3 per cent of the Nazi deputies, were over sixty. However, 70 per cent of the Communist deputies and 62 per cent of the Nazi were under forty, compared with 14 per cent of the Social Democratic deputies. SPD membership, after a considerable decline during and immediately after the First World War, climbed back to an enrollment of one million in 1930. Membership in the party's youth groups, however, declined from 105,000 in 1923 to 50,000 by 1928. By 1931, as Hans Gerth has pointed out, only 19 per cent of the SPD members were under thirty, compared to 38 per cent of the Nazi party members (“The Nazi Party: Its Leadership and Composition,” American Journal of Sociology, xiv [January 1940], p. 530).Google Scholar

3 See International Information (organ of the Labor and Socialist International), February 8, 1933, p. 52 (hereafter referred to as I.I.).

4 Vorwärts, January 31, 1933 (morning ed.); I.I., February 8, 1933, p. 52.

5 Vorwärts, January 31, 1933 (evening ed.); I.I., February 8, 1933, p. 52; New York Times, January 30, 1933.

6 International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, Nuremberg, 1947–1949, xxiv, pp. 373–75Google Scholar, Document 351PS (Minutes of the first session of the Hitler Cabinet, January 30, 1933).

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11 See Vorwärts, January go (evening ed.), January 31 (morning ed.), February 1 (both eds.), February 2 (morning ed.), and February 8 (morning ed.), 1933; I.I., February 8, 1933, p. 53; New York Times, February 1 and 7, 1933.

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24 I.I., March 11, 1933, p. 110.

25 I.I., March 11, 1933, 110f.

26 According to former leaders of the SPD interviewed by this writer, including Friedrich Stampfer, Paul Hertz, Marie Juchacz, and Erich Rinner, all members of the executive committee in 1933.

27 I.I., March 18, 1933. pp. 114–17.

28 I.I., March 11, 1933, p. 110, and March 18, 1933, p. 119.

29 See Verhandlungen des Reichstags, VII, Wahlperiode 1933, pp. 32–41.

30 Schulthess' Europäischer Geschichtskalender, 1933, p. 78.

31 Kautsky, Karl, “Einige Ursachen und Wirkungen des deutschen Nationalsozialismus,” Der Kampf (Vienna), xxvi (June 1933), pp. 235–45.Google Scholar An editorial note indicates that the article was written in April or early May 1933.

32 Quoted in Neue Volkszeitung (New York), July 22, 1933.

33 Verhandlungen des Reichstags, VII, Wahlperiode 1933, p. 41.

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37 Ibid.; also I.I., May 6, 1933, pp. 189–91, and May 20, 1933, p. 226; Frankfurter Zeitung, April 28, 1933; interviews with Rinner, Stampfer, Hertz, and Juchacz. Erich Ollenhauer, present leader of the SPD, was the youngest member of the new executive committee.

38 See Löbe, , op.cit., p. 151.Google Scholar

39 I.I., March 31, 1933, p. 142. On this conflict within the SPD leadership, see I.I., June 10, 1933, pp. 265–70; Löbe, op.cit., p. 152; Klinger, Max (pseud, for Curt Geyer), Volk in Ketten, Carlsbad, 1934, pp. 66ff.Google Scholar; Neuer Vorwärts (Prague), December 23 and 31, 1933, and December 31, 1937; Lore, Ludwig, “The Fate of the Worker,” in Nazism, an Assault on Civilization, ed. by Paassen, Pierre van and Wise, James Waterman, New York, 1934, pp. 121f.Google Scholar

40 Interviews with Friedrich Stampfer and Paul Hertz. See Klinger, , op.cit., p. 66Google Scholar; Heiden, Konrad, A History of National Socialism, New York, 1935, p. 257.Google Scholar

41 See Jaksch, Wenzel, Hans Vogel, London, 1946, p. 16Google Scholar; Hertz, Paul, “Unsere Aufgaben und ihre Erfüllung,” Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, N0. 12/13 (September-October 1934), p. 423Google Scholar; Sozialistische Aktion (May 1934); I.I., May 29, 1933, pp. 234ff., June 3, 1933, p. 242, June 10, 1933, pp. 272f., and June 17, 1933, pp. 280, 300; Neue Volkszeitung, June 10, 1933; Frankfurter Zeitung, May 18, 1933.

42 François-Poncet, André, The Fateful Years, New York, 1949, p. 101.Google Scholar

43 Frankfurter Zeitung, May 18, 1933. For a vivid description of the scene in the Reichstag in Politiken, a Danish paper, see Lore, Ludwig, “The German Socialist Debacle,” Current History, XXXVIII (September 1933), p. 697.Google Scholar

44 Op.cit., p. 102.

45 Royal Institute of International Affairs, Survey of International Affairs, 1933, London, 1934, p. 217Google Scholar; see also ibid., pp. 221, 227.

46 See I.I., June 24, 1933, pp. 313–16, and June 3, 1933, p. 249; also Lore, , op.cit., p. 699.Google Scholar

47 I.I., June 3, 1933, p. 242.

48 Friedrich Adler, Secretary General of the Labor and Socialist International, told them that “the body of the party is helpless without its head in another country” (“The Task of the Emigration in the Persecuted Party,” I.I., June 10, 1933).

49 I.I., May 29, 1933, pp. 234ff., June 7, 1933, p. 260, and June 17, 1933, pp. 277ff.

50 See I.I., June 10, 1933.

51 Frankfurter Zeitung, June 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, and 15, 1933. See also Bauer, Otto, Die illegale Partei, Paris, 1938, pp. 154ff.Google Scholar; Anon., “The Underground Movement in Germany,” American Socialist Monthly, vi (May 1937), p. 27; Klinger, , op.cit., p. 86.Google Scholar

52 Neuer Vorwärts, June 18, 1933.

53 Frankfurter Zeitung, June 21, 1933.

54 Brecht, , op.cit., p. 4.Google Scholar

55 “The Sociology of Charismatic Authority,” From Max Weber, trans. and ed. by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, London, 1947, p. 247.

56 “Collegiality unavoidably obstructs the promptness of decision, the consistency of policy, the clear responsibility of the individual, and the ruthlessness to outsiders in combination with the maintenance of discipline within the group” (Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans, by Henderson, A. M. and Parsons, Talcott, New York, 1947, p. 402).Google Scholar

57 Low, Sidney, The Governance of England, London, 1913, p. 36.Google Scholar In this connection, it is interesting to note that in September 1952 only 13 per cent of the SPD membership was under thirty-six, while 42 per cent was fifty-six and older; see Sopade (Bonn), No. 926 (October 1952), p. 45.