Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange Rare Books and Manuscripts Special Collections 1933 Down with Fascism Joseph Compton Follow this and additional works at: https://digital.kenyon.edu/rarebooks Recommended Citation Compton, Joseph, "Down with Fascism" (1933). Rare Books and Manuscripts. 11. https://digital.kenyon.edu/rarebooks/11 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections at Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rare Books and Manuscripts by an authorized administrator of Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ~ • f '¥' Y 'f' "f' 'f' 'f' T 'f 'i 'T' i' '¥' Y Y 'f V V Y + Y ~ PAMPHLETS H FOR SOCIALISTS DOWN WITH FASCISM PROPAGANDA PAMPHLETS By JOSEPH COMPTON Why a Labour Party? (Chairman, National Executive Committee, British Labour I A New Appeal to the Young Labour in Action Party, 1932-1933) War and Socialism The Labour Speech and How to Make it The Iniquitous Means Test Prices post free: I copy I ! d. 12 copies gd. 100 copies 6s. The League of Youth Prices post free: I copy I!d. I2 copies Is. With a Foreword by The Parable of the Water Tank WALTER M. CITRINE Socialism or Smash! Simple Simon-The Socialist Scoundrel (Secretary, British Trades Union Congress; and President, The Socialist Goal An Easy Outline of Modern Socialism International Federation of Trade Unions). The World Muddle The People's Health Prices post free: I copy 2!d. I2 copies Is. 6d. 100 copies 10s. Slums Prices post free: I copy 3d. I2 copies Is. 6d. 100 copies 10s.6d. Two Years of Labour Rule Prices post free: I copy 3!d. I2 copies 3s. Democracy and Finance Prices post free: I copy 7d. I2 copies 4s. 6d. Ioo copies 30s. ORGANISATION Party Organisation Prices post free: I copy 7d. I2 copies 4s. 6d. Conduct of Elections Price post free: 5s. 4d. H LO~~elL~c~6:~e~n':~~~peak ers' Handbook I Published by The County Council Guide THE NATIONAL JOINT COUNCIL §. Price post free: 7d. From § TRANSPORT HOUSE, SM ITH SQUARE, S.W.1 ~ THE LABOUR PUBLICATIONS DEPARTMENT, ~ ~ Transport House, Smith Square, London, S.W.1 ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~J Foreword By WALTER M. CITRINE (Secretary, British Trades Union Congress; and President, International Federation of Trade Unions). HAT is really happening in Germany? This is the question that I am asked on all hands. As President of W the International Federation of Trade Unions, whose headquarters were, until the last few days, in Berlin, I have had many opportunities to acquaint myself with the facts. They con­ firm to the fullest the courageous reports which the correspon­ dents of papers like the Daily Herald, the Manchester Guardian and the Times have sent to this country. I say "courageous•• because it has been no easy matter for these men to maintain their calm objectivity in the face of the intimidation and coercion which exists in Germany to-day. Anyone who dares to tell the truth is. not safe in Germany. Arrests at dead of night, flogging to the point of death with steel rods, tortures reminiscent of the worst period of the Spanish Inquisition, are the characteristic feature of Nazi rule. Officially, the Hitler Government disclaims such outrages. "They are the work of' un-official' Nazis who have got out of hand." It is terribly significant, however, that the police stand idly by and no arrests are ever made. One of the most pathetic features of this brutal orgy is the readiness of some of its victims to deny that they are subjected to the terror. German Jews who have been the victims of vindictive racial hatred, almost beyond belief, are "induced" to write letters timidly testifying to the necessity for the national "cleansing" process which is going on. The cleansing consists of the beating of Jews, Socialists, Com­ munists and Pacifists into insensibility, and the driving out of public life of all who dare to venture a protest against Hitler's hirelings. Let me give just two or three of many instances. Frau Marie Janskowski, an elderly woman well known for her social welfare work, was carried off from her fiat in Copenick by a party of armed Nazis who took her to a Nazi barracks, where she was stripped and beaten with sticks by four men. 5 After roo strokes she rolled from the table, bleeding badly, power. The ruthless repression of their opponents is no unex­ but was pulled to her feet and struck in the face so violently that pected extravagance. It has been preached for years by Hitler she fell heavily, injuring her knee. Her husband reported the and his drug addict henchman, Capt. Goering-now the Minister matter to the police, and was told that they were powerless! for the Interior. This case was reported in the Times on April 1. Much criticism has beeh directed against the Socialists and One of the most terrible cases was reported in the Morning Trade Unionists in Germany for not offering outward resistance Post on April 1. Herr Joachim, a prominent Jewish barrister who to the present regime. As one who has been closely associated for had frequently been retained in important political cases by the nearly ten years with the German comrades, and who understands Republican Reichsbanner, was carried off by Nazis to Storm something of the difficulties of their situation, I hesitate to criticise Detachments' barracks in the General Papestrasse, where, with them. other prisoners, he was subjected to an unspeakable mutilation It must be remembered that Germany is in the grip of a frenzied from the effects of which he died. The semi-official Wolff Bureau nationalism, for the creation of which the Allied Powers cannot be announced his death as due to illness. held to be blameless. The Socialists and Trade Unionists who for A Brunswick telegraph mechanic was taken to Nazi barracks years steadfastly tried to secure for Germany better treatment in where he was stripped and unmercifully beaten and tortured with the counsels of the nations, are now looked upon as enemies and steel rods for three hours. At intervals he was forced to wipe up traitors to their country. The war spirit is abroad. Hitler is the blood from the floor with his clothes. When he became un­ determined to achieve, by his strong right arm, what the pacifists conscious the Nazis wrenched open his mouth with such force failed to obtain by persuasion. I can conceive of no bigger blow that part of his lip was torn away, and poured hydrochloric acid that can be struck at the future peace of the world, than to concede down his throat. He was then flung, a bleeding mass, into the to the threats of Hitler what was refused to the pleadings of his street, where his wife was anxiously waiting for news of him. predecessors, Dr. Stresemann and Herman Muller. He was just able to tell her what had happened to him. When For us in Great Britain, Hitlerism furnishes an object-lesson. his wife wiped away the froth from his lips her handkerchief It seems impossible that such a system could be adopted in this was corroded by the strong acid which had been poured into him. country with its long tradition of Parliamentary Government. He died after some hours of agonising pain. The official diagnosis But let us not be too complacent. Hitlerism rose from small gave apoplexy as the cause of death. beginnings, and now takes its place side by side with the dicta­ The official apologists for Hitler talk calmly about the "revolu­ torships of Mussolini in Italy, Horthy in Hungary, Pilsudski in tion" that is taking place, and cynically refer to the casualties being Poland. There is a dictatorship of a different kind in Russia, but comparatively light. All informed observers know perfectly well a dictatorship none the less. And a dangerous movement to set that there has been no revolution in Germany in the sense of up a dictatorship is rearing its head in Austria. We have to clear armed or forcible resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. What has our own minds as to whether we really believe in democratic happened is that the criminals and bullies who compose the Nazi institutions. Far too many people in the Labour Movement are Brown Army or Storm Troops, as they are called, and who have not only critical but scornful of Parliamentary Government. It is shown a high degree of bravery in frightening defenceless men and about time we cleared the decks for the settlement of the issue of women in restaurants and public places, have got the bit between democracy or dictatorship. their teeth, and are determined that Chancellor Hitler shall not be allowed to escape from the wild promises of his propaganda Mr. Compton's pamphlet, in revealing some of the conse­ period. quences of dictatorship in Germany, will help to clarify the question. It should not be forgotten that for years Hitler's Nazis have been fed on the hopes of what was going to happen when he obtained 6 7 Another Court sentenced to one month's imprisonment a sixty-year old DOWN WITH FASCISM policeman who had been overheard to say in a shop that in Switzerland and Italy it is believed that the Nazis themselves set the Reichstag on fire. By JOSEPH COMPTON (Chairman, National Executive Committee, British Labour Party, 1932-1933) Letters are opened, and one must be careful what one says in Germany for fear of being overheard by some self-constituted spy, whose "national HAT is Fascism? Fascism in Germany is intolerance, violence, integrity" is above suspicion, or by a member of the secret political police.