THE RED ORCHESTRA 14|1

Corruption in administration, in business life, in the Wehrmacht, but above all within the structures of the party, has reached a disgust­ ing extent. While employees are forced to sell their labor under ever deteriorating conditions and often to lead a gray existence as labor slaves far from their nearest and dearest, there are still plenty of bigwigs and war profiteers who see it as their task to feed the masses with state-prescribed lies. So that no one is tempted to think for themselves, the workers’ leisure time is also subjected to Nazi control. A class of ridiculous but damaging swindlers and braggarts, alienated from the people, now plays the primary role in the life of the nation. In times of direst need for Germany, these people lead a life of comfort. Yet the con­ science of all true patriots rears up against the entire current form of German exercise of power in Europe. All those who have main­ tained a sense of true values shudder as they watch the German name fall into increasing disrepute under the sign of the swastika. In all countries today, hundreds of people a day, often thousands, are being court-martialed and arbitrarily shot or hanged, accused of nothing other than remaining loyal to their country, as men like Hofer, Schill, and Palm once did in Germany. The most disgraceful tortures and cruelties are being perpetrated on civilians and prisoners in the name of the Reich. Never in history has one man been as despised as Adolf Hitler. The hate of this tor­ mented humanity burdens the entire German nation.

Are we weak and timid, are we wrong to be concerned, are we abandoning our leaders through lack of character?

It is perfectly natural to think about these matters. The millions in opposition when the NSDAP seized power, whose lips have since been sealed by means of terror, they lost nothing of the deeply rooted suspicion that behind all the völkisch phrases was the will for an imperialist war, for a new world war in the interest of a clique that made plundering other nations the convenient guiding principle for The People Are Troubled about Germany’s last reserves are being squeezed out of the their actions. Future. population. There is barely anything left to buy. Money is losing its value. The army is That old suspicion has been confirmed. In Time and again, Minister Goebbels attempts swallowing up hundreds of thousands again view of the hard deaths all around us, a mem­ in vain to scatter new sand in our eyes. The and again. Industry and agriculture are suf- ory has awakened of a time when the party facts speak a hard and cautionary language. fering sorely from the lack of labor. Tens of now waging war took the freedom of the No one can deny any longer that our situation thousands of factories and farms are col­ German nation itself. Before they put Europe is deteriorating from month to month. No lapsing under the burden of the war condi­ in chains they enslaved Germany. With what one can close their eyes any longer to the tions. The fruits of decades of hard work are ideal in mind should the nation wage this war? monstrosity of events, to the catastrophe dwindling away. Women are mourning their General lack of freedom, total regression— of National Socialist policy threatening us all. vanished romantic and family happiness. All these are not ideals for which one is glad to domestic peace is torn asunder. The days pass die, gentlemen! The nation knows that it must The major military successes of the early war without joy, with no hope for the people. Time one day be held accountable to history, itself, years have not yielded decisive results. Most and nerves are wasted by the ever smaller and the world. The people are no longer German armies are currently in retreat. Despite rations that the government still grants to the willing to be kept amused by superficial “light all the Armed Forces High Command fabrica- people. The general public is also suffering entertainment” and lying Propaganda Com­ tions, the number of war victims is rising to from the impertinences and chicanery of the mittee reports. There was a very fast return millions. Almost every German house is in authorities and party offices. In its infamous to normal after Reich Minister Hess flew to mourning. The workers are exposed to ever stupidity, the state bureaucracy is now barely Scotland, but the stupid people have not more severe coercion and overexertion. The capable of solving the tasks allotted to it. forgotten that the man who yesterday called himself the Führer’s deputy was accused the the Soviet Union, nor the securing of our raw Anyone continuing to equate the future of the next day of insanity. There has been no infor­ materials and food stores. The year 1941 nation with Hitler’s fate is committing a crime. mation on the background to Colonel General brought none of all this. Japan entered the Udet’s suicide, but the stupid people know war on Germany’s side, but America and the Germany must live, even when Adolf Hitler’s very well that there is a critical lack of planes Soviet Union are now at war with Germany. star falls. and gasoline. With every possible deceptive Hitler declared war on both major powers. maneuver, they are trying to give the impres­ The Japanese victories at the other end of the Who cannot see now that the entire much- sion that nothing is happening aside from a world, so similar to our own early successes, praised social improvement in the Third Reich, few illnesses among the field marshals. But cannot offset the defeats on the German the labor creation, the Volkswagen, and many the stupid people want to know why the Eastern Front. No decisive changes are taking another thing were nothing but preparation heads of the Russian marshals have not been place in Africa either. Italy has proved itself an for war and armament?! Did Adolf Hitler know rolling, as the German press already an­ unreliable brother-in-arms. On all fronts, our no other means for relieving unemployment nounced victoriously, but the German army armies have had the severest losses not only than the extermination of millions through leaders have been removed from their posts. of human lives, but also of material. The a new war? The first 7 years in the Third Reich The stupid people are concerned because superior arms power which our Wehrmacht gave us not socialism but only its distorted Mr. von Reichenau suffered a sudden stroke. possessed at the beginning of the war is caricature: a period of grace until the bloody No one has told us anything about Reich broken forever. If Germany could not win the slaughtering. Minister Kerrl’s suicide, anything about the war against England while Germany still had departure of Price Commissioner Wagner, and superiority on its side in terms of tank divisions That is the truth. And this truth will no longer yet the stupid people are wondering why the and the air force, trained personnel and tech­ be suppressed. The most powerful gentle- gentle­men have stepped down if everything no­logical surprises, it certainly will not be able men in the land are now Messrs. Himmler and was going according to plan. The Kulturkampf to win the war in the future, now that the Goebbels. Yet Mr. Himmler’s greatest terror between state and church, it was said, was a enemy has shown ever greater superiority. The cannot quell the truth, in the long term. unique mistake on the part of Bismarck, but hope of Mr. Rosenberg’s dubious experts to Dr. Goebbels’s greatest lie, his greatest bluff, the stupid people have paid heed to the warn­ draw great benefit from enslaving the Ukraine can no longer save us. Only a profound re­ ing pulpit speeches of the Catholic Bishop was just as dismally deceptive as the corre­ new­al can spare us terrible disaster. of Münster and the Protestant Bishop of sponding attempt in 1917. The fight for raw Württemberg. No wonder, after all this, that materials for the war leads only to more and What is to become of us? concern is taking hold of broad swaths of the more battlefields, i.e. to new fronts and new population. mass graves. Even today, the question of the future of the country could be answered satisfactorily. As yet they consoled us with hope for the final The propaganda chatter about the Führer’s Yet to do so, Germany needs a government victory. They spoke of the Führer’s infallibility infallibility has been conclusively disproved by founded on those parts of the population that and the Third Reich’s achievements. Where all the course of the war. Even in 1939, Adolf have the ability and the power to represent else failed they struck fear into us with the Hitler still believed in a long period of peace a new German form of politics to the nation Gestapo, once again dusting off the old record with England. His hysterical policies led and the world. These people are of course not about the Bolshevist hordes, describing the England into the war. The same British pluto- those who brought Hitler to power. They are horrific revenge that the entire German nation crats for whose favor he begged hoarsely were not the beneficiaries of the regime. They are, would have to face for the deeds of the pre­ now suddenly unmasked as black men, after instead, those soldiers who are prepared to vious governing leaders. They want to sow his naive hope that the war would be restrict- place the well-being of the nation higher than fear about the future. ed to Germany and Poland proved to be the existence of the state and the Wehrmacht deceptive. The war became a world war. In in their current form. They are, further, the Let those who are too weak to learn the truth the late summer of 1940, Adolf Hitler believed workers in the cities and the countryside who continue to swallow the lies. Let those who England was at the end of its strength and are aware of their historical mandate, who are too idle to seek the truth remain passive. would admit defeat. Over and over, he de­ are prepared to make the matter of the nation All responsible people ought to reckon with clared that the war had actually been won, their own. They are the intelligentsia of all the facts: and that even America’s power would no professions, ostracized by the Hitler regime, longer be able to damage the Reich because who are prepared to take the lead along the A final victory is no longer possible for we maintained the best economic relations to path to revolution. National Socialist Germany. Moscow. Now, England has not collapsed, and America is supplying more and more material The German nation needs a socialist govern- Every day that prolongs the war brings new to the Allies. In the deceptive hope of being ment of the workers, the soldiers, and the unspeakable suffering and victims. Every able to reap easy laurels in the East, and in the working intelligentsia. Only through the deter- further day of war only increases the bill that desperate attempt to bring the war to a head, mined coalition of the best parts of the work­ must be paid in the end by us all. Hitler pounced on Russia. All of Hitler’s and ing class and of the intelligentsia together with his advisors’ plans have failed. Hitler has those forces in the Wehrmacht with loyalties The promises that Hitler and Goebbels made destroyed the old, frail Europe of yesteryear, to the people can control be seized from the to the people were different. But 1941 brought but he has not been able to exterminate the ruling party. May those who are still uncer­tain us nothing of all that Hitler and Goebbels peoples’ will for a future without the Gestapo, recall Adolf Hitler’s words of 1925: “In general prom­ised. A year ago, Adolf Hitler declared without “racial education,” without bureau­ it should never be forgotten that not the pre­ that 1941 would bring the completion of the cracy and constriction. His rule of violence servation of a state or even that of a govern­ greatest victory in our history. But the past stands on feet of clay. His entire system will ment is the highest purpose of human exis­ year brought us neither victory nor peace; it shatter against the will for freedom of the tence, but rather the conservation of its brought neither the heralded occupation of oppressed and exploited. species. Is this species itself in danger of being the British Isles nor victory on the Atlantic, oppressed or even removed, then the question neither the destruction of the “last formations Hitler will founder, just as Napoleon found­ of legality plays only a subordinate role. It may of the Red Army capable of fighting” nor the ered. then be that the ruling power makes thou­ capture of the three most important centers of sandfold use of so-called ‘legal’ means in its procedures, but nevertheless the drive for self-preservation of the oppressed is always Minister Goebbels’s thesis of “Not when but who must be held responsible for the un­ the most sublime justification for their struggle how” is absolutely wrong. The H O W of the precedentedly reckless underestimation of with all weapons. The laws of humankind peace depends on the W H E N. the Soviets and the absolutely insufficient trump state laws… At an hour when a national preparations. They are to blame for hundreds corpus is visibly collapsing and appears to What will happen if things go on this way? of thousands of pointless deaths in ice and be at the mercy of the greatest oppression, What will happen if Adolf Hitler’s war is snow. thanks to the actions of a handful of rogues, pursued further? obedience and fulfillment of duty toward Take a stand against the continuation of a war these rogues is only formalism and foolish­­ness Then the collapse will assume such an extent that in the best case will reduce not only the if, on the other hand, the refusal of obedience that November 1918 will look ridiculous in Reich, but the entire continent to rubble. and ‘fulfillment of duty’ would enable the comparison. Germany would sacrifice its rescue of a people from its decline.” last reserves in the offensives of the summer It is not enough to “grumble” or make stupid (Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf, pp. 105 & 593) of 1942. Millions more people would then fall jokes. Every individual must decide on a clear through bombs or grenades or perish from YES or NO. Indeed, only the refusal of obedience and diseases of undernourishment or epidemics. fulfillment of duty creates the conditions for Ultimately, however, there would be panic and Read the newspaper, watch the weekly news- the rescue of the people from decline. the collapse of the Reich. reel with your wits! Bear in mind that they are doing everything to give you a tainted view of As soon as the people have given themselves All those who fail to take action to stop such the situation. a new government, they must seek new a development make themselves complicit. friends and allies in the world. These will not They deserve nothing other than an unenvi­ Protest more and more loudly when you have be found among those who have an interest able existence for themselves and their de­ to line up anywhere and everywhere! in restoring the European state of 1918 to scen­dants, a dishonorable life under foreign Stop putting up with everything. Do not be 1939 and in more or less openly demeaning rule. intimidated anymore! the German people—thus, not among the reactionary circles in Europe. The politics of What can the individual do to bring his will Face up to the general fear! Over and over, certain German feudalists, diplomats, bankers, to bear? one hears the phrase: “We have to carry on! etc., who dream of giving the country a new If we don’t win now we’ll all be in for a terrible political foundation after a coup through the Every individual must ensure that he does time; then we’d have to pay for all the Nazis’ brutal persecution of all those previously in­ the opposite—wherever he can—of what the awful deeds!” The current leaders spread this volved in power, only to reconcile a restored present state demands of him. talk themselves in order to cement their rule. Germany with the “plutocrats” at Russia’s Of course this entire perspective is false, for expense, has no grounding in reality and will We must tear ourselves and others out of the world history will by no means lose its deeper not bring peace. A future cannot be forged mire of lies and cowardly pragmatic optimism meaning and the impossible will not become out of hate, demagogy, and reactionary ideas. into which the gentlemen of the Third Reich possible through us attempting to not see Friends of our nation are to be found, instead, have pulled us. We will no longer tolerate the the truth and helping crime and insanity to among the most progressive forces in Europe truth being withheld from the people. We will victory only because crime and insanity have and the USSR. The coming German govern­ no longer tolerate a handful of arrogant per­ made their nest in Germany at the moment. ment must seek to cooperate with these sons, compromised a thousand times over by We will save ourselves and our country only forces. It must support these forces, and it the course of events, seeking to keep a rein on when we find the courage to join the ranks will do so best by handing over power in the the most alert forces of the nation. We must of the combat front against Hitler and thereby occupied territories to free and independent break at last from the old German delusion provide proof that fascism and the mania governments, by immediately evacuating from that the state is a higher entity to be trusted of war are not German phenomena, but the the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, blindly. Today’s state is nothing but a huge consequences of an unhealthy system for by revoking the alliance with Italy, and by re­ apparatus that has fallen into the hands of a which the whole world is partly to blame, and newing the friendship pact and trade agree­ few ambitious and unscrupulous men. These which must therefore be overcome by the ment with the USSR. men are making use of the state apparatus to constructive forces of the whole world, turn the whole world upside down according including Germany. Thus, when the NSDAP On this basis, a peace would be possible under to their immature and skewed perceptions bellows that the victorious Americans or the which the German Reich could be kept intact and to enrich themselves and their like. Bolshevists would sterilize all Germans, they within the borders of the spring of 1939. The are consciously spreading untruths, as always. German people must demand a share of the The truth about the real situation must find The rulers fear for their own skin, and those goods of the earth through comprehensive its way to the people. So let no opportunity responsible will indeed be held accountable. trade agreements and treaties. pass by to counter the propaganda. Read Those, however, who give upright expression old Führer speeches! Remember your old to their will for a new form of politics, will The German people will be equally prepared newspapers and compare the promises made come to no harm at all. to take part in any disarmament as all other to the people a year ago with the hard facts nations do. As yet, after overcoming the of the present day. Pass on letters from the Treat the SS with contempt! Let them feel that National Socialist sickness, the German people Eastern Front; they give the lie to the hypo- the people abhor murderers and spies from would still have sufficient strength of their critical Nazi propaganda, they show what the the depths of their souls! Stop the nonsense own and enough friends around the world war really looks like. Write to your soldiers of collecting winter aid plaques! Every penny, to assert their honest will for a real new order in the field about what is happening at home! every act of help for the ruling regime, pro­ and for lasting securement of peace, even People everywhere are now saying more and longs the war and leads us all even deeper into against the resistance of enemy powers. more openly that we are no longer willing despair! Put a stop to thoughtlessness and to bear the yoke of the party bigwigs’ rule. sentimentality. We demand the reintroduction of freedom of conviction. A people’s court for those who chased us into the insanity of the Russian offensive and thereby the war on two fronts, “The People Are Troubled about Germany’s Future.” Source: Bundesarchiv, R 58/4105 English translation: Katy Derbyshire Leaflet written by Harro Schulze-Boysen with assistance from John Sieg; Design: Braun Engels Gestaltung, Ulm English editing: Ginger A. Diekmann several hundred copies sent out in Berlin in February 1942. 1st edition 2016 Editing: Ute Stiepani

Everything that has to be said can be summed up in the call to be serious at last!

Send this letter out into the world as often as you can! Pass it on to friends and work­ mates! You are not alone! Start fighting of your own accord, then in groups. TOMORROW GERMANY WILL BE OURS!

–A G I S–