Witness to the German Revolution (21 page)

In foreign policy:

“Annexation of Austria and the Czech Germans. Concessions to Italy in the Tyrol, since (fascist) Italy is our natural ally… Nothing in common with Soviet Russia.”

In domestic policy:

“We demand action. One morning soon we shall go into Saxony and Thuringia, which have been sovietized, in order to root out Marxism with the methods which have been successful for Mussolini.”

“What are your predictions for the immediate future?”

“In three weeks time, the peasants will no longer deliver food to the towns. Stresemann will be finished; von Kahr will have finished his role (he isn't a dictator, he is an excellent civil servant). All the active forces are with Hitler. The day we march on Saxony, our friends in Pomerania, Mecklenburg and Prussia will rise up immediately.”

Just bluster? In international politics, yes; and everyone recognizes it. In domestic politics, no. The Küstrin incident, Zeigner's revelations about the “black” Reichswehr, von Kaehne's trial at Potsdam, and finally and above all Bavarian policy, confirm these statements. They were made in the headquarters of a political party, under military guard, where everyone is in uniform (old Austrian uniform, admittedly), where the sentries present arms to Hitler when he enters! During a recent burglary, weapons were stolen. The numerous telephone conversations which took place in the presence of the fake representative of Mussolini were always about orders for arms and ammunition.

The Great Coalition government wants to disarm the workers' hundreds in Saxony and Thuringia. It has done nothing against Hitler's gangs, which are a much more direct threat to the republic—because it can do nothing, not having any forces in Bavaria and because its class mentality, its reactionary mentality, makes it see danger among workers and not among fascists. Off-the-record reports of this week's cabinet meetings put it precisely: “It appears to the majority of the government that the workers' hundreds constitute a greater danger than the nationalist organizations…”

The street in the grey light of morning. Outside the dairies, there are neverending, pitiful crowds of poor women. They settle down,
they bring folding stools, chairs and their needlework with them. They bring their children. One woman, not fully hidden by the mist, in the corner of a doorway, is breast-feeding. It is cold and the damp pierces through the old clothes of the poverty-stricken. They have been there for whole days waiting to buy a bit of margarine. Facing them, the inevitable green-uniformed policeman, miserable and bad-tempered because he is ashamed of his job. Perhaps his wife is there, with the others…

A truck passes, loaded with potatoes. A clamoring crowd converges on it from both pavements. Kids clutch onto the back of the heavy vehicle, and throw armfuls of the precious vegetables down into the road, to be picked up immediately. The driver speeds up. A policeman shouts himself hoarse, all in vain. I see quite a well-dressed gentleman, doubtless an office worker, calmly pick up a few spuds and stuff them into his pocket. I see a greying, bent old woman running, breathless, to get a bigger share…

The street is hungry. The street has faces of despair, of anger and of hatred.

All day until midnight, at busy crossroads, groups of men are talking. The unemployed. I've often listened to their discussions: the Communist, the Social Democrat and the National Socialist are usually all there and the Communist has the best of the argument.

Sometimes, suddenly, these groups gather, form an angry procession, shove the trembling police out of the way, and attack the shops. This happened in the last few days in various districts of Berlin, and in a number of cities of Germany. An eyewitness told me about one of these instances of looting. He was astonished at the sense of order of the starving people. Methodical looting, no unnecessary violence against property or people. They didn't take luxury items. They took bread, fat, shoes. Suddenly achieving a primitive awareness of their right to life, men condemned to die of
hunger took what they needed to live. It was only when the police intervened that the expropriation degenerated into a riot.

But the police are hesitant, they don't shoot as readily as they did six months ago. They feel submerged in a mass movement—and they are hungry too. In the brawls at Schöneberg
¹⁵⁵
and near the Stock Exchange the changed attitude was very visible. Near the Stock Exchange the other day unemployed workers stopped some bosses' cars and set about pushing them towards the River Spree. A policeman harangued these hungry paupers, appealed to their reason and their human feeling and—since they have more of these qualities than Stinnes and Poincaré—resolved the incident when it was about to become tragic.

The big department stores have their iron grilles half closed; the grocers don't pull them back at all. The hungry street makes them afraid. They can feel it becoming a formidable revolutionary force.

Two days ago, bread cost 620 million marks; today, October 21, it costs 2800 million.

Now, to complete the overall picture of the situation in the last few days, here is a bunch of facts.

Herr von Kahr has refused to renew the residence permits for Bavaria of a number of official Russian figures, carrying Soviet diplomatic passports, notably Krestinsky, Steklov and Tsyurupa.

Die Rote Fahne
has been allowed to reappear for two days before being banned again (October 21). During its suspension, the illegal
Die Rote Sturmfahne
¹⁵⁶
appeared regularly.

The police has occupied the printshop of the Communist
Hamburger Volksstimme.
The Communist paper in Bremen has just been suspended. At Heide, Bremen, Altona and Dresden there are reports of workers being arrested. At Altona, the unemployed committee has been rounded up (October 17).

At Mannheim, there have been food riots and a 24-hour general strike (October 16-17). The police opened fire on the demonstrators, leaving seven dead and 150 wounded.

The reformist general trade union federation—the ADGB—in Halle has demanded the requisition of foodstuffs (October 17).

The Berlin functionaries of the ADGB have voted by 1500 to 50 against general strike in the event of a Reichswehr attack on red Saxony (October 17).

At Aachen, today, Sunday October 21, a Rhineland Republic has been proclaimed. The separatists have without difficulty seized the city which is occupied by Belgian troops. The latter are observing a neutrality which is certainly sympathetic…

At Berlin, the same day, the local congress of the SPD gave a majority to the “left” opposition.

An immense danger is emerging in the Ruhr and Rhineland. Financial aid from the Reich to industry in the occupied territory stopped on October 20. The big industrialists have declared that they are unable to pay wages. Six hundred thousand workers, weary after six months suffering, will find themselves without bread. What will they do tomorrow?

At Chemnitz (Saxony), a congress of all the workers' organizations in Germany, including the organizations banned and dissolved by General Müller¸ met on Sunday (October 21) and decided to respond immediately to any Reichswehr action against red Saxony by a general strike. As I am finishing writing these reports, I am told that troops have opened fire in Dresden. If it is true, battle may be joined within a few hours. “Everything is at
stake!” wrote Brandler on Saturday. It is certain that if the Bavarian reactionaries carry out a coup, the proletariat of central Germany will not be able to tolerate for another hour the unspeakable provocations of a general who is in a hurry to play the part of a Galliffet.

Herr von Kahr has made the Seventh Division of the Reichswehr, quartered in Bavaria, take an oath of loyalty to Bavaria. He has forbidden the publication of appeals by the Reichswehr minister, Herr Gessler, and by General von Seeckt. He has suspended until further notice the Munich
Allgemeine Zeitung
(the bourgeois “General News”), which was guilty of having printed these official statements of the Berlin government. The Federal Council (Reichsrat)
¹⁵⁷
has been asked to “arbitrate” the conflict between Munich and Berlin. The impotence of the Reich could not be more complete.

Herr von Kahr claims he wants to “defend German unity” against the “Marxist influences” affecting the Stresemann cabinet.

Meanwhile impressive troop movements are taking place in Saxony. The Reichswehr from the most reactionary regions in Germany is concentrating its forces, fully equipped for war, in the industrial districts of red Saxony. General Felsch is operating in the Königsbrück-Bischofswerda-Dresden region; General von Ledebur around Leipzig; Colonel Faehrenbach in the Hof area. At Meissen (on October 22) troops, retaliating against a revolver shot fired from a house window, wounded several people. At Pirna, General Felsch ordered soldiers to open fire on demonstrators (one killed).

Speaking in the Dresden Landtag, Herr Zeigner exposed the duplicity of the Great Coalition (October 23). The Berlin government had sent him a letter assuring him that the reinforcement of the Reichswehr in Saxony had as its primary object the protection of the state's frontiers against possible aggression by the Bavarian fascists. But General Müller, the commander-in-chief of the troops, said he was authorized to “restore constitutional order in Saxony.” One provocation after another. After his anti-Communist manifesto last week and his second threatening letter to Herr Zeigner, he ordered a march past in front of the Dresden town hall by Mecklenburg infantry, a squadron of hussars, armoured vehicles, artillery, cyclists and sappers. These purely strategic maneuvers are harmonized with economic maneuvers which are perhaps even more worrying. The blockade of red Saxony is a fact. Industrialists are boycotting the workers' government. The military command of East Prussia and Silesia had banned the export of potatoes to Saxony. This ban was lifted on October 20, but traders asked such a high price—in gold—for their potatoes that Saxony, with its low wages, could not afford them. Bavaria put a ban on sending dairy products to Saxony. Its ministry of food is carrying out a particularistic
¹⁵⁸
policy. According to Heckert, Saxony today has 900,000 destitute out of 4,800,000 inhabitants. In the textile industry they are working two days a week. In the coalmines, they work between 24 and 32 hours in six days. At Brona (Leipzig) for the second week of September, miners got a wage of 700 million, while a season ticket on the regional railways cost them 500 million. Many have had to give up claiming their coal ration, because they can't pay transport costs. The millers have no corn left. The management of the Reich
granaries is asking a price for its cereals that is 41 percent higher than the stock exchange's—a price nobody can pay… But for Russian corn, catastrophe would be imminent. So the situation in Saxony is more serious than ever.

Berlin has no bread. Mobs, police, scuffles outside bakeries. On October 22 and 23 the police had to intervene four times to prevent looting. It didn't always succeed. Groups of unemployed made their way without warning into a shop and said calmly: “Give us bread—or so much the worse for you!” They were allowed to take what they wanted. Elsewhere poor people turn up with their billions of marks, and, finding the shops empty, become enraged.

It is said that there is no shortage of corn: this famine is simply the result of inflation and speculation. For the last six or seven days the dollar has doubled in value almost every day. On October 15 it was quoted at 3,600 million; on October 23 it was sold in Berlin for 70,000 million. The price of bread has risen in proportion. All those in the population who had the money hastened to stock up with bread before the increases of the coming days. The poor are left high and dry with no bread…

The Great Coalition abolished ration cards for bread: that was one of citizen Hilferding's reforms; the result was so visibly that the rich would grab all the bread that it constituted a major danger; hence the coupon has just been reintroduced (as from October 24).

To resolve this situation, Herr Stresemann has given responsibility in the cabinet for food to Count Kanitz, an agrarian, a big landowner, who has just resigned from the DNVP. The SPD ministers have agreed to collaborate with this gentleman: but he has no intention of collaborating with them: as soon as he was appointed, he issued a manifesto (October 22) to farmers and patriots declaring
that he was determined: “never to agree to measures which interfere with the interests of production.” These are the very words used by industrialists and landowners who refuse to pay taxes on property because they “interfere with the interests of production.”

Berlin has no bread. The bourgeois parties and the SPD in power have appointed one of the great starvers of the people to look after food supplies for the country!

The separatist movement in the Rhineland region seems to have collapsed pathetically. At Aachen, the great majority of the population showed themselves so hostile to the two thousand armed bourgeois who put up the green, white and red flag on the town hall, that the Belgian military command didn't dare take them under its protection. The Rhineland Republic only lived for a few hours (October 22). By the way, where did the weapons come from to arm the shock battalions of the separatists?

At Hamburg, on October 23,
¹⁵⁹
street fighting and intervention by the navy. The blood of the poor on the streets. Lead instead of bread. Court-martials. Tomorrow, perhaps, executions. Order. For the moment there are four killed and 108 wounded on the side of the rioters. The police have seven dead and about thirty wounded. Hamburg is governed by a coalition of bourgeois and socialists. The SPD have urged the workers not to follow the Communist call for a general strike. “Communist riot,” says the press. Of course this is a lie: our party rejects isolated, partial actions, easy to put down,
which weaken and undermine revolutionary preparations. But doubtless the Hamburg Communists did fight on the barricades put up by unemployed, strikers and starving people who couldn't wait any longer… These disturbances in Hamburg had a major significance. A whole section of the German proletariat is running out of patience. About six million men can no longer go on living—and they don't want to let themselves die of hunger. We know what price is paid by militants of the workers' parties who urge them not to fling themselves into premature actions. This active army of the German revolution wants to go into the firing line.