Chapter 9.
First set - The Failure of a Revolution.
Berlin, August 1st, 1944
Playing with the advantage that hindsight gives us today, it is easy to say that the Stockholm treaty, which opened the round of conversations that lead to the final peace treaty that settled the war, was the source of all evil that came after it, just as the humilliating Versailles Treaty (the infamous "Second Frankfurt Treaty" for the French historians) of 1918 had been the seed of the Second World War.
Indeed, both the Commune of France and the British Union felt cheated and robbed of their victory. Had not the reactionary Tsar joined the Kaiser in an unholy treaty, the revolutionary forces would have swept their way to Berlin. With Germany freeded from the Capitalist oppresion and joining his Syndicalist brethern, it was claimed, the "Establishment" would have been, in the end, defeated by the forces of Progress and Freedom. Now, with the threat of the Russian nuclear weaponry that may bring the final Armageddon a bit closer, even the most humble private in the army could see that the final victory had slipped away.
Had they knew that the weapon that obliterated the isle of Wight was the only one that the the Tsar had at his disposal (it would not be until two months latter that the Russian atomic program leaded by Igor Kurchatov resulted in two more Atomic bombs), perhaps they would had risked to face the combined Russo-German armed forces on the battlefield. However, neither London nor Paris knew that, so they turned to Detroit, asking for more fighter planes to cover the British and French skies. Syndicalist president Jack Reed, which had his hands full with figthing at Europe and ennacting its revenge from the Japanese, refused to commit more units to a war that, from his point of view, was impossible to win and turned to defeat Japan.
Thus "betrayed" by their "big" Syndicalist brother, both the British Union and the Commune of France had to accept that they would not defeat Germany and that it would stand, as strong as it was in 1939 plus the Russian help, in the way to the final World Revolution. Bitter and resented, both London and Paris began to consider the Combined States of America as another obstacle to their ultimate victory. When it was discovered that the CSA also had the bomb (in late 1945), the Europan Syndicalist parties finally added the CSA to the list of enemies and traitors of the World Revolution.
Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (1887-1977).
Nevertheless, they were not the only ones which felt unhappy about the peace settlement. In Germany, once the war was over, the general feeling changed gradually. From feeling relieved from being spared of the Godless onslaught, now most Germans felt that they had just fallen into the Russian aegis and that they were nothing more that a huge puppet state to Saint Petersburg. Even if that was not the truth -indeed, Germany was now heavily linked to Russia, at least until Berlin felt strong enough to deal on its own against the French and the British revolutionaries-, the feeling hung as a national shame over the country. To make it worse, in the next months, some voices would begin to blame von Stauffenberg of having betrayed Germany when Zeitzler was on the verge to stop the enemy advance and to turn them back all the way to Paris. Of course, general Zeitzler was behind this idiot bickering, trying, as he had attempted once, to get rid of the blame. This complicated situation would result in a feeling of deep need of getting rid of the shame of being defeated in all but in fact. Thus, as history proves, would become as damaging for the world as if Russia had not saved Germany from the final defeat.
The world had been spared from a Syndicalist victory that may had given place to a general revolution just to face the ghost of a Third World War. When Lutz von Krosigk stated on his autobiography "
Persönliche Erinnerungen", it was as if an "
Iron Courtain" had descended across the Continent.
Third set - The Brown Bolshevik.
Germany, 1922-25
"If freedom is short of weapons,
we must compensate with willpower."
- Adolf Hitler, Landsberg, 5 November 1925.
The years that followed the publication of the
Mein Kampf and his arrest, the so called
Verbotzeit, were, apparently, a complete disaster for Hitler. From being the most promising star of the KPD, he suddenly become a marginal leftover, a pariah. Now we will see how those events developed.
After the publication of the
Mein Kampf he was arrested, as it has been stated earlier. "
There stands the enemy", said Luddendorff, "
And there is no doubt; this enemy stands on the left". As a consequence, the government passed a law "
for the Protection of the Reich" which provided that it would ban gatherings, demonstrations, books and parties deemed dangerous to the Republic. There were fines and prison sentences for anyone voicing publicly any subversive propaganda. And the
Mein Kampf was, according to this law, a subversive book.
Finally, the Supreme Court for the Protection of the Reich was constituted at Leipzig to try such cases. By the spring of 1926 the KPD had narrowly avoided being banned. It was dissolved in Prussia, Saxony, Baden, Bavaria, Thuringia, Hessen and Hamburg. There not only the party, also its newspaper was forbidden, as well. Nevertheless, the authorities could not effectively prevent the NSDAP in these areas from forming camouflaged organizanizations and maintaining the KPD alive. This fact caused the so-called Hamburg incidents, when some KPD followers demonstrated in protest and were dispersed and almost hunted with the police. Ernst Thälmann stood among those who were arrested on that day and would meet Adolf Hitler in prison.
From the beginning both men did not trust each other. For Hitler, Thälmann was nothing than a puppet from the Syndicalist corrupt regimes and he vented quite soon that opinion. Thälmann, on his part, saw Hitler as a demagogue fated to vanish as soon as the audiences got used to their tirades.
One of the most famous incidents between both revolutionaries came after a speech that Hitler gave to some of the prisoners of Landsberg, were they were being confined. Hitler blamed again the "Vons", the junkers and the capitalists for the oppression that the German people was standing. He also attacked the British Union and the Comune of France as being nothuing more that a pack of reactionaries masquerading as progressive states. Walther Ulbricht, who had been arrested a few days after Thälmann, fed up by the merciless attack of Hitler against both countries, that, according to Ulbrich were the the most progressive states in history, and working fully towards the fulfillment of the people's cause, pointed out the continuous use of the term "volk" by Hitler was too much close to the nationalist meaning given by the Capitalists.
In his answer, Hitler attacked viciously Ulbricht with his odd version of Syndicalism: deeply nationalist, furiously anti-French and inexplicably militaristic. Thälmann was bewildered. That man, popular and magnetic, was very useful to the KPD, so he offered him a seat on the KDP executive committee, as well as offering him the job of chief propaganda officer, so long as Hitler abandoned some of his 'counterrevolutionary' ideals. Hitler refused and claimed that he would create a new party. The split was a fact, despite Thälmann to bridge the gap. It is claimed that Ulbircht later said to Thälmann "
better lose the Hitlerite votes than to have the party corrupted". However, Thälmann was desperate to avoid the division, to keep an unified front against the Kaiserreich, but he was not successful at all.
When in 1925 Hitler went out ot Landsberg, he set up his shoul at creating his own party.
Hitler poses before the gates to the fortress town
of Landsberg am Lech shortly after his release from prison.
Interlude
The Reichsführer was not a happy man. He had taken awful pains to read all the garbage gods involved with the plight of mortals and physical corruption, lust, excess, pleasure, perfection and hedonism or, finally, vitality and volatility of change.
He was going to leave at that point when something called its attention.
"[...] and it is closely associated with sorcery and magic, as well as dynamic mutation, and grand, convoluted scheming. In his mind he listens to the hopes and plans of every mortal and every nation; and through his own complex plots and manipulation he alters the course of history to achieve some great plan beyond mortal knowledge."
Plots and manipulation.
For a moment Heydrich allowed himself a little smile before taking a look at Kremmler. He waved dissmisively at the pages that lied in front of him and asked, in a dangerously calm voice:
-Is that all?
-Nein, Reichsführer -said Kremmler, quite excited. He moved forward an inch, and pointed anxiously at a fragment and then read aloud:
"and where the plagueing ynsects did nott crawle, or madness lye, so men did blister and recompose them ownselves ynto the terrible likeness of daimons, such foule pests as the afreet and the d'genny that persist in the silent desert places. In such visage, they turned uponn theyr kind and gnawed them upon their bloody bones. "
When he finished, his eyes were shinning and his face showed the happines of a kid that has been given a new toy. Bored, Heydrich was beginning to be afraid that his sixth sense had failed him this time when Kremmler said the word:
Gehemehnet
and explained his discoveries. Even if Heydrich was not quite keen on magic and superstitions as his late predecessor, he discovered something interesting in all that fuss that Kremmler explained so pasionately. He saw clearly how dangerous could be Kremmler if he was not properly directed. All in all, he could not see what may be of interest about this
Gehemehnet, but he was going to take a small risk, just to prove something to himself.
As soon as the smiling Kremmler left the room with the signature of Heydrich giving him powers to enhace his plans, the Reichsführer called his aid de camp.
-Find Oberfürher Brumm. Now.
Then, turning to the window, he mused to himself...
Gehemehnet, had Kremmler said. It had some kind of curious sound... so... Jewish... Smiling inwardly to his dark soul, he wondered what would have thought Heinrich Himmler about following a Jewish clue...