8mm to the Left: A World Without Hitler
"The elections of 1936 will forever be a black stain on the history of Europe, a mark which sits alongside the revolutions of 1848 as a great failing of the people of this continent. Much like our ancestors nearly a century before, in 1936 we had the chance to end Europe’s backslide into despotism and darkness, to embrace the light of revolution and evolve into something greater than disparate nations and peoples. We failed, and that failure cost the world greatly.” - Walter Ulbricht, head of the German Communist Party in exile, speaking at the 30th Anniversary of the Third International in Helsinki, 1950
Great Things
The Imperial Residence in Poznan, Poland was a grand structure, a masterwork of grey stone and modern architecture which dominated the landscape of the region of Greater Poland. It held many of the government institutions for the nation and drew thousands of tourists a year in visits. It was just a shame that it had been built by Germans.
Posen Castle (Reconstructed)
(https://www.imaschelling.com/startseite/aktuelles/magazin/ausgabe-2-2020/posen)
Polish president Ignacy Moscicki considered the newspaper before him, one dark eyebrow cranking up in surprise at the news coming out of France. “The Popular Front lost the election,” he noted with some surprise. “I suppose there is hope for the French yet, hm?”
Jozef Beck, foreign minister of Poland, made a noncommittal sort of noise. He shifted in his chair, leaning onto the armrest closest to Moscicki, and said, “I do not hold any great expectations from modern France or her leaders. The days of Napoleon tearing through the German hordes is over; all Paris wants to do now is concede and concede. If the question of the Rhineland had been posed to us, we would never have given in! That fool Flandin will be the death of France.”
Jozef Beck
(https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Józef_Beck#/media/Datei:J_Beck.jpg)
“Flandin did not win re-election.”
“What?” Now Beck appeared interested. “Surely not the Communists!”
“No, no, thank God. It was the National Front, as we hoped, but it appears that Flandin’s failings have become as apparent to the people as to us outsiders, and his own party abandoned him in favour of Louis Marin, the other Conservative candidate. It was close, very close, but the Conservatives have achieved victory.”
“Marin… what is his stance on the matter of Germany?”
“I had hoped you might know,” Moscicki said, folding up the paper and placing it down on the table beside him. He picked up his tea and, before taking a sip, said, “I will send him a congratulatory missive. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new Franco-Polish bond.”
Beck let out an undignified snort. “I would not place bets on it.” His distaste for the British and French was well-known. “As long as their blasted Maginot remains, they will hide behind it like a turtle while all of Europe falls around them.”
Moscicki disagreed, but chose to let the matter drop, having been privy to far too many arguments in this vein. “Anything is better than seeing France turn red,” he said instead. “If France and the Soviets were to align, we would be forced to seek accommodation with Berlin, something which I would go to great lengths to avoid.”
“If this Marin was part of the Conservative coalition, he may very well continue Flandin’s task of building ties to Italy,” Beck pointed out. “We should revisit the possibility of doing the same. We could learn much from Mussolini.”
“Could we? He has turned his nation into a pariah, all but driving the British into the arms of the Germans, and for what? A mountainous wasteland in Africa?”
“The League of Nations is to blame, not Mussolini,” was Beck’s retort. He despised the League and their meddling in Polish affairs, blaming them for not settling the territorial and ethnic disputes which pitted Poland against her neighbours. Their admittance of the Soviet Union and endowment of a permanent seat to the Communist power had been a particularly hated slap in the face.
“It does us little good either way. Italy cannot match Germany, and, frankly, I do not trust Mussolini to work with other nations as equals. France, at least, has no aspiration on empire-building in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. This election is a good sign, I hope, that soon we may place Germany in a vice from whence they cannot wiggle free.”
Two major elections were scheduled for Germany in 1936. The federal election (scheduled for October) was objectively the more important, dealing as it did with the Reichstag and the nation as a whole, but on an unofficial basis the Prussian election (scheduled for May) was nearly as important, as it would decide the fate of the largest and most powerful German state.
Free State of Prussia, 1936
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_of_Prussia#/media/File:Map-WR-Prussia.svg)
Since 1925, the Free State of Prussia had been led by Otto Braun, a leading member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the SPD, and was considered by many to be the bulwark of democracy in the Reich. A large part of this was the enormous industrial base present within Prussia, including the Rhineland, Prussian Saxony, and Silesia, whose workers tended towards socialist and communist sympathies. These sentiments were likewise common in the docks of Schleswig-Holstein and Hannover, and in the large cities of Berlin and Düsseldorf. It was little wonder that the SPD had held a stranglehold on the state opposite the lack of unified popular opposition.
1936 was the first year when their dominance faced a true and serious threat. In conjunction with the popularity of the von Lettow-Vorbeck/Adenauer government grew support for the two leading Conservatives parties, Adenauer’s Catholic Zentrum (Centre) party and the KCVP, or Konservative Christliche Volkspartei (Conservative Christian People’s Party), a party which supported von Lettow-Vorbeck in every action and came to be seen as his unofficial backer, despite his refusal to fully join their ranks or endorse them for fear of losing his neutrality. In a reflection of their respective idols, the two parties had formed a coalition, the Schwarz-Weißer Bund (Black-and-White Union, named for the party’s colours), in an attempt to at long last break the hold of the socialists on the most powerful state in Germany.
Their attempt would be an uphill battle. The SPD in Prussia was a near-hegemonic force, having absorbed the state’s significant communist voting bloc in 1932. Even with the plunge in party popularity faced in the Rhineland following their opposition to the Conservatives government, it was not enough to discount the popularity retained elsewhere. Increasing pressure from Berlin against workers’ unions had driven up party support, and while the growth of the military had strengthened the Right, it had also strengthened the Left, including both those opposing the army’s Conservativism as well as the not-i significant pacifist movement which feared another pan-European war.
While the party remained popular, its leaders were less so. Their failures in recent years, including a push towards mass remilitarisation, the anti-socialist violence propagated by the Reichspolizei, and most recently the establishment of a Free State of the Rhineland had dealt a critical blow to the trust in the party’s leadership and ability to hold out and achieve victory in the November federal elections and beyond. Change was being demanded, in particular by worker communities and former adherents to the German Communist Party. Slowly but surely, these voices had reached a crescendo which threatened to drown out the likes of Otto Wels and Hans Vogel, whose calm demeanours—the same personalities which had earned them the trust of over a decade—were now seen as incompatible with the oppression faced by the German Left.
This disunity came to its inevitable head on Sunday, May 16th, when the Prussian election went forward and the time came for the people to choose: Would they keep the voices of stability and temperance, or would the likes of Selbmann, passionate and fiery in his calls to undo Germany’s backslide, succeed where others had failed?
“More potatoes?”
“Yes, please,” replied Heinrich Adler to his wife’s request. He handed over the plate and she spooned a large helping of mashed potatoes onto it, following that with a hearty dollop of gravy. He took the plate back with automatic motions, swallowing several mouthfuls before he registered the question she had asked him.
“Hm?”
Ingrid Adler gave an exasperated sigh, planting the spoon back in the potatoes with a loud thunk. “Do you ever listen?”
“Sorry, I have a lot on my mind. Could you repeat it?”
“I swear your head would float away if your neck didn't hold it down. Have you talked with your brother about reopening the family bank? Is there any news? You know how Phillip is, you have to tread on his feet to keep him in-line!”
“Phillip isn't the issue, it's my uncles. They're refusing to re-invest without being granted executive control of it, something my father expressly forbid Phillip and I from ever doing. Those two are involved in all sorts of business that we don't want the bank linked to. But without those startup funds, we won't be able to get it off the ground.”
Ingrid sliced a bit of beef from the meatloaf onto her plate, muttering unkind descriptions of his family the entire time. “I don't even know why those two got such a large cut of your father's inheritance in the first place.”
“It was a different time, what with the war on. Troublemakers or not, they're family, and if us Jews won't look out for each other, who will?”
“Hah! What a load of tripe. Jews are as backstabbing as everyone else!”
Heinrich chose to hold his tongue and occupied himself with eating. His wife eyed him, clearly waiting (or hoping) for the chance to continue the debate, but when nothing was forthcoming she turned her attention to their daughter.
“Edith, I hope that you’re staying focused on your studies,” she said to the thirteen-year-old. “If you go through life expecting to find a rich husband to support you, you will be disappointed!”
The teenager looked up from her lap with wide, shocked eyes. “What?”
Ingrid’s face contorted into a scowl and she reached over, grabbing the concealed book from where it had lay open on Edith’s lap. “More of this nonsense?” she thundered, shaking the paperback novel violently. “You think you’ll get anywhere in life reading trash like this?”
“Leave her be, Ingrid,” Heinrich warned his wife, but she did not listen.
“Do you want to end up a trash collector like your cousins? Do you? We’ve worked too hard to let you throw it all away!” She smacked the girl over the head with the book, once, twice, and a third time.
“Enough!” Heinrich roared, surging to his feet. He ripped the novel from his wife’s grip and shoved her back violently. “Compose yourself, woman!”
The blood fled the woman’s face at his thunderous expression. She opened her mouth to speak but, when nothing emerged, she snapped it shut. “I was just—” she finally began, but Heinrich cut her off.
“I don’t want to hear it. Edith is a good girl, she gets good reports from her teachers and doesn’t misbehave. Leave her her hobbies.” He placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
Ingrid said nothing more, turning and fleeing to the safety of the neighbouring kitchen. With dinner mostly finished and now abruptly interrupted, Heinrich handed Edith back her book and guided her down the hall to her bedroom. The girl was visibly upset from having witnessed her parents fighting, and was clutching the now-ratty edges of her book with a white-knuckled grip.
“I am sorry about that,” he told her once her bedroom door was closed behind them, guiding her to the bed and sitting down beside her. “Your mother can be… difficult, but it does not come from a place of cruelty.”
“I know, Papa,” Edith murmured.
“I mean it. She loves you a lot and only wants you to succeed.”
His daughter looked up at him, brown eyes assessing. “Did you mean what you said? About me?”
It took him a second to remember to what she was referring, but once he did he smiled and nodded. “Of course, darling.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “I am very proud of how well you are doing in school. And I would much rather you spend your free time reading than getting into mischief.”
The tips of Edith’s ears turned red and she ducked, but he could still make out a pleased smile. “Thanks,” she muttered.
“Still, you know that you shouldn’t read at the table. Your mother has told you enough times.”
“I know, I know. I just want to finish it before the end of the week!” She lifted it aloft, showing him the cover, which he recognised immediately. Metropolis, the science-fiction novel and inspiration for the film of the same name.
He took the book, examining it with some concern. “Is this really appropriate for someone your age?” Heinrich inquired dubiously.
“It is!” Edith grabbed the book and pulled it to her chest protectively. “It is my favourite!”
“Why did you decide to read it?” He could not imagine her teachers proposing something this… modern, for lack of a better term.
“My friend Andrea was reading it and her father burned it when he found it. He told her that it ‘portrays an unrealistic idealistic view of class relations’ and that the author is a Reactionary. But she isn’t, Papa, I swear!”
Heinrich felt his eyebrows shoot up at the description. He had seen the film in 1927 and hadn’t found it to be in any way Reactionary. “Why did he say that it was?”
“Andrea didn’t know. Because of the story, I expect. I mean, a member of the bourgeoisie falls in love with a proletariat. That goes against what everyone says actually happens.”
“What does everyone say?”
“That the bourgeoisie hates the proletariat? That we have to destroy them before they destroy us?”
Heinrich took solace in how unconvinced his daughter looked by the words, knowing that he had not yet lost her to the extremism of Ernst and the others. “Destruction is never the answer. Positive revolution is a reaction to oppression, an attempt to break free, like when our ancestors were liberated by Moses. If we try to destroy those who have wronged us, don’t we become just as terrible? Imagine if Moses had crowned himself pharaoh and laid waste to Egypt, enslaving their children as they had done ours; would we have been any better than those whose enslavement we escaped?”
Edith considered this. “I suppose not.” She looked at him. “But so many of my friends talk about the oncoming revolution. They talk about us overthrowing the president and creating a Communist utopia like they did in Russia. What happens to the president’s family, if it succeeds?”
He sighed and rubbed her shoulder. “You are a very clever girl, aren’t you?” He could sense the question that was coming, but when it did he nevertheless tensed.
“Papa, who did you vote for today?”
Today, the 16th of May. The day of the Prussian election, when his neighbours and coworkers had lined up down the street to cast their vote in opposition to the Right-wing forces tightening their grip on Germany. Songs were sung, hammer-and-sickle badges were pinned to lapels, and everywhere there was a feeling of hope in the upcoming great wave of change which many proclaimed would soon upend the old order and usher in an era of total equality.
Heinrich could not bring himself to share their hope, and every drink he had tasted had felt like ash in his mouth. Germany was not a perfectly fair and stable place, he knew, but neither was it the hellish Capitalistic nightmare that the likes of Selbmann proclaimed. Children were not being chewed up on factory floors, capitalist autocrats were not hunting the poor for sport. Elections were being held regularly. His daughter, a Jew, had the possibility to go to school and even to university alongside the children of nobles and kings. Yes, there was more violence than he was comfortable with, and yes, some of it was supported by the government, but when looking at places like Italy or the Soviet Union, where the pictures painted were horrific… he was nothing if not grateful.
“I voted for the liberals,” he admitted at last, stroking her hair and waiting for her response.
Edith’s brows drew together. “Not the socialists? Mama voted socialist. You two always vote for them.”
“People change. It is hard to understand, but… sometimes in life you have a conflict between what you want, and what you feel is right.”
She nodded. “I know what you mean. Like stealing something you want.”
“Yes, but it isn’t always that simple. Sometimes what you want is not illegal, or even bad, it is just… not what feels right to you. And you must ask yourself what your morals are worth.”
“So the socialists are bad now?”
“No, no. They aren’t bad, they are just…” He struggled to find the right words. “They are going down a path which I cannot follow. The things they want, they would create conflict and danger where we have peace. And they say it is necessary, but I… I do not agree. I want freedom and equality, but not at the expense of everything that we have built.”
It was clear that Edith did not entirely understand what he was saying, but nevertheless she said, “I trust your judgement.”
His eyes prickling, Heinrich pulled her in for a hug. “Thank you. You don’t know what that means to me.”
“I won’t tell Mama about it,” Edith added from between his arms. “I don’t think she would understand.”
“Oh, heavens, yes,” he laughed, releasing her. “Please don’t.” He picked up her book from where she had placed it on the bed and handed it to her. “Keep reading. Keep thinking outside the box. My clever girl. You will do great things one day, I know it.”
The victory of the Socialist Party in the 1936 Prussian election is considered by many to have been a foregone conclusion, and while in some respects it was, it would be equally false to claim this victory as total; the 1936 election saw a marked rise in moderate parties such as the conservative-liberal Deutsche Volkspartei (German People’s Party), or DVp, as well as a larger voter spread across more staunchly right-wing parties such as the Zentrum or the KCVP. Though continuing majority rule for the SPD in the Prussian Landtag, the 1936 elections nevertheless were a warning sign to many within the party about their future.
The shock of their party’s decline furthered the already-growing rift within the SPD. More than half a million voters had abandoned them in favour of other parties, and blame needed to be laid at someone’s feet. Otto Wels, leader of the party’s moderate wing and a long-term advocate of peaceful, democratic solutions to the ongoing tug-of-war between the central government and that of Prussia, was an easy scapegoat for the party’s supposed impotence.
On the 19th of May, before an assemblage of several thousand party members, ex-Communist and rising star Fritz Selbmann launched a blistering attack against the party leader, accusing him of actively plotting the downfall of German democracy in conjunction with reactionaries in the Reichstag. He lambasted Wels for not taking extra steps to force the Reichstag to allow the Communist Party and for not employing strikes and riots in favour of an embargo during the outbreak of war between Italy and Abyssinia. Throughout the tirade, Wels remained silent, only speaking the words, “I did what I thought was right” in response to any question posed to him. The following day, in a near-unanimous vote, Wels was expelled from the SPD.
Many party members departed with him, including one of his co-chairmen, Arthur Crispien, who alongside Wels would found the Sozialistische Einheitspartei (Socialist Unity Party) to try and salvage the peaceful, pacifist cause for which they had long fought. Though noble in intention, this action would have grave consequences for the unity of the moderate Left in Germany.
With two of the three chairmen disgraced and disowned, the only one remaining, Hans Vogel, had no choice other than to call for a vote on a new chairman. Selbmann’s victory was predictable, and as he strode across the stage to the cheers of thousands, Vogel reportedly turned to his assistant and said something which would prove to be more prophetic than any could have foreseen:
“Like the ouroboros eating its own tail, we prove our self-destructive nature. Nearly twenty years of defending democracy from the extremists, and all it will take is one fool like him for them to justify tearing it all down.”
The sharp echoing of leather boots on polished hardwood filled the entry hall of the Hôtel Matignon, heralding the approach of one of France’s most brilliant and esteemed military leaders. Eyes turned to follow him as he passed, tracing the well-postured form in the unmistakable blue military jacket. His military kepi was tucked under one arm, a mostly-ceremonial sword sitting in its scabbard, and the awards he had earned for his service in the Great War glittered on his breast.
Marshall Philippe Pétain positively radiated fierce professionalism and detached grandeur, the very image of the French army as the people of France tried to imagine it: Grand, unstoppable, rolling over anything in its path. In truth, it had been a very long time since that had been the case, with Pétain knowing better than anyone the great lengths which their nation would need to take to once more strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. But today, perhaps, he could begin making strides towards that lofty goal.
Marshall Philippe Pétain, colourised
( )
Upon reaching the peak of the marble staircase an aide stepped forward to guide him towards the designated meeting room, but Pétain brushed him aside with a polite wave of his hand; he had been a guest here enough times that its layout had been indelibly etched into his brain. He continued down the hall until he reached one of the semi-formal dining rooms and, without bothering to knock, opened the door and stepped inside.
The only other inhabitant of the room turned away from the large painting on the wall, dark eyebrows raised in surprise, before a pleased smile emerged from beneath his bushy walrus-esque moustache. “Marshall Pétain,” greeted newly-elected Prime Minister Louis Marin. “You came.”
Prime Minister Louis Marin, c. 1930
(https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Marin_(homme_politique))
Pétain crossed the room and the two exchanged a brief handshake. “Congratulations on your victory,” said the marshall as they crossed to the table and sat down across from one-another. “I cannot deny my relief at the loss of Blum and that fool Flandin.”
“A sentiment shared by much of the Chamber of Deputies, it seems,” Marin replied, his smile growing slightly. “I confess to some surprise at my victory; I had hoped, but not dared to believe. The French people, it seems, are not as easily-wooed by shallow promises as many in my party had suspected.”
“The soul of France has not yet been made forfeit.”
“And it will not be,” Marin stressed. “Far too much of our nation’s greatness and prestige has been bartered and sold in the interest of others. We are the greatest and most enlightened nation in the history of the world, the crown jewel of Europe, and it is high time that this fact is remembered!” His voice had swelled in pitch towards the end of his sentence, the final words thundered out, his face flushed and red from the passion he put into it.
Pétain said nothing at first. Then, slowly, the edge of his mouth crooked upward. “You hold a fire within you, a fire that I feared French leaders no longer carried.”
“It is the fire of love, love for our great nation! I cannot stand aside and let the vile Germans or the perfidious Britons continue to dictate the affairs of a continent which owes the very pillars of its identity to France. I have great things planned, Marshall Pétain, great things, and I would very much like your help in implementing them.”
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