4th February 2007
Fenner Brockway, was a pacifist in the First World War (though not in the Second) and British Labour Party MP from 1929-31 and again from 1950-64.
This book describes a two week visit he made to Germany in April and May 1946, with an author’s preface written in September 1946. Though in no way representing an official British view, it is interesting for what it reveals of one strand of British Labour Party opinion, twelve months after the end of the war.
His main purpose appears to have been to encourage the development of trade unions in Germany, and during his visit he made the first addresses after the war, by a British trade unionist to socialist and trade union audiences in Germany. The book also includes some interesting comments on the food situation in Germany, and as far as I know, some of the earliest descriptions of Germany after the war in Cold War terms – at least by someone on the political left.
His own views are clearly stated in the preface, where he says:
“As an international Socialist, I am not concerned whether Russia or Britain is the instrument which provides food and industrial recovery to Germany. I want the hunger to be ended, I want the German people to have the opportunity to lift themselves from Nazism and War and their consequences, and to become a partner in a co-operative world. I want that as a matter of human decency and freedom apart from any political considerations. But I am also a Democratic Socialist and I want the future Germany to be a Democratic Socialist, rather than Totalitarian Communist, State. I love liberty, and no democrat who has learned of Russian methods in Germany, as I did during my visit, would wish to see them extended…. Germany is now the battleground in which the issue of Democratic Socialism or Totalitarian Communism for the whole of Europe may be decided.… Britain should be as clearly the instrument of Democratic Socialism in the world as Russia is the instrument of Totalitarian Communism.”
Here are a few more extracts from the book on similar or related themes:
As a stark reminder of the food situation in Germany after the war Brockway quotes a recipe for tea made with pine needles, published in the “Food facts” column of one of the German newspapers: “You need 1 oz of pine tree needles and 2 pints of boiling water…” (This reminds me of the British Pathe newsreel - Ref: 1406.06 'GERMANY'S FOOD - THE TRUTH' - made at much the same time, which shows a factory converted to make liver sausage, for people to eat, from pine or beech logs.)
He comments on slogans written on walls supporting the merger of the German Communist and Social Democratic parties. This was a policy backed by the Soviets and known as ‘Einheit’ or ‘Unity’. It was implemented in the Soviet Zone, where the parties merged, but not in the Western zones, where they remained independent. Brockway sees the Soviet slogan: “Ein Ziel, Ein Weg, Einheit” as unpleasantly close to the former Nazi slogan: “Ein Volk, Ein Führer, Ein Reich”
After speaking at a May Day demonstration organised by the Socialist Trade Unions, he describes his surprise that the British military commander of Hamburg congratulates him on his speech, which he heard over the wireless:
“My speech was a forthright declaration of international working class solidarity. It urged that the food supplies of the world should be distributed according to need and that industry should be retained to enable the German people to live and become part of a cooperative European economy; it included a declaration for workers’ and technicians’ control as essential to industrial democracy and for common action by the workers of all lands to prevent rulers again sending us to mutual slaughter – and the Military Commander jumps into a car to congratulate me!”
After another speech the same day at a May Day meeting of the Social Democratic Party, he is amazed to see tears running down his German colleagues' cheeks in response to his expressions of international workers' solidarity:
“To an Englishman this may seem undisciplined emotionalism; but remember that this is the first Free May Day in Germany since 1933, remember the isolation which German Socialists still feel, remember that this is the first time that a Socialist from another land has spoken to them as a comrade – and their emotion will be understood.”
In the afternoon of May 9th he gave a speech to the SDP (Socialist Party) conference in Hannover, and says that, as the only socialist representative from outside Germany:
“The speech has a tremendous reception, not because of me or what I say, but because it breaks at last the isolation which German Socialists feel so keenly. I cannot forget that the comrades in this hall were the first victims of Nazism, that they have gone through years of suffering for the Socialist cause which few of us in other countries have had to undergo. I am grateful for the opportunity to be the channel of the first expression of international solidarity with them.”
Finally his view that cooperation on iron and steel between Germany and her neighbours could be the start of a united Europe:
“Belgium and France. On the edge of the German frontier they also have their belt of coal and steel. Geologically they belong to the same coalfield; they also are a part of this industrial core of Europe. An idea! Why not link them up with German coal and steel and internationalise them all as one concern? That would be a serious beginning of a united Europe.
I remember the film Kameradschaft, [made in 1931 by the film director G W Pabst] in which we saw German and French miners separated only by an iron gate across one of the underground passages, the German miners going to the rescue of the French when there was an explosion. Why not remove the iron gate?”
Comments