Page 53 - The Chief Culprit

30 y e Chief Culprit

Facing bankruptcy, Hitler, as recorded in Goebbels’s diary, considered two options: the
first was flight, the other was suicide. Ten years after the crisis, Hitler himself told his inner
circle: “ e situation was at its worst in 1932, when we were forced to sign many debt obliga-
tions in order to fund our press and election campaigns, and keep the party running. . . . In
the name of the NSDAP, I signed for these obligations, knowing that if the NSDAP stopped
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functioning, everything was lost.” At the end of 1932, Hitler’s time would be up, and he
would be finished as a politician. For the time being he was still the most popular political fig-
ure in Germany, but his party was in deep debt, and running out of money. German National
Socialism faced doom until Hitler was saved by Stalin.
Comrade Stalin did not just save Hitler; he handed him the keys to power. Democracy
is structured in such a way that, during the turning points of history, minority groups play
the key roles. is occurs because history has innumerable possible courses and outcomes.
When everything goes well, people agree with the leaders’ course of action, but during times
of crisis alternative ideas and plans arise. Policy alternatives split the nation almost evenly
between two diametrically opposed views. In such a situation, a third party—a minority—
becomes the kingmaker, and its role can be decisive.
In 1932 Germany experienced precisely this situation: Hitler was in first place, the
Social Democrats second, and the Communists third. But none of the three could control
the absolute majority needed to come to power. In this case, Germany’s fate, and the fate of
Europe, was in the hands of the German Communists. If the Communists sided with the
Social Democrats, Nazism would perish and never again resurface. If the Communists turned
against the Social Democrats, Social Democracy would crumble.
For the Communists, forming a coalition with the Social Democrats meant defeat-
ing Hitler. After this victory, the Communists would automatically rise from third place to
second, and share power with the first-place party, the Social Democrats—a very appealing
option.
e Communists had a second option: to go against the Social Democrats, thereby
opening the way for Hitler to take power. e consequences of such a move were very predict-
able: Hitler, having come to power, would throw both Social Democrats and Communists
into concentration camps. If the German Communists went against the Social Democrats,
they would be sentencing to death both themselves and the Social Democrats.
Acting on Stalin’s orders, the German Communist leaders chose the second option—
they did not wish to form a block with the Social Democrats. Publicly, for regular Communists
and workers, the Communist Party policy against the Social Democrats was explained with
twisted reasoning: there is no radical difference between a regime of parliamentary democ-
racy and a fascist dictatorship. Both are forms of dictatorship by the bourgeoisie, which was
growing more and more reactionary. e German Communist leaders kept repeating, after
their Moscow masters, that a fascist-like turn taken by the bourgeois parties and their Social
Democrat supporters was even more dangerous than the Nazis because the Social Democrats
hid their true motives. German Communist leaders told the workers: We are Communists,
struggling against capitalism and fascism, while the Social Democrats are acting as protectors
of capitalism, and are becoming de facto allies of the fascists. erefore, the Social Democrats
are really nothing more than a “left wing” of fascism, or they are “social fascists,” a party
which conducts a policy of “hidden fascism” that is more dangerous than Nazi policy. e
peace-loving policy of the Social Democrats prevents war; therefore it prevents revolution