The Daily Worker

Who Is Fighting Hitler?

The New York Jewish "Forward" of Friday, April 21, finds it necessary to defend the German Socialist leaders' betrayal of the German working class ... by slandering the heroic Communist Party of Germany.

The editor of the "Forward" quotes the organ of the American Trotzkyites to prove "that the Communist Party of Germany is dead. All reports that the Communists are flooding Germany with revolutionary proclamations, that the Communist "Rote Fahne" appears illegally and that it is being distributed in hundreds of thousands of copies are pure fiction."

The "Forward" goes on to say that "everything that the Communists say about the German Social-Democracy is a lie." Yet practically every report of Socialist betrayal of the German workers' fight against Fascism that the DAILY WORKER has printed has been confirmed by dispatches appearing in the capitalist American press.

Does the "Forward" deny that the German Social-Democracy has resigned from the Second International? Does the "Forward" deny that Leipart has been negotiating with Hitler for the incorporation of the trade unions into the Fascist State? Does it deny Otto Wels' letters to von Papen, or Otto Braun's cowardly resignation from the Reichstag and Prussian Diet? Will it deny that half of the Socialist deputies in Brunswick have resigned, stating that they do not wish to impede the national revolution?

The list could be prolonged indefinitely, so that even the last Socialist worker would realize that the German Social-Democracy has infamously abdicated to the Fascist regime, which they helped into power.

Yesterday's "New York Times" also throws down the lie to the "Forward." The Times' Berlin correspondent cables that Leipart is planning to resign from the executive board of the reformist International Federation of Trade Unions, in Amsterdam. He also reports that the Amsterdam International has broken off relations with the reformist German unions, charging them with "dishonorable conduct in that they have offered to Chancellor Hitler unreserved co-operation of the trade unions and their "coordination" in the Fascist State, thereby abandoning the class struggle platform of the International Federation." We shall not go into the merits of the "Class struggle" platform of the reformist Amsterdam International here, which has misled the organized workers of the capitalist world for years, nor into their demagogic purpose in rebuking their German brothers, but the "Forward" can scarcely call this a "Communist invention."

As for the "death of the Communist Party" and the "Communist lies" regarding the illegal "Rote Fahne" and the activities of the Communists in Germany under the Nazi regime-we print on this very page a photostat of a recent issue of the "Rote Fahne," the original of which is in our editorial office for inspection, if desired. Today's issue also contains further reports of Communist activity under the Fascist terror-Communist activity and victories!

Further testimony from arch-bourgeois sources that the Communist Party of Germany is far from dead is offered by the April 7 issue of the Hugenberg "rag" of Berlin. Its editorial demands stricter measures against the Communist Party, which is now continuing its work illegally in Germany. The editorial states:

The Communists have made all preparations, to continue their work, primitive as it may be, illegally. Single Communists are trying to cause unrest in the factories, in the unions and at the labor exchanges, and to incite the workers. All attempts to establish anything in the way of a new leadership must be severely crushed."

The editorial then continues that the "Kampfbund" against Fascism is the center for issuing directions, and that "instructions for conspirative activity" have been issued and that the Communists are arranging the collection of funds, are recruiting new members, and are building nuclei in the various nationalist organizations.

The Tag editorial also admits that the anti-Fascist stamps issued by the Communist Party of Germany are eagerly bought even by Socialist and Centrist workers, who are now losing all their illusions about bourgeois democracy.

This evidence from the most varied sources: The "New York Times," the arch-reactionary "Tag" of Berlin, and the photostats published in the DAILY WORKER, ought to suffice to prove to every Socialist worker and reader of the "Forward" that the Communist Party of Germany lives and fights, that it is the German Socialist leaders who have betrayed the class struggle, and now surrender to Hitler, and that in spite of the lies of the "Forward" and its new ally, the "Militant," the revolutionary workers of Germany are rallying around the illegal Communist Party for a united fight against Fascist terror.