Answers

The statement is frequently made by Nazis that Hitler saved Germany from Communism.

It is difficult to give exact evidence about events which might have been, nor can it be denied that belef in the imminent danger of a Communist rising, a belief framed to wild extremes by the burning of teh Reichstag, was instrumental in obtaining the Nazi electoral success of March, 1933.

On the other hand, in the big Berlin transport strike of December, 1932, Nazis and Communists cooperated in promoting the strike, which was disapproved of by the Social-Democratic trade union leaders. In their efforts to discredit their efforts to discredit their principal opponents, the Nazis were quite unscrupulous in their choice of allies.

Moreover, after the accession of the Nazis to power the converavtive Social-Democratic and Catholic trade union leaders were immediately expelled and men who had in some cases formerly been Communists and during the von Papen regime had assisted in carrying out unauthorized strikes were appointed in their place.

The question how far there was any serious danger of a successful Communist coup d’etat cannot of course be answered exactly. But a few figures may be helpful. The Communist vote never exceeded six millions among over 40,000,000 voters. The Communists never returned more than 100 members to Parliament among about 600. The majority of the Communist voters were not staunch Communists, but rather people who wanted to protest against their distress. The membership of the Communist Party never exceeded 200,000 and not all of them would have been prepared to fight against the well-equipped Reichswehr, the police forces and the Stahlhelm. One should not forget that the Communists had no influence at all in the trade unions. Every strike they attempted against the will of the trade unions was a decisive failure. Surely Hitler was not necessary to save Germany and the world from an imaginary Communist danger. But the Nazi government, although officially hostile to Communism, was not averse to using their methods.

Here is a passage from the book of Professor Calvin B. Hoover, “Germany enters the Third Reich.”

“During the latter part of February the writer had revisited Soviet Russia after years. In Russia there was famine, an increased terror and the failure to recognize the economic expectations of the spring of 1930. The writer had returned to Germany with the feeling that if the National Socialist regime was the alternative to Bolshevism, then much could be forgiven it. If a curtailment of individual liberty under a dictatorship were the price which had to be paid to avoid the unlimited terror which held sway in Russia, then the price seemed worth paying. The writer was astonished to discovre that the conditions of terror in Russia were being rapidly duplicated in Germany.”

In one aspect of Communist rule, at all events, the Nazis have been imitators rather than opponents.