The Berlin correspondent of the Prague “Presse” reports meaningful details of the recently held elections for Germany’s factory committees. The results, of course, have been known since April 25, but they were published only a short time ago because the members of factory committees were sworn in only on May Day.
Needless to say, in each industrial enterprise there was but one slate, that of the Labor Front, which in the Nazi-coordinated Germany takes the place of trade unions and labor political organizations.
Each voting worker was required to hand in a ballot marked Yes or No. No additions to or alterations of the slate were permitted.
When we consider the oppressive circumstances under which the “elections” were held, it is readily apparent that throughout the country the Labor Front was administered a severe beating.
Not a single industrial plant was to be found where the official list of candidates received an absolute majority.
Among the non-industrial enterprises, in but one, an insurance syndicate, fifty-one per cent of the votes were in favor of the Social Nationalist puppets. But then the white-collar and other employees of an insurance company are not workers in the sense accepted in industry, and no one will claim that their sentiments should be regarded as representative of the sympathies of the toiling masses.
In Berlin and through the provinces, workers in every plant voted. Official candidates received about one-third of the total vote-on the average. In the face of Hitlerite suppression and oppression two-thrids of German workers defied the bloody regime by voting against it!
So far as immediate practical outcome is concerned, the significance of the “elections” is not great. For the candidates rejected by two-thirds of the electorate continue to function. Where they fail of the necessary number of votes, they are appointed from above.
But the symptomatic importance of what is developing in German industrial ranks is undeniable and bodes ill for the maniacs in Berlin’s palaces and government chambers.
L.Z.
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