NAZI ECONOMICS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 158, 6 July 1934, Page 4

NAZI ECONOMICS

MASQUERADING AS SOCIALISM BY REV. N. V. HOPE, M.A., B.D. IN THE SCOT’S OBSERVER. The official name of the Nazi movement is “The National Socialist German Workers’ Party." This title suggests that the party stands for the working classes of Germany, the artisans and peasants. And during the years from 1920 till 1933, when Hitler was striving for power, he and his party made all kinds of promises to the German workers. In the “unalterable" Party Programme, indeed, the word “Socialism" does not occur; but many of th» 25 points savour strongly of it:—For example, “the abolition of income derived without labour and effort," “the breaking of the domination of interest" (point II.), “the taking over by the State of all concerns which have' already been trustified" (point 13); “the establishment of legislation to provide for expropriation of land without compensation where required for public purposes" (point 17). In 1927, Dr. Goebbels, the leading Nazi publicist, began to issue a newspaper called De Angriff, with the Social mottoes: “For the oppressed! Against the exploiters." Ami in one of his widely circulated propagandist pamphlets— The Nazi-Sozi—he says: “Wo call ourselves a Labour Party, because we want to set labour free. . . We demand a full share of what Heaven gave us and of what we create with our hands and our brains. That is Socialiism!" In view of those niillenial promises, it is not surprising that the workers of Germany rallied to Hitler’s support and returned him to power. \ But there was another side to the Hitler movement. For the Nazi Party, ever since it began to take concrete shape, had been financed by some of the leading large-scale capitalists in Germany. At Hitler’s trial in 1924, after his abortive rebellion in Bavaria, it was revealed that his movement had been supported by representatives of big business in Southern Germany. . . for example, Bechstein, the piano manufacturer. Afton the workers’ strike in the Ruhr in 1928, Kirdorf, one of the most powerful industrial magnates of Germany, plueed at Hitler's disposal the Ruhr ironmasters’

strike-breaking fund. For the Presidential elections of 1932, nt which Hitler opposed Hindenburg, Thyssen, the steel king, provided the Nazis with more than three million marks in the course of a few days. These are only a few examples of the way in which the large-scale capitalists of Germany have financed Hitler. And their reason for giving such generous support to his movement was this: that they confidently expected him to champion their interests when once he was given power in the Reich. Haying paid the piper, they expected to call the tune. This Hitler has certainly allowed them to do. The aim of his whole economic policy has been to enrich the capitalists at the expense of the workers. This poli'ey he had carried out in the following ways. First, in many important undertakings Hitler has substituted private control, i.e., the control of his capitalist supporters, for that of the State. The economic crisis which broke upon Germany in 1930 made it necessary for the Government, in order to prevent national disaster, to extend enormously the field of its economic control. But Hitler has reversed this process, and handed back the control of business to

the capitalists. The most glaring example is that of the German Steel Trust. In 1931, to save the Trust from bankruptcy, the Bruning Government bought nearly half the capital of the holding company, which owned the majority of the shares of the Trust. Thus and his fellow •capitalists lost control over Germany’s most important industry. Immediately after the Nazi resolution of last year the holding company was amalgamated with a number of others, mostly worthless undertakings belonging to Thyssen. In the new combine the State holds only 22 per vent, of the share capital, and, therefore, has no control at all: Thyssen himself is now the largest private shareholder, and he wields the real power. This is only the most conspicuous instance of Hitler’s policy of handing bavik to private capitalists control what Bruning acquired for the State, to bo administered for the common good. Secondly, in pursuance of its procapitalistic policy the Nazi Government has taken steps to reduce the wages of the German workers and to destroy their powers of resistance. Money, wages have been reduced through additional contributions to the State, which the workers have been forced to make. Under the Weimar Republic, German workers were compelled to contribute from 15 per cent, to 19 per cent, of their wages for State purposes. But the Hitler Government has •compelled the workers to give from 10 per cent, to 13 per cent, more for the new Nazi schemes, e.g., the marriage aid and the Winter Help. The result is that at least one quarter of the worker’s wage in present-day Germany is no longer handed to him: it is deducted at the source before he gets it. In many cases the capitalist—employers with the consent of the government—have reduced wages by substituting inferior wage-forms, e g., many unemployed men, taken on in place of women who have been dismissed, have simply been put on a woman’s wage-rate. And again, ’customary rates and intensity of work that the sum paid to the workers per unit of work has become less and less. At the same time, the workers’ powers of resistance have been destroyed. On 2nd. May last year, all trade union organisations were dissolved by authority of the government, their offices were seized and occupied by Nazi storm troops, and their property confiscated by the Slate. The real significance of this destru«ction of the Trade Unions was seen a few weeks later. On June 10th. Dr. Ley, leader of the German Labour Front, issued his “Fundamental Ideas on Corporate Organisation and the Labour Front," which he himself described as the “foundation on which generations will be able to build anew for centuries." The essential paragraph in this manifesto deals with “leadership in the factory," and says: —“Corporate organisation will as its first work restore absolute leadership to the natural leader of the factory, that is, the employer, and will at the same '

time place full responsibility on him. . . . Only the employer can devidc. ” Thus the German workers have no longer the power to protect their Standards of life: they have been reduced to economic serfdom. biot merely have the money wages of the Germany workers been reduced, but their real wages—the purchasing power of their money—have also been diminished through the rise in the prices of essential commodities, which has been brought about by tho capitalist supporters of Hitler. Between December, 1932—th0 eve of Hitler’s call to Chancellorship— and December, 1933, the prices of butter, potatoes, and cabbages rose by one half; meat and eggs were 20 per cent, to 30 per cent dearer; lard and salad oil were twice as dear. Margarine—one of tho most important articles of food in the workingsilass family, because practically the only fat used by it, rose in price from 30 pf. to 90pf.—300 yer cent. And during tho same period the prices of textiles and consequently the cost of clothing also increased. 'Thus not merely have the German workers less to spend; but their money will not go so far. The capitalists of Germany have been enriched at the expense of tho workers. Sinvc National Socialism has eome into power, then, it has revealed itself in its true colours. In spite of tho high-sounding promises to the workers on which it rode to power, it is essentially a reactionary movement of large-scale capitalism. Its main economic principle can be stated in a sentence: the aggrandisement of capital and the oppression of labour. National” the Hitler movement emphatically is; it certainly is not 1 ‘ Socialism. ”