the iron hoop with which the bourgeoisie hopes to hold together the splitting barrel of capitalism".
There is no better illustration of the truth of this remark than Germany in the 1930s. To overcome the catastrophic economic crisis and restore the rate of profit, the German bourgeoisie had to sweep aside a major obstacle: the German organised working class. Its collective organisation and strength kept wages up and presupposed social costs which further ate into profits.
In such a crisis, parliamentary democracy, with its legal trade unions, workers' parties and workers' rights, was no longer appropriate. The use of the Nazis as shock troops to eliminate this democracy and crush the working class came to seem the best solution to the bosses.
But this did not happen all at once. Adolf Hitler's NSDAP did not start to get financial help from big business until 1930-31, when the revolutionary wave and the workers' fighting spirit had sharply declined. Furthermore, the main workers' parties, the Communist Party and
Deutiche, berteidigt Gud)
gegen die iüdiide Breuelpropaganda, fauft nut bei Dentiden!
Germans defend
yourselves against iewish atrocity propaganda Boycotts ef Jewish shops helped bolster profits the Social Democratic Party, and Fritz Thyssen who had were violently antagonistic to met Hitler in 1923 and offieach other. cially became a member of the This weakness of the work- Nazi party in 1931. ers' capacity for resistance He played a central role in made the big industrialists in- financing Hitler's massive creasingly connaent adoul election campaigns and, on 27 funding the Nazis. January 1932, on the eve of The first rich backers were the presidential elections, orfrom the heavy industries of ganised a meeting between steel and coal. Key individu- Hitler and the "Industry als included mine owners Club" of the country's richest such as Emile Kirdorf, who men. hated the unions and estab- The potash and lignite induslished a slush-fund for strike- tries also provided numerous breaking (he joined the Nazi rich supporters for the Nazis. party in 1929) and the Ruhr Support flowed in from the steel magnates Albert Voegler banks; it was a leading banker who organised the interview between von Papen and Hitler on the eve of the latter's accession to the Chancellorship, and Deutsche Bank's E. G. Strauss, the Deutsche Kredit Gesellschaft, the Komerz und Privat Bank were also implicated, along with many major insurance firms.
And last but not least, there was Georg von Schnitzler, head of the world's biggest chemical cartel, IG Farben.
Thanks to their financial help, the Nazis were able to run a colossal and virtually permanent campaign between 1931 and 1933. The result. in the 1930 Reichstag elections, the NSDAP won 18.3%, in March 1932 30% and in July 1932 37.3% But Hitler and his henchmen were not simply puppets in the nanas or the bosses; ine rise of Nazism was due to the coming together of several factors, the crisis itself being one of the most important. But it is clear that without funds from big capital, the rise to power would not have been so swift or easy Once in power, Hitler did not forget his friends. Opposition parties were banned and their activists herded into the first concentration camps. Trade unions were dissolved and replaced by a Nazi-run Labour Front (DAF).
Strikes and union rights Shipbuilding was just one profitable branch of the Nazi war machine were abolished. The working class was atomised and, at least on the surface, the class struggle disappeared.
The Nazis embarked on an economic policy based on an unprecedented rearmament programminic.
As Ernest Mandel has explained: "The statistics say it all: the profits of all industrial and commercial enterprises rose from 6.6 billion marks in 1933 to 15 billion in 1938. The profits of the German munitions and arms sector rose tenfold. "
In 1939, 59% of share capital was in the hands of 159 companies. During these fat years for German capital, other enterprises rushed to join in the fun, notably SieAEG, Mannesmann, mens. the Krupp factories, as well as foreign firms like General Motors and the American oil companies.
The persecution of the Jews also yielded rich pickings: Deutsche Bank pocketed substantial commissions on the sale of goods confiscated from "Jewish" families and businesses.
After 1939, German big business, still for the most part in private hands, played an active part in plundering territories occupied by the German armies, often with the complicity of local bourgeoisies, who benefited from the opportunity for the unlimited exploitation of their working class.
The German industrialists were to get what every boss dreams of: abundant labour power at their beck-and-call and, above all, hardly or even not at all paid. Over seven million civilians were brought, mostly by force, from the occupied countries to work in the fields and factories of Germany, where they were treated as slaves.
The Krupp factories, producing guns, tanks and munitions, employed thousands of forced labourers from Eastern Europe. Barely fed, left without hygiene in overcrowded barracks, and subjected to corporal punishment, they worked to the point of physical exhaustion.
A doctor, Wilhelm Jaeger visited the Krupp plants several times and reported on the terrible conditions there to the firm's directors and Krupp's personal doctor. But he was wasting his time; nothing changed.
According to Fritz Schacht, the official in charge ot the toreen anolr service. Inese workers snould De "treated in such a way as to yield the maximum profit for minimum cost." Profitability and productivity were easily achieved with such a labour force!
buy only at German steps! Dentine! Rout nidt bei uben.