Cr HI (Ik TN By IN WEST GERMANY ~The embers of fascism ] By D. N. PRITT AST month the boss of West Germany’a secret police, Hoecherl, got into hot water be- Cause he revealed some of the ‘Methods being used against Ade- ‘Rauer’s opponents. Not only had he admitted the €Xistence of ex-nazis in the sec- ' Tet police, but also the wide- Spread practice of phone tapping, letter-opening, etc., which he Said was directed against ‘‘ Left €xtremists.’’ Herr Hoecherl has also sug- Sested that British Intelligence assisted inthe arrest of members Of the illegal West German Com- Munist Party in Schleswig-Hol- Stein and Hamburg, resulting in 200 criminal cases’’ being Opened, Adenauer’s ruthless persecu ion of the Communist Party and its allies has, of course, its roots in the grim history of nazism— and it is worth noting that 30 years’ ago today the infamous Reichstag Fire Trial was inpro- 8ress, It was in February 1933 the Reichstag, the German Parlia- Ment building was burnt down; and September the great leader of © Bulgarian people, Georgi Di- Mitroy, and others were tried be- fore the German Supreme Court at Leipzig on charges of having Unt the building. Just before that trial, an in - Wiry into the causes ofthe fire— Often called the ‘counter ~Was held in London. That was 30 years ago, and me- Mories are short; indeed most of . my readers are too young to have aN of the fire at the time. h it? —hat was the essence of it? A General Election was to be held on March 5, and the nazis wanted to win enough votes to be independent of all other parties. The working class, divided alas! into Social-Democrats and Communists, but together com manding more votes than the na> zis, wanted to defeat the nazis altogether. In the middle of the election campaign, in which the nazis were losing ground, therecamea sensation. _ On the night of February 27, the Reichstag building was set on fire and greatly damaged, The nazis immediately accus- ed the Communists, not only of the fire but of planning an im- mediate armed revolution, ar rested them by the thousands and brought in harsh emergency laws. * * * And, by annulling all the 81 seats which the Communists won ‘at the election in spite of all the propaganda, the nazis secured an absolute majority—on the basis of which they ruled Germany for 12 years ofhorror, mass murder, and world war. The truth of the matter—scar- cely now contested by anyone— was that the nazis deliberately staged the whole fire with the ob- ject of getting rid of the Com munists. ‘Fhey counted on their own power of propaganda and supres- sion, on the massive helpthey got from German finance-capital, and on the encouragement that came from such elements in the west as the Chamberlain Tories. The latter were, naturally, de- - Still glowing today lighted with people who wantedto destroy working-class parties and trade unions and prepare for war against the U.S.S.R. The German Communists saw through the swindle at once. They knew that they had nothing to do with the crime, which could only damage their prospects and they sought to proclaim thetruthfrom the housetops. But, under the conditions of the new nazi terror, there were few housetops available to them, and indeed few of them left out of prison to use them. The truth was nevertheless es tablished pretty soon, largely by the counter-trial. This unofficial but most ef- fentive inquiry was held in Lon- don, just before the Leipzig trial, before a group of lawyers from Britain, the U.S. France, Sweden, Belgium and Denmark, I was one of them. We had before us a largenum- ber of witnesses and a body of documents, all of which should properly have been before the Supreme Court at Leipzig, but were not. This evidence did two things: It presented an overwhelming | case that neither Dimitrov nor. his two fellow countrymen, nor the German deputy Torgler, who _ was tried with them, had anything to do with the fire. And — this was far more im- portant — it presented a very strong case (made far stronger by much further evidence emerg- ing in later years) that the nazis had themselves staged the fire. © Hitler men hold top posts MINISTRY FOR ECCNGMIC COOPERATION Vialon @ f' QZ MINISTRY FOR DEFENCE REPRESENTATIVE IN BERLIN ‘OR MINISTRY FOR * ministry cor exeewees, || KUN SZean AFFAIRS || FeDERAL PROPERTY REFUGEES AND WAR VICTIMS | | — . Sy Q ck | Qualen AI foreien oFFice / PRESS AND \HIGH AUTHORITY INFORMATION OFFICE OF THE ECSC Carstens Hettlage@ts ; The Reichstag burned 30 years ago but it still has lessons today... The effect of.all this, plus the inherent weakness of the prose- cution case, plus — even more— the remarkable work of Dimitrov himself, who conducted his de- fence in the shape of a counter- attack, was sensational. All of the accused, except a poor, half-witted Dutch dupe of the nazis, who had been arrested on the scene of the crime, had to be acquitted. There was one further slap in the face for the nazis. In the course of the hearing, when things were seen to be go- ing badly for them, they brought in the famous bully Goering as a witness, in the hope of ‘pulling things around.’’ : : The result was that Dimitrov cross-examined him into a-state of gibbering rage! What lessons must we draw? First, I think, we must realise the truly brutal and dishonest na- ture of fascists and fascism. Then we must be clear as to the terrible power of propaganda; for, remember, even after this great and early slap in the face, the nazis managed to remain in power until the whole world was mobilised against them in the war. We must understand the dan- gers that fascism, under any lab— el, brings to all of us in every country, and the need to resist it early, always, everywhere, all day and all night. Never must we thinkthat it will die down, or that ‘it will not happen here’’! More positively, we must bear in mind that the power of work- ing-class forces, if they unite, is stronger than anything that fasc — ism can ever do. United, the Social Democrats and Communists of Germany could have prevented the nazis ever reaching power. Let us fight for our own unity. To prevent the revival of fascism and put an end to the capitalist system which nourishes it. Hopf @ f° MINISTRY FOR FEDERAL CHANCELLERY Eckardt ® Dr G/ 0 6K e oS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH eae ee Cartellieri @) we — MINISTRY FOR HEALTH MINISTRY OF JUSTICE ; Bargatzky® ig Joel MINISTRY FOR POST ; AND. Nog . MINISTRY FOR TRANSPORT Herz Westick a | [eet a8 ese Seiermann Sinn Muller-Armack() | | Huitenbrauker Active Proponent of the Nazi Regime iS) The above chart shows the all-powerful cabinet ©! state secretaries in West Germany set up y the Adenauer regime. Of the 25 permanent State secretaries, 15 have been definitely ‘Jentified as Nazis. The most powerful of them 'S Dr. Hans Globke, considered as Adenaver's "ght hand man. In July, 1963, Globke was \ incriminated in Intellectual Preparation or in lmpie~ mentation of War Crimes up. FAMILY AND YOUTH Barth MINISTRY FOR WORK AND SOCIAL ORDER Claussen® [’ Participant in Hitlers War fconomy.andin , Economie War Crimes tried in absentia by the Supreme Court of the German Democratic Republic and found guilty of ‘‘war crimes and crimes against humanity.”’ He was also found guilty of drafting the Nazi laws on which the fascist dictatorship was set Appeal fascist U.S. law 3 ee U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., will hold a hearing Oct. 28 on the appeal of William Albertson of New York and Roscoe Procter of California against the ruling of the Subvers- ive Activities Control Board that they must register as members of **Communist - action’ organi- zation’? as defined in the McCar- ran Act. : This case, which concerns the constitutionality of the registra- tion provision of the McCarran Act will immediately affect 25 other individuals — Negro and white, men and women, from all parts of the U.S.A. — who have likewise been cited by Attorney General Robert Kennedy to the SACB, Attorneys John J. Abt and Joseph Forer will present oral argument on behalf of Albertson and Proc- tor. The brief on which argument will be based presents basic questions, including the privilege against self - incrimination, abridgement of freedom of belief, conscience and association, vio- lation of due process, and wheth- er the SACB’s orders constitute a bill of attainder. The hearing will begin at 10.30 a.m., Oct. 28, at the U.S. Court of Appeals, Constitution Ave.. Washington. Two of the individuals cited by the Attorney General have not even come before the SACB as yet. They are James J. Tormey -and Lionel Libson of New York City, and their hearings before the board are scheduled to begin on Nov, 4. The McCarran Act is a notor- iously fascist piece of legislation (often referred to as ‘‘the thought-control act’’) which was once vetoed by Harry Truman. It has never been proven consti- tutionally legal. October 18, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE —Page 5