CHOULD Germany rearm? This,

perhaps the greatest question
of the present time, is answered
ty different people in very dif-
ferent ways.

It is understandable that my
approach to this problem, as an
Ordinary fireman, is in entire con-
flict with that of politicians and
Capitalists.

Tf one has never moved outside
Washington, Seattle or San Fram-
Cisco all the days of one’s life,
What does one know of bombs,
Vis or V2s? :

Fer the people of Britain the
rearming of Germany is far from
heing an academic problem.

How well I remember those
days and nights down in the East
End of’ London, and especially
the dock atea, during the blitz.
So great were the fires that it ap-
Peared to me we should never be
able to extinguish the flames.

Our womenfolk, huddled and
fearful in the air-raid shelters,
Were praying for daylight to come
and the,long nights to end.

They -said, after the 1914-1918
War, “The Kaiser’s gone, the gen-
€rals remain.” Now Hitler’s. dead,

hut the bankers and industrial-

ists remain.

Tt is sheer insanity to put into
the hands of the present rulers
of Germany more fearful weapons
than they had in 1939. Their
ideas of complete economic do-
Mination, their dreams of a Ger-
Man Reich that will last 1,000
years, are as strongly held as
ever, :

These weapons will be regard-
_¢d not as toys, but as tools with

Which to do a job. That job is

first, and foremost the “Jibera-
- tion” of Eastern Germany. .

Then, as Adenauer has put it,
_ they will take. back what was

“aken away from them in 1945—
Meaning, of course, Polish and
Czechoslovak territory.

Having had experience of. all
this thing before, it is nonsense
to talk of assurances, agreements
and all the other garbage.

The Kaiser -referred to the
treaty with Belgium, as a “scrap
of paper,” and 25 years later Hit-
ler referred to all his agreements
as worthless scraps of paper. We

ave been warned!

We in the working-class move-
Ment in Britain have got to sav
im no unmistakable way that re-
arming Western Germany, far

Fifeeen years ago a rearmed Germany invaded the frontiers of Poland'and for five years laid waste the face of Europe.

The abyss is at
our feet.

—

from solving the problem of a
unified, peaceful Germany, 1s S0-
ing to make it a thousand times
worse.

The great trusts and cartels
are once again emerging; amal-
gamations of many tifferent in-
dustries, especially the key in-
dustries, are taking place daily.

Once again — certainly within

By JOHN BURNS

the next i2 months—tremendous
industrial and economic power
will once again be in the hands
of.a few men who were. closely

identified with Hitler:

At the head of the great Man-
nesmann mining and engineering
combine is Milhelm Zangen, the
chief. of Hitler’s industrialists’
federation, a member of the S.S.

“WHE condition of Europe
is terrible in the last de-
gree. Hitler’s firing parties
are busy every day in 4
dozen countries. :
“Norwegians, Belgians,
Frenchmen, Dutch, Poles,
Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Slov-
‘enes, Greeks, and above all
in scale, Russians, are being
butchered by thousands and
by tens of thousands after
‘they have surrendered,
while individual and mass
executions in all the coun-
tries I have mentioned have
become a part of the regu-
lar German routine. :
“RK river of blood has
flowed and is flowing be-
tween the German race and
the peoples of nearly all
Europe. It is not the hot
blood of battle, where good

ed. It-is the cold blood of
the execution yard and the
scaffold, which leaves 4
stain indelible for genera-
tions and for centuries.

The future and its mys-
teries are inscrutable. But
one thing is plain. Nevet
to those bloodstained ac-
cursed hands will the future
of Europe be confided.

blows are given and return-

Churchill on the Germans

and 17 other Nazi organisations,
seconded for special duties in
Hitler’s armaments ministry, a
man who jn July 1940 publicly
pledged loyalty to Hitler.

Also advising Chancellor Aden-
auer is Hermann J. Abs, one of
the most powerful bankers in
Western Germany today.

The U.S. Department of Justice
declared that during the war he
was one of the eight German
bankers and industrialists who
had) exerted the greatest influ-
ence in guiding the Nazi economy
toward totalitarianism.

The abyss is opening at our
very feet. For these are only
two of the small band who, once

having seized economic power, °

will be stretching out for politi-
cal power.

While all this is going on, we
are also witnesssing the misery
and degradation of our fellow
trade unionists in Western Ger-
many, with low’rates of pay, long
kours of work, ‘and with the
threat of unemployment continu-
ally hanging over their heads.

We in the organised working
class of Britain must bend all
our resources toward assisting
the ‘progressive forces in West-
ern Germany to loosen. the stran-

glehold that is, being gradually ~

exerted upon the lives of the
great masses of the people. The
Social Democratic party of West-
crn Germany is bitterly opposed
to the rearming of Western Ger-
many. m

Ernest Bevin spoke for all of
us in 1945 when he said that we
should never have peace in Eur-
ope until we have deprived the
bankers and industrialists of their
power. ; :

For these people, — and the
international forces behind them
— are not only the enemies of
the German people. Thev are the
enemies of all progressive forces
throughout the world. ‘

French working-class men and
women, in their trade unions and
political parties, have led their

‘It ts sheer insanity to put
into the hands of the pre-
sent rulers of Germany more
fearful weapons than they
had in 1939, says JOHN:
BURNS, president of the
British Fire Brigades Union,
in thts article, repeating the
warning he gave in Van-.
couver last February.

own country against this suicidal
policy.

Now it is the turn of the Brit-
ish workers. With EDC gone the
attempt is being made to camou-

flage German rearinament in a
new guise,

.The organised British worker,
therefore, has. got to raise his
voice in a demand that there
shall be a further mecting of the
folr Great Powers to discuss the
problem of Germany.

Such a demand, of course, will
be opposed by the enemies of the
people. But we in this great
raovement of ours have got to
place.

Only through such a meeting
press for such a meeting to take
can Germany once again be unit-
ed, the threat of war disappear
and peace once again descend
upon Europe.