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.