Thyssen and a Federal Germany. (1940)

From the May 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fritz Thyssen is in the news, and it may be advisable for the working class to try and discover why this gentleman, only recently a close friend of Hitler, now receives publicity of a not unfavourable character at the hands of Hitler’s enemies.

A Dutch paper recently published a review of the amazing intrigues of the German capitalist class and the Third Reich.

From a translation of the article above referred to, made by Mrs. D. G. Steeves, member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, and published in the B.C. Federationist of recent date, we take the following: —

“Fritz Thyssen, representative of the world-famous industrial dynasty of that name, once the all-powerful dictator in the great German Steel Trust, after 1933 by the grace of Hitler, Supreme State Authority of the German economy, has now fled to a foreign country, leaving: all his capital behind him. Now he in lives in Ascona, pleasant little refugee colony on the Swiss side of Lake Maggiore, cheek by jowl with the former social democrat minister, Otto Braun, and the writer of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Erich Remarque. We live in a strange world.

Thyssen’s flight from Germany has created astonishment. For it is well known that he was the first powerful personage who sought and made contact with Hitler after the national-socialist collapse in Bavaria. One of the witnesses in a lawsuit at “Dusseldorf” in 1930, who happened to be a director of one of the great coal-mining companies, controlled by Thyssen, was forced to testify that this company contributed one pfennig of every ton of coal mined to the coffers of the national-socialist party. In that same year Thyssen became a member of the party. Two years later, in 1932, the national-socialist party had another serious crisis and Thyssen was the only industrial leader of the Rhineland area who took Hitler’s part . . .

Thyssen worked hard for Hitler in those days, trying to win over the organised barons of industry. It was from Castle Landsberg that Hitler drove to Dusseldorf to make his famous speech in the Club of Manufacturers, by which he succeeded in winning the industrial leaders of the Rhineland and Westphalia District to his cause, Mr. Krupp included. Thyssen had prepared the ground well!

It was on a snowy wintry day. In front of the Park Hotel in Dusseldorf, where the Club of Manufacturers met, the police had great difficulty in restraining a mob of thousands of demonstrating workers. Hitler had to enter secretly at the back. While he was speaking inside, the heavy shutters of the hotel were closed and the police charged the demonsrators again and again. Hitler and Thyssen escaped secretly in a car with closed blinds.

A year later Hitler was Chancellor of the Reich. 

Without any other background than this dramatic episode the flight of Thyssen seems strange. It is more comprehensible if one takes a look behind the scenes of the tremendous struggle for power between the big business leaders of the Rhineland-Westphalian area. And they were not very particular as to what weapons they used. It was told, for instance, that during the era of Kaiser Wilhelm “old Thyssen” sent the nortorious “Kornwalzer letters” to Karl Liebknecht, by which the socialist leader was enabled to make his famous denunciation of Krupp in the Reichstag.

In 1930, when Thyssen finally joined the national-socialist party, the opponents of the Thyssen group had delivered a smashing blow to “young Thyssen.” With the advent of the slump in 1929, “Vereinigte Stahlwerke,” Thyssen’s Steel Trust, was virtually bankrupt. They had debts amounting to 700 million marks.

In 1926, Fritz Thyssen had hoped to make himself ruler of the most powerful trust in the world, and was very nearly successful. However, at the last minute he was unexpectedly defeated by his old opponent, Krupp. I. G. Farben (The German Chemical Trust) was also his implacable enemy. But Thyssen had 26 per cent. of the share capital of the Steel Trust and virtual control. Moreover, through interlocking directorates, he had a voice in 30 other big industries; he was a director of the Rhineland-Westphalia Coal Syndicate, and also a director of the Reichsbank, so the road to an industrial monarchy seemed fairly clear. After the slump, in 1930, it was a different story. He was no longer a controlling factor in the Steel Trust. All his enterprises were so weakened that, for a while, it seemed that all he could do would be to put his business under control of the State or lose it entirely to the bank, unless a miracle intervened. A new man, Frederick Flick, had come up and pushed “young Thyssen” to one side, a dark horse, who had been a small manufacturer. It was then that Thyssen joined the national-socialist party.

In 1932 a tremendous scandal broke suddenly in Germany, in the days of the Bruning-Schleichei government. It was revealed that the government had bought the bulk of the shares of the great mining concern Gelsenberg from its owner, Flick, at a fantastic price, millions more than they were worth. The national-socialist papers made great play of this, reproached Bruning and Flick in hectic terms, as defrauders of the Reich. But Bruning and Flick declared that France had made an offer for the business, and that if the government had not acted the mines would have been delivered into foreign hands. When Paris denied this, Flick revealed that the agent for the French deal had been Fritz Thyssen.

It was fear of the outsider Flick which finally drove the Rhineland big business group into the arms of Thyssen and Hitler. In one of the first proclamations of the “Supreme State authority of the German economy,” Thyssen delivered himself of a tirade against foreign control of German business. . . . Flick was vanquished. However, a new rival soon arose in the colossal Herman Goering State Trust, which competed with the older Rhineland-Westphalian trusts. Shortly after its establishment, Thyssen fled from Germany for the first time. His former enemies, Krupp and the directors of I. G. Farben. persuaded him to come back. They knew they would be able to use him.

Big industry feels it can no longer implicitly trust the present Government. The documents on certain old, but not forgotten, affairs, in particular the old affair, in which Thyssen in 1921, on the accusation of Communists and other leftists, was arrested because he allegedly tried to “sell out” the occupied Rhine and Ruhr area to the enemy, France, have been preserved and are in the dossiers in keeping of Police Chief Himmler. A new type of propaganda is being issued by the German Government to-day, booklets entitled “From Rurik to Stalin,” “The Meaning and Growth of Russia.” “Facts About the U.S.S.R.” It is not outside the realm of possibility, that one day Police Chief Himmler will open up those interesting dossiers. … In the “struggle for the soul of the German worker” these things might be very useful. And it cannot be expected that the industrialists will hang together. There is no honour or loyalty amongst thieves.

 Perhaps Fritz Thyssen feared that he would be the first victim. It is being rumoured that he was summoned to Berlin, but evidently he chose to retreat to picturesque, idyllic Ascona, rather than face the more exciting distractions of Berlin.

You can’t blame him.”

The latest news at the time of writing is that Herr Fritz Thyssen is now in Paris. Just previous to his departure from Switzerland the Daily Telegraph of March 23rd paved the way to an understanding of what was being attempted by this industrialist whose capitalist interests are in jeopardy.

The Daily Telegraph quotes a letter from Thyssen to a German paper published in South America: —

“In making the war Hitler disregarded all facts, objective or subjective. There is not a word of truth in all that Hitler wants to make us believe.

We no longer want a dictatorship—neither dictatorship by a party, nor by the party, nor by one man, nor by youth in uniform.

Force must not take the place of happiness. Never more must there be pogroms, nor concentration camps, nor tortures, and above all, never more an alliance with Bolshevism.

Instead we want a Federated Germany on the lines of Switzerland. We want the disarmament of Europe without desire for vengeance and victory.

The Powers on both sides have equal technical means at their disposal. But supplies of raw materials are not the same. Therefore Germany has lost the war.

Herr Thyssen invites all workmen to unite against Hitler, the enemy of Germany, to prevent the ruin of Germany.'”

Not much patriotism in these fellows; they follow the bait of profit wherever it may lead them, but how little they know of the nature of the forces at work.

It will be observed that Thyssen advocates a “Federated Germany.” It is interesting to contrast this with the views expressed by Trotsky.

In the News Chronicle of March 20th he maintains that: “The unification of the German nation was an inseparable result of its capitalistic development. In order to dismember the present Germany it would be necessary to break the backbone of the German technique, destroy German factories and exterminate the significant part of the population. It is easier to say than do.”

Trotsky sees that the Allies’ programme of freedom and independence for small nations is out of line with reality. His conclusions in this connection are that small states have as little chance of independence in competing with imperial interests as the independence of small industrial and commercial enterprises under the domination of trusts and corporations : the comparison is apt.

France wishes to dismember Germany whilst the latter wants to unify Europe and subject all the countries in it to German rule.

The task of economic unification may be in the line of progress, but the problem is: Who is to unify, how, and what for?

The European nations, according to Trotsky, will not consent to be locked in the barracks of ” National Socialism.” All attempts in this direction tend to provoke bloodshed.

The two peace programmes are, therefore, on the one hand, the Balkanization of Germany and thereby of Europe, and on the other, the transformation of Europe and then of the entire world into totalitarian barracks. The present war is being waged for the sake of these two programmes.

Mr. Thyssen evidently thinks that his interests will be best served if he goes into the Allies’ camp; this is interesting, in view of the past history of the Thyssen family.

When the Allies tried to realize their peace programme after the last war the victors failed. Truly the Romanovs, Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns were swept from power, but so also were their opponents. Clemenceau and Lloyd George were kicked out of office and Wilson ended his days a bitterly disillusioned man.

All the present governments, says Trotsky, will go down in the present struggle : the capitalist system is in a blind alley. The only programme the ruling class will maintain is one that is calculated to save their own skins.

We do not venture to cast the horoscope like Trotsky; we cannot inform our readers what the stars foretell.

We are told that without an entire reconstruction of the economic system on a European and world scale our civilization is doomed. The struggle of blind forces and unbridled interests must be replaced by the rule of reason, of plan and conscious organization.

We may or may not agree with this, but when he says all this is to be done by the popular masses led by the proletariat, we should like to know a little more about his definitions of masses, proletariat and, above all, leadership.

We do not need leadership by Trotsky or any other.

Trotsky continues his over-confident prophecies:

“Europe must become a Socialist United States if it is not to become the cemetery of the old culture. A Socialist Europe will proclaim full independence of colonies, establish friendly economic relations with them and, step by step, without the slightest violence, by means of example and collaboration, introduce them into a world Socialist federation.”

It’s all worked out, you see. When the working class understand their class position they will establish Socialism and in doing so remove all barriers to world unity, but they will do it in their own way, not according to any leader’s plan but in a manner that will surprise all leaders and would-be leaders, even Leon Trotsky.

Charles Lestor