 Thank you for the invitation and the possibility to speak about the rise of Hitler fascism in Germany. I think it's a very important issue, even in the 21st century. Even 83 years after the rise of Hitler to power in Germany, it's a key question to understand what's happened in those days in Germany, especially given the fact that Germany was, if you like, cradle of Marxism. Germany had a very strong labor movement. Germany had the strongest social democratic party. At that time, it was, if you like, the jewel in the crown of the Second International. Germany had the strongest communist party outside the Soviet Union in those days. And yet, we've seen a crushing defeat of the German labor movement, a capitulation to the fascists. And Hitler, the fascist dictator, pride it himself that he had come to power without even one window being smashed without even any serious resistance being waged against his takeover. So this is really a phenomena which still has effects today, especially in Germany. And it's our utmost duty to analyze those events, but not only what happened in 1933, but to put the whole question into context. There are many superficial explanations. Many of us have been to school history lessons. And they tell us lots of rubbish about why Hitler came to power. Idealistic rubbish, they tell us in times of crisis, the Germans always move to the right. So it's a German soul, Germans like their little Adolfs and so on, this rubbish. They say there was a collective guilt of the German people, especially the ruling class afterwards said, well, it's a collective guilt of everybody, every German citizen is guilty of what happened and the crimes that followed the takeover. This is, of course, a line of whitewash by the ruling class to divert the attention away from their responsibility. They say it's just because of Hitler's phrasemongering and rhetorics that he attracted the masses. That's another explanation. And then when I went to school, they said there were deficiencies in the Weimar Constitution. So it's those deficiencies in the chapters of the Constitution that allow Hitler to come to power legally. Or they even say in Germany, there was no GCHQ or no MI5 in Germany to stop Hitler in time, because now they have sort of MI5. And in Germany, they say, now we are careful about extremism to the left and to the right. And that's how they claim they've learned from history. And there are other theories that say if the Bolsheviks had to take over power in 1970s, Hitler wouldn't have taken over power either. So the Bolsheviks rather shouldn't have fought for power. Then everything would have been smooth, and we would have a century of social democracy and liberal democracy. All these things are being told. But the facts are different. The hard facts, and I'm going to go through many more facts in the course of this lead-off. The hard facts are that Hitler never won an absolute majority in a free election. I'm talking free election. The fact is that the working class, the bulk of the working class was opposed to Hitler. Most resistance against Hitler came from the working class from the labor movement. And there were about half a million people actively doing some sort of resistance, which was extremely risky. And many take their lives. And there were 250,000 trials in the 1930s against the sort of oppositionists. And most of them were, they were also Jews. There were also some Freemasons. There were also some Jehovah's Witnesses and some Bolsheviks. But the bulk of the opposition against Hitler came from the labor movement, from communists, from social democratic, from trade union, and other left organizations. So this must be made clear to defend the honor of the working class. Now it's not true to say that Hitler's victory was inevitable. We are not fatalists about history. There's nothing inevitable. History is influenced and made by man, by the living forces, the living class struggle. It depends on the subjective factor, what the outcome of the class struggle is. And therefore it's important to see, to consider the events of 1933 in the context of the preceding 16 years of revolution, international revolution. You know, we're going to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution next year. And that revolution, the Russian Revolution, ushered in an epoch of turmoil, of revolution and counter-revolution, but was an epoch. You like the epoch started in 1917, and the epoch in a way ended in 1933. It did and it didn't, because in a way, there was events like Cable Street in London that you recently commemorated. There was the Spanish Revolution. But the German defeat, the rise of Hitler, in a way was the end, first decisive setback for the total process and marked also milestone on the road to the Second World War. But first of all, in this context of the revolutionary events in Germany and Western Europe, we must say that there was an enormous swing of the pendulum towards the left after 1918, in the period of 1918 to 1923. In Germany, about one year after the Russian October Revolution, there was the November Revolution when the old empire collapsed, when the emperor, the Kaiser, had to abdicate and went to exile in Holland. When Soviets were founded, workers' councils in 47 industrial areas, strongholds of the working class, there was in effect dual power. And the possibility of the Soviets taking over power in Germany was within grasp. There were many strikes, general strikes. There was a situation of civil war in Germany. This alone would be a topic for a special session, the early stages of the German Revolution. But by and large, a pendulum swung to the left in those days. But the question of leadership then turned out to be decisive. In the first phase of the revolution, the majority of the workers looked towards the old social democracy. It is true that they had betrayed the advanced workers by supporting the war in 1914. But nevertheless, the backward sections of the working class moved towards social democracy in 1918, 1919, which was reflected, for instance, in the election result. When they set up the bourgeois state again, they had the elections in January 1919 for the Weimar Assembly to work as a constitutional assembly. And there was a sweeping victory for the Social Democrats. But the Social Democrats, of course, did their utmost to drown the revolution in blood. And there was civil war in Germany, all over Germany in the industrial centers. Social Democrats allied themselves with the fry course, sort of demobilized soldiers, World War I veterans, reactionary troops that were created again to smash the revolution. And this was an utter crime for the Social Democrats to make a coalition with those fry course, because the fry course, if you like, were the germ of the later Nazi movement. So it's true to say that the Social Democrats were the cronies of what you would later become a Nazi movement. They had their own vested interests, the Social Democratic bureaucracy and trade union bureaucracy, wanted a bourgeois democracy, but not a revolution like in Russia. So they drowned that in blood in 1919. What's a year of turmoil? The army went around. The troops went around from city to city to smash the councils. But at the same time, there was an enormous radicalization. The hitherto passive sections of the working class moved into action. There were many local strikes for wages for better conditions. There was an influx of the Social Democratic trade unions. The unions grew within three years from 1 million to 7 million members, an enormous strengthening of the working class. And in 1920, another turning point was the Capuch. This was an attempt by right-wing reactionary elements within the army. And big landlords, mainly not the anti-capitalist class, but section of the ruling class, right-wing reactionary socialist fascist element, an attempt to establish a military dictatorship in Germany in March 1920. That was about the time when Hitler's party was founded, but was a small insignificant sect in those days, down in Bavaria in Munich. But the Capuch, the attempt to establish a military dictatorship, led to a spontaneous general strike, which was extremely successful. Within three or four days, the military coup collapsed. And this general strike wasn't organized by anybody. It was spontaneous. No leadership called for the general strike. Later on, after a day or two, of course, all the parties, the SPD, the independent, the left split, and the tiny Communist Party and the unions, they, of course, then made appeals to support the general strike. But initially, the general strike was spontaneous. It was successful. So it shows the whip of the counter-revolution meant an enormous impetus for the revolution and in major industrial areas, like in the Ruhr and in the area around Leipzig and Halle, there was an armed uprising of the workers. The workers did not only want to get rid of the right-wing Reichswerk leaders of the coup, but they formed their own workers' army, the Red Army of the Ruhr. And within a few days, they took over power in the Ruhr and kicked out all the reactionary army elements. So this was victory, if you like, in some areas, but not all over Germany. So 1920 was another swing to the left, which was expressed in a swing within the labor movement from the Social Democrats to the left split of independent Social Democrats, the USPD. So in June 1920, the USPD in the parliamentary election got almost as many votes as the SPD, so enormous power of attraction, enormous radicalization of the working class. And later in 1920, the Communist Party was formed. Again, the Communist Party until 1920 was a mess, absolutely mess, it was messier than the hostel where we've been last night, was an absolute disaster, absolute chaos, crisis of leadership. This was a tragedy of the revolution. But then with the help of the Communist International, because at that time, Russia, Moscow was very attractive for the advanced workers. Then at the National Conference of the Independent, the USPD, there was a debate whether or not to join the Communist International. And the majority of the delegates voted in favor of joining the Communist International. So from the end of 1920, we had two strong labor movement parties, two works parties, major works parties, that's still these old social democracy, which still had a base, especially of trade unionists, and the Communist Party, which was growing and thriving. And this is also an expression of a shift to the left. But at the same time, we see 1920 shows. The ruling class, at that time, did not yet try to play the trumpet of fascism, of dictatorship. They knew it was too early. They learned that without, they learned from the kaputch, without a mass movement, an organized mass movement. You cannot just establish a military dictatorship and suppress a working class which is an uproar and which is being radicalized. This is what they historically learned then 10 years later when they supported the fascists. But at the same time, it must be said, with the Revolution of 1918, the capitalists made concessions to the working class. The capitalists are prepared to make any concessions so long as they are allowed to keep their property and their privileges. So they conceded women's suffrage. They conceded eight-hour day social reforms. Many, many progressive reforms, of course. But the demand of the advanced workers was the nationalization of industry, of the commanding heights of the economy. And then they played dirty tricks. And then they said, the bureaucrats said, no, we're not going to nationalize. It's too early that workers are not ripe. The workers must, first of all, learn to run industry. So we're going to have the system of industrial democracy and co-determination. And we're going to set up a commission about it. So what they did is take the question of nationalization of the agenda. The fact is that in 1920, we had, as I said, the establishment of the Communist Party. In 1921 and 22, there was a speeding up of inflation. And this culminated in the year of 1923 when there was hyperinflation in Germany. It made life impossible. There was low unemployment because the German capitalists benefited from inflation with an offensive of exports. But you couldn't buy even a slice of bread for billions or trillions of marks. You've got paper money. So 1923 marks another historic chance for the working class to take power. This was culminated in summer 1923 when there was a general strike against the reactionary government of CUNOR, a reactionary industrialist who was a chancellor. And he was hated. This general strike brought down the reactionary government. But then there was no perspective. And the tragedy in those days of the Communist Party was that the Communist Party leadership didn't know what to do with this revolutionary situation. But there are many indications. I could give you many examples. There are many indications that in those months in the summer of 1923, there was a sharp shift within the working class from the social democrats to the communists in some partial elections, in some union shop stewards elections, and other indications we can see from the facts that increasingly workers who, until then, had been loyal towards social democracy and trade unionists were looking towards the Communist Party for a solution. The crisis, however, passed by. Communist Party didn't act. This is a story in and of itself also a separate story. We could discuss the question of the early Communist Party in Germany. But anyway, having said this, the main thing is that what I'm saying is from 1918 to 1923, we had several revolutionary opportunities. We didn't have a strong fascist movement at that time. There were reactionary elements in the state and in the army and so on, but not a fascist mass movement that could have smashed the working class in those days. And the opportunity was lost. This is a fact. Then after 1923, we had certain stabilization, stabilization of the economy, of the political system, a stabilization of reformism. And also, you've got to see the fact that the revolutionary opportunity was missed in 1923. Trotsky wrote an article about it. And he also considered Germany to be the key. This fact then, a few months later, Lenin's death led to the crystallization of the, it gave an impetus to the crystallization of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the theory of socialism in one country. And the fact that the Communist international increasingly became a tool of the Stalinist bureaucracy. And then from 1925, the leaders of the Communist Party in Germany were just obedient, if you like, bureaucrats who would carry out any party line, any change of the party line that was imposed upon them from Moscow. So this is another fact which we should keep in mind for when we are going to discuss the question of the mistakes of the Communist Party in a few minutes. The fact is that the golden 20s, as they say, the golden 20s, 1924 to 29, when there was a certain boom, a certain stabilization of the currency, a certain stabilization of the economy, it's true that then again, the unions could fight for some reforms. There were some wage increases and some minor improvement. But there was always a certain level of unemployment. I got many statistics here. You can send them by email. There was always a certain level of unemployment. And there was always an intensification of labor, squeezing of the working class. There was a rationalization in the industry. Those years were not so golden. But for the working class, it was a relative stability which led to a stabilization of social democracy against social democracy. Then in the second half of the 1920s was the strongest, the stronger of the two works parties. Although the Communist Party for a while also had quite some influence within the trade union movement. Now in those years, the Nazi party was the Hitler's party. The NSDAP was a relatively small party. Didn't play a major role, two or 3% in the elections, mainly based in Bavaria. But Hitler, the personality of Hitler, kept the whole thing together. And it's true to say it. And in those days, the ruling class, the bulk of the ruling class, didn't really like Hitler. I mean, he was a strange guy anyway. And they didn't see him as a useful role. They had their traditional parties, the traditional bourgeois parties. There was a variety of different bourgeois parties in those days. There was also a center party, which had Catholic unions. In those days, we also had Catholic labor movement, not only social and democratic labor movement in Germany. But still, Hitler had a cozy life that were all with some rich backers, some rich sponsors for the fascists in the 1920s who supported them. But it wasn't the commanding heights of the economy. But they were all with some reactionary capitalists who kept the Nazi party alive. But then things changed rapidly in Germany with the beginning of the world economic crisis in 1929, 1930, back Friday. And Germany was especially hit hard by the crisis. You find all the explanations in the works by Trotsky. And I would recommend comrades to read Trotsky on Germany, because those were fantastic analysis. Keeping in mind that Trotsky was far away in Turkey most of his time in the early 30s. He had no Facebook, no internet, no fax machine, no mobile phone, no modern means of communication. And he got the journals and the leaflets, and from his comrades got them with the delay of days, weeks, and months. But on the basis of the material, he got to wrote a brilliant analysis and understood the changes in the economy, in politics, and the psychology of the different classes of society. So it's really brilliant stuff that he wrote. Once again, the world economic crisis did not only lead to the impoverishment of the working class, unemployment went up. I've got the statistics here. In 1930, 22%, 1931, 34%, 1932, 44%. And if you consider that, all those statistics do not always reflect the truth. And there was a section of workers who had only part-time work, who were reduced to part-time work forcibly. Then the majority had no decent jobs. Starvation, soup kitchens, poverty, misery didn't not only affect the working class, but also the middle classes. And in those days, there was a stronger element of petty bourgeois layers in society. There was a peasantry, which was about third of the population. There were small businessmen, artisans. There were all sorts of middle classes that were also affected by the crisis. And that also still longed back to the good old days of the German Empire before the First World War. So those middle classes who, in 1923, could have been won over by the labor movement. And there were signs that the middle classes would have supported the Communist Party if they had made a proper regulatory offensive in the summer of 1923. So the middle classes, once again, in their despair and their demoralization looked around for a solution, for a radical and non-establishment solution. And when they looked around, what did they see? Well, first of all, a social democracy, which was the party, if you like, of the establishment. Because social democrats were those who had sort of brought about and ushered in and borne the republic. And they were the most fervent supporters of the republic, of the bourgeois republic. And they thought the bourgeois republic would solve all the problems and defend them. So you had the social bureaucrats who were in government, leading the government, from 1928 to 1930s. Then you had the Communist Party. But the Communist Party, by 1928, 29, had changed its line, the period of the Stalinist international, communist international, which meant that they thought this was the final crisis of capitalism. So a bit of mechanism, sort of, this is the final price of capitalism. It's capitalism is finished. It will never rise again, which is, of course, a wrong assessment. Because Lenin always said capitalism will always find a way out, find a way out unless it's consciously overthrown. So you had the Communist Party with this theory of final price of capitalism and the theory of social fascism. And this was absolutely fatal. They had this Stalinist theory. They said anything to the right of the Communist Party is fascist, different brands of fascism. So it's a final price. Capitalism is doomed anyway. So the masses will just go through different regimes of fascism. So social fascism is social democrats. Clerical fascism is the Christian democrats. And Hitler fascism is also just another brand of fascism, they said. So just let the workers go through the experience, and then we will be in power. Then we, as communists, will be inevitably in power. This was put it bluntly. This was the essence of their theory. And I think Stalin himself, or one of his theoreticians, said social democracy and fascism are just twins, twin brothers. It's also a wrong theory, of course. The social democratic bureaucracy saved capitalism. This is true. And they made this alliance with the reactionary socials in 1980, 1990. But it's absolutely wrong to denounce social democracy as a brand of fascism. Social democracy, they want to have a cozy life on the base of a bourgeois republic, liberal capitalism, play a role as parliamentarians with apparatus and so on. But they are also mortal enemies of the fascists. The fascists themselves, for them, all the labor movement was Marxist. They said, they called them all Marxists. They didn't see many differences between social hypocrites and communists and other tiny part. They said they're Marxists, they're Bolsheviks, and the fascists said we're going to smash them. So this was a mistake, not only a wrong theory, but in fact, it led to a split of the labor movement, a split of communist and social democratic party, and a split of the living forces that could have united, should have united in a united front, as Trotsky pointed out, should have united to stop the fascists, irrespective of political differences. Social Democrats still had a majority of workers. And in fact, because of their ultra-leftism, the communist workers were good class fighters. They were the first to lose their jobs in the crisis of 2930. They were the first to lose their jobs, but because of their ultra-leftism, there wasn't much of a willingness of the social democratic workers to defend them. So the communist party in the early 30s was a party of the unemployed. And people have been unemployed for a year, two, three, or more years. They get very desperate. They're hungry. They're starving. They get desperate. And sometimes they can also get very ultra-left impatient. And this was the material basis also for this ultra-left theory, which then deepened the split between the workers' parties. Now, consider those millions of Petit Bourgeois elements who were also affected by the crisis when they looked at the labor movement and saw this mass of opportunist social democrats and ultra-left Stalinists and the split and labor movement fighting each other. Of course, the labor movement didn't appeal to those Petit Bourgeois sections. And here comes the factor of the Nazi party then. Hitler's party was called the NSDIP, the Nazi Nazi-Zalicist-Deutsche Arbeiter Partei. So it contains the word socialist. And the word worker. And you know, there was always a sort of left wing of the fascists who believed in sort of national socialism, also had some anti-capitalist phrase mongering in their original program. They never took it seriously, but they had this. And even nowadays, when you meet fascist groups, some of them are, if you like, Hitlerite fascist groups. Nowadays in Europe also use this sort of anti-capitalist phrase mongering. So this was an element of the Nazi party. The Nazi party then turned out to be the only non-establishment party, which hadn't been in the regional government or in the national government. And they said, we want a revolution and fight the privileges of the bosses and things like that phrase mongering. So they attracted those demoralized middle class elements, not a party, as Trotsky said, not a party of revolutionary hope, but a party of counter-revolutionary despair. So this is what happened. In 29, for a moment of time, the labor movement, if it had been united, could have attracted those millions, but they didn't. They missed the train. They missed the opportunity. And then you had the fact that in the elections, the early elections to the Reichstag, the National Parliament in 1930, the Nazi party went up from 3% to 18%. So they turned out to be, you know, to jump into a position of being the second strongest party in the country. But where did the votes come from? Not from the labor movement. The SPD and the KPD always had between them. And earlier, the independent SPD always had a reservoir of 12 to 14 million votes that was solid working class vote. And that remained, more or less, until 1933. The basis, the voters of the Nazi party mainly came from small bourgeois parties. The German Nationalists and the people's party, peasants' party, agrarian party, all sorts of petty regional parties, they were more or less, they were squeezed out and they were sort of left aside. So this is where the Nazis got their support from. More so in Protestant areas than Catholic areas. But nevertheless, then the question was fascism was there and it wasn't only 120 MPs of Hitler's gangs with their brown shirts in the parliament, but it was a mass movement. This is the difference between fascism and any other, if you like, reactionary regime. Fascism, as Trotsky said, when we ask ourselves and you ask the question in the beginning, what is fascism? Fascism is not just a system of repression, violence, and police terror. Fascism is a special system of state based on the elimination of all elements of proletarian democracy in bourgeois society. So the task of fascism is not only the smashing, the elimination of the proletarian bengat, but to keep the entire labor movement in a permanent state of fragmentation. Trotsky says this requires not only the physical elimination of the most revolutionary layers of the working class, but to smash and destroy all the independent and voluntary organization that the proletariat has built for over 70, 80 years. 70, 80 years of labor history we had. Now we have 150th anniversary of many unions and the labor movement in Germany. So all this history was supposed to be eliminated by fascism. Trotsky also said fascism is distilled imperialism, because if fascism takes over, fascism destroys the labor movement. This is a major precondition for moving towards the Second World War. So this was a historic task of fascism. And this means that it's not enough to have a government with some civil servants, a police, and the repressive state apparatus. But what the fascist movement had was an army of hundreds of thousands of armed petty bourgeois and lumped proletarians, the stormtroopers, the SAS, volunteers whom they recruited out of those elements were desperate about the crisis and their own personal and their own social status. Voluntary army, armed men in uniforms, and they were the battering ram to smash the labor movement. And it was a mass movement. So they had their spies in every block, in every village, in every factory, in every town. So this was the difference between fascism and the ordinary system of repression. How much left? You've got another 15 minutes, if you want to say. OK. So it was clear. Trotsky said there were also other good rights, but Trotsky was by far the best. He warned that if fascism comes to power, then it's not just another kaputch or so on. Then it will be a showdown with the working class. But it didn't happen immediately in 1930. But first of all, the question is, what was the reaction of the labor movement, the labor leaders, because in Germany, between 1930 and 1933, there was again a state of civil war. There were permanent clashes, violent demonstrations, attacks, killings, and so on. And in almost every individual case, the state was always on the side of the right wing state organs. The Republican state was basically the same state bureaucracy as under the old Kaiser regime. Nothing had changed. So they always defended the fascists. The problem is the labor leaders were helpless, especially the reformist leaders. Leader of the trade unions, ADGB, ADGB, Leipzig. In the end of 1932, before Hitler came to power, there were Bonapartist regimes. There were different regimes of Brüning, Papen, Schleicher that reacted as Bonapartist governments without parliamentary control on the base of emergency law. They trust on the base of decree without any parliamentary influence, those regimes. And Schleicher was the last one before Hitler. And in the end of 1932, Leipzig, the TUC leader in Germany, he thought he approached Schleicher and asked him, what about us joining your government? He thought, you know, we could piece Schleicher, join a government, get some of the trade union demands fulfilled. At that time, again, because of the ultra leftism of the Communist Party, there was a left wing developing in the social democracy, even a left split, a centrist split, which, you know, Willi Brandt and so on, young socialist joint, they left the SPD, looked towards Marxism. And those young members in social democracy wanted to take up arms and fight the fascists, were expelled by the social democratic leaders, because party leaders said, we can only fight the fascists on legal grounds, not with illegal means. And taking up arms would provoke state visits. We accept the monopoly of arms of the bourgeois state, all these things. So we fight on the base of the Constitution. If we take up arms, then it means civil war. And we don't want civil war, we want peace. And you know, this sort of, I think, was also echoed at the TOC conference. Alan always quoted Walter Citrine in 1933, TOC conference in London, when the left wing said, we should do something about fascism, also in Britain. And Citrine said, no, if they had taken up arms in Germany, it would have meant civil war. And we don't want civil war. The fact is, it would have meant civil war. But there would have been a good chance to win the civil war. But the way they were defeated was the worst, the worst possible option of any defeat. It was even worse than the defeat in Spain, where there was a civil war, and there was one. Historically, it's better for the morale of the working class to commemorate the history of civil war and fighting. And even if you lose in Germany, there was no fight. And they lost. And it's demoralizing and still having some effect today. And mind you, when Hitler came to power in 1933, the social democratic leaders thought that they could save their skin and their parliamentary existence and their apparatus by disaffiliating from the second international. This is how far the opponent. And they even expelled Jewish members of social democracy from the party to try to appease Hitler and said they were also good nationalists and so on. I've spoken about the mistakes of the Communist Party. The problem of the Communist Party was that they set up their own unions, their own split-off unions, the RTO. So the Communist workers had no chance to approach the social democratic workers in the unions and win them for United Fronts. There were some smaller industrial towns where there was some united front. I think there were towns where the left opposition had a stronghold, what's expelled from the Communist Party. But nevertheless, they carried out a policy of popular front that was partly successful. But of course, in the end, then they were also smashed by the fascist takeover. So anyway, Hitler increasingly turned towards the ruling class. He was the strong man, the decisive player in the game, turned towards the ruling class. In 1932, the fascists had 37% of the votes cast. That was their peak. But in another early election in November 32, they lost 2 million again. So it shows they were beginning to crumble again. Because you cannot keep a fascist movement on the base of Freizmangering together. Trotsky said, human dust cannot keep that together forever. Labor movement is higher cohesion than any fascist reactionary movement. So end of 1932, the ruling class increasingly discovered the virtues of appointing Hitler's chancellor because Hitler said, oh no, no, sirs, put on a nice suit, went to see the big bankers, von Schröder, Reusch, Tüsen, Grupp, Vögl, and the others, the leading managers of heavy industry. He met them. And he told them, well, don't worry about our socialist program. We're not going to carry out our program into what you want. So increasingly, at that time, the industrialists saw it was about time to get Hitler into power. Because, otherwise, maybe the movement would have crumbled. There was another upswing, beginning to be felt, which would have reduced unemployment, would have given the working class more strength to fight again, and so on. So it was about time. And that's why they precipitated in 1933 to take over, to push Hitler into power initially in the coalition. But, of course, immediately, Hitler then began to purge. The state apparatus began to, first of all, put leading communists into jail and persecute them. And also a shameful aspect of history, the trade union leaders. In April 1933, Hitler, because he knew that he didn't have a sound basis in the big industry in the core of the working class. So he said, let's make May Day, first of May, a national holiday, national bank holiday. Shameful that the Weimar Republic didn't make May Day a public holiday. They should have done it. So Hitler did it. And then the ADGB, the trade union leaders, said, we call upon our members to go to the official May Day rallies by the Nazis on the first of May 1933. They thought, again, this would save their skin. But again, on the second of May, the Nazis took over the union buildings and dissolved the unions. This shows how thankful they were. And then the whole thing started. And all the bourgeois parties, except social democrats, goes to their credits that they voted against it. But all the bourgeois parties voted in favor of giving Hitler all the power he wanted in a special enabling act in parliament and dissolved themselves. Dissolved themselves, basically. So dictatorship was really consolidated then. But once again, I got many statistics here. And in the course of the discussion and maybe in the sum up, I can also mention some other questions, some consequences and lessons of the history of fascism. The Nazis were not a workers' party, as I said before. You know, I got here the statistics of how many civil servants, freelancers, white-collar workers, farmers, and workers were a member of the Nazi party in relation. And the smallest share was of the workers, shows was many civil servants. Of course, civil servants, civil servants are always very flexible. People in a nice position in civil servant, they would change their party cards easily. And this is what happened in Germany, too. And there are many examples of the Nazis tried to hold council elections, shop stewards elections in 33, 34, 35. And there was still resistance to those elections. In many big factories are still up until 1935, where a majority in 34, there was one election on 20th of January in 34, were in those factories. They didn't admit it publicly. It was a shame for the Nazis. But up were 75, three-quarters of the workers who cast their votes in those so-called council elections in the factories. 35%, three-quarters voted no or abstained. So they didn't vote for the official so-called Nazi shop stewards. So it shows that there was always some resistance. But of course, then immediately, the leaders were arrested, were put into prison. There were first casualties, first of them were murdered, even in March, April, and May, 1933. And the consolidation of the dictatorship began. And yeah, many more figures. But I'm coming to the end now. Of course, this was not a paradise for the workers, but there was intensification of labors. And there was a bonanza of profits, profits of Krupp, major steelworks and arms industrialist Krupp. It rose from 6.6 to 21 million Reissmark over the 1930s after it had taken over. And the overall profits of industry and commerce rose from 6.6 to 15 billion Reissmark on the base of the intensification of labor. And wherever there were some strikes, like at all the General Motors or at in the Ruhr and the big factories, they were brutally oppressed. I got many more figures. I leave it. But it's the same thing everywhere. And anyway, this is full of lessons. But I just want to stress one point again. It wasn't a matter of course. It wasn't obvious that Hitler would come to power. It was a question of revolution and counter-revolution. Pendulum first went very far to the left. And because it wasn't solved, because the workers movement didn't take over power, in the end, they left a vacuum for the Nazi party to move in and take power. And we must see this in this context, obviously, because when we say 1917 was the biggest event in the last century, we must also see 1933 in Germany was the biggest defeat in the last century. And there's a connection between the two. It still has effects. Fascism doesn't play the same role now as then, but still it's a warning. It's a warning what happens if you don't bring down capitalism. It shows what barbarism, what sort of barbarism, can come up again if our generation is not in a position to bring down capitalism, overthrow capitalism, and build a socialist world. Thank you.