Papen’s Marburg Speech

Posted by Bogumil

The infamous June 1934 ‘Marburg speech’ of Franz von Papen and Edgar Jung: a national-conservative critique of the excesses of National Socialism

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Early 1934 was an extremely difficult time for the conservatives and bourgeois-nationalists in Germany who, only a year before, had been convinced that the ‘National Revolution’ and the emerging Third Reich were as much theirs as they were the National Socialists’. Under the process of Gleichschaltung the new government had been gradually dissolving or absorbing independent nationalist groups into the NSDAP. At the same time there appeared to be an escalating breakdown in order, with Party radicals growing increasingly disruptive and violent, often turning their frustration at the slow pace of reform upon the perceived forces of ‘Reaktion‘. In the midst of the chaos and the rumors of an impending ‘Second Revolution’ a group of Catholic conservative intellectuals, working within the offices of Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, began plotting ways for bourgeois-nationalists to take back the state, hoping to steer it away from ideological radicalism and towards a more traditionalist authoritarianism centered on Christian spiritual renewal. The result of their handiwork was what became known as the ‘Marburg speech’, translated in full below. Written chiefly by conservative-revolutionary intellectual Edgar Jung, one of Papen’s consultants and speechwriters, the speech was anti-democratic while still being carefully disparaging of the NS regime, critiquing its violence, its militarization of public life, its monopoly on political power, its ‘coordination’ of the independent judiciary and the press, and in particular its hostile policies towards Christianity. The conspirators cleverly pushed this speech on Vice-Chancellor Papen at the last minute, while he was still on the train to deliver an address before the University League at Marburg. When an alarmed Papen read the speech and protested that it might “cost him his head” he was informed that he had no choice but to give it, since hundreds of copies had already been provided to the domestic and foreign press. Papen conceded, and rather bravely read the speech verbatim despite his misgivings. The conspirators’ hope was that this action would galvanize the nationalist, Catholic, and conservative forces within Germany into opposition behind Papen. The result instead was the final consolidation of the Hitler regime. Goebbels used every effort possible to suppress dissemination of the speech domestically, while Papen was forced to apologize and to resign from the cabinet. Hitler and Göring, now utterly convinced of the need to sweep away their remaining enemies, began setting the course for the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ not two weeks later. Papen survived the resulting ‘Blood Purge’ by the skin of his teeth with a brief period of arrest. Others would not be so lucky, with most of the conspirators ending up incarcerated or, like Edgar Jung, shot.

Speech by Vice-Chancellor von Papen
before the University League
Marburg, 17 June, 1934

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On 21 February 1933, in the turbulent days when National Socialism first stepped forward to govern the German Reich, I spoke to the Berlin student body in an attempt to explain the significance of this new epoch [Zeitenwende]. I spoke, as I pointed out at the time, in a location dedicated to the exploration of truth and intellectual freedom. I do not want to confess myself an adherent to the liberal conceptions of truth and freedom. Ultimate truth lies with God alone, and the quest for it derives its ultimate meaning only from this starting-point. Today, where I am privileged once again – in this medieval jewel, this city of Saint Elisabeth – to stand on academic soil, I add to the remarks I made at that time that even though the ideal of objective truth may be undisputed, we do not want to renounce the most elementary foundation of human civilization, the duty to subjective truth, to honesty, that is demanded of us Germans. This place of scholarship, therefore, appears to me particularly suited to giving a truthful account before the German people. Because the voices that demand that I adopt a principled position on German current affairs and on German conditions are becoming ever more numerous and more urgent. It is said that by removing the Weimar Prussian regime¹ and by amalgamating the National Movement I have taken on such a pivotal role in German affairs that it is my duty to monitor these developments more keenly than most other Germans. I have no intention of evading this duty. On the contrary – my inner commitment to Adolf Hitler and his work is so great, and so attached am I with my very lifeblood to the German renewal currently being carried out, that from the point-of-view of both man and statesman it would be a mortal sin not to say what must be said during this crucial stage of the German Revolution.

The events of the last year and a half have gripped the entire German Volk and stirred them deeply. That we have found our way back from the vale of sorrow, hopelessness, hatred, and division and returned to the community of the German Nation once more seems almost like a dream. The tremendous tensions which we have experienced since those August days of 1914 have been broken; from them the German soul has emerged once again, before which the glorious and yet so painful history of our Volk passes in review, from the sagas of the German heroes to the trenches of Verdun and, yes, even to the street-fights of our day.

The unknown soldier of the World War, who conquered the hearts of his countrymen [Volksgenossen, lit. ‘folk-comrades’] with contagious energy and unshakeable faith, has set this soul free. With his Field Marshal he has set himself at the head of the nation in order to turn a new page in the book of German fate and to restore spiritual unity. We have experienced this unity of spirit in the exhilaration of a thousand rallies, in the flags and festivities of a nation which has rediscovered itself. But now, as enthusiasm is leveling out and as the hard work in this process comes to the fore, it becomes apparent that a reform process of such historical proportions also produces slag [Schlacken] from which the nation must cleanse itself. Slag of this kind exists in all areas of our life, in the material and the spiritual. Foreign countries, who view us with resentment, point their fingers at this slag and construe it as evidence of a serious process of dissolution. One should not be ready to celebrate too early, because only once we have mustered the energy to free ourselves from this slag will we immediately be best able to prove how internally strong we are and how resolute we are in not letting the path of the German Revolution be tarnished. We know that the rumors and the whispering must be drawn back out of the darkness into which they have fled. Continue reading →

BUF Economic Policy: Housing, Unemployment, Empire, Agriculture

Posted by Bogumil

‘The Letters of Lucifer’: Mosleyite economic policy in 1933, as described by ‘The Blackshirt’ contributor William Allen

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The four articles transcribed below were first published in various 1933 editions of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) newspaper The Blackshirt, either anonymously or under the pen-name ‘Lucifer’. Each article discusses in turn one of the important socio-economic issues facing Great Britain and its Empire at the time, along with a Mosleyite analysis and proposed solution. I was first introduced to these articles through the 1933 published collection The Letters of Lucifer, assured by the person who provided it that the pseudonymous ‘Lucifer’ was in fact William Joyce, later and more infamously known as ‘Lord Haw Haw’. I was thus somewhat surprised to discover years later that Joyce was not the author after all – ‘Lucifer’, in fact, was instead William ‘Bill’ Allen, a man who was almost as fascinating a character as Joyce. Born wealthy, Eton-educated, fluent in Russian and Turkish, widely-travelled and a respected historian, Allen was a Member of Parliament for the Ulster Unionist Party before he defected to Oswald Mosley’s New Party in 1931. Allen followed Mosley into fascism in 1932, although he never held any kind of official leadership position in the BUF. Instead his importance lay behind the scenes, acting as an early, prolific propagandist for the Mosleyites as well as a key source of donations. Allen not only helped fund the organization from his own pockets, he was also instrumental in setting up the payment channels between Mosley and Mussolini, and additionally was involved in the complex, clandestine effort by Mosley and second wife Diana to organize a commercial radio station in Europe which could serve as a source of income. Most intriguing are Allen’s intelligence connections – there were rumors in the late ’30s that he had been ‘turned’ and was providing information to British Intelligence, rumors which have recently been substantiated. Bizarrely, Mosley was well aware of the MI6 connection at the time and seemed to view no threat in it; he kept close to Allen until the two fell out over money matters in 1940, and was happy to see his old compatriot when the two met again by chance after the end of the War.

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HOUSING

First published in The Blackshirt, August 12-18, 1933

In the next four articles we shall show how Fascism can build within the British Empire a civilisation far higher than the world has yet known. That high standard of life will provide our people with a purchasing power sufficient for them to buy the products which modern industry can produce, and consequently to employ the labour of men now unemployed.

We shall show, at the same time, how this national, or Empire, organisation will lead to safer and more peaceful relations with the rest of the world. In this first article, however, we will take an instance of the methods by which Fascism will rebuild our own land of Britain.

The first task which there arises is the housing problem. It is unnecessary for us to stress the disgraceful housing conditions in which masses of our people have lived since the war.

Constructive Remedy

It is the habit of Socialists and others of their breed to spend hours in discussing these disgraceful conditions, and thus to avoid advancing their constructive remedy. For Fascists, it is unnecessary to stress the conditions because we and everyone else know they exist. What England expects of a revolutionary movement is a constructive remedy. We believe that the housing problem has not been tackled and will not be tackled under the present system, because the methods employed cannot possibly lead to any results. It is useless for our old politicians to talk about a great “crusade against the slums” in a palpitating peroration unless they are prepared to adopt the executive instruments by which the slums can be wiped out. Continue reading →

The National Committee for a Free Germany

Posted by Bogumil

The 13 July, 1943 Manifesto of the National Committee for a Free Germany, a pro-Russian national liberation front established among German POWs by Soviet authorities

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Over 13-14 July, 1943, an organization known as the ‘National Committee for a Free Germany’ (Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland, NKFD) was inaugurated with the ratification of a newly-written manifesto signed by its 38 founding members. The NKFD was the initiative of German communists then in exile in the Soviet Union, KPD functionaries who were seeking to spread pro-Soviet ideals among German POWs with the hope of fostering an anti-Hitler resistance that would spread among the active Wehrmacht. While the NKFD (and its later adjunct, the League of German Officers, BDO) was the brainchild of communist agitation, the organization was not at first presented as explicitly Marxist-Leninist in orientation. Instead its aesthetic was national-patriotic, hearkening back to a pre-NS nationalism with its use of the former black-white-red standard and its veneration of old Prussian military figures and traditions. The Committee’s founding Manifesto, which I have translated below, made this conservative orientation explicit, demanding not a socialist Germany but instead a “free” Germany with a free economy, a “strong, democratic state power” in the tradition of liberal reformers like Baron vom Stein. This was during a point of the War, after all, when the Soviet government was still willing to negotiate a separate peace with Germany, even willing to commit to a return to the Reich’s 1937 borders, so long as the negotiations occurred with a non-Hitlerian government (Stalin was no doubt aware, as were the British, that there was a conservative opposition among the Wehrmacht’s officer ranks with a strong desire to overthrow the NSDAP). Despite its vigorous promotion among German POWs, however, the NKFD and BDO never became the nucleus of an organized nationalist resistance among the German armed forces. As the likelihood of a conservative revolt lessened over time, NKFD newspapers and radio broadcasts grew increasingly Marxist in orientation as a result. At the end of the War many former members of the Committee ended up in East Germany, helping to build the Volksarmee, the National Democratic Party, and the Working Community of Former Officers.

Manifesto for the National Committee for a Free Germany
to the Wehrmacht and to the German People

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First published 13 July, 1943

Events demand a prompt decision from us Germans. In this hour of extreme peril for Germany’s continued existence and future the National Committee for a “Free Germany” has been formed.

The National Committee is comprised of: workers and writers, soldiers and officers, trade unionists and politicians, men of all political and ideological tendencies who, a year before, would not have considered such an alliance possible.

The National Committee conveys the thoughts and will of millions of Germans at the front and in the homeland [Heimat], those for whom the fate of their Fatherland lies close to their hearts.

The National Committee considers itself justified and obligated in speaking on behalf of the German Volk in this hour of destiny, clearly and unsparingly, as the situation requires.

Hitler leads Germany to its downfall. Continue reading →