862.00/2935
The Ambassador in Germany (Sackett) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 25.]
Sir: As pointed out in my telegram No. 27 of February 28,10 the burning of the Reichstag gave the Nazis the pretext which they needed for further repressive measures against political opponents. In addition to the planned decree, sharpening the penalties for treason, sedition and subversive activities which now provides the death penalty for the betrayal of military secrets, the Government promptly issued a presidential decree putting into effect a state of exceptional emergency, suspending those articles of the Constitution which practically constitute the German Bill of Rights. (See my telegram No. 28 of March 1, 4 p.m.)10
According to a semi-official statement, “it has been proved beyond doubt that Communist leaders were directly connected with the incendiarism and that Communists had planned other acts of terrorism.” Furthermore, the Dutchman arrested as the incendiary is reported by the Prussian authorities to have admitted in his confession that he had connections with the Social-Democrats.
On these grounds, and by virtue of the unlimited powers granted him by the Emergency Decree, Minister Goering immediately ordered a wholesale arrest of Communist deputies in the Reichstag and Prussian Diet, as well as prominent pacifists, journalists, authors, educators and lawyers who defended Communists in political trials, and a number of Social-Democrats. Several thousand persons, many of whom are intellectuals and not registered members of a political party, are now being detained in custody on the basis of this decree, which permits their confinement in prison for an unlimited time, without being informed of the reason. At a meeting of his party last night, Minister Goering boasted that alone in the Rhineland and Westphalia 2000 persons have been put behind the bars.
All Communist newspapers have been prohibited in Prussia for four weeks, Social-Democratic newspapers for two weeks. A similar prohibition has been imposed on all periodicals, handbills and placards of the two parties. In other states, except those controlled by the Nazis and Nationalists, only the Communist press has been suppressed. In Prussia, Social-Democratic as well as Communist meetings have been prohibited, and the placards of these parties on billboards and on the advertisement kiosks have been torn down by the police.
[Page 202]In Prussia and other parts of Germany, the Auxiliary Police—composed of members of the Nazi Storm Detachments and the Stahlhelm—are being mobilized in large numbers, and cases are reported where uniformed Nazis acting as police have searched the homes of individuals and organizations opposed to the present régime. To demonstrate that the Communists have been definitely downed, a Nazi Storm Detachment paraded before the Karl Liebknecht House, Communist headquarters in Berlin recently closed by the police, and, with appropriate ceremonies, hoisted the Nazi flag over the building.
Of the opposition parties, aside from the very small Staatspartei, only the Center Party is still able to conduct its campaign in Prussia and other states dominated by the Nazis, despite the drastic restrictions imposed by the decrees. The Centrist Party can still hold political meetings and appeal to the voters by means of placards and election literature; its press has not been suppressed. As far as the Left parties are concerned, however, the campaign was definitely over immediately after the fire in the Reichstag. For these parties the election on March 5 is a farce, as they have been completely deprived during the last and most important week of the campaign of the constitutional right to appeal to their following. In most parts of Germany, the Social-Democrats have been so completely muzzled and repressed that, outwardly at least, they have ceased to exist.
On the other hand, the Nazis are winding up the campaign in very impressive style. The numerous brown uniforms, the huge Nazi placards with which the cities and the countryside are dotted, the frequent parades of the Brown Army, the mass meetings and the daily broadcasting of election speeches by Nazi leaders, tend to create the impression even now that there is only one large party in Germany.
Minister Goering’s attempt to link up the Social-Democrats with the fire in the Reichstag, on the basis of the alleged confession of the arrested incendiary, has evoked an emphatic statement from the executive committee of that party, which rejected as an untruth “the assertion of the criminal on the basis of which the complete tying up of the election work of the party is being justified.” Under the existing gag-rule in Germany, this is as far as the Social-Democratic leaders dare to go in repudiating Goering’s charge.
While most people are ready to believe that the Communists are capable of such a monstrous act, few people, except fanatic followers of Hitler and Hugenberg, can conceive of the Social-Democrats resorting to such terrorist methods. Even journals of the moderate Right, despite the risk of being suppressed, declare that cooperation of the Social-Democrats with the arrested incendiary is exceedingly improbable.
The fact that Minister Goering, in his last election speech, abstained from attributing the fire to the Social-Democrats as well as to the Communists, [Page 203] would seem to indicate that he realizes that this charge could not long be sustained. However, it gave him the desired pretext to paralyze completely the hated Social-Democrats in the crucial week of the campaign and in this respect at least the work of the incendiary came at a most opportune moment.
Hitler and Goering are very indignant that certain foreign journals refuse to believe that the German Communist Party had anything to do with the arrested incendiary, some even attributing the crime to the Nazis themselves. While there is no reason to doubt the official statement on this point, one can readily understand why some foreign correspondents in Berlin take such an attitude. Deliberate acts of terrorism have up to now seldom been attributed to the Communist Party as such. In recent years their crimes consisted for the most part of so-called literary treason or sedition, of subversive acts such as attempts to disintegrate the Reichswehr and the police, and frequent instigation to a general strike. The German Communists have not, to my knowledge, resorted to anarchist methods with which Bolshevists in the United States and other countries are usually identified. It is a well-known fact that political assassinations in the past, such as the murders of Rathenau and Erzberger, and attempts on the lives of other prominent politicians, have been committed by Right radicals.
It is a fact that many people in Germany really believe—though they are afraid to say so openly—that the Dutchman arrested is an agent provocateur, or that he acted on his own initiative, without the knowledge of the Communist Party. They contend that the Communists had little to gain from such an act of terrorism and that the Communist leaders must have known that the Nazis would not fail to exploit it in order to hasten the advent of a purely Fascist regime in Germany. It is pointed out that the circumstances under which the incendiary was arrested, and the readiness with which he allegedly associated the Social-Democrats with the crime, without, however, divulging the identity of his accomplices, has led many to view the Government’s assertions with skepticism. According to the official investigation, inflammable material had been set on fire at more than twenty different points and the arrested Dutchman must therefore have had at least from seven to ten accomplices.
However that may be, the fact remains that at the moment the propaganda value of the fire in the Reichstag is perhaps as valuable to the Nazis as the Zinoviev letter was to the British Conservatives in the elections in the fall of 1927. The Nazis have exploited the incident to the utmost, in their press and political meetings, as well as in broadcasts of strongly colored reports from the scene of the fire. Past masters of propaganda that they are, they have managed to stir up the country [Page 204] to a pitch comparable only to war-time hysteria. The enthusiasm of the growing Nazi following knows no bounds, while the rest of the population—intimidated and nervous—is awaiting the week-end with anxiety and misgivings.
Conscious of their growing strength, the Nazis will stage, on the eve of the elections, impressive demonstrations throughout Germany, with torchlight processions and, what Dr. Goebbels calls, “liberation bonfires” along the German frontiers. Hitler will speak in Koenigsberg, the capital of East Prussia, on the night before the election. The speech will be broadcast over a national hook-up and Dr. Goebbels, as chief propagandist of the party, has ordered that loud-speakers be set up in all public squares throughout the country, and that people with radios in their homes open the windows “in order that every man in the street may hear the words of the Führer.”
The fire has caused the heaviest damage to the assembly hall of the Reichstag, completely destroying that chamber, while the main structure of the massive building, which outwardly resembles the Library of Congress in Washington, has suffered comparatively little damage. It has been estimated that it will take at least a year to restore the building. In the meantime, the Cabinet has decided to convene the new Reichstag in the historical Garnisonskirche in Potsdam, within the walls of which repose the remains of Frederic the Great, the choice having been made at the instance of the Hugenberg Nationalists as symbolic of the revival in Germany of the spirit of Potsdam.
A brief analysis of the Presidential Decree suspending constitutional liberties, on the basis of which the Government has been given practically dictatorial power, is transmitted by despatch No. 2223 of March 4, 1933,11 going forward in this pouch.
Respectfully yours,