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An Appeal of the
German Communists
DESTROY HITLER!
FREE GERMANY!
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The text of the appeal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany published in this pamphlet was received
itt New York in a newspaper dispatch dated November 22, 1941.
The dispatch states that the appeal was found on the body of
a German non-commissioned officer who was killed in action on
the Eastern Front, and that the leaflet on which the appeal was
printed bore signs of having been much handled.
Published by
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS, INC.
P.O. BOX
148,
STATION D, NEW YORK CITY
January, 1942
~209
FOREWORD
A MERICA is now engaged in a life-or-death struggle for her
fi, national existence against Nazi Germany and its vassals,
Japan and Italy. We are fighting to defend our country, our
homes and our freedom against the Nazi gangsters, who would
enslave and ravage America, as they have done already in Europe,
Asia and Africa. Weare fighting side by side with all the free
and freedom-loving peoples of the w.,rld-the Soviet Union,
Britain, China, the Latin American Republics and the conquered
nations of Europe-to defend civilization, all over the world,
against the blackest and most brutal type of reaction that has
ever menaced human society.
Everything-all the fruits of human progress and culture
down the ages-depends on the victory of the democratic allies
over Hitler and the Axis.
Not the least of the great historic issues at stake in this war
is the future of Germany itself. Hitler has betrayed and devastated the German nation. Under the pretext of righting the
wrongs of Versailles, he has brought upon Germany a fate a
thousand times worse than Versailles. Ten years ago, on the eve
of Hitler's seizure of power, Germany stood among the most
advanced and progressive of nations, economically, culturally,
socially and politically; today it is a land of hunger, death and
nightmarish reaction. It is Hitler who has done all this to Germany, at the dictate of the steel, chemical and munit,ions trusts
and the Junker-landlord-generals, to realize their insane dream
of world domination. For the sake of their mad desire for iron,
3
oil and colonial plunder, he has plunged the whole world into
war, and thus united the whole world against Germany a1\d his
tottering puppet-allies.
Yes, Hitler and the Nazis, and the finance capitalists and
Junker-landlords who stand behind them, are the real enemies of
Germany and the German people. Their defeat and overthrow
is the only salvation for Germany.
To date the main brunt of the Nazi attack is being borne by
the heroic Soviet Union. In meeting this attack and beating it
back, the great Red Army is at the same time striking decisive
blows for the defense of America and for the ultimate liberation
of the German people. Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union shattered his last pretense of fighting for the national interests of
Germany. The traditional friendship of the Soviet Union for the
German people is known to all. The Soviet Union was not a
party to the Versailles Treaty. She alone befriended the newborn
German republic in the ttying years after 1918. She scrupulously
observed the Non-Aggression Pact signed with the German Government in 1939, up to the moment of Hitler's attack. June 22,
1941, convinced even the most reluctant that Hitler's policy is
dictated solely by the criminal ambitions of the imperialistminded clique that pulls the wires behind the Nazi regime.
Thus the war which we and our allieS are waging for our
national existence is at the same time a war for the liberation of
the German people from Nazi slavery. The destruction of
Hitler's military machine will for the first time create the conditions in which the real Germany, the Germany of the people,
can assert its will and work out its destiny.
The appeal of the Communist Party of Germany, which we
reprint herewith (it was first published in English translation
in the Sunday Worker, November 23,1941), is a document of
4
the greatest historical importance. In it the German Communists
call upon the people of Germany to fight with the free peoples
of the world, against Hitler, for a democratic and peaceful
Germany.
To the American public in general this document is of interest
because it reveals that there are forces within the German nation
that are fighting as valiantly against the Nazis as the democratic
armies that are fighting frolll without. Of course, the German
Communists are not the only such force. Trade unionists, liberals,
Social.Democrats, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, organized or
unorganized, are struggling in whatever way they can, under conditions of unprecedented repression and terror. The elements of
German democracy are not dead. To them, and not to the Nazi
sadists, belongs the future of Germany.
For Americans of German descent, among whom the authors
of this Foreword are included, this appeal of the German Communists is of special interest and importance. It shows them that
the most patriotic and clear-sighted among the German people
themselves see in Hitler's defeat the only hope for the freedom
and future well·being of Germany. The German Communists,
flesh and blood of the German nation, who denounced the war
of 1914·18 as an imperialist war on both sides and fought untiringly against the oppressive features of the Versailles Treaty,
proclaim this to be a just war on th,e part of the nations fighting
Hitler, leading, with the overthrow of Hitler, to a just and
democratic peace.
It is obviously to America's interest to give every possible
support and encouragement to the democratic forces within
Germany, who are fighting with us against Hitler even now, and
who as the war continues can prove the decisive force in effecting his final debacle. Hitler's propagandists, striving desperately
5
to keep their awakening people in line in face of the disastrous
defeats on the Soviet front, hold out before the German masses
the menace of a new and more terrible Versailles. We must knock
this false weapon out of Hitler's hands! We must let the German people know that the American people, in solidarity with
the peoples of the Soviet Union, Britain, China and the other
Allies, will uphold and detend a resurgent democracy in a free
Germany, once Hitler and the Nazi-imperialist gang have been
driven from power. Full understanding of this in Germany will
kindle a roaring fire under the Nazis' feet, hastening and ensuring our final victory.
America has taken up arms in this just war, and is mobilizing
all her human and material resources to win it. The unity, enthusiasm and patriotic devotion of our people in the mobilization
of the nation surpass anything in our history since the days of
the Civil War; because we know that our cause is just, that we
are fighting for America and at the same time for the liberation
of all the oppressed throughout the world.
We Americans of German birth and descent have a tremendous contribution to make in the national mobilization for victory; in the armed forces, on the production lines of industry,
in the Civilian Defense apparatus. We are inspired in this by the
example of our honored forerunners: Carl Schurz, Joseph
Weydemeyer and the others in the days of the American Civil
War; von Steuben and his colleagues in the time of the American Revolution.
We are, indeed, already making this contribution. The two
sons of Mr. and Mrs. Max Mueller, German-born Americans
of Omaha, Nebraska, were among the very first to give their
lives on the battleship Arizona at Pearl Harbor. Lieut. Boyd
Wagner, of Johnstown, Pa., was the first Army flier to be cited
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for bravery, along with the martyred Colin Kelly, by Gen~at: ;'.
MacArthur in the Philippines. There are countless thousillld; ;;.
more, who have not yet been mentioned by name.
_. ~ ~
But, like the whole American people of which we are .:part ;;.
-we have just begun to fight. The months that lie ahead m@t ~
see us in the forefront of the national war effort, offering cj!lr~
lives in the armed forces, laboring tirelessly in the factories, glv-::
ing all our free time for Civilian Defense and every spare dollar-:
for Defense Bonds and Stamps. Our organizations must become
centers of democratic education for the masses, teaching our
people the historic issues of this war, arousing their enthusiasm
and confounding the insidious defeatist propaganda which
Hitler's agents will try to spread in our ranks.
German-American trade unionists, and unions with a large
German-American membership, have a special responsibility in
this regard. Drawing strength and taking leadership from the
powerful and progressive American labor movement, which is
fully united on all the issues of the war, the trade unionists and
union organizations must assume responsibility for stimulating·
and rallying not only the workers, but all sections of the GermanAmerican community, in every city and throughout the nation,.
to meet the needs of the hour.
As a special task, we Americans of German descent must assist
the government in finding and bringing to justice Nazi spies and
_saboteurs who will unquestionably try to conceal themselves
among us. The Kunzes (Bund), McWilliamses (Christian Front)
and Laura Ingallses (America First), citizen or alien, open or
covert, are Hitler's fifth column in America and must be fought
as ruthlessly' as his armies on the battlefield. If they imagine that
they can use our natural and legitimate concern for our kin in
Germany for their filthy purposes they have a bitter lesson in.
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.;. ,ditore for them. On the contrary, this very concern reinforces our
:. ::;will to fight, with our fellow-Americans, for the destruction of
- 1-liiler and his Axis-and his agents in America.
~ - The loyalty of Americans of German birth and descent is un;:. questionable and, indeed, unquestioned. President Roosevelt,
- ~ttorney General Biddle and other Government leaders, in true
.:: democratic spirit, have already made a sharp and clear distinc- tion, on several occasions, between the handful of disloyal
elements and the great mass of loyal people. They have denounced and forbidden any tendency to persecute and discriminate against men and women merely because they are of German
birth or bear a German name. Anyone practicing such discrimination is subverting the stated policy of our Government, and must
be stopped without delay.
We call upon all our fellow German-Americans to prove
themselves a thousand times worthy of the confidence of our
Government, by setting an example to the whole American
people of sacrifice and devotion in this gravest crisis of our
nation's history.
Smash Hitler and the Berlin-Rome-Tokio Axis!
Everything for the War! Everything for Victory! Everything
for the Defense of America's Freedom!
For a Full-Fledged Alliance Between the U .S.A., the Soviet
Union, Britain and China!
FOf the Solidarity and Friendship of the Peoples of the World!
For a Free and Peaceful Germany, Liberated from Nazi
Tyranny!
MAX
BEDACHT
ALFRED WAGENKNECHT
8
DESTROY HITLER! FREE GERMANY!
Appeal of the German Communists
TO
THE German people and army!
Workers, peasants, citizens! For more than two years the
German people have been bled for the sake of Hitler's mad plans
of world domination. In these fateful days, the Communist
Party of Germany is addressing its message to the German people
and the German Army.
We Communists have repeatedly warned you of the great
danger Hitler represents for our people and our country. We
have called upon you to fight this monster. We have told you
that Hitler means measureless want, unprecedented shame and
endless war for our country.
But never before was our national misfortune so great as it is
today. Hitler's military successes in Holland, Belgium, France
and the Balkans have not brought peace but new wars, new and
even greater sacrifices and hardship.
Hitler's foul and perfidious attack on the Soviet Union on
June 22 marked the greatest of all crimes ever committed
against the German people and brought on Germany the greatest'
calamity she has yet known. In these four months of war millions
of German soldiers have been senselessly sacrificed a"nd now
Hitler is driving German armies over heaps of corpses in a new
bloody offensive. With unparalleled cynicism he promises the
9
tormented and despairing German soldier that this offensive will
bring final victory and peace.
But recall the past, German soldiers! One year ago Hitler
boasted that the outcome of the war was determined and that
England was crushed. That was a lie. Since then England has
only grown stronger. In July Hitler declared the Red Army was
annihilated. That, too, was a lie, for the Red Army's resistance
has become more stubborn and powerful.
Today German soldiers and their families at home are beginning to see more clearly the fatal truth that millions and millions
of Germans will never return from the field of battle which is
raging over part of the territory of Soviet Russia. Never before
has any German Government so heedlessly hurled a whole generation of Ge~ans into the jaws of death as Hitler has done.
In the face of this bloody catastrophe, every German is asking
himself: Why has this criminal war against Soviet Russia ever
begun? You remember how all of us were shocked at news of
the attack on the ,Soviet Union. We knew that the Russian
people were a friend of the German people and had proved it
time and again ever since 1918. Russia supported Germany in
the difficult days of Versailles. The Soviet Union concluded the
Rapallo Treaty at a time when Germany was isolated. We knew
that Germany and the Soviet Union had concluded a nonaggression pact. We knew, too, that the Soviet Union had
scrupulously adhered to this pact.
At no time prior to June 22 did Hitler make any complaints
or present any claims. All of Hitler's lying assertions made after
his treacherous attack on the U.S.S.R. are refuted by facts.
Millions of our soldiers can confirm that Hitler and not the
10
Soviet Union concentrated tremendous war forces on the Soviet
frontiers at the beginning of this year. Hitler dispatched German
troops to Finland, Rumania and Bulgaria to gain vantage points
for the attack on the Soviet Union.
Without -any warning German air forces bombed peaceful
Soviet towns on Hitler's orders. Without declaring war, Hitler
perfidiously hurled the German Army against Soviet Russia.
Had the Soviet Union any intention of encroaching on Germany, it would not have waited for the German army to attack
it. It is a known fact that the Soviet Union mobilized its armed
forces only after the German army had invaded Soviet territory.
The facts are against Hitler and he will never succeed in convincing the German people of the justness of this criminal war
or in proving that it was necessary or inevitable. Hitler attacked
the Soviet Union only to plunder it and use its raw materials and
natural riches for the war against England and to prepare war
against the United States.
The avid German plutocrats and Nazi chieftains want to wax
rich on the predatory war against the Soviet Union. But the
German people stand to gain nothing in this war. This robber
war will make the Goering concern richer, but the German people
still poorer; it will make the Russian people Germany's irreconcilable foe.
In this policy Hitler turned ·out to be not only the oppressor
of nations but a short-sighted and a none-too-clever statesman.
His stupid and short-sighted policy has only brought about a
united front of England, the U.S.S.R. and the United States.
Hitler feared a war on two fronts, but in actual fact he has
caused an alliance of three great nations to be formed, and this
11
represents three fronts of mighty powers against Germany. One
can hardly conceive of a more stupid and idiotic policy.
German workers! Is it not a disgrace for you that you are not
hindering Hitler in prosecuting this war against the world's only
socialist state, that you forge weapons against the country where
workers and pea~ants are in power? Do you not realize that you
are thereby forging chains for your even worse enslavement?
German Soldiers! Do you wish to shed your blood and perish
without honor as landsknechts [serfs} of reaction in a war
against a people courageously defending their Cduntry, liberty
and the socialist system?
The German people have had enough of' this criminal war.
It has brought the GJ!rmans ' only want, misfortune and shame.
The German people wa~t peace. But every military success by
Hitler only lengthens the war, increases losses and plunges Germany into a deeper abyss.
Bowed down by back-breaking toil, hungry, ill-clad, always
trembling for the lives of its sons, and filled with constant alarm.
our people enter this third winter of war_ The hatred of enemies
who no longer wish to bear slavery and terror is rising round
Germany. The war waged by these subjugated and tormented
people against Hitler is a just war. The German people cannot
take upon themselves the disgraceful role of the executioner of
freedom-cherishing nations. If the Germans wish to be free, if
they wish to wipe out the black record of Hitler's crimes, they
must support the liberation struggles of the European peoples
and primarily the Soviet Union's great liberation war.
This is a hopeless war for the German people. Hitler has
thrown all his reserves against the Soviet Union, yet he cannot
12
~----------------------
overcome the Soviet people and the Red Army. The Soviet
Union's material and moral reserves are inexhaustible. Behind
every front looms a new front. Every step forward is paid for by
the blood and corpses of German troops. And while the German
army is bleeding white in the war against the Soviet Union,
England is mustering enormous forces in all parts of her world
empire. The United States is placing her gigantic industry at the
disposal of the peoples fighting for freedom.
Only a madman can think that Hitler could ever overcome
this world coalition!
Hitler's defeat is inevitable. Foreseeing his inexorably nearing
doom, involving Germany in new adventures, Hitler tries to main·
tain his grip over the German people by false assertions that his
defeat would mark catastrophe for Germany. But history shows
that never have peoples perished for overthrowing criminal governments. Quite the contrary, the overthrow of such governments
helped the material and moral resurrection of nations.
The German people's sole salvation is to end the war. But to
do this Hitler must be overthrown. As long as Hitler and his
gang rule Germany, war is bound to continue, and woe to our
people if it links up its destiny with Hitler, and if we Germans
do not ourselves establish order in Germany, but leave it to other
nations to purge Europe of the fascist plague.
The hour has struck for our people to take Germany's fate in
their own hands, to end the war and obtain a peace with honor.
We appeal to all Germans who can no longer bear the privations
of war, we appeal to the soldiers at the front, to their families, to
workers, peasants, to all citizens behind the lines: Fight to end
the war, fight for Germany's salvationl
13
Hitler is the symbol of war without end. Hitler's path leads
to the extermination of our people, to the collapse of our country,
to catastrophe. This path is not the path of the German people.
The German people have their own other path, a path leading to
the liberation of the German people from Hitler's reign of oppression, a path that will bring G~rmany peace and will make
her the embodiment of the true popular will.
This Germany will be a country without plutocratic free-booters and fascist marauders, it will be . a nation governed by our
honest, diligent people. It will be a country without unemployment, with the guaranteed right to labor, a country in which the
peasant will be able to freely dispose ofthe products of his labor.
This Germany will be a country without fascist barbarity, a
country in which man's abilities and labor, rather than wealth
and origin, will determine his position in society.
This Germany will be a country freed from the terrible contradictions between the riches of some and the squalid poverty of
others. It will be an integral Germany, independent, and an
equal among equals. This Germany will live at peace with all
nations.
Workers, peasants, citizens! Fight for this Germany! Its
establishment will be a real-and the greatest-victory for the
German people in this war!
Unless you take this' just and honorable path, you risk going
through the defeat of the German army and the German state,
a defeat more devastating than that suffered in the first World
War. That defeat would mean Germany's dismemberment and
payment for the war losses caused Europe and the U.S.S.R. by
Hitler.
14
Down with Hitler and his gang of Goebbelses, Goerings,
Himmlers and Ribbentrops!
Soldiers! End the war! Refuse to attack!
Workers! Use every means to bring Hitler's war machine to
a standstill!
Women! Demand the return of your husbands, brothers, sons,
from the front!
German People! Forward to the struggle for a People's Germany, for a Germany of peace and freedom!
CENTRAL COMMITTEE,
COMMUNIST PARTY OF GERMANY.
Signed:
WILHELM
PIECK,
WILHELM
FLORIN,
WALTER
ULBRICHT, HERBERT FUNK, PETER ACKERMAN, FRITZ ARNDT,
MICHAEL NIEDERKIRCHNER, IRENE GARNER, GUSTAV SOBOTKA,
WILHELM ERASMUS, RICHARD STAHLMANN.
15
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