The Copenhagen Secretariat

Abstract

This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. chapter 8 The Copenhagen SecretariatPechmann, Shelley and Walter returned to a country that was in turmoil. Unemployment had increased in Germany from 8.5 to nearly 30 percent in 1932 while industrial production dropped by more than 40 percent. The nsdap had won a landslide victory in the July 1932 national elections and the party became the biggest one in parliament. The kpd, too, had won seats. Street fights between paramilitary units of the nsdap, spd and kpd paralysed public space. Violent clashes between the sa and the communists in Altona on 17 July 1932 resulted in 18 people dead, 16 of them by police bullets. The "Altonaer Blutsonntag" (Altona Bloody Sunday) triggered the German Chancellor Franz von Papen to declare a state of emergency on 20 July, dismissed the Prussian spd-led government of Otto Braun, and put Prussia under direct administration of the federal government. New national elections followed in November 1932 with some losses for the nsdap and a slight increase of the kpd. The political crisis further escalated in December when President Hindenburg dismissed Chancellor von Papen and replaced him with Defence Minister Kurt von Schleicher. However, von Schleicher's ambitions to build up a coalition with the left-wing of the Nazi Party failed. Unable to form a coalition government, von Schleicher resigned on 28 January 1933, and Hindenburg nominated Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. The German Parliament was dissolved the following day, and new elections were called for March 5.Neither the Comintern nor the kpd identified the national socialists to be their main enemy. In their view, the rationale of the 'Class-Against-Class'doctrine rightly identified the 'social fascists' , the spd and its auxiliary organisations as well as the social democratic trade union leaders, to be their first target. According to communist logic, the "masses of the working class" would rally behind the kpd once the "treachery" of the spd had been revealed. The workers were called to form a 'United front from below' against the capitalist exploiters and their lackeys, the 'social fascists' , any cooperation between the communists and social democrats was not on the agenda.1