Background: This speech was given by Albert Norden (1904-1982), a Politbüro member and holder of various other offices in the GDR. It was given at a press conference on the release of How Germany Was Divided,published by the GDR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the time, the GDR was still officially in favor of Germany unity. It was a collection of documents purporting to prove that the West Germany responsible for the division of Germany. It appeared in German, French and English editions. I received a copy in 1966 because I was on the mailing list for Radio Berlin International, the GDR’s international shortwave station. The text is taken from a GDR pamphlet that accompanied copies of the book.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is customary to raise the storm signal on the coasts and in the ports when a destructive storm is gathering.
It is necessary to raise the political warning signal in view of the black clouds which are gathering in the political sky of West Germany.
In fact, West German imperialism, which was previously looked upon by the world with distrust, has entered a new dangerous stage of its peace-threatening policy. What was said exactly four months ago today by Walter Ulbricht, Chairman of the GDR Council of State, in his interview with Neues Deutschland, has come true word for word:
With the aid of the social democratic leaders in the government the notorious nazi Kiesinger, who won his spurs with Goebbels and Ribbentrop, can continue to steer the old course more sharply with new tactical finesse and cunning. After a few weeks of the Kiesinger/Strauss government an employer newspaper triumphantly states: “At last the chief is again master in his own house.” And as in every West German enterprise, anti-democratism, neo-nazism and the expansionist policy becomes the law of unrestricted activity of the new Bonn government.
We do not merely make this assertion. We prove it and open for this purpose the secret drawers of the CDU/CSU and its government and present to you today unknown facts on the internal and external aggressive policy of the Bonn government. We present to you and through you to the world a Grey Bookin which the interplay of CDU/CSU and the party of open nazism is documentarily substantiated. We prove in it the sorry part intended for the social democratic leaders, a part which they obediently play.
The Grey Bookcontains a complete documentation on the aim and content of the new stage of the Bonn expansionist policy and its striving for nuclear weapons as a means of exerting pressure on the peoples of Europe. The book throws a bright light on the transition to dictatorial methods of rule and the spiritual seduction of the people for readiness for war just as on the drill of the West German army in the evil spirit of instigation, against the peoples.
Sole Representation Pretension Prevents European Security
The most concentrated expression of the aggressiveness of the regime of the Federal Republic is the sole representation pretension which constitutes a factual declaration of war against the GDR and a permanent organization of conflicts in Europe.
This pretension is based on three theses of which one is as mendacious and contrary to international law as the others:
1. The Greater German Reich did not experience its downfall in May 1945 but had only suffered a temporary attack of weakness.
2. This collapse was overcome with the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949, and between this state and the German Reich which in Bonn’s view was not destroyed, there thus exists a legal continuity and identity.
3. Accordingly, the Greater German borders were open up to a peace settlement and also up to that date the Second World War had not yet come to an end. If at present Bonn was restricting its territorial claims “only” to the territory of 1937 then this actually is a concession which must be compensated for. The establishment of a state power in that part of the former Hitler Reich was, as far as territories outside the Federal Republic were concerned, an illegal occupation and annexation of federal German territory.
From this Bonn deduces a number of consequences, for example, the assertion that the loyal citizens of the GDR, people’s Poland, the USSR, etc., as far as they are declared to be Germans by Bonn, are subjects of the Federal Republic. According to this logic the Grey Plan drafted by the members and representatives of the federal government for the economic annexation of the GDR is also legal for it only claims the property of the former monopoly rules and big landowners. With regard to the GDR frontier it follows from the sole representation pretension that this was no state border at all and its violation therefore can not be described as aggression.
If one strips the Bonn sole representation pretension of its frills the result is:
It is a complete system of inventions made for the purpose of covering the territorial claims of the West German imperialists in the entire former area of expansion of the nazi state. It is more than a pretension. It is a danger to peace.
The sole representation pretension has been designed as a civil war theory. The “liberation” of the GDR aimed at by Bonn and tested in the “Fallex 66” manoeuvres is to be considered an internal West German police action. On the other hand every observation of the obligations arising from the alliance by the Warsaw Treaty states, every struggle against an attack by Bonn on the GDR would be considered an interference in Bonn’s internal affairs.
Thus it is confirmed that the sole representation pretension is an anticipated declaration of war not only against the GDR but simultaneously against all states of the Warsaw Treaty.
The Bonn government is conducting a two-faced policy. Externally there are the captivating genial gestures of Chancellor Kiesinger and his ever-smiling Brandt who is carrying out the foreign policy prescribed by Kiesinger and Strauss. After Adenauer’s and Erhard’s bankrupt policy one feigns the transition to a different policy during visits to other countries. In reality the oldpolicy is being conducted with different practices. Chancellor Kiesinger clearly characterized the real nature of the old-new Bonn policy with the words:
“If one understands by a consolidation an acceptance of the status quo, then our policy of relaxation has not been understood.” (Regierungsbulletin 31 January 1967)
A policy of relaxation which does not accept the existing frontiers in Europe is a contradiction in itself. One would like to put an isolation belt around the GDR, swallow it, relax briefly in order to digest the booty and then start on a new predatory leap. It is Hitler’s old recipe and it is Hitler’s old assistant, that influential agitator and organizer in Hitler’s foreign ministry, Kiesinger, who is practising this method again today. Everything about it is old and discredited, new is only that social democratic leaders are currently participating in it as ministers. The spiritus rector of the Bonn government, Franz Josef Strauss, formulated it as follows in his book Entwurf für Europa(Draft for Europe): “Only a determined initiative can help to liberate us from the chains of the status quo.” (p. 7)
“We do not want the peace of the so-called status quo, of collective security..., in which a difference is made between the haves and the have-nots.” Is this the continuation of the Strauss quotation? It could be but this statement stems from Göring, spoken on 13 March 1939, hardly a year and a half before the attack on Poland. Not only the policy but the argument has remained the same.
The status quo , i.e., Europe within its present borders, is intolerable to Bonn, just as it was intolerable to Hitler. And since Strauss knows that the West German imperialist state is too weak to think of realizing this evil wish-dream alone, he discloses what Bonn is aiming at with the EEC, the European Parliament and similar institutions: “Only a West European community of action can abolish the demarcation line of the Yalta Conference.” Whereby, naturally, German imperialism wants to take the lead in order to “reorganize” Europe just as had been preached by Hitler. Obviously the gentlemen in Bonn have no new ideas.
So that one knows what is intended by the strong man of the Bonn government, F. J. Strauss presents an ultimatum in his book for a “constitutional Europe extending from the Atlantic to the Bug and the Black Sea.” (p. 84)
Therefore, the overthrow of the people’s democracies and a new order in Europe a la Hitler in the struggle against the Soviet Union. To those self-hypnotists who pretend to believe in a changed Bonn policy the chairman of the foreign policy commission of the CDU/CSU Bundestag parliamentary group, Majonica, has plainly said in the official party organ Politisch-soziale Korrespondenz:
“We have very far-reaching foreign policy aims. Reunification means the radical change of the relations of power as they have emerged since the Second World War in Europe. Only very rarely have the results of a war later been revised by peaceful means.”
Anyone who has even some sense of justice and realities understands that the Bonn sole representation pretension is based on a pure confidence trick since in reality the Bonn sphere of power ends on the Elbe and Werra rivers. Since in addition the principle of effectivity applies in international law, the Bonn pretension is also a violation of such internationally recognized norms as the declarations on non-interference, the independence and sovereignty of the states adopted by the UN General Assembly.
If Bonn claims that it only wants to refuse the diplomatic recognition of the GDR then this is nothing but an obvious trick. It was the present war minister Schröder who, already two-and-a-half years ago, frankly admitted that the GDR could not be considered a state because then it would be “inviolable according to international law.” If the Kiesinger/Strauss government today cloaks its policy with new words, the sole representation pretension remains the falsified alibi of a burglar who pretends that the house he is going to enter is his own. The official Bonn name for the right to commit burglary is the sole representation claim.
Now Herr Kiesinger has declared his readiness to the whole world to make declarations on the renunciation of force with regard to the change of the present borders of the Federal Republic-with one exception, the GDR. Apart from the fact that German imperialism has for decades made the breaking of promises its theory, all Bonn declarations remain senseless and without effect as long as the blitz war doctrine is not explicitly dropped from the alleged right of sole representation, as long as Bonn does not declare its comprehensive recognition of all frontiers as they have existed since 1945 in Europe, in particular the recognition of the GDR, and declare its readiness to make an all-round renunciation of the worst weapons of aggression.
On 10 November 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, Hitler declared: “Only by continuously stressing the German will for peace and peaceful intentions was it possible for me to give the German people. . . the arms which were repeatedly necessary for the next step as a prerequisite.”
It is opportune to recall these words. The neo-nazi character of the present Bonn policy becomes evident not least from the fact that these tactics of Hitler fascism have also been adopted from the period of the Second World War.
The Grey Bookwhich we present to the world public today contains much evidence on how Bonn is trying to adapt itself to the changed forms of the US global strategy and under the pretext of “building bridges” is attempting to penetrate the socialist countries. We submit to the world public the “directives” declared to be secret of the Bonn Foreign Office on the application of the sole representation pretension and other documents.
From all this results the following: The abolition of Bonn’s sole representation pretension is the most important prerequisite for guaranteeing European security. There is only one way by which the process of relaxation in Europe can be started, that is the recognition of realities by the West German Federal Republic.
West Berlin Senate Plot with Kiesinger
A specific role has been assigned to West Berlin in the new phase of the expansionist policy of West German imperialism. In a study by the Senate of West Berlin of January 1967 on “German Policy” the manner in which West Berlin is to be developed as a centre of provocation and disruption is elucidated in 26 pages. We are informed about the content of that study, as well as on the discussions conducted by Kiesinger on that subject on the occasion of his first visit to West Berlin as chancellor in January, followed by talks between him and Wehner, Mayor Albertz and other West Berlin politicians during the so-called Berlin-week of the Bundestag in February.
What measures were adopted with a view of implementing the Senate study?
1. The transfer of ministries from Bonn to West Berlin as “decision centres” was envisaged as a primary task. Further plenary sessions of the Bundestag are to be held in West Berlin as a manifestation of the claim to represent the whole of Germany.
2. Kiesinger assured Albertz that the new Bonn government would also considerably reinforce contacts between the Federal Republic and West Berlin in other spheres. The West German chancellor intends in that connection to bring about a decision in the Bundestag on the repeal of the so-called Berlin-clause in laws, agreements, etc.
3. In contrast to the conception of the western powers, which as Kiesinger said, wanted “tranquility” in West Berlin, the chances to change the status quo should be promoted through West Berlin. Albertz stated that the time had come to pass over from West Berlin to an immediate offensive controversy with the GDR; that was the best tactical move.
4. Albertz agreed with Kiesinger that West Berlin should also be included to a greater extent in the development of Bonn’s “new eastern policy.” Measures such as film festivals, scientific meetings and other events were to loosen the atmosphere and arouse the interest of the states of Eastern Europe in West Berlin.
5. The Senate study finally laid down the basic conception for a new large-scale campaign of disruption and slander against the GDR, in which all Bonn parties are to take part.
A greater freedom of action was to be obtained from the western powers with a view to the implementation of the plans laid down in the Senate study. In several respects accomplished facts are to be created in individual cases independently of this.
The focal point of the Senate study is the thesis according to which West Berlin is officially to be declared to be the 11th, and the GDR the 12th province of the Federal Republic. The Federal Republic would in future emphasize that the GDR was after all a German province just as all the other federal German provinces, so it was stated verbatim. In this way the question of recognition could be avoided in contacts and negotiations would be simple affairs.
Bonn has recently been speaking a great deal about the modification of the Hallstein doctrine. Here is the modification: the discussed and envisaged declaration of the GDR as the 12th federal province of Bonn is a new phase of the escalation policy, is the presumption of the total juridical annexation of the GDR. There is talk about a “flexible eastern policy.” That policy is already so flexible that they are in spirit juridically deployed along the frontiers of the People’s Republic of Poland. Of course the rulers in Bonn will not put one foot across our state frontier.
Yet however hopeless their project may be, it nevertheless shows the kind of dangerous policy conducted by Kiesinger and Strauss in alliance with social democratic ministers and with the social democratic administration of West Berlin. It is again the same policy which was conducted by Hitler when he had heated up public feeling in the western regions of Czechoslovakia and in Danzig prior to his invasion of those territories. Those events were also introduced by juridical annexation. We should like to make a proposal to the gentlemen in Bonn: let them publicly declare themselves to be the 51st federal state of the USA! That would be in line with their anti-national policy. Their plans in regard to the GDR are doomed to failure in any case. They are merely wasting their time, as there has not been and will not be any possibility of altering the fact of the existence of the socialist GDR.
Atomic Plot of the Exclusive Righters
Bonn’s presumptuous claim to be the sole representative of the whole of Germany and its striving for control over atomic arms are twin brothers. That is the only explanation of the running amok of the rulers of the Federal Republic against the possible conclusion of an agreement of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Those gentlemen see a danger for their objectives expounded by Franz Josef Strauss in 1966 in his book Entwurf für Europa, the foreign policy program of expansion of West German imperialism, where he wrote: “An agreement on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons would cement the status quo in Europe and legalize it to a great extent.” (p. 95)
In this way the Bonn government makes it clear that it needs nuclear weapons to run over the present frontiers in Europe, by using them as a threat or by their actual use, unleashing the third world by violating the status quo. The hypocritical policy of the Bonn regime includes the attempt to make its Sabotage of peace tasty to its own population, to conduct a campaign of chauvinistic incitement by propagating the lie that the conclusion of a non-proliferation agreement would reduce the economy of the Federal Republic to the technically backward level of an agrarian state. In truth only the political and military strategists of revanchist war would suffer a set-back and be made poorer by one hope.
Bonn’s main objections to the non-proliferation agreement demanded by socialist and capitalist states alike will stand on test. The alleged obstruction of the further development of the research and utilization of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is an invention, since that is not the subject of the proposed treaty. One might as well assert that the refusal of firearms to murderers and other criminals would obstruct the necessary hunting of wild boars, although hunters will of course be issued with license for firearms.
The allegation that the non-proliferation agreement was a discrediting of all states not possessing nuclear weapons, including the Federal Republic, is based on the lie that the Federal Republic, of all states, the greatest nuclear arms depot outside of USA, is free of nuclear weapons (quite apart from the production plants such weapons in the process of construction). That lie serves to confuse and prejudice the public against those states which are really without nuclear weapons and behind whose backs the West German imperialists are hiding with the intention of deceiving and dominating them.
Bonn only needs to accept Walter Ulbricht’s proposal for an internationally guaranteed and controlled absolute renunciation of nuclear weapons by both German states, and all discrimination would be excluded. If in addition all states which can be shown to be free of nuclear weapons of their own and of others and which renounce them in every form and for all time, were given an international guarantee by all atomic-weapon possessing states on the non-employment of atomic weapons against their territory no one could speak of a one-sided distribution of rights and duties between nuclear and non-nuclear powers. Yet all this is rejected by the Bonn government.
The expansionist West German state stands on the threshold of its own production of atomic weapons. During the past three years a sum of 2.5 thousand million marks has been invested in nuclear research. Three hundred thirty West German firms are working as nuclear technological producers. A complete cycle of nuclear-technical production making possible the industrial production of nuclear weapons has been created. The modern reactors of the Federal Republic are already producing sufficient plutonium for a number of atomic bombs. In fact the Federal Republic is already creating the material-technical basis for its own atomic arms and rocket industry. The atomic arms and rocket cartel of West Germany unites parts of the state machinery of Bonn with arms trusts and research centres. All these facts are proved by the Grey Book of the National Council.
One should not speak of peaceful research here. Exactly one day after Kiesinger had delivered his Government Declaration in December last year, a permanent NATO nuclear weapon committee was formed at the NATO Council meeting on the initiative of Brandt and Schröder, it was made competent for “all matters of the planning of nuclear strategy, the use of nuclear weapons and consultations there-upon.’ West Germany became a permanent member. “The Bundeswehr will retain its atomic weapon carriers”, war minister Schröder announced in January 1967 at a press conference in Marburg on the “Panthersprung” manoeuvre.
Bonn wants to produce atomic weapons — and if not on its own territory, then immediately on foreign territory. In the middle of February 1967 Strauss expressly protested against the signing of any non-proliferation agreement. Kiesinger himself spoke on 17 February against a contractual prohibition of the production of atomic arms on the territory of other countries or jointly with them and the renunciation of atomic weapons.
That utterance of the West German chancellor takes us to a decisive, but too little known state of facts: a regular atomic plot exists between the racist, African murder government of South Africa, condemned and outlawed by the United Nations, and the Kiesinger/Strauss/Brandt government in Bonn.
It will be established with astonishment that no country outside Europe receives as many prominent visitors from Bonn as South Africa. Ministers of the West German government meet in that country several times a year, and the man who is more powerful than all ministers, the super-banker Abs, visits South Africa every year. During the second half of March Minister of the Interior Lücbk eand Alfred Krupp visited South Africa.
What is the meaning of all this?
South African Prime Minister Vorster is a regular nazi who had even been interned during the Second World War because of his pro-Hitler activities.
The most influential member of the government apart from him, Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Diederichs, used to be a high ranking official of the major German banker, Abs, in 1945 sought as a war criminal. The chief of the whole South African police, General Vandenbergh, had also been interned during the Second World War because of pro-Hitler sabotage. Even today he publicly raises his arm in the fascist salute.
The South African Army is commanded by General Hiemstra, who makes no secret of his admiration of Hitler and Mussolini.
This shows that the government in Pretoria is a downright nazi gang, which explains the sympathies of old nazis like Lübce, Kiesinger, Strauss, Abs and Schiller for the oppressors of the South African population.
South Africa last year imported goods from West Germany to the value of far more than a thousand million marks, and exported goods to West Germany to the value of less than 600 million marks. The biggest trusts of the steel, chemical and power industries were equipped with machinery by West German trusts and received credits from West German banks to the value of hundreds of millions of marks.
South Africa not only has fascists at the head of its government, it also has the second-largest deposits of uranium in the capitalist world after Canada. In the negotiations conducted by Diederichs at the beginning of this year with Abs and Strauss in Bonn and which were continued in March in South Africa in the talks between Lücke and Krupp with Diederichs, the purchase of 1,000 tons of uranium ore was discussed, of which part was to “remain stock-piled in South Africa for strategic reasons”, whereas the larger part was to go to the Federal Republic where it is needed as an essential raw substance for the development of atomic weapons.
The cooperation between Bonn and Pretoria is based on the West German strategy of supplying South Africa with production equipment and production processes for fissile materials, to be used in reactors and suitable as a basis for the production of atomic bombs.
When the first reactor was inaugurated one and a half years ago, the head of the South African government at the time openly spoke of the “military use of the material.” In other words, the reactor is to produce the prerequisites for atomic bombs. Bonn thus supplies the reactors and South Africa the uranium. Bonn also supplies the specialists for the South African experimental field: Dr. Verleger, government counsellor under Hitler and nazi university professor, a citizen of the Federal Republic, today heads the South African atomic energy authority with the approval of the Bonn government.
The atomic rockets of the Harp-1 and Harp-3 types constitute the first results of the atomic arms conspiracy between Bonn and South Africa.
A secret agreement is in force between the governments in Bonn and Pretoria, according to which atomic bombs are produced in South Africa with West German reactors and South African uranium, and purchased by Bonn. That is why Kiesinger, Strauss and Helmut Schmidt are raging against the provisions of the atomic weapon non-proliferation agreement. The cause of peace commands that the conspiracy between the nazi racists of South Africa and the old and neo-nazis in the Federal Republic should be unmasked; these elements are jointly working to develop weapons of mass destruction, which brings closer the danger of a third world war.
Ladies and gentlemen! In Bonn a regular united front against the non-proliferation agreement has formed. It reaches from the Kiesinger/Strauss government, the monopolies interested in nuclear arms production, to the generals of the Bundeswehr and their neo-nazi political associates in the NP to the social democratic ministers. That front unites nazi ideologists of the SS paper Nation Europaand Strauss. Some speak of a “death sentence for our continent”, others plagiarize Göring, speaking of the “powerless have-nots.” And the social democratic parliamentary group chief Helmut Schmidt demands that the Federal Republic should seek allies against the proposed agreement in Italy, Canada, Japan and other countries and act as “gangleader” — this self-chosen expression is most fitting for that regime.
In the Grey Bookwe reveal the atomic conspiracy of those who claim to speak in the name of the whole of Germany because They do it because they are sure of the support of the Hitler officers at the head of the Bundeswehr.
When some months ago the anti-Semitic Captain Ross was nominated as candidate for the open neo-nazi National Democratic Party (NP) and was elected to the Bavarian provincial diet, according to information given by himself, all officer ranks financed his election campaign, among them a number with contributions of 1,000 marks each. His commanders and the Bundeswehr minister discharged him in a very honourable manner.
At present 8,500 soldiers, officers and reservists of the Bundeswehr are members of the NP. Sixty per cent of the young officers of the Bundeswehr sympathize with the NP and train the soldiers in the evil spirit of neo-nazism.
But extending far beyond membership in the party, the chauvinist poison penetrates the entire Wehrmacht of the Federal Republic. In our hands are protocols of political instructions held in tank units and many flight regiments. All officers teach the recruits under the slogan: “The old German Reich borders must be restored again.” The daily marching songs of the soldiers include “My Silesian Land” and “My Pomerania.”
The so-called “Egerland March” is one of the most often played tunes of the Bundeswehr bands. Eger is the town of Cheb in Czechoslovakia. West Poland, parts of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union are mentioned directly as targets of conquest in words and songs in political instruction hours.
If these were only exceptional cases it would be bad enough. But a thousand times worse and endangering world peace is the fact that all this corresponds to the official aim of the Bundeswehr leadership. It declares in the latest issue of the Deutsches Soldatenjahrbuch:
“Under the slogan of ‘reunification’ parts of western foreign countries understand only the merging of West and Central Germany. As a result of insufficient enlightenment there the first stage of Central Germany is mixed up with the final goal of the Reich unity including the German eastern provinces.”
Here official Bonn circles confirm that the annexation of the GDR is considered only to be the beginning of a gigantic war of conquest. Hitler first had to win the Wehrmacht for himself. Today the Bundeswehr is already a firm part and promoter of en-nazism. For this reason also almost every Bundeswehr garrison has in its arms or flags the symbols of territories of the Hitler Reich which are located outside the territory of the Federal Republic.
For the sake of their criminal aims the highest-ranking West German NATO generals are openly playing with war since they know that their aims cannot be attained in peace, but they do not yet want to realize that in case of an aggressive war nothing would be left of the Bundeswehr or of the Federal Republic. The NATO supreme commander in Central Europe, the open anti-semitic accomplice of Hitler, Count Kielmansegg, recently demanded the “forward strategy on the demarcation line”, i.e., on the state border between the Federal Republic and the GDR. Questioned as to whether in this connection the use of atomic arms was planned, he replied: “As early and as many atomic arms are required in order to have a chance of success.” (Die Welt, 11 October 1966)
This is the language of the Hitler supreme of British, American, Dutch, Belgian, Canadian and German NATO troops. May the peoples and governments of Western Europe realize that Bonn has designed for them the fate of bleeding to death for the Europe hegemony of the West German revanchists in a third world war.
Do not tell us that only a few mad generals are concerned here. What this say, do and prepare corresponds to the will of the government of the West German Federal Republic.
What the revanchists’ intentions are is shown by the utterances of the so-called Landsmannschaften (associations of fellow countrymen) financed by the Bonn government. Some weeks ago the so-called Silesian Landsmannschaft declared that “Breslau with the whole of Silesia was legally and historically now as before a part of Germany within the borders of 1937.”
In the coming weeks and months eleven big central mass meetings of the so-called Landsmannschaften will be held, among tem meetings of the Pomeranians, the Sudeten Germans coming from Czechoslovakia, the Siebenbürgen Germans who stem from Rumania and the Dobrudsha Germans, the meeting of Danzig citizens, of Silesians coming from Poland, the federal delegate meeting of the German Balts from the Estonian and Latvian Soviet Socialist Republics as well as the Landsmannschaft of the Germans from Soviet Lithuania.
It must internationally be considered a climax of provocations that exactly one month from today Chancellor Kiesinger and Foreign Minister Willy Brandt will speak to the congress of the so-called East German provincial representative bodies in Bonn and thus express their approval of the annexationist claims of these organizations and consecrate it on behalf of the federal government. But in addition social democratic Minister Wehner saw that the so-called Association of Expelled Persons is to receive this year a large enough sum from the government to enable it to spend sixty times as much for its foreign propaganda as in the previous year.
GDR Presents the Bonn Emergency Enabling Law
The sole representation pretension has the same importance for Bonn foreign policy as has the emergency legislation for Bonn home policy.
For the citizens of the Federal Republic the 10 March of this year was a real black Friday. On that day the draft of the so-called emergency constitution was adopted by the cabinet. Thus the conspiracy between Kiesinger and Strauss on the one hand and the social democratic ministers on the other, designed to out-manoeuvre the trade unions and the people, was accomplished.
The draft that was negotiated behind closed doors is still being kept secret by the Bonn government up to this very hour although social democratic ministers declare that, thanks to their influence and activities, all doubts of opponents of the emergency laws have been dispelled. In an interview published on 21 March in the Bonn government bulletin, Kiesinger declared that everything has been “Quietly managed”, and he designated the cabinet draft as “acceptable.” Quite obviously, the largest trade union of the Federal Republic takes another view. On that same 21 March the Metalworkers’ Industrial Union challenged the Bonn government to publish the draft of the emergency laws.
Since, however, the Kiesinger/Strauss government has ignored this challenge up to now we deem it our duty to inform the West German people about what has been drafted behind their backs. It involves the “Draft of a Law to Supplement the Basic Law”, i.e., the new emergency constitution, as adopted on 10 March by the Bonn cabinet, and the “Draft of a Law on Limiting the Secrecy of Private Correspondence, Letters, and Telecommunications” adopted on the same day.
Anyone who reads these two law projects will realize why their creators had good reason for avoiding the light of day.
Whoever discloses the core of these laws that lies hidden under the welter of paragraphs, and compares the new emergency laws with the preceding ones, will see that there is no change for the better for the West German people. The “poisonous teeth” of the old drafts were not extracted but only a few gold crowns were cemented on. There are no improvements whatsoever, but many things are worse.
From 1949 to the end of 1966 thirteen amendments to the Basic Law were adopted. For the 1967 to 1969 period Kiesinger announced 84 amendments of the Basic Law. Today it is no longer merely a question of constitutional amendments. The “internal reform of the state”, that is so zealously practised by the ruling circles, aims at completely abolishing the constitutional order.
I draw your attention to the envisaged new version of Article 91 of the Basic Law. From this it is clear that now as before the so-called inner emergency is the cardinal point of the emergency constitution. Now as before the establishment of a dictatorship empowered to enact laws on its own authority is the centre of the law. Whenever the rulers of the Federal Republic feel the urge to construct a “threat to the existence or to the free democratic order of the Federation or a province”, they can proclaim the state of emergency and proceed to dictatorial sanctions.
The emergency constitution is Bonn’s permanent declaration of war against its own population, against whom the Bonn government can put into action at any time units of the federal frontier guard and the Bundeswehr, commanded by Hitler officers. In the Grey Bookyou will find the text of the “Emergency Decree on the Federal Frontier Guard”, in which this planned action against the West German population is planned to the last detail.
The rulers of the Federal Republic are determined to continue the blood-stained traditions of German imperialism and are determined to take direct military action against any democratic impulses of the people.
I further draw your attention to the envisaged new draft of Article 12 of the Basic Law. It proves that the emergency constitution is an anti-trade union law to introduce and enforce modern slave labour. The freedom of association and the right to strike achieved in decades of struggle are to be struck down.
The assertions that the possibility of forcing the West German population to do service is now restricted are pure lies. The truth is that all men from the age of 18 are to be called up for so-called “civilian service.“ The truth is that women, too, can be subjected to enforced duties. Section 3 of Article 12 in fact gives full powers to force men and women to work in objects of so-called military importance.
One thing is clear after all this: the formal obeisance to “legal” labour struggles in Article 91 of the new draft is only calculated to throw dust in the eyes of the trade unions and other opponents of emergency. In reality the Hitler system of forced labour is to be reintroduced and the freedom of association and the right to strike abolished.
It is just the same with all the other “relaxations” which are so loudly praised by Kiesinger, Lücke, and Wehner. Demand from Bonn the publication of the texts of the laws! When you have read the texts of these two draft laws form your own opinion about this perfect emergency machinery for suppressing the population of one’s own country!
All this has been worked out and adopted with the help of social democratic ministers! They are in fact neither “social” nor “democratic.” They have assumed the part of ordinary lackeys in the campaign against their own people.
Those who cherished illusions about the participation of social democratic ministers in the CDU government are finding the word-for-word confirmation of what we said on the day the great coalition was founded: a further step to the right is being executed, further steps are being taken towards a policy of expansion at home and abroad. For this purpose the ruling forces in Bonn need the social democratic leaders. For this purpose they were admitted into the government, in order to secure a two-thirds, majority in parliament.
Kiesinger, Strauss, Lücke, and Wehner want to retain the “Quiet”, in order not to endanger their emergency plans. Not quiet is necessary, however, but a storm to sweep these projects off the table.
In the Grey Bookwhich we are submitting to the public today we describe how Kiesinger and Strauss are making the Federal Chancellery into a modernized Reich Chancellery, a perfect dictatorial machinery which already in the time of Globke the murderer of Jews had been the Bonn government proper. For this purpose Kiesinger has again appointed an old nazi, the former staff officer of the Hitler Wehrmacht, Knieper, to be head of the Federal Chancellery.
The secret services which, as is well known, receive their orders from this same Chancellor’s Office, play a special part in this so-called civilian general staff. In the system of the emergency dictatorship, in connection with the increasing social struggles and the planned provocations in the sphere of foreign policy the Bonn Office for the Protection of the Constitution is destined for a special function as an instrument of repression at home. This Office, which is saturated from top to bottom with former SS men and nazi murderers, is mainly utilized for spying on trade unions, young workers’ organizations, communists, humanist intellectuals, and those social democrats who do not blindly follow Wehner’s policy. The direction is completely unambiguous, for a certain Günter Nollau has been appointed vice president of the secret service organization. As head of department III he was formerly responsible for surveillance over “left-wing radicalism.”
The appointment of Hans Joseph Horshem — he also comes from this notorious department III of the Bonn secret service organization — as personal advisor to Herbert Wehner only rounds off the picture and it is an additional proof of the part played by social democratic ministers.
West Germany Needs a New Policy
It is time to draw the conclusions from the facts which have been unfolded here and those which are contained in the Grey Book. The result is that German imperialism is attempting to pursue an old policy with new phrases. Less than four months of the Kiesinger/Strauss government confirms our assessment that the participation of social democratic ministers does not in the least change the program of attack of German imperialism but on the contrary even gives it new impetus. The glue with which the social democratic ministers are stuck to Goebbels’s and Ribbentrop’s disciples, to Strauss with his “red danger”, and even to the outspoken neo-nazis is anti-communism.
The path to the establishment of the formed society as proclaimed by the CDU congress in 1965 was not realized quickly enough by Erhard. Now this path is being trodden with the help of the social democratic leaders, for they are needed to put pressure on the trade unions. Disguised as a social democrat, old nazi Schiller speaks of “concerted action” in this connection. The trade unions put it correctly by stating that it is a question of concentrated reaction.
Far from dismantling authoritarian rule right-wing social democracy helps to sharpen the dictatorship of finance capital. Therefore, the government adopted the dictatorial emergency laws in great haste, and now intends to submit them to the Bundestag. That is why the Bundeswehr is poisoned with chauvinism. That is why Bonn stages provocations in West Berlin.
West German citizens occasionally ask us: “We do not want a war-can anybody in West Germany want it?” Permit me also a frank reply to this question. Even Hitler would not have wanted war had he been able to get everything he wanted without a war. The problem is that a reactionary class sets itself political aims which are beyond the sphere of action of peaceful means and which objectively set the signals for war preparations.
No, one may never trust German imperialism, not even if it talks of peace with a split tongue. They all talked about peace-Kaiser Wilhelm, Hindenberg and Hitler, too.
Heinrich Mann characterized the speciality of German imperialism with the words: “A power which has already been defeated, but not yet enough, cannot stop. It learns but little reason and modesty but all the more cunning and crime.” Bonn’s expansionist policy, the fatal alliance of the sole representation pretension and the lust for atomic arms and the emergency dictatorship admonish the peoples of Europe to be vigilant against cunning and crime, warn above all the West German population which is not served by a flood of words drafted by unknown authors and read by well-known ministers.
West Germany is not in need of the pretension of a new policy but of the reality of a new policy. What would be the content of a new policy?
A new policy would reduce arms expenditures. The Kiesinger/Strauss government with its social democratic ministers is doing the opposite.
A new policy requires the renunciation of atomic weapons is every form and would thus contribute to tranquility in the whole of Europe. The Kiesinger/Strauss government with its social democratic ministers is doing the opposite.
A new policy would throw the emergency laws into the waste basket. For emergency laws are to prepare the hinterland for war and to silence the enemies of the aggressive policy by force. The Kiesinger/Strauss government with its social democratic ministers is doing the opposite. In fact only with the assistance of the SP ministers can the Kiesingers, Strausses, Lückes hope for the adoption of the emergency laws which tear up the constitution.
A new policy would express the recognition of the borders in Europe including the borders of the GDR, would stop the course of cold war and end the Bonn governmental and parliamentary activity in the city of West Berlin which is located on the territory of the GDR, a city which does not belong to the Federal Republic and will never belong to it. The Kiesinger/Strauss government with its social democratic ministers is doing the opposite.
Naturally these are not slip-ups of the social democratic leadership, by no means, it stands on the ground of the imperialist state and its monopoly capitalist economy. With the assistance of this state, its direct or indirect atomic armament, its Bundeswehr, its emergency legislature, the Wehners and Brandts are fostering the mad illusion of bringing about the incorporation or annexation of the GDR after all. Their mayor in West Berlin, Albertz, has openly expressed it.
Let us say it quite clearly: The touchstone for the policy of West Germany is not general speeches about relaxation, but the attitude of the Bonn government towards the German Democratic Republic. Bonn must renounce the sole representation pretension by words and deeds, must recognize the existence of two German states and the existing frontiers in Europe and must make a solemn declaration on the renunciation of force to the GDR government. Only in that way can peace and quiet be established on our continent and disaster averted from the peoples of Western and Eastern Europe.
Nothing will be left for the inventors and pursuers of the so-called flexible Eastern policy of the Bonn regime but to acknowledge that those who seriously wish to conduct a policy of relaxation must above all approach the GDR. It is absolutely hopeless to want to deny the status quo in Europe. Bonn must finally understand that the way to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the socialists states in Europe involves the establishment of normal relations between the governments of the two German states and the abandonment of the Hallstein doctrine.
The treaties now concluded between the GDR, the People’s Republic of Poland and the Czechoslovak Socialists Republic and the recent meeting of the foreign ministers of the Warsaw Treaty states should dispel the illusion that it might perhaps be possible to isolate the GDR and later to annex it.
It had been hoped in Bonn and they were foolish enough to say so, that the GDR could be isolated. Today it is the cold warriors, whose tongues speak of peace, who are isolated. Their intentions have been recognized and will be crossed.
Ladies and gentlemen, I need not call to your mind the innumerable initiatives of the GDR, of the chairman of its Council of State, its government, its People’s Chamber, concrete proposals in which we showed a noteworthy readiness for compromises for disarmament in the two German states and for keeping their territories free of atomic arms and for normalizing their general relations.
These proposals will go down in history and make history. For they show that one of the two German states, namely, the German Democratic Republic, has dedicated itself to the cause of peace, whereas the government of the other state, no matter whether it is headed by Adenauer, Erhard or Kiesinger, demagogically protests peace and simultaneously opposes all constructive GDR proposals for calming the international atmosphere and is unequivocally preparing for an aggression. Bonn is conducting a terrifying policy of internal and external aggression, just because between the Rhine and Werra those same monopolies dominate which caused the ruin of the Weimar Republic, which brought Hitler to power and which made huge profits out of his war.
The GDR is the German anti-nazi state. Anyone who tries to attack the GDR proves to be the executioner of the nazi state of Hitlerite coinage. He will end in the same way as his predecessor.
With the German Democratic Republic the world is experiencing the first German anti-monopoly-capitalist and therefore democratic state in action. All people in Europe can rely on this state: it will not stop working for the lessening of tension and as an important state power for the safeguarding of peace.
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