The (German-American) Fascist International

​Alliance for Progress?

The (German-American) Fascist International

By Georg Herde

While flaunting democratic slogans during election campaigns, many,American Senators and Congressmen are strange bed fellows of Neo-Nazi, leaders when visiting West Germany. Making common cause with former Nazi officers, they lend active support to undisguised revanchist movements in West Germany. The following account is strange and sad, and, unfortunately, it is also true. -Ed.

Czechoslovakia was one of the first nation- victims of Hitler's aggressions in Europe. As soon as Hitler ascended to power in Germany, in 1933, his faithful disciple, Konrad Henlein. organized the "Sudeten German Party." This was in effect a branch of the National-Socialist Party on Czech soil, and it fulfilled an infamous role in precipitating the annexation of the Sudeten region by Hitler Germany, and in the eventual decline of the Czechoslovak state.

It could not be expected that a revived post- war Czechoslovakia would remain indifferent towards her home-grown Nazis. The Potsdam Agreement, signed on August 2, 1945 by President Harry S. Truman, Prime Minister Clement R. Atlee and Marshal Joseph W. Stalin, addressed itself to that vital problem; and its Section XIII called for the transfer of the German population living in Czechoslovakia to Germany.

It did not take long until the expellees started sensing the unique political opportunity ac- corded them by the East-European policies of Chancellor Adenauer's Government and those of the NATO allies. As soon after World War II as 1948, the German expellees from Czechoslovakia started forming a distinct political movement, whose main characteristics were closely reminiscent of Henlein's party. The spirit and the goals of the movement are virtually the same as those that were pursued by the Nazi Fifth Column preceding the Disgrace of Munich. Hitler's assignment to Henlein outlived both; and their political disciples are determined once more to bring about the decline of Czechoslovakia. Former leading National-Socialists and SS officers organized the "Sudeten German Landsmanschaft", employing an understandable home nostalgia of the expellees for devious political ends of the cold war.

The biographies of virtually all of the "Landsmanschaft's" leaders in themselves constitute quite a chapter in Nazi history. The list of present leaders who in days past were Nazi leaders seems endless. Some of them, in addition to the sad consistency of their political career during and after the Nazi era, also occupy important official positions in West Germany. The speaker of the "Sudeten German Landsmanschaft" is Federal Minister Dr. Hans- Christoph Seebohm, who, during the Nazi period, became the chairman of the Colliery A.G. complex of Czechoslovakia, after the "aryanization", or the elimination of the Jewish owners, from the company. The federal chairman of the Landsmanschaft is Dr. Franz Boehm, former head of the NSDAP District Court in Sudeten. The long list of such leaders includes Franz Karmasin, formerly Konrad Henlein's deputy, head of the NSDAP in Slovakia and secretary of the fascist government of Tiso.

These same individuals and other leaders of the Landsmanschaft, a list of whom would be loo long to include here, prepared Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia. They are responsible for the unspeakable wave of terror that swept that unfortunate country. They carried on the anti-Semitic campaign that culminated in the extermination of Jews and those gentiles who dared to oppose Hitler. Today virtually all leading figures in Nazi activities find a political refuge and forum in the "Sudeten German Landsmanschaft." In no other post-war German organization have Nazi leaders come to the foreground en masse as they have in the Landsmanschaft. It is there that they are reviving German territorial demands in East and South- east Europe. It speaks well of the majority of West Germans that they are not attracted to the Landsmanschaft. Yet the potential danger these revanchists pose may not be underestimated.

The "Sudeten German Landsmanschaft" holds annual festivals intended to keep the hatred of Czechoslovakia alive among the expellees. This year the festival, called the "Sudeten German Day," was held in Cologne, May 19-22. Were it not for a slight change of symbols, the festival could have been taken for a typical martial Nazi rally. Der Spiegel, a news magazine published in Hamburg, gave a vivid description of the event: "Sounds of fanfares, rolls of the drums, equal step: the Sudeten-German youth is marching. Their uniform: grey. Their flag: black-red-black. Their field-badge: the arrow rune."

To ensure the "success" of the "Sudeten German Day, 1961", the Landsmanschaft dis- patched its Secretary-General, Walter Becher, who is also the leader of the Bavarian All- German Party, to the United States. He arrived in the U.S. in the beginning of May. With the Eichmann trial proceeding in Jerusalem and with warnings appearing in the more respon- sible West German press (such as Die Welt of Hamburg and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) that the Nazi type slogans and activities of the Landsmanschaft may undermine the Western Allies' trust in the German Federal Republic, it seemed that Becher's mission was headed for failure. The more so since Becher personally was a live testimony to the Nazi character of the organization he represented. He was a leading Henlein Nazi and a co-editor of the Nazi journal in the Sudeten region, Die Zeit. In that position he carried on a vicious anti-Semitic campaign second only to those of Rosenberg and Streicher.

Yet, the unbelievable happened: Becher was received by many American politicians with open arms and friendly outpourings. He succeeded in soliciting congratulatory telegrams to the "Sudeten German Day" festivities from more than sixty members of the U. S. Congress. A few quotes from some of the cables will suffice to convey the deep sense of identification with which they were dispatched. Rep. Charles S. Gubser from California cabled: "I think that the spirit animating the Sudeten German Day is the greatest hope for the free world." Rep. D. R. (Billy) Matthew of Florida pretended to speak for all of America: "You may rest assured, that our beloved nation stands by in your struggle for your former homeland one hundred per cent." Other messages were received from Senators Barry M. Goldwater, Herman E. Talmadge, Karl E. Mundt, Thomas J. Dodd, J. Strom Thurmond, Andrew F. Schoeppel, Wallace F. Bennett, and Thurston B. Morton as well as from Congressmen Don L. Short, Otto E. Passman, W. R. Poage, Joseph P. Addabbo, Philip J. Philbin, James C. Davis, Frank J. Becker, James C. Auchincloss, John H. Rousselot, and James B. Utt.

The spectacular success of Becher's mission culminated in the presence of American Congressmen on the Sudeten German Day. Congressmen Morgan M. Moulder, Gordon H. Scherer, Henry C. Shadeberg and Roy A. Taylor came to Germany and actually participated in the festivities. Hitler's and Henlein's politicians met with American politicians on the common ground of militant anti-Communism. The violent anti-Semitism and opposition to anything democratic on the part of the German colleagues did not hinder the American colleagues from demonstrating and pronouncing a common cause with them. Addressing the assembly, Representative Henry C. Shadenberg stated that "the freedom-loving people of America and all over the world value your attitude." Rep. Morgan M. Moulder seconded him with a pompous manifesto: "Make this Sudeten German Day, 1961 a turning-point in our common struggle for freedom of all peoples. The Sudeten German expellees are allies of the conservative anti-Communist forces in the free world." Rep. Gordon H. Scherer was concerned with the practical aspect of the Neo-Nazi activities: "We have a common goal... anti-Communist organizations like yours and those in the United States should get more money..." and, to boost that recommended flow of money, he bestowed political respectability upon the gathering: "You have won the admiration of all countries owing to your actions."

Among the guests of the occasion were such men as the former ministers in the fascist Tiso government in Slovakia, Durcanski and Tiso. In their heydays they hardly imagined they ever would hear such compliments from American spokesmen.

The Sudeten German Landsmanschaft gives an annual award, the "Sudeten German Prize of Charles IV." This year it went to Philip A. Hrobak, president of the "Slovak League" of America. There could hardly be a more apt laureate to symbolize all the Landsmanschaft stands for. The Slovak-born Hrobak was one of the most important liason-agents of the Hlinka-Tiso regime of Slovakia, operating in the United States from 1939 to 1945. He was the spokesman of a regime which wiped out virtually all the Jews of Slovakia. His "government" was the first one outside Hitler's Reich to adopt the Nuremberg Laws.

The revival of nationalism, militarism and revanchism in the German Federal Republic is a threat to peace and humanity, unquestionably. This threat grows in direct proportion to the praise and support the incorrigable fascists are gaining from the United States and her NATO allies. The memory of the Allied soldiers who died believing themselves to be freeing Europe from the Hitlerian nightmare, and the memory of the millions of innocent men, women and children who perished in Nazi concentration camps are being desecrated by those American politicians who lend comfort to the ever-growing aggressiveness of Hitler's political and spiritual offspring.

Mr. Georg Herde is the editor of a press service New Commentary in Frankfurt/Main. The bulletins released by this service concentrate on the growing influence of former Nazis in the German Federal Republic.