The Nazi movement regarded Jews and the socialist labor movement as its two main enemies. Depending on the period and the target group, Nazi propaganda typically focused on one of these two enemy images at any given time, or else the two were combined in the duel construct of ‘Jewish Marxism’ or ‘Jewish Bolshevism’. These enemy images were projected for the purpose of external hate propaganda, internal stabilization and, after the seizure of power in 1933, in order to justify key domestic and foreign policy measures.
There was a centuries-long tradition of hostility towards Jews which culminated in racially motivated anti-semitism at the end of the 19th century. By contrast, anti-socialism and anti-communism did not gain significance until the emergence of an independent labor movement through the revolution of 1848. The Marxist labor movement sought to end the exploitation of the working classes by abolishing private ownership of the means of production, fight for universal suffrage and democracy, and permanently eliminate wars between countries based on international solidarity between proletarians. The overriding aim was to put an end to the rule of the nobility and bourgeoisie.
In addition to the fight against the emerging labor movement, there was also widespread demagogical use of the terms ‘Marxism’ and ‘communism’ to defame unpopular political positions – as a way of projecting an enemy image. Karl Marx described this very phenomenon in his Manifesto of the Communist Party of 1848: “A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter” (Marx/Engels, vol. 1, p. 25).
Under the ‘Act against the Dangerous Aspirations of Social Democracy’ (1878-1890), socialists were to be ostracized from state and society as “subversives”, “enemies of the fatherland” and “traitors to the nation”. The effect of this portrayal of social democracy as hostile remained influential for decades to come. In an age of increasing imperialist policy, as membership of the labor movement grew and it attracted more and more voters in spite of all state countermeasures, defamation intensified by linking socialism to anti-semitism: German nationalist politicians saw the internationalist-oriented socialist movement as being controlled by an ‘International Jewry’. This construct was then underpinned by Germany’s experience of defeat in the First World War , along with the two revolutions in Russia in 1917 and Germany in 1918. The violent suppression of the opposition by the Bolsheviks in Russia after the revolution made it easier to cement the long-standing image of ‘socialism’ or ‘Marxism’/‘communism’ as hostile forces. Mostly used synonymously up until this time, the two terms were supplemented with ‘Bolshevism’ from 1917 onwards, enabling a distinction to be drawn between reform-oriented ‘socialism’ or ‘Marxism’ on the one hand and revolutionary ‘communism’ or ‘Bolshevism’, on the other, the latter being oriented towards the Soviet Union.
Throughout much of the bourgeoisie, and especially in nationalist, ethnic-chauvinist circles, the prevailing view was that the socialist-oriented labor’ movement was partly to blame for defeat in the First World War and for the revolution of 1918/19 due to its lack of nationalist sentiment and its fundamentally anti-war stance. This apportioning of blame was not changed in the least by the fact that the majority faction of the Social Democratic Party and the trade unions had concluded a ‘truce’ with the state and employers in 1914, had actively supported the Reich’s war effort, and had helped fight the soviet movement in Bavaria during the 1918/19 revolution. Since some leading figures of the revolutionary movement were of Jewish origin, the hostile narrative was conveyed of an ‘international Jewry’, in line with anti-semitic tradition, and this was labeled as the true ‘mastermind’ behind events. This anti-socialist and anti-semitic narrative found its most striking expression in the propaganda term ‘November criminal’, as well as in the numerous murders committed by right-wing extremists in the early years of the Weimar Republic. Nationalist, ethnic-chauvinist circles agreed that in order to overcome the hated republic that had emerged from the revolution, achieve a ‘national resurgence’, and ultimately bring about a military revision of the Treaty of Versailles, the only option was to eliminate the social democratic, socialist and communist labor movement and ensure that the working classes adopted a nationalist outlook instead.
For tactical reasons, the fight against ‘communism’ or ‘Bolshevism’ was often a priority for the Nazi movement in order to increase its acceptance within society: this was because the communist wing of the labor movement met with widespread rejection throughout much of society as a whole – including among the social democratically oriented sections of the working class. But underlying the declaration of war on ‘communism’ and ‘Bolshevism’ there was often an equal desire to fight the labor movement in its entirety – including the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the independent trade unions. In his book My Struggle, Adolf Hitler stated that just as democracy in the political sphere negates the value of leaders and elites through universal equality and equal elections, Marxism in the economic domain likewise destroys the idea of the ‘leader’ principle at the workplace through its concept of equality. Hitler summarized this in an essay in 1924: “You cannot take the false idol of Marxism away from the people without giving them a better god. [...] To have recognized this most clearly and to have carried it through to its logical conclusion is the global merit of Benito Mussolini, who replaced international Marxism – a force to be eradicated – with fanatical national fascism [...] The National Socialist, ethnic-chauvinist movement therefore knows only one enemy, though this is also mortal enemy of today’s humanity as a whole: Marxism! [...] The salvation of the fatherland [...] will not have been achieved until the very last Marxist has been either converted or annihilated. Only after this internal victory will Germany break free of the iron fetters of its external enemy” (quoted from Jäckel, p. 1225).
These were the guiding principles from the beginning to the end of the Nazi movement, as was particularly evident in the party press. Differing priorities were set according to the political circumstances, however. From the end of the 1920s, anti-semitic propaganda was reduced in order to increase acceptance of the Nazi movement in middle-class conservative circles. For the same reason, the ‘socialist’ manifesto points that appeared in the party program of 1920 were later dropped in favor of tougher declarations of war on communism and Bolshevism. This was also the reason behind the increasing number of provocative Nazi marches in traditional working-class districts and violent attacks on gatherings of communists, social democrats and trade unionists in the final years of the Weimar Republic. In the Nazi press, confrontations with communist opponents served to project the narrative of an increasing ‘red danger’ for propaganda purposes, while also demonstrating to the bourgeois public and social elites that only the National Socialists were capable of standing up resolutely to this threat. While this strategy was widely accepted among the middle classes, Nazi propaganda had much less of an impact on the working class. The labor movement in particular remained an independent force.
This was why, immediately after coming to power, Hitler announced on February 3, 1933 in a meeting with top members of the Reichswehr that the ‘eradication of Marxism from the ground up’ was a prerequisite for Germany’s resurgence. In a gradual process, the Independent Trade Unions, the KPD and the SPD were entirely crushed by June 1933. Tolerated by the conservative bourgeoisie as a ‘fight against communism’, the mass terror perpetrated against communists, social democrats and trade unions involved numerous members of these parties and organizations being persecuted, imprisoned or driven into exile, while significant numbers were murdered. Resistance activities repeatedly flared up among the working classes through to the end of the war, but these were largely suppressed by means of massive propaganda, minor social concessions and, above all, continued terror. Once the term ‘Communism/Bolshevism’ had essentially fulfilled its combative internal function up until the mid-1930s, anti-semitism and the dual scapegoat of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ were used from 1941 onwards as the propaganda-driven justification for the war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. In view of looming defeat in the war and the mass crimes they had committed, the Nazis were also able to exploit the notion of the impending revenge of ‘Bolshevism’ so as to maintain the fight through to the end.
After 1945, the term ‘Bolshevism’ was hardly used any more – except for in right-wing extremist circles which openly or covertly adhered to anti-semitism, the latter being officially prohibited by that time. As social democracy and the trade unions became integrated in the political and social fabric of the Federal Republic, the exclusion of reform-oriented socialists became less and less viable. Nonetheless, in the anti-communist climate of the 1950s and 1960s, the accusation of communism was not only used to label and confront communist politics per se but also to defame radical criticism of the federal government’s policies – as was the case with certain sections of the socialist student opposition. Since the 1990s, the term ‘left-wing extremist’ has increasingly been used alongside the term ‘communist’ to refer to activities that are directed against the fundamental democratic order.
