|
|
I S K (Militant Socialist International) |
9, Alvanley Gdns., | |
E U R O P E s p e a k s |
[Heft 28,] | |
[Seite: - 1 -]
The question, whether a chauvinistic spirit will dominate the minds of the peoples after this war, has frequently been thrown up. The pros and cons have been proved in many books and articles with countless arguments. We are, therefore, bringing to the notice of the public a document, which our friends have been able to smuggle out of France. This document shows more clearly than any other which has so far come to our notice:
- There exists a wide-spread organisation of resistance and sabotage of the German war-machine by French workers inside Germany.
- The German workers not only cooperate with these French colleagues, but are in many instances setting them an example.
We hope and believe that the publication of this "Handbook for those deported to Germany", published by the French Resistance Movement, will prove of value to the illegal fighters of all countries, particularly to the French and German workers. Their activities are not only not supported by many nationals of the United Nations, but the latter even dispute their existence.
The following is an English translation of the "Handbook" from the French.
Handbook for those deported to Germany
I. Official Measures of Defence
to represent your interests. This is of vital importance. You and your comrades should immediately choose one of your number as your `shop steward' (Hauptvertrauensmann).
Function
To defend the interests of the deportees. The `shop steward' must do his utmost to represent the interests of his French comrades before the German authorities in camp and factory and to make constant efforts to improve their conditions. He is the permanent delegate of the deportees. As far as possible he should do nothing else. He should repeatedly make strong protests with a view to obtaining better and more wholesome food; he should demand more comfortable housing accommodation and supplies of clothing and footwear; he should try and secure a reduction in the amount of work to be done and one day of rest every week; he
[Seite: - 2 -]
should see to it that all machines are fitted with safety devices and that the A.R.F. system is adequate; he should protest against the withholding of wages; he should represent the interests of the sick and wounded as against the doctors; he should intervene in cases of injustice committed by foremen or police; he should protect those who have been penalised etc. He should state, for example, that the French are willing to work, but that they demand sufficient nourishment for it. His is the role of an ambassador requiring him to hide his real intentions. However there will be occasions when it will be both necessary and possible for him to thump on the table and shout, often an excellent method with the Germans.
The Administrative Side
The ,shop steward' should be in charge of everything which concerns the life of the French workers in the camp and in the factories. It is his job to encourage suggestions for occupying their free time, to organise or supervise the allocation of duties inside the French barracks, to see to the distribution of letters and parcels.
Qualifications
The ,shop steward' must be a reliable person, energetic, unselfish, anti-German and ,,Gaulliste", diplomatic and loyal. He should be supported by an executive committee with a strong "Gaulliste" majority.
B. Occupation of the Key Positions
See to it that your best comrades get the jobs of interpreters even if they don't know German very well. Organise the interpreters; they have power to protect you and your comrades. Undertake with your comrades the organisation of their leisure hours: sport, theatricals, conferences, games, clubs or discussions.
If you are in a camp, start a newspaper yourself as a means of bringing together your comrades in workshop and factory. Take the lead in your dormitory and workshop. Your authority will then be greater.
II. Secret Measures of Defence
a) Corruption of Germans. - Wherever possible Germans should be corrupted. Then they will be rendered harmless.
b) A continuous stream of revolt. - Take advantage of every opportunity to organise protests, general discontent, and sabotage. Make the Germans live in fear of your discontent.
III. The Army of Resistance in Germany
Germany is an immense prison. People from all countries are forced to work there.
It is forbidden, under the threat of heavy penalties, to speak to a prisoner or to another deportee, or even to a German, still less to a woman!
You will be hemmed in by the word "Verboten", but by means of hidey-holes and notes you will quickly find that it is possible to communicate with everybody.
You will form a network of liaisons as firm and close as possible with everyone, because everyone may prove useful in the struggle and everyone must be persuaded to take part in it.
The prisoners are the first people whom you should see. They have immense experience and all kinds of resources at their disposal. They will have a lot to teach you and you can bring them news from France and the outer world. Make a special point of seeing the French prisoners, but make contact with the others also.
There are a few amongst them whom you should not trust, but the majority are thoroughly sound.
[Seite: - 3 -]
If they do not sabotage sufficiently, ginger them up and imbue them with some of your dynamic. Start a competition in sabotage between your groups and theirs.
You are also out ,,to create a Europe", but not a Hitlerite Europe such as the conquerors want. You want a free Europe. Start preparing it now in Germany by fighting as comrades, side by side with all the other deportees, French, Belgian, Italian, Polish, Dutch, Rumanian or Russian alike.
Together you constitute a great oppressed population on German territory; a population of ten million deportees! It is your task to arouse them to action, to participation in the fight against the oppression.
Give them precise and concrete instructions for carrying on the fight, these very instructions which you will find in this handbook and which you will follow yourself, referring to sabotage, escape, the distribution of news and information, revolutionary defeatism. You will find that they will rally around you.
In this way you will form inside Germany a united army of resistance in the form of a revolutionary workers movement, the best weapon against Hitler in his own country.
In the first place there are those who are your enemies because they support the Hitler regime and the Gestapo, or because they accept it wholeheartedly. In dealing with this section all methods are justified!
You should corrupt them all or see to it that they are corrupted, gradually, and this is easily done by means of cigarettes, chocolate, slippers ... Get the satisfaction making them grovel at your feet, of making them run like dogs, of making them do your dirty work for you to obtain cigarettes.
After the deal they will be harmless!
Organise a black market amongst them; tempt them to steal and catch them red-handed and holf it over them.
Offer them a drink. Once they are compromised they will no longer be dangerous.
Germans are obliging but argumentative. Never render them a service in return, argue longer and more loudly than they do. This is very important.
Shun the "Werkscharen" (workshop-Gestapo) like the plague. They are the secret agents and the spies of the regime, the local vermin. They keep a watch on the general behaviour and morale in the factory and are constantly making denunciations. The German workers themselves will point them out to you, they represent the terror. When one of these scum pass everybody comes to attention even if the scum in question is only a sweeper.
Do not trust the factory police, whether in uniform or in plain clothes. You should try and influence them but it must be done very carefully.
In your relations with the managers of the factory take a strong line. Your shop steward should frequently go to see them accompanied by the interpreters. He should jaw at them and tell them that the French are quite willing to work, but that one can only win their cooperation by kindness. Demand better food, more rest, more safety devices if they want to avoid a lowering of output or complete stoppage of work.
As for the foremen, there are some swine among them, but there are others who are excellent comrades; the workers will tell you about them.
But there is another category of Germans with whom you will be in contact: those who are like yourselves the victims of Hitler.
There is a wonderful piece of work to be done amongst the German workers whether they belong to anti-Nazi organisations or not; whether they are communists, catholics, or social-democrats ... It is your task to give them new courage to hope and fight and to provide them with the means for carrying out sabotage and political warfare.
[Seite: - 4 -]
Employ in their case the weapon of constant persuasion, the weapon which will create the spirit of revolutionary defeatism and so prepare the collapse of national socialism from within. Show them that they have nothing to gain by prolonging by their work the duration of the war and of the Hitler terror. Show them that every hour they work, every weapon they make, is used against them.
In short, be an example to them of the fighter on the German home front. Inspire them by your courage.
The first female workers to go to Germany were almost all prostitutes picked up in the streets or in the brothels. Especially the French women. It was the dregs of the French nation that volunteered to go to Germany. They are selling their bodies and their French brethren to the Germans. There are others such as the Polish and Russian women with whom you can deal like men: They are courageously carrying on the fight.
Avoid German women. You can ask them to do some jobs for you, but they are too talkative.
To be caught talking to a German woman or having any relations with them is a very serious matter. They belong to a "superior race".
But above all you must stir up the feelings of the wives of German soldiers against the Party which sends their husbands to be butchered and fetches foreign workers to replace them in the factories!
These then are the elements whom you can reckon with to help building up an army of resistance inside Germany. But this army will be effective only if you have managed to establish connections with France, if you manage to establish liaison with us.
a) Before your Departure
Make arrangements for keeping, by the use of codes, letters, parcels, in contact with your relations, your friends, the resistance movement, the underground organisations of the deportees.
b) Inside Germany
Write often in letters and parcels. Give your post to those who are going back to France on leave. The establishment of liaison is essential.
Your task in the war is quite clear: To strike at the very heart of the enemy, at his war machine and morale. To foment in his midst an immense internal revolution against Nazism.
a) Conditions under which you are Fighting
Yours is a dangerous fight, you are surrounded by spies and watchful officials, you risk heavy penalties. But a life full of dangers gives satisfaction to the strong. You have the thrill of adventure which, however, does not justify imprudence.
Yours is a hard fight, you are up against apathy, hypocrisy, fatigue and despair, against treachery and cowardice; yet your fight is possible. "There's not such a word in French as impossible." The prisoners of war have heroically carried on the struggle for three years in far more terrible conditions.
For you, a deportee, the struggle is easier and less dangerous. Do not therefore say: "There is nothing to be done", or "It is impossible to do anything". Get to work! Show Hitler that the French are not degenerate.
It is a fruitful struggle. You are a branch of France at war. You are preparing the way for Fighting France better than a fifth column. - You are an advanced post within the enemy lines -Together with all your comrades in Germany, war prisoners and deportees, you can shorten the war and thus hasten your own return - Together
[Seite: - 5 -]
with them you can win great French victories on the German home front.
b) Your Instructions for the Fight
You should make use of everything around you in order to carry out the sabotage of the immense war machine, which for you will mean sabotage in your workshop.
1. Sabotage of Output
Even in Germany the French worker has an urge to show that he is stronger, that he can work better and quicker than the others. He will soon be saying "My machine", "my factory", "my farm", and even "my farmer's wife". And the Germans will be quick to take advantage of his stakhanovism. Take it from us, it is by good sabotage and not by good work that the French workers will win the respect and the sympathy of the Germans.
On various pretexts such as tiredness, under-nourishment, incapacity, get into the habit of going slow. After a week of this the output must go down by 50%.
When necessary start a general strike. Train your factory organisers for sabotage - encourage them and reward them.
Require of everyone at least passive sabotage. Threaten with reprisals those who work to keep their position or to have a few pence extra.
Demand the forty hour week, religious holidays, no overtime. You must ask for a lot in order to obtain a little. Organise periods of rest in turn during the week on the pretext of illness. Systematically see to it that the men are sent to work at the wrong trades: the hairdresser to the lathe, and the fitter to a maintenance job.
Remind everyone of their military service when they took a whole day to pick up eight dead leaves.
The German workers will repeat to you all day long, "Langsam" (go slow). To see the French deportees working quickly and well disheartens them. Deportees, act in solidarity with the German workers.
See to it that the workers always arrive at work a quarter of an hour late and pack up a quarter of an hour before time.
All this involves creating a certain mentality and habit of mind. But the effects will be obvious - a catastrophic lowering of output. And it is not even dangerous for your comrades and yourself. French deportee, you are slave labour, do not work more than is necessary.
Do not cover yourself with shame!
Do not work for the victory of Germany!
2. Sabotage of Quality
The French have the reputation for being excellent workmen. We have in our blood the feeling for a "fine piece of work". In Germany the contrary must be the case. There must be no inventions, no improvements. - No concern for the finished piece of work. No care taken of the machines. No feeling for workmanship.
Constantly produce misfits: Bolts too few or too tightly screwed: nuts too large or too small.
Use the worst tools - Do your work in a slap-dash manner. Rack your brains to think out ways and means of rendering your work notably defective. See to it that everything has to be done over again.
3. Sabotage of Material
Create a real cult of sabotage, a real frenzy of destruction. Start and get others to start sabotaging on a big scale during the first week after your arrival. The Germans having no knowledge of any of you will be completely at sea. Besides those who start working well are obliged to keep up their
[Seite: - 6 -]
Standard or they will be penalised. From the very outset the deportees must refuse work on pretext of illness.
Organise rewards for the saboteurs. Organise punishment for the idiots who "work well": don't speak to them, punch them in the face, cut them dead.
As for the spies and informers it is necessary to hang them. One example in every factory will be enough. It is legitimate self-defence. This is war.
We will send you material from France, but do not wait for it. French deportee, if your factory is destroyed by you, it will not be bombed any more.
Let us in France know the results of your work. General and organised sabotage is of vital importance for victory, for a rapid victory, for a French victory.
4. Political Struggle
Of vital importance is the political struggle of hundreds of thousands of French deportees together with that of a million French prisoners of war and about eight million prisoners and deportees from other countries, in the very heart of Germany. The French deportees have also an essential part to play in fomenting and giving direction to the revolution which will beat Nazi Germany to her knees.
You cannot carry on this political struggle alone. It requires organisation; this is summed up in two words:
Union and Action
Set up a fighting committee in your factory or camp. Bring into this committee all those animated by the same fighting spirit: catholics, patriots, militants of trade union organisations, communists. This committee should reflect French unity as it exists now in France in the Resistance movement.
Conditions for Activity
Share out the responsibilities for activity amongst the different members of the committee: This committee should not merely constitute an ideological group but should be the soul and brain of the active struggle, directing it at the immediate point of practical action. See to it that your fighting committee becomes part of the resistance movements in France, of which you are an extension, their branch in Germany, and from whom you will receive directives, material, and other means of action.
Be well informed. For this purpose you should organise the receipt of all possible information via the wireless, newspapers and letters. Your influence and that of your group will depend to a large extent on your information.
V. Aims of the Political Struggle
Resistance to the policy of Vichy. Unite all Frenchmen in opposition. All against Laval, all against Pétain. Resistance to the policy of the Nazis. Your task in your factory is to rouse the German people against Nazism. Incite the workers against their factory management. Incite the army against the Party, the workers against the labour service. Insite the Austrians against the Germans, Italians against Germans, Rumanians against Germans. Show that all evil is due to the Nazi party.
Stir up the women whose husbands are being killed for the sake of the ambitions of the Party, while the foreigners have come to work in the German factories. Show the advantages of democracy, of the regime of freedom. Show that only defeat will bring happiness to Germany. Praise the pre-war French
[Seite im Original:] - 7-
regime for the easy life it made possible. Unify the political resistance of all foreigners: Italians, Russians, Czechs ... Organise German groups of resistance.
Construction of French political life on the basis of a political renaissance in the social and economic sphere behind General de Gaulle. It is essential that all Frenchmen, in Germany as in France, come together and establish unity. General de Gaulle who in June 1940 at the time when all seemed lost for France "put together again the broken fragments of the sword" has chosen by the French masses and fate to be the new political leader of France.
The initiation of a German policy directed towards revolutionary defeatism.
Methods
Intellectual: study circles.
Practical methods:
a) Individual persuasion;
b) Propaganda by word of mouth;
c) Pamphlets edited and distributed by the fighting committee etc.
Deportee, since you are working in Germany in an armament factory, at an aerodrome, in a depot, on the railways, you can and should give information to help Fighting France win the victory.
You should pass on information, via the repatriated prisoners of war and deportees, to the resistance organisations and especially those catering in France for the prisoners and deportees. The information required includes:
The exterior and interior plans of the factory in which you work. The nature of the goods produced - The destination of the products - The effects of the air-raids.
Such information will be of immediate and important use in carrying on the war.
Deportee, you should encourage prisoners and deportees to escape in large numbers, because this keeps the morale, removes workers from the Reich, necessitates guards.
Set up workshops to produce false papers, pass keys, ropes.
5. Secret Army and Freedom Groups
In your camp, in your factory, organise your comrades in sixes, build up a force for the secret army and the Freedom groups, a disciplined force with yourself as leader.
Deportee, help your unfortunate comrades by creating a relief fund especially for those in solitary confinement.
It is your duty to kill a traitor in order to save fifty comrades. It is essential to give rewards for excellent sabotage. Deportee, create an organisation of military justice and assume responsibility for it.
Deportee, if you are forced to go, and work in Germany, it is your duty to carry on a fierce struggle there against an enemy who has won the first round, and to put in all your weight to turn the scales!
[Seite: - 8 -]
Fighting France is with you!
Consider yourself as sharing the responsibility for the liberation and political, social and economic reconstruction of the world, with a mandate from Fighting France to wage war on the German home front, side by side with all the prisoners and all the deportees of Europe.
You have an essential role to play.
France is counting on you!
Zu den Inhaltsverzeichnissen