The Guardian of Liberty - Nemzetőr, 1983 (6. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1983-01-01 / 1. szám

2 THE NUCLEAR DEBATE - A SIMPLE GUIDE (Continued from page 1) intermediate system in order to compensate, and there was an overall balance of power between the two sides. Fig. 2B By the late ’70s not only had the Fig. 2C jT7 irst Germany’s Jews, then the people ■ of other European countries and finally many nations all over the world were compel­led to experience death and material destruc­tion on an unprecedented scale as a result of the totalitarianism and racialist fantasies of the Nazi Party’s Third Reich. On January 30, the 50th anniversary of Hitler’s assumption of power in the undivided Germany of 1933, the populations of both West and East Germany separately recalled the terrible events of the Nazi era — the „peacetime“ years of political indoctrination and terror followed by the Second World War. This ended with Germany’s defeat and the collapse of the 12-year-old Third Reich, intended by Hitler to last a millennium. In the Federal Republic, Chancellor Kohl said in a Press statement issued on the anniversary: „After the National Socialist Soviet Union vastly improved their medium­­range missiles, but they had also achieved equality with the USA in strategic missiles. Faced with this threat NATO has two 'options: — Fig. 2C The USA can bring its inter­mediate-range missiles in Western Eurpe up to equality with those of the Soviet Union, or (Nazi) takeover the constitutional State was destroyed, a mockery was made of morals and humanity, and the German nation and Europe were laid in ruins“. He recalled that the democratic Weimar Republic, established in 1919, was „a coura­geous and freedom-seeking response to the defeat suffered in the First World War“. However, from the outset it was „subjected to the strain of civil war and economic crisis“. The Chancellor added: „The National So­cialists and the communists hated each other, but they hated the Weimar Republic even more. It was a fatal fact that the Constitution did not serve to restrict domestic strife, but instead was the target of its attacks. The very freedoms the Constitution granted were used by its enemies to destroy it“. In 1933, the Kremlin, then totally in control Fig. 2D they can persuade the Soviet Union 'to reduce its own medium-range strength, in which case there would be no need to deploy the new American weapons. The idea that neither side should have any medium-range missiles at all, is known as the „zero option”. The dicision by NATO to go ahead with the first option, while hopefully negotiating for the second, is what is known as the „twin-trade” solution. of the world’s communist parties through the Comintern (Communist International), wel­comed Hitler’s coming to power. Stalin re­garded it — rightly — as a victory over German Social Democracy. Within a few months of the Nazi takeover the German Communist Party was extin­guished as a political force, out-manoeuvred by Hitler and given no clear lead by Moscow. For strategic State reasons, this development did not worry the Soviet leadership greatly. Foreign Minister Litvinov said in a speech to the Central Committee of the Soviet Com­munist Party on September 29, 1933: „We of course sympathise with the sufferings of our German comrades, but we Marxists are the last who can be reproached with allowing our feelings to dictate our policy“. Earlier, the Soviet Government had said: „Despite their attitude towards fascism, the people of the" USSR wish to live in peace with Germany and consider that the develop­ment of German-Soviet relations is in the interests of both countries“. COMMON AIM An article in the March 22, 1931, issue of Rote Fahne, organ of the German Communist Party, said: „Bolshevism and fascism have a common aim, the de­struction of oapitalism and the Social Democratic Party". Ernst Böhm (1887-1934), leader of Hit­ler’s thuggish paramilitary Stormtroopers, boasted that he could turn „the reddest communist" into a Nazi in four weeks. While continuing publicly to denounce Nazi­­ism, Russia increased her trade with Ger­many (Soviet exports to Germany, as a per­centage of the USSR’s total exports, rose from 17.3 per cent in 1933 to 23.4 per cent in 1934). Simultaneously the Kremlin was trying, for a long time unsuccessfully, to obtain a special relationship with Hitler. From documentary and other evidence that has been published since the Second World War it is now known, for example, that Stalin in 1936 and 1937 instructed the Soviet trade representative in Berlin, Kandelaki, to make the preliminary moves to obtain a Soviet-German rapproche­ment. Kandelaki failed on both occasions. However, less than a fortnight before the start of the Second World War, Europe’s two most militarily powerful totalitarian govern­ments, those of Nazi Germany and the USSR, signed a so-called Treaty of Non-Aggression (Continued on page 4) EQUAL What Led to World War THE FUTURE OPTIONS Fig. 2D ZERO January - February, 1983

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