Chapter 1543 Germany's Response
The textile workers' movement in Liberec was like a firecracker, which instantly exploded with a loud bang across Central Europe and quickly spread to surrounding areas.
This is due to its location, with Liberec bordering Germany's Silesia industrial region to the east, Saxony's industrial region to the west, and Austro-Hungarian Bohemia's industrial region to the south.
The Saxony Industrial Area is the second largest industrial area in Germany, the Silesia Industrial Area ranks third, and the Bohemian Industrial Area is the most important industrial area in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These three major industrial areas are actually connected, and Liberec is at their center.
Therefore, from the very beginning, the workers of Liberec stirred up a hornet's nest, causing resonance among the second and third largest industrial areas in Germany and the largest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Silesian textile workers, in particular, responded on the second day of the Liberec movement.
…
Berlin.
Prime Minister Adolf received the news as soon as the textile workers in the Silesia industrial area launched a rebellion. He was very annoyed and summoned Himmler to the Prime Minister's residence at the first time.
"Heinrich, why did the riot break out in Silesia? The key is that this riot happened the day after the Liberec incident. I seriously suspect that this riot was launched by the German Labor Party. This is something we absolutely cannot tolerate!"
"Does this mean that our SA in Silesia knew nothing about the actions of the local Labour Party, and that the local area was so infiltrated by German Labour Party elements that we did not receive any news at all?"
Himmler's face was also a little heavy, but he responded to Adolf's question without changing his expression: "Mr. Prime Minister, although the rebellion of the Silesian textile workers was somewhat beyond our expectations, I can guarantee that the local rebellion has little to do with the Labor Party."
"It was entirely due to the demonstration effect of Liberec that resonated with local textile workers in Silesia, mainly due to economic issues."
Adolf was not satisfied with this answer and asked: "How can you be sure that the Labour Party was not involved?"
Himmler said: "Our intelligence organization of the SA has always been fully aware of the situation in various industrial areas in Germany. It is difficult for the German Labor Party to make moves under our noses."
"And the Silesian Industrial Zone has always been a key area of our surveillance. At present, the Labor Party members in the Silesian region have indeed made some unusual movements recently, but they have not had time to act yet."
"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, we just reported on the activities of the local Labour Party last week. I believe you will understand this after reading the report."
"Two days ago, we reported to you the activities of the local Labor Party in Silesia as usual, so I can say with certainty that there are no unusual movements in the Labor Party in the Silesia Industrial Zone."
After Adolf came to power, he naturally would not relax his surveillance on the German Labor Party. Therefore, labor party organizations across Germany were under the close surveillance of the National Party and reported to Adolf regularly.
Industrial areas like Silesia are key surveillance areas. Every three days, the local National Party intelligence agency must report on its work and summarize it every week.
Of course, when this information was delivered to Adolf's office, it would not necessarily attract Adolf's attention unless something major happened.
Before becoming the German Chancellor, Adolf was extremely busy. After becoming the Chancellor, he had even less time. Documents piled up on his desk, so he only glanced over a lot of information.
It is worth mentioning that after Adolf came to power, he did not immediately start a purge of the German Labor Party. He has been busy consolidating power recently.
The German elite's fear of the Labor Party was an important factor in Adolf's coming to power, so Adolf still needed to exploit the German Labor Party and squeeze out its last value, which was to intimidate the German elite.
The German elite originally arranged for Adolf to be a "puppet" and a "marionette", which was naturally something Adolf could not tolerate.
Therefore, after he came to power, not only did he not eliminate the Labor Party immediately, but he also started a confrontation with the German elite. By placing his cronies in various government departments and the military, he achieved his ultimate goal of controlling all power in Germany.
Recently, the focus of Adolf and the German National Party has been to carry out personnel transfers in the German army, win over German middle and lower-level officers, grassroots soldiers, and senior generals who are pro-National Party, to ensure the National Party's control over the army.
Although some high-ranking members of the Wehrmacht were dissatisfied with Adolf's behavior, they could do nothing about it because Adolf had become the Prime Minister of the Empire and was in control of justice.
It was impossible for them to oust Adolf through a military coup because there were also differences within the Wehrmacht. Although Adolf and the National Party shared control of the army, Adolf's attitude and approach to expanding armaments were in line with the interests of the Wehrmacht.
In short, it is only a matter of time before Adolf controls the Wehrmacht. Once he has completely mastered the German military power, Adolf's position will be completely consolidated.
It was also because of this that Adolf himself relaxed his attention on the German Labor Party during this period, but the rebellion of textile workers in the Silesia industrial area made Adolf draw his attention back again.
Adolf said, "I have indeed read your intelligence, but the rebellion of textile workers in the Silesia industrial zone happened to coincide with the Liberec incident in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is hard to believe that there is no connection between the two and it is just a coincidence."
Himmler said: "No, Mr. Chancellor, this is a coincidence. After all, not all workers' riots are necessarily related to the Labor Party."
"For example, many of the workers' riots in Britain and France at the beginning of the last century were organized entirely by the workers themselves, and at that time, there was no European Labour Party."
"The Silesian textile workers' riots were of the same nature as some workers' riots at the beginning of the last century, but the Liberec incident did play a role in fueling the flames."
"The motive for the riots by Silesian textile workers is also very simple. Since the outbreak of the world economic crisis, Silesia has been the region with the highest unemployment rate in the empire."
"A large number of workers were laid off and lost their source of income. Even though we absorbed some of the unemployed into the Stormtroopers and the National Party, it did not change the fundamental problems of the local economy."
"There are still a large number of idle people in society who have become unstable factors, and textile workers are the largest among them."
"The scale of Silesia's textile industry is also ranked among the top in the empire. Before the economic crisis, there were more than 100,000 people directly employed in the industry. If we include related workers, including printing and dyeing, machine maintenance, etc., there were more than 100,000 people, not including the agricultural population in the planting industry."
"The textile industry in Silesia employs more than 20 percent of the local workforce, but the current unemployment rate is over 30 percent."
"Therefore, the difficulties in life have long made Silesia the most unstable region in the empire. It is only a matter of time before local riots break out. After the Liberec incident in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it triggered the riots in Silesia ahead of time."
"That's why I asserted that this incident had nothing to do with the Labour Party. If it was the Labour Party, then it would not be just the textile workers in Silesia who cooperated. It's even possible that the first place where this happened was not Silesia, but Saxony."
At present, the main participants in the riots in Silesia are textile workers, but this is different from the Liberec incident in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Liberec is just a city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and its industrial structure is single and heavily dependent on the textile industry, so the workers in Liberec are mainly textile workers.
While Silesia's textile industry is not small, the local industries are more diverse than Liberec, especially the coal and steel industries. Silesia is the second largest coal producing area in Germany, second only to the Ruhr area, with an annual production capacity of more than 40 million tons.
Therefore, Silesia's industries are equally important in coal and textiles, and now only textile workers are participating in the riots, which to a certain extent shows that it has nothing to do with the Labor Party.
Even in a city like Liberec, which was completely dependent on the textile industry, the local Labor Party tried to absorb workers from other industries as much as possible when organizing a rebellion. Therefore, if there was a Labor Party organization in Silesia, it would inevitably attract a large number of workers from coal, steel and other industries to participate.
In addition, Himmler also mentioned Saxony and believed that if the Labor Party launched an uprising, it would inevitably give priority to the Saxony region.
This is because Saxony is more developed than Silesia, especially in the field of textile industry. Saxony is the most developed region of textile industry in the whole of Germany and even in Central Europe.
Saxony is currently the second largest industrial area in Germany. Its industries are centered on textiles and light industry. Although Silesia's textile industry is large in scale, it is concentrated in the middle and low-end industries. Saxony's industrial chain is more complete, larger in scale, and more technologically advanced.
Overall, Saxony's industry was more developed than Silesia's, which meant that there were more workers in Saxony.
At the same time, although Silesia is the third largest industrial area in Germany, its agricultural proportion is not low and its population is relatively scattered. In addition to the population distributed in rural areas, the urban population in Silesia is concentrated in some small and medium-sized cities. There are no large cities locally, which is not conducive to the activities of the Labor Party.
Therefore, if Himmler was a Labour member, he would certainly have preferred to launch an uprising in Saxony rather than Silesia.
Adolf believed most of Himmler's explanation. It was not because he felt Himmler's explanation was reasonable, but because he trusted Himmler's ability more. There was no doubt that Himmler was a tough guy in Adolf's intelligence work.
Therefore, since Himmler dared to say it so clearly and affirmatively, Adolf did not think that he would underestimate the enemy.
Adolf said: "Now, regardless of whether the Silesian riots are related to the Labor Party, we must suppress this matter immediately and spread the word that this incident was planned by the German Labor Party and the Soviets."
"You, the SA, are trying to calm down the Silesian uprising under the pretext of investigating Labor Party members and spies. I don't want to see the situation deteriorate."
"Also, Saxony must be placed under martial law immediately. The Liberec incident has been confirmed to be related to the Labor Party. I don't believe that the German Labor Party has no ulterior motives. They will definitely cooperate with the Austro-Hungarian Labor Party to cause trouble."
Himmler nodded and said, "Don't worry! Your Excellency, Prime Minister, we will never let the Labor Party rebellion in Austria-Hungary spread to the Reich."
After talking about the handling of the Silesia incident, Adolf said, "It is time for us to settle accounts with the German Labor Party. We have been busy with military issues and temporarily relaxed our attention to the Labor Party. As a result, this happened."
"As expected, the Labor Party members are a cancer within the empire. We cannot keep them around forever. Next, we must take the initiative to create opportunities and catch all the Labor Party members in Germany."
At present, Adolf's various means of seizing power have been implemented, including the army, which is basically impossible to escape from his control. In other words, most of Adolf's political concerns no longer exist.
Previously, he needed the German Labor Party to threaten the German elite, but now the German elite had been suppressed by Adolf and the German National Party and succumbed to Adolf's authoritarianism.
Therefore, Adolf, who had no worries, planned to take action against the German Labor Party in advance, and the Silesian riots provided him with an excuse.
Although Himmler's explanation made him 80% certain that the Silesian textile workers' riot had nothing to do with the Labor Party, this did not prevent him from using this incident to formally declare war on the German Labor Party and arrest all of these Labor Party members.
So, January 10, 1933.
That is, on the third day after the Liberec incident in Austro-Hungary and the second day of the Silesia riots, the national party newspapers in Germany and the German official news media, under the instructions of Adolf, launched a comprehensive "slanderous" propaganda campaign against the German Labor Party.
The National Party’s newspaper, the People’s Observer, pointed out: “The Silesian uprising was a campaign jointly planned by the German Labor Party, Soviet spies, and Jews... to subvert the stability of the country and destroy the entire Germany. The Silesian textile workers were deceived...”
The Offensive newspaper even said murderously: "The German Labor Party is a gathering place for traitors within the German nation, colluding with the Jews... and external forces such as the Soviet Union. Therefore, it is beneficial to the whole of Germany to completely wipe out the Labor Party members both mentally and physically."
These two newspapers not only attacked the German Labor Party, but also targeted "Jews". The reason why the German National Party did this was very simple, which was to blame all the problems of Germany's economic crisis on the Jews.
Although the Jews do bear a great responsibility for Germany's economic problems, not all problems can be blamed on this group. After all, the Jews mainly engage in speculation, economic crimes, fraud, deception, usury, market disruption, etc. However, it is the German elite represented by Juncker who truly controls the lifeline of the German economy.
The two sides can only be said to be birds of a feather, but the German elite are Germans after all, and everything they have is tied to Germany, while the Jews... are completely untrustworthy.
The former was able to stand up when Germany was facing life and death, while the latter only thought about making more money and then running to other countries to continue causing harm.
In the logic of the German National Party, the Labor Party messes up the German economy, and then takes advantage of the economic chaos to incite the victims to oppose the government. This forms a closed loop, and the two are actually one in the eyes of the German National Party.
Therefore, in this response to the Silesian riots, the German Labor Party was the primary target of attack. At the same time, the Jews were also the main targets of the German National Party. Together with other opponents, a political persecution campaign that swept across Germany began.
(End of this chapter)
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