Keeping the British Liberal Party flag flying high

[pipisme]

pipisme

Still catching up on TLs. A fair bit happened here.

I take it that by recognition of Goring's government you mean Mussolini recognises it as a claimant to rule Germany rather than as the legitimate government. Since in later posts you have him send a charge d'affaires to both and withdraws the ambassador from Berlin.

With the plebiscites is such a short period, about 6 weeks, long enough to get agreement on LoN forces and get them in place? Also I presume for the German elections this will be for the areas that the government controls? Since I suspect that some areas will still be under Nazi control or bitterly contested.

I would presume that the fascist forces in Spain realise they are on borrowed time. The Germans will be getting no support from home and only last as long as their supplies as effective forces. Also the longer foreign forces continue to support Franco's coup bid the more likely it is that democratic forces will be likely to counter them, if only with volunteers and equipment. I suspect that Mussolini will have to think over his own continued involvement here.

I presume that there might also be a moderate in the huge military build up that was occurring in Britain and France at this time. Not stopped totally as there is still the need to replace old equipment, especially in the RN, and concerns about Italy and Japan.

Steve

Yes that is what I mean by Mussolini's recognition of Goering's government. In effect he gave recognition to both German governments as having de facto authority in the areas of Germany they control.

As regards the plebiscites in Austria and the Sudentenland here is an article published in The American Political Science Review on the Saar Plebiscite in January 1935: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1947508. In the second paragraph on page 276 it states that "In a resolution passed on June 4, 1934, the Council [of the League of Nations]... fixed Sunday, January 13, 1935, as the date of the plebiscite". So that was over seven months from the fixing of the date to the actual plebiscite. The same time-scale in this TL means that the plebiscites would be on Sunday 22 October 1939, or the following Sunday. But I don't know if the Western democracies would be happy that the people of Austria and the Sudentenland would have to wait more than seven months to vote on their future.

The elections in Germany will be in the areas that the democratic government controls.

The attitude of the nationalists in Spain [not all of whom are fascists] ranges from unrealistic optimism to a realisation that their cause is close to being lost. Mussolini will want to wthdraw Italian forces from Spain after he can claim some sort of victory for them, and/or if it is the national interest of Italy.

Yes there will be a moderation in the huge military build-up in Britain and France.

 

[pipisme]

I have edited post #858 to advance the date of the plebiscites in Austria and the Sudentenland from 30 April to 1 October. That gives a time scale of six and a half months from the date of their announcement.

On 17 March 1939 Chancellor Goerdeler appointed lawyer and diplomat Adam von Trott zu Solz as German ambassador to the League of Nations.

Meanwhile in the Spanish Civil War, when the nationalists captured Tarragona on 13 March they were greeted by a few dozen right-wingers, but otherwise they entered a silent city.

The next day the Catalan government headed by Lluis Companys ordered a general strike and complete non co-operation with the nationalists in Tarragona. This policy of non-violent resistance was almost completely successful, and to all intents and purposes the city closed down.

The nationalists and their Italian allies regarded Tarragona as a stage on their way to Barcelona. The distance between the two cities is 51.83 miles or 83.41 kilometres. The Spanish government's defensive line ran from Altafulla on the coast to Montblanc to just before Lleida where it met with the river Segre. See this map: http://www.mapsofworld.com/spain/autonomous-community/cataluna/cataluna-road-network-map.jpg. Lleida was under nationalist control.

 

[pipisme]

The joint nationalist/Italian offensive in Catalonia had ground to a halt, although nationalist and Italian planes subjected Barcelona to heavy bombing.

On 10 March 1939, three days after his election, Pope Gregory XVII appointed Cardinal Eugene Gabriel Gervais Laurent Tisserant as Secretary of State in place of Cardinal Eugene Pacelli. Tisserant had been the Secretary for the Congregation of Oriental Churches.

In a radio broadcast on Sunday 19 March, Pope Gregory, welcomed the overthrow of the "pagan, anti-Christian Hitler regime" in Germany. He urged all Catholics in Germany, Austria and the Sudentenland to give their full support to the government in Berlin. He expressed his full support for the ending of the persecution of the Jews in the areas under the control of that government.

Turning to the situation in Spain he expressed his profound sadness at the continuation of the civil war in that country. He said that the Catholic Church did not regard that war as a crusade and therefore took no sides in it. He was convinced that the Spanish government was sincere in its desire to preserve religious freedom and the legitimate rights of the Catholic Church. His fervent hope was that the contending parties in Spain would lay down their arms and negotiate a just and lasting peace.

 

[pipisme]

The ending of papal support for the nationalists in the Spanish Civil War was received with hostility by much of the Spanish hierarchy. In fact the change in the Vatican's policy towards Spain led to speculation by far right Catholics that Pope Gregory XVII had not been properly elected Pope and that the papacy was sede vacante [there was no pope]. The sedevacantists claimed that Eugenio Pacelli had really been elected Pope, but because of a Judeo-Masonic-Marxist-Liberal plot his election was declared invalid and Dalla Costa declared to be pope. This belief is known as the Pacelli Thesis, although Pacelli himself said or did nothing to encourage it. Pope Gregory's transfer of Pacelli from the prestigious post of Secretary of State to that of Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments, fuelled sedevacantism.

On 1 July 1937 the Spanish hierarchy led by Cardinal Goma, archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain, had issued an open letter to 'the Bishops of the Whole World'. They claimed that legislation since 1931 had sought to change 'Spanish history in a way contrary to the needs of the national spirit'. The Comintern had armed 'a revolutionary militia to seize power'. The civil war was, therefore, theologically just. They concluded by praising the national movement as 'a vast family in which the citizen attains his total development'. Only Cardinal Vidal y Barraquer, the archbishop of Tarragona, Mateo Mugica, the bishop of Vitoria, did not sign it. All this paragraph was in OTL and this TL.

 

[Van555]

hmm so it is!

 

[Archangel]

The Church's stand for democracy is important for the Republic.

Keep it up, pip!

 

[stevep]

The ending of papal support for the nationalists in the Spanish Civil War was received with hostility by much of the Spanish hierarchy. In fact the change in the Vatican's policy towards Spain led to speculation by far right Catholics that Pope Gregory XVII had not been properly elected Pope and that the papacy was sede vacante [there was no pope]. The sedevacantists claimed that Eugenio Pacelli had really been elected Pope, but because of a Judeo-Masonic-Marxist-Liberal plot his election was declared invalid and Dalla Costa declared to be pope. This belief is known as the Pacelli Thesis, although Pacelli himself said or did nothing to encourage it. Pope Gregory's transfer of Pacelli from the prestigious post of Secretary of State to that of Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments, fuelled sedevacantism.

On 1 July 1937 the Spanish hierarchy led by Cardinal Goma, archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain, had issued an open letter to 'the Bishops of the Whole World'. They claimed that legislation since 1931 had sought to change 'Spanish history in a way contrary to the needs of the national spirit'. The Comintern had armed 'a revolutionary militia to seize power'. The civil war was, therefore, theologically just. They concluded by praising the national movement as 'a vast family in which the citizen attains his total development'. Only Cardinal Vidal y Barraquer, the archbishop of Tarragona, Mateo Mugica, the bishop of Vitoria, did not sign it. All this paragraph was in OTL and this TL.

pipisme

Ah, yes, that well known alliance against conservatism everywhere. I foresee troubled times for the Catholic church if the sedevacantists keep stirring up their insane beliefs.

Rather worried that the church in Spain is still that reactionary in TTL, when the anti-'nationalist' forces are far more broadly based and also the Pope has come out in opposition to the war continuing. Think that is going to be seen as a major challenge to Gregory.

Steve

 

[Julius Vogel]

An organisation as large as the Catholic Church in 1930s Spain is bound to have many reactionaries in the hierarchy, regardless of butterflies I would think

 

[pipisme]

In the nationalist controlled Spain two groups of Catholics supported the nationalists: The first group did so because of republican atrocities against the Church in the first few months of the civil war. They believed the nationalists were the defenders of the rights and interests of the Catholic Church, which represented the soul or essence of Spain. As loyal Catholics they supported the nationalists because that was the side which was backed by their Church. They did not believe in the authoritarian right-wing ideology of the Franco regime, and they were opposed to the Falange Espanola. The Spanish government wanted to attract that group.

The second group supported the nationalists for the same reason as the first group, but also backed them backed out of ideological commitment. Many were members of the Falange Espanola.

In the morning of Monday 20 March 1939 Pedro Sainz Rodriguez, a fervent and mystical Catholic, resigned from his post of Minister of Education in the nationalist administration. [1] He then drove from Burgos, the nationalist seat of government to the front line in the University City in the north-west suburbs of Madrid, where at the crossing point open to civilians from both sides he drove across to the government side. That afternoon he met the Prime Minister, Salvador de Madariaga, and members of his government. In the evening he made a passionate appeal on Spanish radio for all Catholics in the nationalist controlled areas to stop supporting the nationalists, thus bringing about the end of the civil war.

Meanwhile on the same day Cardinal Goma called together his fellow bishops to discuss whether or not to continue to support the nationalists.
They would be meeting the next day in the Convento de San Esteban in Salamanca.

[1] Here is his biography in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Sainz_Rodríguez.

 

[pipisme]

Backstory about the fictional characters Wilhelm Fischer and Kathe Fischer, and their children, following from posts #828 and 830 on February 9th and 10th, 2012, on page 42.

Wilhelm Fischer was born in Berlin on 5th March 1896 into a Lutheran family. He became a post office clerk. He was an activist in the German Social Democratic Party [SPD]. In April 1933 he was thrown into a "wild" concentration camp, where he was tortured. In August 1933 he was released.

Kathe Fischer was born on 21 May 1899 into a liberal Jewish family in Berlin. Her maiden name was Dienemann. Wilhelm Fischer and Kathe Dienemann were married in Berlin on 16 September 1920. She worked as a costume designer for the Deutches Nationaltheater in Berlin. .

Their children were Philipp, born 11 December 1921; Sophie, born 24 July 1924; and Karl born 8 February 1928. In the Nazi racial categorisation they were labelled as Mischlinge ["of mixed blood"]. Kathe Fischer was a full Jew according to the Nuremberg Laws because she had at least three Jewish grandparents. The Fischers raised their children as religiously Jewish. As such the children were labelled as Geltungsjuden [literally, people who counted as Jews] and were treated as full Jews. Though Kathe was not an Orthodox Jew she valued her Jewish identity and kept the traditional holiday celebrations, with the support of her husband.

As I wrote in post #830 the Fischers came to London in October 1938 as political refugees.

 

[pipisme]

In Berlin the Fischers lived in the working class Neukolln district. [1] This was something of a left-wing stronghold with above average votes for the SPD and the German Communist Party in elections during the Weimar Republic - that is up to and including 5 March 1933.

Because Berlin was a large city and with a strong liberal/left-wing tradition, it was a less dangerous place for Jews than conservative/right-wing small towns.

The Nazi period saw an intensification and deepening by Kathe Fischer and her children of their Jewish identity. Kathe was an active member of the League of Jewish Women.

[1] See this map of Berlin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin_Subdivisions.svg.

 

[pipisme]

There were about 60,000 school-aged Jewish children [between the ages of six and fourteen] living in Germany in 1933. [1] In April 1933, when the first anti-semitic measures were enacted, Philipp Fischer was eleven years old, Sophie Fischer was eight years old and Karl Fischer was five years old. Though the children of a Jewish and a non-Jewish partners they were brought up as religious Jews and therefore treated as Jews.

Wilhelm and Kathe Fischer brought up their children with a profound love of learning, and with socialist, liberal and humanre values, and with a passionate hatred of Nazism.

"Nazi legislation of April 1933 [...] established a quota of 1.5 percent total enrollment for Jews. Where Jews made up more than 5 percent of the population, schools could allow up to 5 percent of their pupils to be Jewish." [2]

Jewish children in school were subject to persecution, the extent of which depended on various factors. They were more likely to be victimised in small town and village schools. [3] Because the Fischer children lived in Berlin their experience of school was less bad than if they had lived anywhere else in Germany. "Berlin may have provided the best experience for which Jewish children could hope." [4]

[1] Information taken from the book Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany by Marion A. Kaplan, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

[2] See Kaplan.

[3] See Kaplan.

[4] See Kaplan.

 

[pipisme]

Kathe Fischer looked like the woman wearing a Star of David in this photograph: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Between-Dignity-Despair-Germany-Studies/dp/0195130928#reader_0195130928.

For her tenth birthday on 24 July 1934 Sophie Fischer was given a hardbacked notebook by her parents. In it she wrote a journal, which was later published under the title [in English translation] Diary of a Jewish Girl in Berlin Under Nazi Rule and After Liberation.

As the years passed Sophie's journal showed an increasing awareness of the persecution of the Jews in Berlin.

 

[pipisme]

Philipp Fischer celebrated his Bar Mitzvah on 11 December 1934 and Sophie Fischer her Bat Mitzvah on 24 July 1936. That is their 13th and 12th birthdays respectively.

In September 1934 Wilhelm and Kathe Fischer took their children out of public schools and enrolled them in the Kaliski School, which was a private Jewish school in Berlin.

 

[pipisme]

The Kaliski School was founded in 1932 by Lotte Kaliski, a young woman of twenty-three. There is a New York Times article from 1992 about it here: http://www.newyorktimes.com/1992/11...rom-special-alumni.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.

In this TL Kathe Fischer and Lotte Kaliski were friends. Kathe taught dress-making and similar skills at the school.

The New York Times article states that the Kaliski school "abruptly closed its doors a few months after Kristallnacht". As it does not specify the number of months I will assume that it was still open on 15 March 1939 when the Nazi regime in Berlin was overthrown in this TL. This was four months after Kristallnacht on 9/10 November 1938.

The proportion of Jewish children attending Jewish schools rose from 14 percent in 1932 to 23 percent in 1934, and to 52 percent in 1936. [1]

"Although some Jewish observers regretted that Jewish schools further segregated Jews - 'this way, the anti-semites had achieved their goal, alienation and separation from the surrounding Christian world' - the Jewish schools also provided immediate relief for most children." [2]

After Sophie Fischer was badly beaten up by a gang of Hitler Youth in early October 1938, her parents went to the police, who replied to their accusation by a tirade of crude, sexual anti-semitic abuse.

[1] See the book Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany by Marion A. Kaplan.

[2] The quotation is from Kaplan.

 

[pipisme]

Sophie Fischer refused to be cowed by her vicious assault by Hitler Youth. As she told her parents, she was a survivor, not a victim. She said:

We are Jews and we are socialists. We are strong and we will survive.

In April 1938 Wilhelm Fischer distributed copies of the pamphlet German Freedom, a Publication by the German Popular Front, 1938, which was produced by the socialist group Neu Beginnen. [1]

The virtual destruction of Neu Beginnen in the autumn of 1938 [2], as well as the brutal attack on Sophie by Hitler Youth, were the reasons why Wilhelm and Kathe Fischer decided to emigrate with their children from Germany to Britain. Wilhelm had friends in the Labour movement in London. In mid October 1938 they left Berlin and travelled by train and ship and train again to London, arriving in Liverpool Street Station.

Through his political and trade union friends Wilhelm got a job as a clerk at the Mount Pleasant Sorting Office in London. With her skills in dressmaking and clothes design, Kathe got a job as a costume designer with Sadler's Wells Theatre. [3] The Fischer family lived in a flat in Rosebery Avenue. [4]

[1] This was as in OTL. See the book The German Resistance to Hitler edited by Walter Schmitthenner and Hans Buchheim, English translation by Peter and Betty Ross, London: B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1970.
[2] This happened in OTL. See The German Resistance to Hitler.

[3] See http://www.sadlerswells.com.

[4] A location map for Rosebery Avenue is here: http://www.londontown.com/LondonStreets/rosebery_avenue_dc3.html.

 

[pipisme]

The critically acclaimed drama series Stories of Friends was broadcast on British Broadcasting Trust television in 24 episodes from September 2011 to March 2012. Set partly in England and partly in Germany, it was a fictionalised account of the lives of the Bancrofts and the Fischers and their mutual friends from February 1939 to the present day. It combined the story of their lives with political events, and political figures had cameo roles. The soundtrack featured music from the year or years in which each episode was set. It was criticised in some circles for blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction. The lead writer was Kate Atkinson.

 

[pipisme]

In the afternoon and evening of Sunday 19 March 1939 the Fischers gave a farewell party in their Rosebery Avenue flat.

Rosa Bancroft was there and her friend Becky Johnson who was an art student, and Geoffrey Thackray, Becky's artist lover. There were friends from the Jewish community and the Socialist Labour Party. Barbara Betts [better known in OTL as Barbara Castle, though in 1939 she was still Betts], a Socialist Labour councillor on St. Pancras Borough Council was there. Also friends of Kathe Fischer from Sadler's Wells Theatre.

An elder sister/younger sister relationship had developed between Rosa and Sophie Fischer, and Sophie had confided in Rosa about her brutal attack by the Hitler Youth. She also told her about her diary.

There was Jewish food for those who wanted it. On the record player classical music and jazz played. There was a lot of talk about events in Germany. Among which was that Kiel had been captured by government forces, but the fleet was under Nazi control and had escaped to the naval base of Pillau in East Prussia.

At 6 o'clock someone turned on the radio to hear the news. There were reports that Nazi troops of the Goering regime in Konigsberg had landed at several places in Mecklenburg and Pomerania on the Baltic coast in government controlled territory.

By 8 o'clock people were saying their goodbyes with hugs all round. Rosa promised to keep in touch with Kathe and Sophie.

The following day the Fischers travelled by train, boat and train to Berlin. It was an all day journey.

 

[pipisme]

On Friday 17 March 1939 Carl Goerdeler, the Chancellor of Germany, announced the establishment of the Office for the Return and Resettlement of Exiles and Refugees. He said he was pleased that Otto Hirsch, the distinguished jurist and secretary of the Central Association of Jews in Germany had agreed to become the Director-General of the Office. [1]

Over the days, weeks and months since the democratic revolution in Germany on 15 March 1939, hundreds of thousands of emigrants and refugees would return to Germany. Most of them were Jewish but some were not. Among the countless number who are forgotten to history there are several hundred who have achieved a degree of fame. Some were distinguished in their field before 1939, others would achieve distinction in later years. In this post I will describe three of these individuals.

Albert Einstein was probably the world's greatest living scientist. On 18 March he returned to Berlin from exile in the United States of America. A delegation comprising the Chancellor and senior members of his cabinet greeted him at Tempelhof Airport. He was restored to his post as a professor at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Nikolaus Pevsner was an architectural historian. [2] However he was still largely unknown by the general public. In later years he would be remembered as the author of the of the highly acclaimed and authoritative multi-volume series of guides The Buildings of Germany.

On 18 March Otto Frank, a Jewish businessman, his wife Edith, and their two young daughters Margot and Anne, returned to their home city of Frankfurt on Main from Amsterdam. Anne Frank would become a critically acclaimed and popular novelist.

[1] Here is the biography of Hirsch on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hirsch.

[2] Here is Pevsner's biography on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaus_Pevsner.

 

[pipisme]

The German Communist Party [KPD], which had been banned by the Nazis, was legalised by the new democratic German government in Berlin. Karl Liebknecht House, its previous headquarters in Berlin, was returned to it, and Die Rote Fahne [The Red Flag] the party newspaper, resumed publication.

Senior officials of the KPD in exile in the Soviet Union had fallen victim to the Great Purge of 1937-1938. They were executed or sent to the Gulag.

On Saturday 18 March 1939 there was a large demonstration by the KPD in the centre of Berlin. Watching with a mixture of pride, sympathy and friendly curiosity were Arvid Harnack and his wife Mildred. Arvid was a civil servant in the Ministry of Economics. His wife Mildred [nee Fish] was born in Milwaukee in 1902. She married Arvid when he was a Rockefeller Scholar at the University of Wisconsin in 1926. [1] The Harnacks had been members of a left-wing resistance group in Berlin before the overthrow of the Hitler regime.

On Sunday March 1939 pastoral letters by Cardinal Michael Fulhauber, archbishop of Munich, and Cardinal Karl Joseph Schulte, archbishop of Cologne, were read at all masses in all Catholic churches in their dioceses. These letters welcomed the overthrow of the "pagan and anti-Christian" Hitler regime, and called upon all Catholics to give their full support to the democratic government in Berlin.

In their pastoral letters, Konrad Graf von Preysing, bishop of Berlin, and his cousin, Clemens August von Galen, bishop of Munster, welcomed the overthrow of the "evil Nazi regime" and the ending of the persecution of the Jews.

In his sermon Bernard Lichtenberg, [2] the provost of St. Hedwig's Catholic cathedral in Berlin, called upon his congregation to rejoice that "the oppressive evil of Nazism" had been overthrown. He urged them to give all the help they could to their Jewish fellow citizens who were recovering from persecution.

In contrast, in his pastoral letter, Archbishop Adolf Bertram, archbishop of Breslau and ex officio head of the German episcopate, did not anything about the overthrow of the Hitler regime. He said that all Catholics must give due obedience to the government, as long as it did not violently persecute the Church and prevent it from carrying out its spiritual mission. Silesia, and its capital Breslau, were under the control of the Nazi regime, headed by Hermann Goering, with its capital in Konigsberg.

[1] Here are their biographies in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvid_Harnack and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Harnack.

[2] Here is a biographical article about Lichtenberg: http://the-american-catholic.com/2010/02/14/blessed-bernard-lichtenberg-and-courage.