When Hitler took over in 1933, all political parties (except the Nazi Party) were made illegal. But Germany had a large and well-organized Communist Party-and all of them were certainly not arrested and killed. So what happened to them-were there enough Communists to form an effective "fifth column) within the German armed forces, government, etc.?
I suspect many doctrinaire communists were quite able to appear to be “good Nazis”-while staying true to CP party principles?
How amny survived the war?
I think apart from not wanting the whole arrested and killed, thing, they were Germans first and communists second. Germany had been kicked in the teeth in WWI. The whole country was crestfallen. The last holdouts saw a winner in Hitler and grabbed on to his coattails. Any German comeback was good, regardless of party…
Many went into exile, because the Naxis would have tried to kill them. These mostly went to the Soviet Union, and it was they who became the East german government post-war. They were all good Commie apparachtniks who absolutely toed the Stalinist line, and in fact resisted de-Stalinization later.
However, you’re half right: it was not difficult for Commies to become Nazis, and a great many did so. However, these generally worked that angle before 1933. Postwar, a surprising number of Nazis turned right around and became Communist Party members before 1945 had gone. There were also a few Communist Fifth Column groups, although their overall impact was limited and it’s unclear that any survived the war.
There’s a good discussion of Communist resistance here (PDF). In short, no, the Communists could never form an effective organization under the noses of the SS. They tried, but got hammered down time and again.
This was Nazi Germany we’re talking about. Why is “all of them were certainly not arrested and killed” hard to believe? If there’s one thing the Nazis were good at, it was killing large groups of people.
As I said, it didn’t happen because the Communists who mattered to the authorities ostly left… precisely because they knew they’d be killed.
I think that’s a reasonable answer, but I suspect it has a bit of survivors bias. Some of the ones that would have mattered were probably killed.
Some, certainly, who failed to flee or convert. But the ranka nd file weren’t generally molested, although the Nazis imprisoned several thousand at some point or another. I’ve honestly found it hard to find reliable figures on how many Communists the Nazis killed, at least for being Communist. They killed so many people for so many reasons it’s a little bit difficult to figure out who and how many anymore.
Doesn’t anyone remember Martin Niemoller?
Also, one of the centers of Communist organization was the industrial north. Which was bombed nearly out of existence by the Allies. Churchill didn’t target Nazis and save commies, social democrats and other non-Nazi Germans, because that really didn’t matter to his grand strategy. He just didn’t want Germany to have the industrial capacity to threaten the whole of Europe again, no matter which party was in charge.
Actually, the north wasn’t a center of pro-Communist sentiment - Berlin’s working class neighborhoods were, although even before 1933 that was fading in favor of pro-Nazi sentiment. Industrial northern Germany was mroe split between socialists and democrats, although the lines between those groups were blurry, and both faded into th more conservative/democratic groups of southern Germany.
Once you take care of neutralizing the leaders (those simply have to go), you do not need to imprison, exile or kill all opposition followers and sympathizers. Just enough so the rest get the message.
Sorry, I was confusing communists and social democrats, both being anti-Nazi.