Hitler’s Rival: Ernst Thälmann in Myth and Memory

Conclusion

373 Conclusion The debate concerning the fate of the Ernst Thälmann National Monument was the product of an ideological struggle lasting more than seven decades. In the aftermath of the Great War, a conflict characterized by unprecedented destruction, many Europeans came to view the Soviet model as the last best hope for humanity. These supporters of the Bolshevik experiment earnestly believed that Lenin’s Russia embodied the sole possibility of avoiding a similar catastrophe. In Germany, the far Left formed the German Communist Party. During the first years of the KPD’s existence, party leaders sought to maintain a degree of independence from Moscow, whereas the enemies of German communism sought to depict the movement as a willing tool of the Soviet Union. Although the amount of influence that the Comintern held over its German subordinate during the first years of the KPD’s existence was limited, there can be no question but that from 1925 Ernst Thälmann oversaw the Stalinization of the KPD, and his critics could legitimately accuse him of being the Soviet dictator’s lackey. Stalin’s decision to intervene on the KPD chief’s behalf during the Wittorf Scandal of 1928 made abundantly clear that Thälmann had become vital to the Soviet dictator’s German policy. As a result, Thälmann became even more beholden to Stalin, and the KPD emerged as an even more compliant confederate of Moscow.1 Here one can see the origins of perhaps the greatest disadvantage facing German communism, not to mention efforts to propagate the Ernst Thälmann myth—they both were ultimately manifestations of a foreign ideology. Although at times German Communists sought to distance themselves from Moscow in order to appeal to a wider constituency , as in the Free Thälmann campaign of the 1930s, any outside observer was aware of who was really pulling the strings. Both the KPD and SED relied on their affiliation with the Soviet Union to legitimize their efforts, and this reliance dramatically affected the Ernst Thälmann myth. In 1925, when the Hamburg dock worker made his first bid for the German presidency, KPD propagandists emphasized that Thälmann sought to introduce Soviet-style socialism to Germany. 374 HITLER’S RIVAL The 1932 presidential campaign, if anything, made this goal even clearer . Although the KPD could appeal to workers suffering because of an economic downturn or to leftist intellectuals, it had nothing to offer Germans who were at all nationalistic, dooming the movement to permanent minority status. There were only two ways that the KPD could come to power—either through a violent revolution that would impose Soviet-style socialism on an overwhelmingly unsympathetic population or as the result of a Soviet-led invasion of Germany. The Communists ultimately assumed power in part of Germany as a result of the latter development, of course. This outcome ensured that from its inception the German socialist state was artificial, a system imposed by a foreign power. As a result, German socialism lacked legitimacy from the outset.2 Although East German political propaganda sought consistently to depict the GDR’s subservient relationship to the Soviet Union in a positive light, socialist Germany’s political religion made it abundantly clear who was in charge. One of the central tenets of the Thälmann myth was the emphasis placed on the close relationship between the martyred KPD chief and the birthplace of socialism, to link the modest worker from Hamburg to the legacy of Lenin and Stalin. Perhaps recognizing the shortfalls of this approach, the post–Second World War Socialist Unity Party simultaneously emphasized the image of Ernst Thälmann as “Germany’s eternal son,” representative of a specifically German path pursued in opposition to National Socialism. The Germanness of the SED’s greatest hero could never be embraced completely, and Thälmann’s links to the Soviet Union were ultimately more vital to the legitimacy of the GDR than were his roots in Hamburg. Under such constraints, Thälmann could never become the prophet of a uniquely German path to socialism. As long as the SED state existed, it was clearly beholden to a foreign power. Over the course of more than forty years, the people of the SBZ and later the GDR were fed a steady diet of propaganda emphasizing that good German socialists, inspired by the accomplishments of the Soviet Union, had stood up valiantly against the fascist menace, many of them giving their lives in the struggle. Ernst Thälmann...