BNP and Teaching

[grimey]

Yes. I saw the Question Time debate last night. Norman One Bollock Tebbit retorted that the BNP is a socialist party. Either he is trying to get the general public to associate Socialism and Fascism as the same thing, that is to say a bad thing or he is very poorly informed himself.

BTW I have just look at the BNP teacher's site following Andy' link (above) and i was amused to see Disraeli (a jew) quoted on it justify the content of the site.

[Guest]

It the light of America's apparent rejection of "due process" in its dealings with detainees in Iraq and around the world, I am even more strongly committed to it for individual teachers even if they are Nazis

Individual rights and due process need to be protected by liberals everywhere at this time.

[UlrikeSchuhFricke]

Martin Niemöller was of course a fascist when the Nazis began rounding up communist and socialist teachers.

(John Simkin)

This is not true; whatever Martin Niemöller was before he co-founded the Confessing Church Movement against the Nazis in Germany he never ever was a fascist. You might call him a German, a German nationalist who served as a submarin commander during World War I; but he was always a democrat.

[John Simkin]

Martin Niemöller was of course a fascist when the Nazis began rounding up communist and socialist teachers.

(John Simkin)

This is not true; whatever Martin Niemöller was before he co-founded the Confessing Church Movement against the Nazis in Germany he never ever was a fascist. You might call him a German, a German nationalist who served as a submarin commander during World War I; but he was always a democrat.

Martin Niemöller is one of my heroes. One of the reasons for this is that he accepted that he had been a fascist between the two world wars. It was this confession that enabled him to become a pacifist and libertarian socialist in his later life.

During the First World War Niemöller was seen as one of Germany's most successful U-boat captains and was awarded the Iron Cross (first class).

After the war Niemöller became active in German politics. Senior officers in the German Army began raising private armies called Freikorps. These were used to defend the German borders against the possibility of invasion from the Red Army. Niemöller joined this group and took part in the attempt to stop a socialist revolution taking place in Germany.

In March, 1919, General Franz Epp led 30,000 soldiers to crush the Bavarian Socialist Republic. It is estimated that Epp's men killed over 600 communists and socialists over the next few weeks. The following year Herman Ehrhardt, a former naval commander and Wolfgang Kapp, a right-wing journalist, led a group of soldiers to take control of Berlin. Niemöller supported this Kapp Putsch and commanded a battalion of Freikorps in Munster. The right-wing coup was eventually defeated by a general strike of trade unionists.

After the establishment of the Weimar Republic Niemöller decided to study theology. He remained interested in politics and became a supporter Adolf Hitler and in the 1924 elections voted for the Nazi Party. Even after he was ordained in 1929 and became pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ at Dahlem he remained an ardent supporter of Hitler. In 1931 Niemöller made speeches where he argued that Germany needed a Führer.

In his sermons he also espoused Hitler's views on race and nationality. In 1933 he described the programme of the Nazi Party as a "renewal movement based on a Christian moral foundation". The following year Niemöller published his autobiography From U-Boat to Pulpit. This right-wing nationalist view of the war and its aftermath made it a popular book with party members and sold 90,000 copies in the first few weeks after it was published.

In 1933 Niemöller complained about the decision by Adolf Hitler to appoint Ludwig Muller, as the country's Reich Bishop of the Protestant Church. With the support of Karl Barth, a professor of theology at Bonn University, in May, 1934, a group of rebel pastors formed what became known as the Confessional Church.

When the Nazi government continued with this policy Niemöller joined with Dietrich Bonhoffer to form the Pastors' Emergency League and published a major document opposing the religious policies of Adolf Hitler. Niemöller was particularly concerned by Hitler's decision that Jews should be expelled from the Church. He argued that once Jews had been converted to Christianity they should be allowed to remain in the Church. As Bonhoffer pointed out at the time, although Niemöller was critical of Hitler he remained a committed supporter of the Nazi Party.

Niemöller was later to admit that his group "acted as if we had only to sustain the church" and did not accept that they had a "responsibility for the whole nation".

Niemöller therefore did not criticize the Nazi Party for putting its political opponents into concentration camps. However, he spoke out when members of the Protestant Church were arrested. In his sermon on Sunday 27th June 1937, Niemöller pointed out that on: "On Wednesday the secret police penetrated the closed church of Friedrich Werder and arrested at the altar eight members of the Council of Brethren."

The following month Niemöller was himself arrested. He was held eight months without trial and when his case eventually took place he was found guilty of "abusing the pulpit" and was fined 2,000 marks. As he left the court he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp to be "re-educated". Niemöller refused to change his views and was later transferred to Dachau.

Niemöller remained an ardent supporter of Hitler and on the outbreak of the Second World War he wrote to Admiral Erich Raeder offering to serve in the German Navy. His offer was declined.

In 1945, with the Allies moving in on Germany, Niemöller, Alexander von Falkenhausen, Kurt von Schuschnigg, Leon Blum, and other political prisoners were transferred to Tirol in Austria by the SS. The original plan was to execute them but they were rescued by the Allies just before the end of the Second World War.

On 5th June 1945 Niemöller gave a press conference in Naples. He admitted that he had offered to join the German Navy in 1939. He also confessed that he had "never quarrelled with Hitler over political matters, but purely on religious grounds". This resulted in a savage attack on Niemöller from those newspapers that had presented him as a symbol of resistance to Hitler's government. It was now pointed out that Niemöller had never opposed the Nazi racial theories, but merely the suppression of the Church in Germany.

When it was suggested that Niemöller wanted to visit Britain there was a campaign to keep him out of the country. Tom O'Brien of the TUC General Council wrote: "I sincerely hope he will not be allowed to come. If he is, it will be the first overt move of the Germans to "organise sympathy", as they did so successfully and so hypocritically after the last war. Niemöller commanded a U-boat in the last war and, with his brother commanders, was responsible for the drowning of many unarmed British merchant seamen. In this war he volunteered to serve under Hitler. He was (and may now be) as nationalistic as any of his congregation at the fashionable Berlin church to which he ministered."

The Archdeacon of Lancaster claimed that "the pastor's visit at this time can do nothing but harm". The Daily Telegraph pointed out that Niemöller should be denied entry as there was "no record that he ever denounced Hitler's crimes against humanity or condemned the war". The Home Secretary agreed and announced that Niemöller would not be allowed to visit Britain.

After the war Niemöller became one of the leaders of the Evangelical Church in Germany. After visiting the Soviet Union Niemöller joined the World Peace Movement. On his return to Germany he pointed out: "I cannot accept communism, but I must admit that its ideals are very different from ours, which are all tangled up with the most sordid materialism." Niemöller wrote to his friend Karl Barth explaining that he was gradually being converted to the idea of socialism: "The corner-stone of my thinking is that the root of every evil development is money." Later he wrote that " the rich must be smashed in order to build human brotherhood."

Niemöller also spoke out against the development of the Cold War. In a speech he made in New York he argued: "I am... against the often-heard statement that a war against bolshevism is necessary to save the Christian churches and Christianity. But it is unchristian to conduct a war for the saving of the Christian church, for the Christian church does not need to be saved. The church is not afraid of bolshevism. It was not afraid of Nazism. The church has to serve the communists as well as all human beings. While the church rejects communism as a creed, just as it rejects all other creeds, communism must and can only be fought and defeated with spiritual weapons. All other powers will fail."

On his 90th birthday in 1982 Niemöller stated that he had started his political career as "an ultra-conservative who wanted the Kaiser to come back; and now I am a revolutionary. I really mean that. If I live to be a hundred I shall maybe be an anarchist." Martin Niemöller died in Wiesbaden, Germany, on 6th March, 1984.

See the following page on my website to see the documentary evidence to support my claim that Niemöller was a fascist and a strong supporter of Hitler between the wars.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERniemoller.htm

[Mike Tribe]

To get back to the subject of BNP teachers. Perhaps the comparison with revolutionary socialists doesn't hold enough water to convince everyone. What about revolutionary Islamic teachers? Should membership of the Regents Park Mosque be grounds for dismissal? Derek says we have to protect children from exposure to racists. Where does this stop? Do we have to protect Jewish children from devout Moslem teachers? Or Moslem children from Jews who might or might not be Zionists?

There is a law against incitement to racial hatred. If a teacher breaks that law and is convicted after due process, then he should be dismissed. Otherwise, he has a right to expect his views to be tolerated. That's what living in a liberal society is all about. I disagree with everything you say but will defend to the death your right to say it...

[Guest]

There is a law against incitement to racial hatred. If a teacher breaks that law and is convicted after due process, then he should be dismissed. Otherwise, he has a right to expect his views to be tolerated. That's what living in a liberal society is all about. I disagree with everything you say but will defend to the death your right to say it...

I couldn't agree more. Getting back to the specific case in question, "due process" will likely reveal that the teacher in question was inciting racial hatred (one glimpse at his web site sort of confirms that). Whether he was doing so in his work is a different matter. Any individual in that sort of situation deserves a fair investigation and any democracy which asserts that they don't is heading for real trouble.