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Labour and Hitler's Rise to Power, 1933-34

© Joseph Sramek

Editor's note:

In my previous article on the Labour party and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, I concluded by arguing that it would take "events significantly closer to home" [i.e. in Europe] "to effect greater change in Labour's foreign policy" which at that time was one of staunch pacifism and support for the League of Nations. It did not take long for such an event to happen for just as the Manchurian question started to fade away, the problem of Adolf Hitler and how to deal with his regime took its place.

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On January 30th, 1933, Hitler came to power. In the next two years, he left the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference, rearmed on a large scale, and set up a totalitarian regime. He had done this with the tacit acquiescence of the British Government and the other Great Powers which were, according to deputy party leader Clement Attlee, "yielding to Hitler and force what was denied to [Gustav] Stresemann [1] and reason...." [2]

Labour was in favor of yielding to Stresemann and reason during the 1920s. Before Hitler came to power, Labour had a pro-German reputation. [3] In 1919, it opposed the Versailles Treaty, and it consistently opposed the reparations on Germany throughout the Weimar period. In 1931 and 1932, it supported Germany's demands for equality of status at the Disarmament Conference. [4] Sir Stafford Cripps, a prominent member on the party's left-wing remarked in March 1933, only two months after Hitler came to power, that "if you are ever going to remove the unrest from Europe you will do it only upon the basis of justice, and in order to do that, you must remove first of all some of the iniquitous provisions of the post-war Treaties." [5 This outlook was also shared by George Lansbury, leader of the party, who said in November 1932 that:

The nations of Europe have performed a great disservice to the German nation by not following their pledged word and disarming themselves when they had disarmed Germany.... They believed that we [Britain and the other Allies] were going to take the lead in bringing about disarmament. We have not done so, and the German people have been forced to come right out into the open and say: "you are not carrying out your word. Your Disarmament Conference goes on month after month and nothing is done. Nowe we are going to take the matter into our own hands, and re-arm.... [6]

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