Report on an NSDAP Rally held in Berlin in 1927

Joseph Goebbels was appointed as the Nazi Party Gauleiter of Berlin in November 1926. He set about attempting to gain support from working class people. This inevitably led to a confrontation with the socialist parties. Goebbels made a point of emphasising the Socialist credentials of the NSDAP. This was in part because of the parties stance on economic issues and partly in order to ensure that the party had a means of combatting the socialist and communist parties. In this report, written by Nazi officials, you can see how Rhetoric and Force combined at rallies and meetings.

Report on an NSDAP Rally held in Berlin in 1927

On the 11th of this month, the Party held a public mass meeting in the Pharus [Beer] Halls’ in Wedding, the real working class quarter, with the subject: ‘The Collapse of the Bourgeois Class State’. Comrade Dr Goebbels was the speaker. It was quite clear to us what that meant. It had to be visibly shown that National Socialism is determined to reach the workers. We succeeded once before in getting a foothold in Wedding. There were huge crowds at the meeting. More than 1,000 people filled the hall whose political composition was four-fifths SA to one-fifth KPD. But the latter had gathered their main forces in the street. When the meeting was opened by Comrade Daluege, the SA leader, there were, as was expected, provocative shouts of ‘On a point of order!’. After the KPD members had been told that we, not they, decided points of order, and that they would have the right to ask questions after the talk by Comrade Dr Goebbels, the first scuffling broke out. Peace seemed to be restored until there was renewed heckling. When the chairman announced that the hecklers would be sent out if the interruptions continued, the KPD worked themselves into a frenzy. Meanwhile, the SA had gradually surrounded the centre of the disturbance, and the Communists, sensing the danger, suddenly became aggressive. What followed all happened within three or four minutes. Within seconds both sides had picked up chairs, beer mugs, even tables, and a savage fight began. The Communists were gradually pushed under the gallery which we had taken care to occupy and soon chairs and glasses came hurtling down from there also. The fight was quickly decided: the KPD left with 85 wounded, more or less: that is to say, they could not get down the stairs as fast as they had calmly and ‘innocently’ climbed them. On our side we counted 3 badly wounded and about 10–12 slightly. When the police appeared the fight was already over. Marxist terrorism had been bloodily suppressed. [ . . . ]

Source of the original German text: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei, Ortsgr. Berlin – Sektion Neukölln (Propaganda Zelle), Situations-Bericht (February 1927)

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