"We did not resist, we did not throw hurdles into the way of the victorious political opponent", wrote the author. "The old ones (in the SPD leadership) are concerned about their fame. Like old, ridiculous actors or singers they never notice when the curtain has fallen."
"We were, and stayed, in all the full blood parliamentarians, that is, we talked about things, but they did, they mastered them. While concentration camps were already being built and many of our followers were shot dead we got into fierce struggle for seats."
[…]
When the Not Socialists entered in 1932 on a ford with the Zentrum and thus won a majority in the Reichstag, Hoegner and his comrades considered it merely an "enjoyable game". It is true that the Social Democrats sensed that "a black and brown government was in the air," but they had no other idea than to "annoy our Zentrum colleagues with the song of the black-brown girl."
[…]
On March 23, 1933, the SPD alone voted against the Enforcement Act, which gave the Hitler government an almost unlimited power of power. And when the SPD chairman, Otto Wels, had explained the reasons why his party had to refuse to approve this law, Hitler once again hurried to the podium, kicked off the SPD, and concluded, "You, gentlemen, are no longer needed I do not want you to vote for the Enabling Act, but Germany should be free, but not through you. "
Hoegner: "That clapped and snapped like a whip on our heads, that fell like a fierce fire on us."
Nevertheless, at the Reichstag meeting of May 17, 1933, the SPD, together with the Not Socialists, voted in favor of the program proclaimed by Hitler to remove the restrictions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles ("equality of Germany"), which caused astonishment
[…]
The last Reichstag meeting, to which Social Democrats were admitted, was "even more agonizing for many of us than our presence at the meeting of March 23, 1933. At the time we had expected to lose our lives in the worst case, but this time Some of us felt that we were losing our honor. "
But when Hitler began his speech, the comrades experienced a surprise. The new chancellor avoided any attack on the SPD, even for the Nazi opponent Hoegner sounded the speech "extremely moderate": "A more gentle peace speech could not have been held by Stresemann." When Göring called for the vote, the members of the SPD parliamentary group rose and voted in favor of the Reichstag declaration.
Hoegner described this as follows: "Thereupon an agitator of the other deputies broke loose, and even our most implacable adversary, Adolf Hitler, seemed to be moved for a moment, and he rose and clapped us applause, but the President of the Reichstag, Goering, stood up Spoke magnificently: "The German people are always united when their destiny is. Then the German national deputies began to sing the German song. Most of our ranks were singing. Some ran tears down their cheeks. It was as if social democrats, who were always cursed as the lost sons of the fatherland, had for a moment immortalized the common mother of Germany. "
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