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From: "Michael Albert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Here then is today's ZNet Commentary...
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European Labor
By Nikos Raptis
The Building
The German word "Reichstag" means parliament. In colloquial German it also
means the parliament building. It is not an exaggeration to say that this
building, the Reichstag, is a very important part of the history of the
20th century.
On the evening of February 27, 1933 Putzi Hanfstaengl, a Harvard educated
German-American friend of Hitler (see ZNet Commentary of June 4, '99) was
in bed from a heavy cold and high temperature. "In mid-evening he was
awakened by the cries of the housekeeper: the Reichstag was on fire. He
shot out of bed looked out of the window, saw the building in flames and
immediately rushed to ring up Goebbels, saying, breathlessly, that he
urgently had to speak to Hitler. When Goebbels asked what it was about,
and whether he could pass on a message, Hanfstaengl said: 'Tell him the
Reichstag is burning.' 'Is that meant to be a joke?' was Goebels reply.
(Source: Kershaw, Ian, "Hitler," W.W. Norton, N.Y., 1998, p. 457)
Hitler and Goebbels set off at once for the blazing Reichstag. "When they
arrived, they found Hermann Goering,...already inside the building giving
orders - the first of which, characteristically , had been 'Save the
tapestries!' The valuable Gobelin, which were his personal property,...
Goering had been president of the Reichstag since the end of August
1932... Hitler's first comment on arriving at the blazing Reichstag had
been: 'Good riddance to the old shack.' The 'old shack' was, of course,
hardly ancient, being exactly forty years old - but he put its burning in
excellent use." (Source: Read, Anthony & Fisher, David, "The Fall of
Berlin," W.W. Norton, N.Y., 1992, p.25,26)
On Feb. 28 1993, the day after the fire, Hitler's dictatorship began with
the enactment of a decree "for the Protection of the People and the State"
(in our days, "For reasons of National Security"), which dispensed with
all constitutional protection, of political, personal, and property
rights. But "the rounding up of Communist deputies and functionaries had
already been set in train during the night in raids carried out with
massive brutality. Communists were the main target. But Social Democrats,
trade unionists and left wing intellectuals... were also among those
dragged into improvised prisons, often in the cellars of SA or SS
headquarters, and savagely beaten, tortured, and in some cases murdered."
(Source: Kershaw, p.460) All these happened only one week before the
national elections. Hitler got 43.9 % of the vote and the Left 30.6% (the
Social Democrats 18.3 % and the Communists 12.3 %, in spite of the
terror).
The man arrested as the arsonist was Marinus van der Lubbe who "came from
a Dutch working-class family, and had formerly belonged to the Communist
Party youth organization in Holland. He had eventually broken with the
Communist Party in 1931.... He was twenty-four years old, intelligent, a
solitary individual, unconnected with any political groups, but possessed
of a strong sense of injustice at the misery of the working class at the
hands of the capitalist system... he was determined to make a lone and
spectacular act of defiant protest... in order to galvanize the working
class into struggle against their repression." (Source: Kershaw, p.456-7)
Others believe that the fire had been organized by Goering and Goebbels
and that van der Lubbe was a simple minded young Dutch communist. Van der
Lubbe, after a long imprisonment and a show trial, was eventually
beheaded. The Reichstag fire is the subject of continued debate and
research. "The consequences of the Reichstag fire were, of course, always
more important than the identity of whoever instigated the blaze."
(Kershaw, note 112, p.732)
The Greek Construction Workers
After the German government decided to move the capital of Germany from
Bonn back to Berlin it was inevitable that the Reichstag would be
restored. (or rather rebuilt). Also inevitably, the rebuilt Reichstag in
1999 should have a garage. The contractor of the 3-level underground
garage is the German construction company ARGE ROHBAU. As usual there is
one or more subcontractors. One of the subcontractors is the Greek
construction company OCTOPUS. The Greek construction workers according to
the contract should have been paid 48 German Marks (about US $ 26) per
hour, instead they were paid 15 German Marks (about US $ 8) for the
unskilled worker and 18 German Marks (about US $ 10) for the skilled
worker.
Last November there was a report in the Greek press (ELEFTHEROTYPIA, Nov,,
20, '99, p.17) that 50 Greek workers of OCTOPUS had not been paid for
months by ROHBAU, the German contractor. The Greek owner of OCTOPUS claims
that the Germans owe him about half a million US dollars. The Germans
accused the Greek subcontractor of poor workmanship. The 50 Greek workers
had no money to buy food or pay for a ticket to return to Greece. So, the
hungry Greek construction workers stood outside the gate of the Reichstag
construction site, under the Berlin November snow demanding their money.
One of the workers said: "We have been working for months under harsh
conditions 11 hours a day 6 days a week. And now they kick us out in the
street." In the same street, probably on the same spot, that Hitler stood
and watched the Reichstag burning. One wonders how Hitler would react
seeing the dark-eyed and dark-haired Greeks help rebuild the Reichstag,
while the Aryan workers of his 'Volk" went hungry and jobless?
The story was picked up by some German papers which confirmed that the
construction workers of the Greek, Italian, and Portugese subcontractors
working in Berlin "are paid with 30% of what the German construction
workers are paid. The result is that the German construction workers are
without a job." Also, the investigative reporting of these papers revealed
a confidential document of the competent German Parliamentary Committee
which cynically admits: "We know that the foreign workers from other
countries of the European Union are paid much smaller wages, however, we
cannot put an end to this practice for reasons of cost..."
(ELEFTHEROTYPIA, Dec. 4, '99, p.8)
Meanwhile....
Back in Greece the Albanian, Bulgarian and Bangladeshi workers in the
strawberry fields get US $ 16 per DAY. Of this, about US $ 2 they pay to
the local "Godfather." The Bangladeshi, been dark-skined get only US $ 12
per DAY, yet they pay the US $ 2 to the local criminal. (Source:
ELEFTHEROTYPIA, April 15, 1999, p. 50)
After the "victory" of the US Democracy over the Soviets, etc. a wave of
Albanians, Poles, Rumanians, and citizens of the former Soviet Union with
Greek roots entered Greece as economic immigrants. It is estimated that
around 800,000 Albanians are in the country, the Albanians themselves
claim that there are over a million Albanians. The other nationalities
make another 2 or 3 hundred thousand. The total is above 10% of the 10
million Greek population. So, finally the Greeks have their very own
blue-eyed and blond "niggers" to do the hard menial work for them, at the
above mentioned wages. Unfortunately these "niggers" were followed by the
inevitable Mafia parasites of neoliberalism, who in collaboration with
their local counterparts (and in many cases with the police) little by
little transform the, up to now, rather carefree Greek society into a
scared rabble of the US Anglo-Saxon variety.
Of what I know, there were no more news in the Greek press about the fate
of the 50 Greek construction workers in the rebuilding of the Reichstag.
A<>E<>R
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
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