- by Marcus Browning
- The Guardian
- Issue #2131
The founder of the Liberal Party, Robert Menzies, was an enthusiastic supporter of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. Amid the current hullabaloo and white noise about “Nazi salutes and symbols” it is worth recalling the “broad church of the Liberal Party” came into existence kneeling before the alter of fascism. And here in the 21st century members of the Coalition make speeches at Neo-Nazi rallies.
Eight days after the beginning of World War II was declared, Menzies wrote to former Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, who at the time occupied the post of High Commissioner to Britain. Menzies told Bruce that Britain should negotiate with Hitler after the fall of Poland to the Nazi invaders. He expected that it would lead to “a resettlement of the whole map of Europe with joint and several guarantees all round.”
In reality, the policy of appeasement – acceding to the demands of the fascist dictators rather than resisting them – was a conscious policy to “encourage” fascist aggression.
Far from wanting to “avoid the carnage” of another war, imperialist governments fostered and armed fascist regimes for the express purpose of stopping Communism.
The appeasers helped Germany rearm; helped Hitler, Mussolini and Franco to destroy Republican Spain; refused to lift a finger to stop Japan’s conquest of China. All part of their grand plan to have the Axis powers attack and destroy the hated Bolshevik stronghold, the Soviet Union.
The European powers refused to join in any serious consideration of collective security (as proposed time and again by Soviet Foreign Minister Litvinov) – which alone could have safeguarded peace in Europe.
Instead, the ruling class of Britain, France, and the USA rejoiced in every new development in Nazi Germany that enhanced the likelihood of war.
And Robert Menzies, a leading light of the United Australia Party (UAP) – forerunner of the Liberal Party – and Attorney General in the Bruce government, shared the same class admiration for the Nazis. He returned from a visit to Germany in the mid-’30s full of praise for Hitler and what he had supposedly done for Germany.
Later, he went out of his way to please the German ambassador in his efforts to “get” the visiting anti-fascist Czech writer Egon Kisch.
His partiality for fascist regimes was not limited to Germany, either. His nickname of Pig Iron Bob stamped on him by the Waterside Workers’ Federation (now part of the Maritime Union of Australia) stemmed from his notorious use of legislation to try and force waterside workers to load pig iron for shipment to Japan at a time when Japan had actually invaded China.
The pig iron was wanted by the Japanese imperialists for the making of shells and other weapons, to be used against the Chinese people.
The class-conscious wharfies could also see in the rise of fascism that Australia would be on the receiving end of those shells.
In early 1939, the Japanese government publicly thanked Menzies for his help in keeping them supplied with pig iron for their war effort. If Japan did go to war with Australia, their good friend Menzies would be in no danger.
Menzies is also irrevocably associated with the plan to appease Japan by proposing to give her the northern part of Australia, down as far as Brisbane (the “Brisbane Line” plan, subsequently vehemently denied by Menzies’ supporters). On 22 April, 1940, Labor MHR Mahoney told the House (referring to Menzies): “At heart he is a Nazi.
“When I walked along one of Canberra’s streets with him some time ago he said: ‘I have a great admiration for the Nazi organisation of Germany.
“ ‘There is a case for Germany against Czechoslovakia. We must not destroy Hitlerism or talk about shooting Hitler … .’ ”
The war was only 8 days old when Menzies wrote to Bruce, and it was not yet clear to people that the governments of Britain and France had no intention of actually trying to stop Hitler from conquering Poland.
The Anglo-French declaration of war against Germany was intended to placate public opinion at home and to pressure Germany not to get too carried away with this Non-Aggression Pact it had just signed with the USSR. Hitler was being reminded not to forget who his real friends were and to continue marching east to the Soviet Union.
In the Bruce letter Menzies shows his grasp of the basics of Anglo-French foreign policy as well as his lack of concern for the people of Poland. “Nobody really cares a damn about Poland,” he tells Bruce.
But Menzies’ main concern is to have Bruce persuade the British government that it would be a mistake to wage war on Germany.
He supplies Australia’s High Commissioner with arguments Bruce can use, including that “Germany’s defensive position is incredibly strong,” that such a war would cost “in the long run, millions of British and French lives,” and that “the economic force which will be our ultimate weapon will tend to affect us almost as severely as it does Germany.”
Bruce subsequently replied indicating that he had “constantly urged” Menzies’ views upon the British government.
A few months later, still anticipating a Hitler victory in the great crusade against the Bolsheviks, Menzies banned the Communist Party of Australia. A year after that, when Nazi Germany finally invaded the Soviet Union, Menzies announced that “Russia won’t last six weeks.”
Fortunately for us all, he was wrong – again.
Lotte Lenya
Written after World War II
By now we are used to the rubble, which they clear up religiously and indefatigably. What a determination to get on top again! One could admire it, if one would not be afraid that somewhere lurks another Hitler. But you can’t seem to find a single Nazi in Germany! Nobody was one! It was all a dream!
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian-American singer and actress, well known for her performances of Kurt Weill’s songs and parts in Bertolt Brecht’s plays.
