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Anti-Nazi Leaflet Addressed Directly to the Working Class on the Eve of World War II - “Das wahre Gesicht des Nazisystems ist enthüllt!” – “The True Face of the Nazi System Is Revealed!” – “Deutsche Arbeiter!” [“German Workers!”] – Anti-Nazi propaganda leaflet addressed directly to the German working class, from the early years of World War II. Germany, early 1940s. Distributors of leaflets of this kind in Nazi Germany risked arrest by the Gestapo and, in some cases, execution without trial. A forceful two-sided German leaflet calling upon German workers to see through Nazi propaganda and recognize Hitler’s regime as a dictatorship that had stripped them of their rights and ultimately led them into war. At the top of one side appears the declaration: “Das wahre Gesicht des Nazisystems ist enthüllt!” – “The True Face of the Nazi System Is Revealed!” The leaflet recalls the dissolution of the German trade unions and the confiscation of their property by the “brown-shirted thugs, ” and enumerates the rights taken from the workers: freedom of association, cultural institutions and youth movements, sports associations, and workplace councils. It goes on to accuse the regime of imposing forced labor and employing Gestapo informants within workplaces. The text contrasts the democratic principle of the Weimar Constitution – “Die Gewalt geht vom Volke aus!” [“Power emanates from the people!”] – with the Nazi reality: “Der Führer befiehlt!” [“The Führer commands!”]. Immediately afterward comes the conclusion in enormous letters: “Er befiehlt Krieg!” – “He commands war!” This is the core message of the leaflet: the German worker first lost his political and professional freedoms, and now the same dictatorship is sending him to war. The reverse opens with the words: “Es kam wie es kommen mußte: Die Nazis trieben Euch in den Krieg!” – “What had to happen has happened: the Nazis drove you into war!” It continues with a statement by Walter Citrine, one of the leading figures of the British trade union movement, placing responsibility for the destruction of peace and the outbreak of war upon the Nazi dictatorship: “Under the leadership of her Nazi dictators, Germany has destroyed the peace and order of the world... These dictators alone bear responsibility for the war.” The leaflet emphasizes that British workers see through the “crude deception of National Socialism” and are determined to fight Hitler’s regime to the end. The final appeal deliberately seeks to create class solidarity across the opposing front lines: “Besinnt Euch auf Eure eigene Kraft und die Tradition der deutschen Arbeiterschaft” – “Remember your own strength and the tradition of the German working class, ” culminating in the bold call: “Deutsche Arbeiter, kämpft für Frieden und Freiheit und Menschenrechte!” – “German workers, fight for peace, freedom, and human rights!” The leaflet reflects a propaganda strategy intended to distinguish the German people, and particularly the working class, from the Nazi leadership: to remind workers of the destruction of the free trade unions following the Nazi seizure of power, to portray the war as a direct consequence of dictatorship, and to urge them to regard British workers not as enemies but as partners in the struggle against Hitler. The leaflet seeks to undermine one of the fundamental claims of Nazi propaganda by appealing directly to the very public in whose name the regime purported to speak: Hitler, it argues, is not the representative of the German worker, but the man who deprived him of his freedom and ultimately sent him to war. 22 × 14 cm. Printed on both sides. Filing holes. Stains. Minor tears. Fair–good condition.