The former Labour MP and MEP Stan Newens has died at the age of 91.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Newens

He had a long and varied life on the left and in his later years did much work on socialist history.

I have vivid memories of him, usually lecturing me in a friendly way about some issue or other

Here however is one of his earliest published pieces (from Marxists.org) which appeared in the Socialist Review in 1954. It was the publication of the Socialist Review Group which is now the Socialist Workers Party. Stan Newens left in 1959 but certainly never forgot!

Stan Newens

Why Not to Rearm Germany

(September 1954)

The main feature of political ferment in Britain this year has been the great debate on German rearmament within the Labour Party. The widespread opposition to the National Executive’s decision to support the idea of a German army in any form at all has produced fifty-seven resolutions on the Conference agenda, and behind them an immense amount of discussion.

This opposition is one of the most heartening features of the trend towards a genuine socialist policy within the Labour Party. It represents the refusal of the rank and file workers in the movement to accept any policy that the N.E.C. cares to recommend. As such all left wingers are bound to herald its development.
 

THE BEVANITE LEAD: The reasons why the proposals for the inclusion of a German contingent in a European army has [sic.] met such stubborn resistance in the ranks are several. First and foremost, the scattered opposition has at last been given a lead by the Bevanite M.P.s. The powerful upsurge of feeling throughout the ranks of the Labour Party has demonstrated that the desire for a real socialist policy and the dissatisfaction with many aspects of official Party policy are not non-existent, but only completely scattered and disorganized.
 

THE OFFICIAL VOLTE FACE: Of course this is not the only reason for the strength of the opposition to German re-armament. The notion of re-arming Germany is so much out of harmony with the ideas which have been popularised on nearly every side in Britain for fifteen years and more that it produces a shock even in conservative quarters. When the official Labour Party line takes a turn contrary to all previous statements of Labour Party leaders, inevitably the turn is questioned.

When the idea of West German participation in a West European Army was first raised Mr. Attlee called the proposals “a very queer way to try to build up the unity of Western Europe” (Hansard, 16th March, 1950). Yet the official Labour Party pamphlet In Defence of Europe, states:–

“From a Socialist viewpoint there is much to be said for it. It transcends national frontiers and represents a considerable surrender of sovereignty to a wider grouping of nations.” (p. 2)

Ernest Bevin said:–

“All of us are against it. I repeat all of us are against it. It is a frightful decision to take.” (Hansard, 18th March, 1950)

Yet in In Defence of Europe welcomes it as “a great act of reconciliation” (p. 2)

Inevitable anyone politically conscious enough to work in the Labour Party is bound to wonder about the reasons for the change. It is clear even to a simpleton that either the statements before or after the change were wrong – perhaps both.

Why does Socialist foreign policy today look so different to what it was yesterday?

In whatever way reasons for the opposition before the change of policy may have been incorrect from a socialist point of view that opposition was undoubtedly correct. Even though the statements made before September, 1950, by Labour Party leaders failed to point out that the restoration of the German capitalist set-up, no any militaristic tendency within the German people as a whole, made German rearmament another step to a third world war. Any socialist would be bound to support their opposition.
 

THE RESTORATION OF CAPITALIST GERMANY: The present proposals for the rearmament of Western Germany are merely another step in an attempted reconstruction of pre-war Germany as a bastion of western capitalism against the Russian “bloc”. This attempt is being made despite the fact that pre-war Germany was the breeding ground of Nazism and that it involves the rehabilitation in important positions of many Nazis.

Take for example the industrial magnates who, faced with the rising clamour of the working class movement for social changes to relieve their miseries during the slump of 1929–33 were ready to finance Hitler as their saviour. Of them, Major General Telford Taylor, chief American counsel for war crimes said:

“In a very real sense these defendants and others like them – not the half-mad Nazi fanatics and street fighting thugs – are the principal criminals. And what is more important, these defendants will, if their guilt is unexposed and unpunished, be an immeasurably greater threat to the future world peace than Hitler, were he alive today.”

These very men have been allowed to regain their leadership of German industry. Alfred Krupps, who was sentenced in 1948 to twelve years imprisonment and confiscation of all property for using slave labour, was released and his property restored in 1953. Heinrich Dinkelbach, a Nazi from 1938 and right hand man to Friedrich Flick, head of the pre-war United Steel Company is now Chairman of the re-organized United Steel. Wilhelm Zangen, Chairman of the Mannesmann steel combine before the war, is back at his old post. Herman Abs, a former director of Deutsche Bank who “devoted his entire attention to extending German domination throughout Europe” (U.S. Office of Military Government, November 1946) is now head of the advisory committee which controls most of the assets of the pre-war chemicals monopoly, I.G. Farben.

Not only the men are the same, on the whole but so is the structure of industry. Speaking in the House of Commons on the 18th May, 1947, Ernest Bevin declared “We adhere to the principle of public ownership of German industries.” But when the North Westphalian Government – where the Ruhr is – decided to nationalise all heavy industries in 1947, the British High Commissioner vetoed. A similar veto was applied by the American authorities in Hesse.

Similarly, the Allied governments agreed to break down the industrial monopolies and cartels in order to destroy the concentration of economic power. Yet Krupps, United Steel, Mannesmann and other steel giants are still functioning. I.G. Farben, the gigantic pre-war chemical trust, was reported to have recovered its unity in all commercial operations by 1950 (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 30th March, 1950) and is now practically re-united in all respects as Badischen Anilin und Sodafabrik Ludwighaven. The same story applies in the case of banking.

Even the military staff for the proposed army includes a large number of leading military figures under the Nazis. Generals Speidel, Heusinger, Lieutenant General Kuitzen, Generals von Leuttwitz, von Gersdorf, Boeslager, von Manteuffel, Count Schwerin and Dettleffsen, are examples of the people connected with Herr Blank’s West German embryonic Defence Department. The Daily Herald (23rd May, 1953) stated that most of the volunteers for the proposed Germany army were veterans of Hitler’s campaigns from all ranks.

All these facts show how capitalist Germany which produced Hitler is being resurrected. And with resurrection the natural search for markets and for fields of investment, which drives all capitalist countries to seek to expand their influence, will tend to drive Germany in turn eastwards once again.

This is precisely the plan of the leading capitalist spokesmen in the American sphere. The re-arming of Germany is merely a new step in the policy which led to the North Atlantic Treaty organization, the giant increases in the British re-armament programme, and the inclusion of Fascist Spain in the plan.
 

RIGHT-WING OPPOSITION TO GERMAN RE-ARMAMENT: However, on the wisdom of German re-armament as a new move, not all European – particularly French – capitalists are in accord with their American allies. Much of the anti-German propaganda, the demands for restrictions on German industry and the annexations which followed the war were dictated by fear of Germany as an economic rival rather than a military threat.

For example, the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers urged the elimination of the German dyestuffs industry (The Times, 27th March, 1946). Lincoln Evans, as General Secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, wanted limitation of heavy industry “not indirect armament” (letter to The Times, 5th November, 1946). Sir Murray Stephens, a Glasgow shipbuilder, protested against raising the limits on German shipbuilding (New York Herald Tribune, December 1948). These fears and sentiments are current in France and it is not surprising that many right wing spokesmen are too afraid of Germany as an economic threat – eventually backed by military force – to their countries to support the idea of German rearmament. Marshal Juin in France and Lord Beaverbrook’s press in Britain are examples.
 

SOCIALIST VERSUS RIGHT WING OPPOSITION: Their ideas, however, have nothing in common with a socialist opposition. They manifest themselves in the form of sheer anti-German ideas. Like Ilya Ehrenburg, their motto is: The only good German is a dead German.

The truth is that the German people are no more militaristic than any other. The threat comes from the continued existence of the capitalist system and their incorporation in the American capitalist “bloc”. That is why we must oppose German rearmament. The same reasoning applies equally to the British, French and the Russians. It is not militarist tendencies within these people but the systems in which they live – monopoly capitalism in the Western Bloc and State Capitalism in Russia – and the rivalries between the two world camps which threaten them. Therefore we must oppose British, French and Russian rearmament as tenaciously as German.

The fault of the Bevanite leadership of the opposition is their failure to do this. In nearly every other respect they support British adherence to the American “bloc” and their opposition to German rearmament is often right wing and chauvinist.

A consistent policy involves a choice between this unconvinced, uncertain adherence to the American bloc and a socialist stand.
 

NEITHER WASHINGTON NOR MOSCOW: This is not to suggest a change from American tutelage to Russian. Everyone but the so-called “Communists” in the working class movement knows that the totalitarian dictatorship which prevails in the Soviet countries is just as much to be hated and opposed by genuine Socialists as the American capitalist system. The revolt which swept through the cities of East Germany on June 17th, 1953, demonstrated the hatred of East German workers for it.

The opposition to German rearmament which the Socialist Review appeals for is on the basis of equal opposition to all attempts by either world “bloc” to incorporate part or all of Germany into its own sphere. This means resistance aiming ultimately at an international socialist position equally independent of both Washington and Moscow. In other words a “third camp”.

It demands, therefore, not only the prevention of German rearmament as part of America’s anti-Soviet Crusade, but in addition opposition to every aspect of this crusade. This means the complete withdrawal of troops from Germany, British exit from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a programme for a Socialist – not Capitalist or Stalinist – unity of Europe.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/kidron/works/1954/sr/09-disarm.html#newens