The Police During the Rise of Fascism
How did policing institutions in interwar Germany and Italy react to the rise of fascism? Available literature on the subject shows that police – either implicitly or explicitly – abetted fascism.
Police: The Reality
In the popular conscience, police are perceived as arbiters of order and security. The badge and police uniform are synonymous with public safety. Despite this, it is becoming more and more apparent that what the police themselves perceive as order and security differ from the average person’s understanding of their own safety. As the George Floyd uprisings show, people are becoming more cognizant of how their existence is actually a nuisance for police and their policing methods. The intentions of the police constantly come into conflict with the intentions of the average working class person, and this conflict only intensifies as economic precarity increases. This, of course, is no accident.
This article will attempt to place discourse around policing in a broader historical, socio-political context by studying policing during the rise of fascism in the 20’s and 30’s. We will be looking at the state of policing in interwar Italy and Germany during this tumultuous time and how this reflects a broader historical trend of police and their activities under liberal capitalist societies.
Interwar Italy
After the first world war Italy was besieged by political strife. Not only were masses of veterans coming home after a bitter conflict, but economic uncertainty was looming. The potential for a worker’s revolution during this time was great. During the infamous “Red Two Years” of 1919-20, there were 3544 strikes, and, in September 1920, half a million workers occupied factories across Italy. Many living during this time thought that a socialist revolution would sweep Italy, much like what happened in Russia a few years prior.
During this time of leftist militancy, there was also a substantial surge of reactionary opposition against working class advancement. Many returning soldiers swelled the ranks Mussolini’s fascist squadrons, or Combat Leagues, demobilized volunteer corps of 20,000 shock troops that would terrorize striking workers and raid union or cooperative headquarters. They would engage in “punitive expeditions” against unarmed workers at the behest of the capitalist class.
“The squadrons, subject to iron discipline, blindly obeyed their leaders and struck with lightning rapidity, concentrating at a given point, transported in trucks, and few in numbers, they burst into the midst of their much more numerous adversaries.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.142)
These anti-labor gangs would typically be armed with daggers and grenades when carrying out their expeditions. Their waves of violence were integral to destabilizing working class organizations and thus helped pave the way for Mussolini’s ascent. Despite the gratuitous political violence, however, the police during this time abetted the squadrons in their endeavors to destabilize the working class and secure capitalist profits.
“An important fact is that the fascist squadrons had at their disposal, even in this period, not only the subsidies of their financial backers but the material and moral support of the repressive forces of the state: police, carabinieri and army. […] The police loaned their cars to squadron members, and rejected applications for arms permits by workers and peasants while extending the permits granted to fascists. The guardians of ‘law and order’ had their orders to remain idle when the fascists attacked the ‘reds’ and to intervene only if the latter resisted. Often the police collaborated with the fascists in preparing attacks on labor organizations.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.143)
When considered in the context of a worker’s uprising, it makes sense why the police would side with fascists in maintaining “law and order.” To the police, the prospect of workers establishing a system outside the purview of capitalistic logic is disorder. So naturally they’d sympathize with reactionary veteran organizations which push back against worker advancement. As scholar Jonathan Dunnage notes:
“Many members of the police saw the Fascist movement- in its assault against Socialist and Catholic worker and peasant organizations - as restoring the traditional social status quo that the recent gains of the trade-union movement had threatened. Because of the particularly violent relationship that had developed between the police and workers/peasants during the 'Biennia rosso', policemen of all ranks looked upon the Fascist organizations sympathetically”
(Dunnage, 2007, p.113)
In fact, the police were so dedicated to liberal “law and order” anti-communist policing that the fascists faced little to no resistance from the Italian police during Italy’s transition to dictatorship in 1926.
“Others [policemen], if initially opposed to the Fascist movement, were undoubtedly later attracted to a regime founded on a powerful state that was tough on crime and strongly opposed to Communism, an illustration of how the anti-Marxist and semi-authoritarian nature of the Liberal police system facilitated the transition to Fascism.”
(Dunnage, 2007, p.121)
On the contrary, the Italian police were convinced that the Liberal state emasculated them and their ability to impose “law and order” on the population, despite the fact that the liberal state greatly empowered the police in the first place. Anti-liberalism and anti-Marxism ultimately coalesced into an anti-democracy sentiment in the police, which translated into fascist dictatorship. Dunnage concludes:
“There is evidence of strong ideological support for Fascism among a considerable number of mainly high-ranking police officials, who served the regime loyally and enthusiastically.”
(Dunnage, 2007, p.130)
Interwar Germany
Much like in Italy, there was a profusion of leftist militancy across the country at the closing of the First World War. Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils arose and replaced many local governments. Street-fighting between factions was constant. Like in Italy, many were convinced that socialism would prevail. As expected, many reactionary anti-labor gangs materialized to suppress worker uprisings, the most notable being the Freikorps, or “volunteer corps,” a group:
“[W]hich helped crush the Berlin Commune of January, 1919, and the Munich Commune of April, 1919, and which terrorized the agricultural workers of Pomerania in the summer of 1919 and the workers of the Ruhr in the spring of 1920. They were the ones who, between 1919 and 1923, were guilty of all the assassinations of leftist politicians.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.145)
During the summer of 1920 Adolf Hitler created a cohort of shock troops called Ordnertruppe, or “Service for Order.” A couple of years later the group would be renamed Sturm-Abteilung, aka “Storm Troops.” Much like the Combat Leagues in Italy, the Storm Troops were battle-hardened and ruthless in suppressing their leftist opponents. Hitler discusses how his men fought during this time:
“And how our boys went into the fight! Like a swarm of wasps, they rushed upon the disturbers … without worrying about the enemy’s numerical superiority, even if it was overwhelming, and without fear of being wounded or shedding their blood.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.146)
During this era of political upheaval, the Social Democrats were prominent in government and, instead of joining revolutionaries on the ground, were committed to reforming state institutions, particularly the police. In 1920, police, especially the militarized Sipo units, were criticized for allowing the Kapp Putsch to happen without opposition. The Social Democrats in power wanted to reform the police to not only prevent another right-wing extremist insurrection, but to create a friendlier image of the police which was in line with the Versailles Treaty.
“Along with reshaping and eventually eliminating the Sipo, the early Weimar Social Democrats enacted a three-part program of day-to-day tactical changes involving improved public relations, new recruitment bases and techniques, and a revised educational program.”
(Hall, 2007, p.71-72)
The police were to be reformed along the following criteria:
“[D]emilitarization, democratization of internal operations and improved relations with the public.”
(Hall, 2007, p.69)
And as Sara F. Hall points out, reforming the police also had the added benefit of quelling leftist militancy.
“The goal was not only to establish a police force that was willing to defend the Republic, but also to improve the image of law enforcement among the constituencies whom the Social Democrats needed to steer from a more radical leftist path.”
(Hall, 2007, p.72)
One of the main methods through which educators would modernize policing in Weimar Germany was through film. Film was portrayed as a technology that would not only modernize the force but standardize police training. It was portrayed as a depoliticizing technology that would make policing more efficient and impartial. Ultimately, this depiction was used to eliminate doubt about the loyalties and attitudes of the police and to make them seem as though they’re public servants solely dedicated to serving the public good. Of course, this image would prove misleading in the coming decades.
While there were many on-the-ground anti-fascist groups in interwar Germany like the Reichsbanner, ultimately the socialists relied on state intervention to oppose the burgeoning fascist movement in Germany.
“They [the socialists] relied not on themselves and the militancy of the masses but on the Prussian police which they thought they controlled since there was a Socialist cabinet in power in Prussia-the Reichswehr, and President Hindenburg.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.153)
Socialists during this time not only held great sway over politics, but were involved in creating a more progressive police force which coincided with the creation of the Weimar Republic. For these reasons socialists in Germany weren’t aggressive against the impending onslaught of fascism, nor were they suspicious of the police.
So when Chancellor von Papen was elected in 1932, he removed the entire socialist government in Prussia and reinstituted the Storm Troops. During this same period, Hitler and the Nazi Party were racking up electoral victories in the Reichstag: 12 seats between 1928-1930; 107 seats in September 1930; and 230 seats in 1932. And before elections on March 5th, 1933, Goering, Master of the Prussian police:
“[B]egan by purifying it; all the ‘republican’ elements, from the Berlin Chief of Police to the pettiest inspector of the criminal force, were dismissed and replaced by reliable Nazis. […] Goering promised to protect personally all policemen who used their weapons against the ‘Reds.’ By another decree, he attached to the Schupo's (Berlin police) an ‘auxiliary police force’ of 50,000 men recruited from the S.A. and S.S.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.170)
With police firmly on the side of the Nazis, they staged a raid on the Communist Party’s headquarters on February 24th, where they claim to have found evidence of an incoming Bolshevik revolution. Then on the 26th, a small fire was stopped in the Berlin Castle. And finally, on the night of the 27th, the infamous Reichstag fire ensued. All of these events convinced President Hindenburg to declare a state of emergency.
“Within forty-eight hours, all power passed to the police. The Storm Troopers who had become ‘auxiliary policemen,’ beat, tortured, and assassinated the militant workers; the election meetings of the anti-fascist parties were forbidden, and the Communist deputies arrested. Thanks to this setting and terror, the Nazis won a striking victory in the March 5 elections, obtaining 288 seats.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.171)
With power solidified, the Reichstag voted to give Hitler full power to legislate without constitutional procedure on March 24th. Democracy was destroyed, with the full help of the police.
Why Did the Police Act This Way?
To understand why police stood with the fascists during this era of political and economic crisis, we must understand how and why police exist in the first place. And to do this we must understand how “law and order” are conceptualized in a capitalist society.
The truth is that police see every person who isn’t a cop as a potential threat. They see themselves as soldiers in a warzone maintaining order and security. This is because the very foundations of liberal policing were created on the basis of militarism. The first modern police force, Sir Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police in 1829, was created with a strict military-inspired hierarchy (Lieutenant, Sergeant, etc.) and it was staffed with veterans. Even to this day it is often the case that a significant portion of a police department is populated with former soldiers; soldiers who engaged with “enemy combatants” overseas.
So to police, the safety of a society is a security of oppressive military might; the logic of engaging with enemies of the state abroad is interchangeable with quelling dissidents domestically. This logic belies a fundamental truth of police: they exist merely as purveyors of violence serving the interests of the state. However, what does the state mean when it says it provides “law and order,” or that it provides security? What is security to a state serving the interests of capital accumulation?
“[I]n a capitalist order, security is the supreme right because it is security that guarantees the preservation of property; for this reason, security becomes the key concept underpinning the idea of police.”
(Neocleous, 2021)
Therefore, police primarily exist to protect private property rights, i.e. the rights of the capitalist class to maintain exclusive ownership over the means of production. Everyone who isn’t a business owner or a landlord is susceptible to the brutality of the police and carceral system.
“If you aren’t a large property owner or part of the upper classes, police don’t really care about you or your security and safety. In fact, you are the embodiment of insecurity, of threat, of disorder. You don’t need the protection of law and order, you need protection from law and order.”
(Correia & Wall, 2018)
Order doesn’t mean the safety and wellbeing of the average person; it means that violence is necessary to maintain the unequal order of capitalism. And maintaining the unequal property relations of capitalism against the advances of the working class is integral to fascism. Ultimately, fascism is a dictatorial manifestation of the liberal bourgeois state defending itself against the working class’s demands for a more just, democratic society. It is a reactionary, often populist uprising that internalizes the implicit brutality of liberal capitalism and takes it to its logical conclusion. This is why, during the rise of fascism in Italy, fascism was often seen as a “strengthened liberalism.”
“The wretches let themselves be persuaded that fascism was nothing more than a ‘strengthened liberalism,’ whose only purpose was to add a few touches to the democratic regime, strengthen the administration, and reconcile authority and liberty.”
(Guerin, 1973, p.167)
It is important to remember that fascism is a result of capitalism in crisis. Where there’s economic distress and people becoming more alienated and dispossessed, fascism has grounds to recruit and grow. And as we’ve examined, the liberal state and police will not stop the rise of fascism, no matter how violent or barbaric it acts. In fact, the police are integral to the ascendancy of fascism.
So to create a world without fascism, we must build a world without capitalism. And to build a world without exploitative property relations, we must build a world without police.
“The elite fear the destruction of their property, yes, but even more they fear the destruction of the social relations that make private property possible. And so they fear a world without police.”
(Correia & Wall, 2018)
This article was originally a script for a YouTube documentary in September 2022. Some corrections/emendations have been made in the current edition.
Bibliography
(2007). Policing Interwar Europe: Continuity, Change and Crisis, 1918-40. Edited by Gerald Blaney, Jr. Palgrave Macmillan.
Guerin, Daniel. (1973). Fascism and Big Business. Pathfinder Press.
Correia, David & Wall, Tyler. (2018). Police: A Field Guide. Verso.
Neocleous, Mark. (2021). A Critical Theory of Police Power: The Fabrication of Social Order. Verso.