The roots of this effort to link Esperanto to a worldwide conspiracy against the German nation can be found in Adolf Hitler himself, who as early as 1922, in a speech in Munich, announced:
Marxism became the driving force of the workers, freemasonry served the 'intellectual' levels as a force for disintegration, Esperanto was about to facilitate their mutual understanding.[289]
Better known are Hitler's formulations in Mein Kampf, the book which, as we now know, anticipated in theory what was later put into prac- tice, with catastrophic consequences, in the 12-year reign of the Nazis in Germany and Europe:
As long as the Jew has not become the master of the other peoples he must speak their languages whether he likes it or not, but as soon as they become his slaves, they would all have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!) so that by this additional means the Jews could more easily dom- inate them![290]
In 1926, a year after the publication of Hitler's book, an extreme right- wing weekly journal published the following characteristically maniacal outpouring of conspiracy theory:
This bastard language, lacking roots in the life of the people and lacking any kind of literature arising from that life, is in fact acquiring that position in the world assigned to it by a Zionist plan aimed at exterminating patrio- tism among the future slave workers of Zion![291]
With rising anxiety, the Esperantists noted this grotesque declaration of war on their language by the ever more powerful Nazis.[292] With increasing frequency, articles appeared in GEA's journal discussing nationhood and the international language. Their authors called for 'true international- ism', possible only 'on the basis of strong and healthy nationalism',[293] or repeated the odd assertion that Esperanto helped to purify the German language by ingesting its foreign words.i [294] In October 1932 Germana Esperantisto published a proclamation by the new leader of the Esperanto Institute for the German Reich demanding that Esperanto serve 'the highest earthly value known to a German, the Fatherland'. [295] The same issue carried a letter of resignation from a GEA member who saw the cause of the insufficient progress of the movement in its excessive link to pacifism.[296] In response to this declaration, Arnold Behrendt, a postal offi- cial and, as of 1929, president of GEA, reasserted the total neutrality of the Association, judging political or social activity for Esperanto 'neither useful, nor necessary'.[297]
Almost in the same breath, however, Behrendt confessed that, for him personally, 'as also probably for most adherents of Esperanto', the movement was 'more than a purely language movement'[298]—apparently unconscious of the contradiction between the principle of neutrality, as he had formulated it, and the implicit allusion to the 'internal idea'. In any event, his assumption about the feelings of the membership was not wrong; undoubtedly the majority of members saw their movement as more than the dissemination of a language, but, more or less explicitly, the advancement of peace. For their part, the Nazis noted that at the heart of Esperanto lay the struggle for peace among the peoples and that such a goal could be achieved only by 'a death blow to the vampires of the inter- national powers' responsible for the Treaty of Versailles and not by having Germans and French 'stuttering among themselves' in Esperanto.[299]
The efforts of GEA to defend its position against the rising tide of Nazism had no effect. The Nazi press insisted on identifying the Esperantists as enthusiasts for 'this artificial, international, pacifist lan- guage; this anemic hothouse culture aimed at further stupefying incur- ably pan-European mongrels'.[300]
Gleichschaltung
When Hitler seized power on 30 January 1933, the GEA leaders had every reason to suppose that the new situation would have consequences for Esperanto.
The first sign of alarm was the liquidation of the powerful workers' Esperanto movement. Less than two years before the 'National Socialist revolution', the movement had already been torn apart by the growing conflict between the Social Democratic and Communist parties.[301] As a result, relations between the old, now primarily Communist, Workers' Esperanto Association (GLEA) and the newly founded, social democratic Socialist Esperanto Association (SEA) were characterized primarily by reciprocal insult. But after the Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933, which provided the new regime with a pretext to suppress unions and workers' parties, they were united by a similar fate. Early in April, police invaded the headquarters of GLEA in Berlin and confiscated all its property; thus, GLEA was forcibly disbanded, though in a few places it continued to operate in secret.[302] SEA choosing not to wait for an official order, freely disbanded on 31 March; an attempt to continue its existence under the new name 'Society of Esperanto Friends' was abandoned within a few weeks.[303] In Leipzig the police confiscated the inventory of the Communist publisher EKRELO and arrested its leader Walter Kampfrad although the administrative office of SAT, located in the same city, was able to send the larger part of its possessions to Paris before it too was banned at the end of 1933.
Many activists were imprisoned. A German SAT member reported early in June that Storm Troopers 'confiscated absolutely everything. The German "brown idiots" don't like Esperanto; they call it a Jewish language worthy only to be spread among the savages of Australia.'[304] A request by an SEA group leader for permission to conduct purely private lessons was refused. Of course, the persecution of worker Esperantists was aimed primarily at their Marxist activities, not their knowledge of Esperanto,[305]but often the state police, particularly in doubtful cases, considered the fact that they were Esperantists as the last straw, prompting the arrest of a suspected socialist or communist. On occasion, the victims noted that the Gestapo called Esperanto 'a secret communist language'.
After the disbanding of the workers' movement had eliminated the organizational base of three-quarters of the Esperantists in Germany, GEA was of the opinion that it could survive under the Nazi regime only by abandoning its previous moderate internationalist line and giving up its political neutrality.
'To All!' was the title of the April editorial in Germana Esperantisto, in which—beneath a quotation from Hitler—the GEA leadership stressed its fidelity to the German nation.[306] Two months later, Behrendt, whose political leanings favored the German National People's Party, pub- lished a five-page article on 'Esperanto in the Service of the German Spirit', which asserted that Esperanto was capable of 'conveying to other countries an understanding and respect for those things that make us German'.[307] In the same issue, the Association reported on its proposal to the government to make use of Esperanto, particularly to counteract the 'atrocity propaganda' ('Greuelpropaganda') directed at the Nazi regime from abroad.[308]
On 30 May the GEA addressed a written request to the ministry of internal affairs for so-called Gleichschaltung (such 'bringing into con- formity' with Nazi policies was a requirement for the continued exis- tence of voluntary organizations).[309] Two weeks later, the ministry replied that the coordination of GEA 'can be left to [your] consideration'. Communicating this reply, nebulously formulated and devoid of detail on the procedures to be followed, the leadership presented its members with its guidelines for Gleichschaltung. Point number 11 required that 'persons with an anti-state attitude cannot be members in GEA' and that 'non-Aryans [that is, Jews], Marxists or communists' would be excluded from leadership bodies. At the same time the leadership underlined the necessity of Gleichschaltung, 'if GEA wishes to continue its existence and to go on with its work without hindrance', and it called for discipline among the membership.[310]