Opposition to the Gaza war has been relatively muted in Germany, where any criticism of Israel, however justified and however timid, is denounced as antisemitism, although there have in recent months been campus protests following the US model, notably at the Humboldt and Free Universities in Berlin, where many students and lecturers were arrested in the second week of May. As in America, these protests are devoid of any broader anti-militarist and internationalist content and easily isolated from the working class.

In Germany, bourgeois politicians and the popular press routinely describe opponents to the Gaza war (from whatever political perspective) as “Jew haters”, equating them with Nazis. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators (shouting slogans such as “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free”) are even threatened with prosecution under laws that were originally intended to limit the resurgence of the National Socialist movement.

What may seem more surprising to observers from outside Germany, however, is the cooperation between the trade unions and the authorities, including the police, to suppress any protests or utterances that conflict with the “democratic norms” of the Federal Republic. “Jew-haters Agitate at the May Day Demonstrations” screamed the headline in the newspaper Bildzeitung following official trade-union-organized May Day rallies in large German cities including Berlin, Leipzig, Rostock, and Stuttgart.

The intention behind these attacks, however, is not merely to denounce expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, but also to eradicate any residual association of May Day with the revolutionary anti-capitalist and anti-militarist traditions of the German proletariat. The main German trade union confederation, DGB (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund), made this abundantly clear by instructing its officials to clamp down on anything that went beyond a polite request to improve working conditions and increase public security. The bourgeois media and the German trade unions never present May Day as International Workers’ Day, but rather as the Tag der Arbeit (Labor Day) and do their best to obscure its origins in the US strike movement that led to the Haymarket massacre and the adoption of May 1 as a day of celebration and protest by the Second International.

In Leipzig, the DGB worked with the police to remove supporters of “Handala Leipzig” from the May Day parade (Handala refers to a cartoon character who symbolizes the 1948 Naqba, when Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by European Zionists).

In Berlin, DGB officials filed criminal charges for “incitement of the people” against pro-Palestinian protesters.

In Stuttgart, DGB officials assisted police as they violently attacked demonstrators and arrested 167 people marching behind Palestinian flags.

The liberation of the working class will not occur under any national banner, including the Palestinian flag. However, the hypocrisy of the DGB was clear to see as its own flag hung alongside those of the Federal Republic, the European Union, Ukraine, and—yes, the flag of Israel!—at rallies in cities including Frankfurt.

Moreover, the alliance between the bourgeoisie and the regime trade unions serves a further purpose, to divide and weaken the working class, isolating minorities in the big cities, who are mainly of Muslim heritage.

In an echo of the Burgfrieden, the social peace between capitalism and the workers’ trade unions and social democracy in the First World War, today’s German trade unions and political parties are entirely at one in their support for Israel, or more precisely, German-Israeli capital. The DGB and the governing Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or SPD) portray Ukraine and Israel as fighting “defensive wars”, just as they did to promote German imperialism in 1914.

The German political and economic establishment is one of the IDF’s most reliable suppliers of lethal weaponry, including tanks and armored vehicles. But German employers know that they in turn can rely on the unconditional support of the leadership of the DGB, together with individual trade union bureaucracies. These trade unions are thus directly complicit in the war crimes taking place in Gaza. IG Metall, the largest union affiliated with the DGB, and the world’s numerically largest trade union, regularly joins with employers to lobby for arms contracts with Israel. In February, the union published a joint paper with the SPD Economic Forum and the munitions lobby calling for a further strengthening of the arms industry.

Taking Sides from the Outset

The regime unions were very quick to take sides. A DGB press release (partly in English) on October 10, three days after the October 7 Hamas attacks and when the bombardment of Gaza had already started, made its position abundantly clear. It stated: “Israel is facing a challenging situation, and we are glad our government has quickly joint [sic] in and expressed its unconditional support for the people under attack in Israel.”

This support for German-Israeli capital is justified by antifascism and a “moral” response to the country’s dark history. In an open letter to the Israeli trade union federation, Histadrut, the DGB executive wrote: “we join our member unions in expressing our solidarity with Israel in light of the brutal attacks carried out by Hamas in recent days.” Note: solidarity with the State of Israel. Not with Israeli workers. The DGB continued: “As trade unions, we are committed to peace, freedom, democracy and a diverse society and oppose all forms of terrorism. We fight against antisemitism, in Germany and worldwide.” The DGB has expressed no such solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers who, apart from being exploited by their own bourgeoisie, are under constant siege and bombardment.

The DGB trade unions and the employers’ associations BDA and BDI, together with all Bundestag parties (apart from the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland, AfD), the Protestant and Catholic churches, the German-Jewish Society and many other organizations signed the call for a rally in support of Israel in front of the Brandenburg Gate on October 22. The Left Party (Die Linke) announced its support for the war several times. It signed not only as a party, but also as the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Rosa Luxemburg, the great internationalist and tireless opponent of the Burgfriedeni must be spinning in her grave!

Taking its cue from the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the DGB later went even further, equating any opposition to the Israeli war on Gaza with the Nazi pogrom launched on November 9, 1938. Under the headline, “Never again is now” it sought to de-legitimize any protest as support for terror: “It is completely unacceptable for Islamists to take to the streets in Germany and abuse the right to demonstrate or openly violate it by celebrating the Hamas massacre and glorifying it as an act of liberation.”

The DGB further justifies its naked support for German-Israeli imperialism with reference to democratic values: “Peaceful coexistence and cohesion in our diverse society depend on the values of the Constitution being accepted by everyone and our coexistence being characterized by tolerance and respect. This applies to all people living in Germany—regardless of their origin or religion.”

In response, the International Communist Party’s message to German workers is clear: the slogans of “German values”, “democracy” and “respect” are just a mask for the waging of a lethal imperialist war. Your interests are aligned not with Israel or Hamas but with the proletariat of all countries!