New Guard (Australia)
The New Guard was a paramilitary fascist organization that had a large membership in Australia in New South Wales and in Sydney in particular in the early 1930s . It is called "the most important fascist group in Australia in the 20th century".
The New Guard was the short-lived response of the Australian middle class to the Great Depression and the fear of a globally developing communism. The New Guard was composed mainly of former soldiers of the First World War and also of workers who were anti-communist and against the Australian Labor Party (ALP); Above all, she fought against Jack Lang , the incumbent Prime Minister of New South Wales , who campaigned for a socially responsible approach to overcoming the global economic crisis in Australia.
Historical context
With the onset of the Great Depression in October 1929 and the economic depression in the 1930s, the incomes of the middle class and the working classes in Australia also declined. Unemployment was already 10% in the middle of 1929 and rose to 21% in the middle of 1930 until it reached 32% in the middle of 1932. Australian production fell 10% from 1928 to 1930 and 30% from 1930 to 1931.
During the time of the Great Depression there were different ideas about how to solve the economic crisis in Australia.For example, in 1930 the financial expert Otto Ernst Niemeyer from the Bank of England proposed an austerity policy in Australia that meant lowering wages and cuts in social benefits. With his Niemeyer Plan , he puts the governments of the federal states and the Common Wealth so under pressure that they consented to the Melbourne Agreement of August 1930; this agreement was not only accepted by the individual federal states, but also by the federal government of Australia under James Scullin . The ideas of the Australian Labor Party of New South Wales and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) were diametrically opposed to this political and economic concept .
Jack Lang's government had already set up social programs in its first reign from 1925 to 1927, such as state guaranteed pensions for widows with children under the age of 14 and welfare measures for orphans, state compensation in the event of death, illness and injuries to a worker during his work Reduction of weekly working hours from 48 to 44 hours and exemption from tuition fees for students in high schools. He also had government road-building employment programs such as the construction of the Hume Highway and Great Western Highway .
Lang rejected the Niemeyer Plan and pursued a different political concept: interest rate reduction for Australian national debt, decoupling of the gold standard and coupling to a good standard , repayment of Australia's debts to other countries, expansion of public employment programs, bank-financed public work via controlled credit expansion. This Lang plan was condemned by the New Guard as anti-British and disloyal.
prehistory
Since the 1920s, Australian labor movement publications have warned of the threat of emerging Mussolini-style fascism in Australia, and there has been unanimous opposition in union, social, communist and left newspapers. The NSW Labor Council and the state ALP government referred to the New Guard as a fascist organization , as did the most important unions. Jack Lang's chief secretary, Mark Gosling, organized the United Front against Fascism (UFAF) in December 1931. Numerous small organizations formed against the New Guard . The most important organization was the Workers Defense Corp , an organization that formed the CPA. The Workers Defense Group was supported by the NSW Labor Council . Overall, however, these paramilitary organizations were ineffective against the New Guard and , on the other hand, reinforced fears of the conservatives.
From October 1931, the New Guard began massive activities against events of the labor movement in the inner-city area of Sydney around Darlinghurst and Kings Cross, under the leadership of Francis de Groot , which expanded to other places. The New Guard used motorized vehicles and were thereby mobile and tried to prevent the gathering of workers' movements. In particular, a harsh and violent confrontation in Bankstown, in which the police were attacked, resulted in Jack Lang then appointing a new police chief Bill Mckay. He demonstrated strength with 300 police officers in a dispute on Liverpool Street in Sydney opposite the central police building when the New Guard tried to occupy the state court building. This attempt was repulsed by state violence under the leadership of Mckay.
Members and leadership
The New Guard was founded in Sydney in February 1931 on the initiative of Eric Campbell , a colonel from the First World War . Campbell had toured Europe and had audiences with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini ; in Great Britain he met Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists and the Imperial Fascist League .
The New Guard had a membership of 60,000, most of whom were Sydney residents, many of whom were former WWI soldiers or officers and Conservative forces. Members of the New Guard were there as former soldiers were able to operate weapons. The activities of the New Guard were organized militarily and the former soldiers were trained accordingly and characterized by ruthless action not only against members of the Workers Defense Corps and left-wing militias in violent street fights, but also against bystanders .
In the Australian literature different numbers are given about the structure of the membership of workers and union members. Eric Campbell gives figures of 60% in his memoirs. These statements are contrasted by a study that assumes that the proportion of workers in fascist groups in Europe such as the German National Socialist German Workers' Party , the Italian Partito Nazionale Fascista , the French Parti populaire français and the Spanish Falange was higher. According to a left-wing observation of a meeting of the New Guard in Sydney Town Hall in December 1931, the participants were “well-dressed, well-fed members of the middle class, suburban shopkeepers and men about town, and a fair sprinkling of callow youths of the public school and city office type "(German:" well-dressed and well-fed members of the middle class, urban business owners and men from the city and a few mediocre immature youth from public schools and employees from city offices ").
Known as a leading member of the New Guard was Francis de Groot , who at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Harbor Bridge caused a protocol-related incident on 19 March 1932, when he armed on a horse in Hussar uniform from the First World War with drawn cavalry saber the crowd rode and tore through the opening ribbon before Jack Lang did so to officially clear the bridge.
Members of this organization were also other well-known Australian personalities such as the aviation pioneer Charles Kingsford Smith .
Political conception
The New Guard's political principles rested in loyalty to the Crown and the British Empire , in calling for the removal of all anti-loyalists in Australian government, industry and society, no restriction of individual freedoms and in the refusal to introduce a machine-driven industry.
Demise of the New Guard
On May 12, 1932, Jack Lang decreed that even in the event of the state of New South Wales becoming insolvent, civil servants would be paid their salaries, which meant that he violated applicable law and against resolutions of the Australian federal government. Then the British Governor Sir Phillip Game dismissed him .
After Lang's resignation and his electoral defeat on June 11, 1932, interest in the New Guard fell . On the occasion of the election in June, this called for voting for the United Australia Party , which later became the Liberal Party . The New Guard became insignificant after three years of existence from 1935 and the Conservative forces of Australia had come back to power. After the end of World War II, some of the New Guard became members of the Australian League of Rights , a long-standing right-wing , anti-communist and anti-Semitic movement.
Web links
- schools.nsw.edu.au : What if Jack Lang had not been dismissed? (Numerous materials about the New Guard), (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ workers.labor.net.au : The New Guard: Who were Australia's fascists in the 1930s and what John Howard's father in the New Guard? Labor historian, Andrew Moore, uncovers some surprising information about Australia's fascist past , in English, accessed June 8, 2011
- ↑ a b c d e abc.net.au ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : New Guard: ABC Broadcating , September 13, 2004, in English, accessed June 8, 2011
- ↑ a b c d e historycooperative.org ( Memento of February 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive ): Andrew Moore: The New Guard and the Labor Movement, 1931-35 , in English, accessed June 8, 2011
- ^ A b parliament.nsw.gov.au : 1930 to 1939 - Depression and Crisis , in English, accessed June 8, 2011
- ↑ a b c d sydneyharbourbridge.info : Jack Lang. Australian Nationalist , accessed June 8, 2011
- ↑ Note: Regarding the number of members, there are different statements in the literature.
- ↑ naa.gov.au : The New Guard; Fact sheet 183 - New Guard Movement, 1931-35, in English, accessed June 8, 2011
- ↑ schools.nsw.edu.au ( Memento of the original from April 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Dismissal of a NSW Premier , accessed June 8, 2011
