Welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. Today we're going

back to January 1933, when the last legal communist march was held in Berlin, just before Hitler

rose to power. In 2012, Andrew Whitehead spoke to Eric Hobbsborm, who was a schoolboy

communist in Berlin. It's the 25th of January 1933. The National Socialists are in the

ascendant in Germany, but not yet in full control. 15-year-old Eric Hobbsborm has taken to

the streets, along with tens of thousands of other left-wingers, to try to forstall Hitler's

rise to power, on a chill winter evening in the German capital.

In America, Berlin, as you know, is one of the coldest cities. The wind blows directly

from Siberia, they always say, and it did. I think it was the last legal demonstration of

the German Communist Party. The vast quantities of people turned up. Berlin was on the whole

of a very red city, at least contained large, red quarters, and we were marching or rather

shuffling along in the evening, singing songs, somehow or other, knowing that it wasn't going to do

much good. When you say knowing that it wasn't going to do much good, what was the political

mood like in Berlin at that time? The thing is, we knew that what was on the cards was Hitler

coming to power in one way or another, the National Socialists. We knew that if this happened,

the chances of communists would be very small. We believed we were going to be the victims,

because we were going to stand up to persecution. And I think that was behind a lot of the feelings

as we were marching or shuffling, demonstrating not only our strength, but if you like our

commitment, you make it sound a bit like a funeral march. In retrospect, it was a bit of a funeral

march. We just saw it as just a gesture, a gesture of defiance. I can remember the songs.

The usual left-wing songs, German songs, Russian songs, then some songs about the German

revolution of 1918, some politically-adjusted folk songs. German's are great singers, as you know.

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