FOR SEVERAL decades German Labour was the pride and model of the international working-class movement. It led the nation out of the first World War and into the post-war period; it was the founder and backbone of the first German Republic. Yet, the world remembers and judges this movement by one thing only: its failure to stem the rise of German Fascism and its inglorious capitulation before Hitler. As a statement of fact this is true; in 1933 the German Labour movement capitulated without so much as a token of resistance. As a political judgment it is meaningless, because it explains nothing. The collapse of German Labour in 1933 cannot be explained by the circumstances in which it occurred, nor can one gauge the chances of a possible rebirth in the future without an understanding of the deeper, and more distant, causes which paralysed so powerful a force and led to its eventual surrender.