The founders of the 43 Group, after serving in WW2, were shocked to see Nazi supporters on the streets – especially as many local families had had whole portions of their family annihilated in mainland Europe. The majority of them were not religious, or even identified themselves as ‘Jews’. They were Londoners all their lives.
The 43 Group were not seeking revenge for the War. They were not a political , religious, or social group. They came from from all walks of life and all classes. They were supported by many local residents across London who were distraught at the violence and insulted by the political agenda of the fascists. They were supported by politicians (Platt Mills), police (Scotland Yard), and judges.

The 43 Group were not simply a vigilante group. They were a structured organisation that took a moral decision – that there was no way they could sit back and watch their families and friends be broken by intimidation and violence in their own homeland. They emphasised the role of ‘Intelligence’ – infiltrating fascist cells, Mosley’s inner circle, the Jewish Board of Deputies. They accumulated evidence that was passed onto police, they routed fascist meetings by arriving at them before many fascists even knew of the meeting, they policed the streets at night to ensure the protection of Jewish people and property. They never ’subverted’ the law, if they were arrested for brawling then they went along to the station. Police would sometimes let them go there and then, sometimes beat them for being ‘Jew bastards’.

The point is, a thug is a mindless, aggressive and provocative agent. Even the most undisciplined in the 43 Group were discriminate (vs. fascists), and goal-orientated (to close meetings, reduce fascist support).

However, to focus on the violence endorsed by the 43 Group is to fail to see the bigger picture.

When someone states that Mosley’s fascist movement in the 1940’s was a free expression of democratic rights, this equally fails to see the bigger picture.

The current of liberal political thought has always defended free expression under the core condition that it does not threaten any individual. Mosley’s fascism (inspired by his vist to Mussolini’s Italy in the early 30’s, and solidified during his private marriage witnessed only by Goebbels and Hitler in Germany) – was entirely illeberal, primarily violent, and essentailly exploitative of post-war depression in Britain.

If you have a genuine, constructive, interest in the debate – look into Graham Macklin ‘Deeply Dyed in Black’, Stephen Dorrell’s ‘Blackshirts’, David Renton’s work (online), and even Nicholas Mosley’s ‘Beyond the Pale’.

I’m not having a dig – but it’s shocking that when evil is clear and present, good people are willing to sit back and do nothing under the assumption of ‘democracy protects and preserves’ us all.

No. But I have read and seen Eisenhower quoted as saying the same (I cannot find he exact words). The Teacher’s Guide to the Hollocaust has a number of quotes under Liberators Stories: *

I saw Eisenhower go to the opposite end of the road and vomit. From a distance I saw Patton bend over, holding his head with one hand and his abdomen with the other. And I soon became ill. I suggested to General Eisenhower that cables be sent immediately to President Roosevelt, Churchill, DeGaulle, urging people to come and see for themselves. The general nodded.

–Lewis H. Weinstein, Lieutenant Colonel and chief of the liaison section of General Eisenhower’s staff, April 1945

I have never felt able to describe my emotional reaction when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency…I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.

–General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, Europe, Letter to Chief of Staff George Marshall, April 12, 1945

*(This is not a recommendation of The Reader’s Guide, which was the first reference I could find on Google that had the information about Eisenhower listed).

No they were not using democracy. They were exercising their legitimate democratic rights in a free society. They may have been inciting violence against Jews, but unless they did so against a specific Jew, with real consequences, I do not see the problem. Again we see the misuse of language so beloved of groups like the MCB. Notice that Britain, with its long tradition of free speech, did not have a Fascist movement. Notice the Weimar Republic, that compromised on these issues, did.

“The 43 Group didn’t engage in gratuitous violence but developed a strategy for breaking up the meetings as quickly and with as little fuss as possible.”

So they were *efficient* thugs? So that’s all right then.

can’t find a copy, but here’s the details:

“The Archive Hour – A Rage In Dalston
Saturday 19 April
8.00-9.00pm BBC RADIO 4

In 1945, Nazism had been defeated but across Britain the return of fascism to the streets of London and the South East provoked a series of vicious encounters. This was the war after the war.

For the next four years, London and the South East would witness brutal confrontations between the remnants of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and Jewish ex-serviceman enraged at the reappearance of fascist meetings and rhetoric. Alan Dein uncovers the true story of post-war conflict on British streets.

This time the battlefields were Ridley Road, Bethnal Green, Clapham Common, Hampstead, Kilburn and Brighton. The weapons were knuckle-dusters, coshes and razor-edged caps, and no one would die in the fighting.

But for four years the paramilitary, primarily Jewish, 43 Group infiltrated fascist organisations, regularly attacked their meetings, seized literature and created headlines. Their members were decorated soldiers, airmen and sailors with a sprinkling of East End toughs and youngsters, including trainee barber Vidal Sassoon.

They broke with the leaders of the Jewish community in their no-holds-barred, physical opposition to the return of fascism to Britain’s streets. They operated beyond the law and were fuelled by rage, guilt at the fate of Europe’s Jews and the tension of British policy in Palestine. Their goal was to drive fascism from the streets and silence its message of intolerance, anti-Semitism and racism.

Presenter/Alan Dein, Producer/Mark Burman ”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/radio/wk17/sat.shtml

it was from 19 April 2008.

One of the reasons why I’ve still got time for Denis Healey is that he gave that scumbag Jordan a bunch of five. It was during the Leyton by-election (January 1965), and Colin Jordan got on the stage during a Labour Party meeting to harangue the candidate, Patrick Gordon Walker. Healey punched the bastard so hard he knocked him off the stage.

That’s the way to deal with fascists, white and brown.

“The struggle for the emancipation of the working class is not between races or religions. It is one of class against class. Every trace of anti-Semitism, or any form of race hatred cannot assist the oppressed, it can on the contrary only aid the exploiters. Workers of all nationality, religion or creed must stand together against the common enemy: capitalism.”

The Duke of Bedford – an antisemite – organised a secret meeting at Kingsway Hall in Holborn [J - now the headquarters of the Food Standards Agency I think]. The 43 Group’s Intelligence found out about it. Members of the 43s went to the Hall, discovered which room they were using and asked to rent a room next door in order to disrupt the meeting. The next door room happened to be room 43! To make their claim for the room credible, they said it was needed for a meeting of “the 1943”, a football club formed in North Africa during the war in 1943.

On the “Battle of Ridley Road”: An eye witness says Mosley and Jeffrey Hamm both spoke.