Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The event that has come to be known as the Battle at Old Market Square is a part of Winnipeg's tradition of anti-fascist resistance that has been all but forgotten until recently. On June 5, 1934, hundreds of anti-fascist protesters fought with members of a Canadian fascist organization that mounted a public provocation aimed at the organized labor movement, Jews, and minority communities. After the clashes of that day, no fascist group in the city would ever find itself in a position to mount such public campaigns of discrimination. The lessons of Market Square resonated generations later when anti-racist youth in Winnipeg recognized the importance of those events of the 1930s. After the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933, pro-Nazi groups and fascist organizations sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sprang up in a number of countries, including Canada. A relatively small, yet well organized network of political groups promulgated racist and anti-Semitic doctrines with the support of various ethnic backgrounds. Some of these overseas organizations, including the German League ( Deutscher Bund ), were under direct control of the Nazi diplomatic service, while others maintained nominal independence, despite close contact with the Nazi ministry of propaganda in Berlin headed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Throughout Canada and especially in major cities, fascist organizations ... log in or subscribe to read full text