Antifa (Germany)
Central Europe Germany Italy Spain (Spanish Civil War) Albania Austria Baltic states Belgium Bulgaria Burma China Czechia Denmark France Germany Greece Italy Japan Jewish Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Slovakia Spain Soviet Union Yugoslavia Germany Italy Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States Antifa (German pronunciation: [ˈantifa] ⓘ) is a political movement in Germany composed of multiple far-left, autonomous, militant groups and individuals who describe themselves as anti-fascist.
[4] In the postwar era, Antifaschistische Aktion inspired a variety of different movements, groups and individuals in Germany as well as other countries which widely adopted variants of its aesthetics and some of its tactics.
[1][2][3][6] The federal office states that the underlying goal of the antifa movement is "the struggle against the liberal democratic basic order" and capitalism.
According to Norman Davies, the concept of "anti-fascism" as used by the KPD originated as an ideological construct of the Soviet Union,[11] where the epithets fascist and fascism were primarily and widely used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion.
[14] While some KPD members initially believed Antifaschistische Aktion should include other leftists, this opinion was quickly suppressed by the KPD leadership which made it clear that Antifaschistische Aktion would also oppose the SPD and that "Anti-Fascist Action means untiring daily exposure of the shameless, treacherous role of the SPD and ADGB leaders who are the direct filthy helpers of fascism".
[18] Occasionally, the KPD cooperated with the Nazis in attacking the SPD and both sought to destroy the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic.
In December 1931, KPD leader Ernst Thälmann declared that "some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest" of the SPD.
[25][26] In 1929, the KPD's paramilitary organisation, Roter Frontkämpferbund (Alliance of Red Front-Fighters), an effective predecessor of Antifaschistische Aktion, had been banned as extremist by the governing SPD.
[28] Despite this animosity between party leaderships, on the ground there was considerable co-operation against the Nazis between rank and file activists of the KPD, SPD and other left groups such as in local anti-fascist committees and militias, particularly in 1932 as the fascists gained ground and calls for a united front by Leon Trotsky, August Thalheimer and other left leaders became more urgent.
[14] It was in this context that the KPD began to emphasise the specific threat of Nazism, leading to the formation of Antifaschistische Aktion and later the turn away from the "social fascism" doctrine.
[34] In the western zones, these anti-fascist committees began to recede by the late summer of 1945, marginalized by Allied bans on political organization and by re-emerging divisions between communists and others and the emerging state doctrine of anti-communism in what became West Germany.
[36] The repression in the Soviet occupation zone and the onset of the Cold War quickly exacerbated the conflict between the SED and the SPD.
Eckhard Jesse notes that anti-fascism was ubiquitous in the language of the SED and used to justify repression such as the crackdown on the East German uprising of 1953.
[44] The earliest contemporary antifa groups that were inspired by the left-wing student movement were founded by the Maoist Communist League in the early 1970s.
During the 1970s, parts of the Außerparlamentarische Opposition were radicalized, culminating in the formation of militant groups like the Red Army Faction, the 2 June Movement and the Revolutionary Cells.
Aside from their violent clashes with ultra-nationalists, these groups participated in the annual May Day in Kreuzberg which resulted in large-scale riots in 1987 and which have been characterized by a significant police presence.
[49][50] In 2003, Antifaschistisches Infoblatt joined Antifa-Net, part of an international network, including the likes of Britain's Searchlight and Sweden's Expo magazine.
[51] Steffen Kailitz notes that "the difference between the autonomist scene and terrorist networks gradually lost importance from the 1990s" and that a number of antifa groups were involved in violent activities from the 1990s.
[1][2][3][6] The Federal Agency for Civic Education claims that antifa groups sometimes call for violence not only against police or skinheads but also against bishops and judges.
[6] The federal office further notes that "[t]he field of 'anti-fascism' has for years been a central element of the political activity of far-left extremists, especially violent ones.
[2] The contemporary antifa or anti-fascist movement in the Federal Republic of Germany has been mentioned in the Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution since 1986 as part of the main chapter on "far-left extremism" and was described as a group engaged in terrorist acts of violence.
[59] A report by the German Bundestag from 2018 determined that due to the lack of a formal organizational structure or leadership, it is only possible to prosecute members of antifa on terrorism charges in individual cases.
[61] In 2020, Die Welt reported that at least 47 organised antifa groups are monitored by German federal and state offices for the protection of the constitution and labelled as "extremist".
