K-Gruppen

K-Gruppen (Kommunistische Gruppen, "Communist Groups") is a term referring to various Marxist (often Maoist) organizations that sprang up in West Germany at the end of the 1960s, following the collapse of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS).

[1] They included the Communist Party of Germany/Marxists–Leninists (KPD/ML), the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Aufbauorganisation) (KPD-AO), the Communist League (KB) and the Communist League of West Germany (KBW).

[2] In 1971 the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimated that Germany had around twenty active Maoist groups, with 800 members between them.

[2] A few of these groups went on to join the Green Party (now Alliance 90/The Greens) in the late 1970s, while others eventually formed the Marxist–Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD).

[3] The historical development of West Germany’s new left from a politico-theoretical perspective with particular emphasis on the Marxistische Gruppe and Maoist K-Gruppen Phd thesis by Matthias Dapprich