page_title: Post-World War II anti-fascism
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Post-World War II anti-fascism / History / Europe / Germany
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Karl Liebknechthaus in Berlin am Bülowplatz Das frühere Karl-Liebknecht-Haus in Berlin am Bülowplatz, war Sitz der KPD-Führung. Wir sehen es anlässlich einer Reichstagswahl im Propagandaschmuck.
context_page_description: Anti-fascist movements and anti-fascist action networks are groups that describe themselves as anti-fascist. Such movements have been active in several countries in the second half of the 20th and early 21st century.
context_section_description: According to German government institutions the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the contemporary Antifa or anti-fascist movement in Germany—the terms are often used interchangeably in German—is composed of multiple far-left, autonomous, militant groups and individuals who describe themselves as anti-fascist. The use of the epithet fascist against opponents and the understanding of capitalism as a form of fascism are central to the movement. According to political scientist and Christian Democratic Union politician Tim Peters, the term anti-fascism is primarily used by the far left in contemporary Germany.
  In West Germany there was anger among leftist youth at the perceived failure of the post-war denazification due that government positions were often occupied by ex-Nazis. German President Walter Scheel and Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger were both former members of the Nazi Party. In 1950, a major controversy broke out when it emerged that Konrad Adenauer's State Secretary Hans Globke had played a major role in drafting anti-semitic Nuremberg Race Laws in Nazi Germany. Despite the failure of the student movement a change in political consciousness lasted throughout the country. Criticisms of West German officials' ties to the old Nazi Party brought the concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) to the forefront of political discussion. Other various left-wing causes also gained popularity and helped solidify a protest culture in Germany. Rudi Dutschke was a student activist in the growing student protests. On April 11, 1968 he was shot by the far-right Joseph Bachmann. Dutschke was injured but survived the shooting. The attempted assassination of Dutschke would be later regarded as the formal beginning of the West German student movement. According to German government institutions, the modern movement has its roots in the West German Außerparlamentarische Opposition left-wing student movement during the 1960s and 1970s and largely adopted the aesthetics of the Antifaschistische Aktion during the late Weimar Republic, including the abbreviated name Antifa and a version of its logo, while being ideologically somewhat dissimilar. The first Antifa groups in this tradition were founded by the Maoist Communist League in the early 1970s. From the late 1980s, West Germany's squatter scene and left-wing autonomism movement were the main contributors to the new Antifa movement and in contrast to the earlier movement had a more anarcho-communist leaning. The modern movement has splintered into different groups and factions, including one anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist faction and one anti-German faction who strongly oppose each other. German government institutions describe the contemporary Antifa movement as part of the extreme left and as partially violent, and Antifa groups are monitored by the federal office in the context of its legal mandate to combat extremism; the federal office states that the underlying goal of the Antifa movement is "the struggle against the liberal democratic basic order" and capitalism.
caption: The historical seat of the Communist Party of Germany (Karl-Liebknecht-Haus) with prominently displayed logo of the Antifaschistische Aktion, 1932
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