Germany
See also: German ResistanceIn the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, Communist Party and Social Democratic Party members advocated violence and mass agitation amongst the working class to stop Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party and the Freikorps. Leon Trotsky wrote:
"fighting squads must be created ... nothing increases the insolence of the fascists so much as 'flabby pacifism' on the part of the workers' organisations ... political cowardice without organised combat detachments, the most heroic masses will be smashed bit by bit by fascist gangs."
Among the anti-fascist organizations formed to counter the Nazis was the Rotfrontkämpferbund (English:Red Front Fighters' League), which was created in 1924. The Rotfront was a paramilitary organization affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany that engaged in street fights with the Nazi Sturmabteilung. Its first leader was Ernst Thälmann, who would later die in a concentration camp and become widely honored in East Germany as an anti-fascist and socialist. After German reunification in 1990, many anti-fascist groups formed in reaction to a rise in far right extremism and violence, such as the Solingen arson attack of 1993. According to the German intelligence agency Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, the contemporary anti-fascist movement in Germany includes those who are willing to use violence. One of the bigger antifascist campaigns in Germany in recent years was the effort to block the annual Nazi-marches in Dresden.
Read more about this topic: List Of Anti-fascists
Famous quotes containing the word germany:
“We are fighting in the quarrel of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny. Germany has become a menace to the whole world. She is the most dangerous enemy of liberty now existing.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
“It took six weeks of debate in the Senate to get the Arms Embargo Law repealed—and we face other delays during the present session because most of the Members of the Congress are thinking in terms of next Autumn’s election. However, that is one of the prices that we who live in democracies have to pay. It is, however, worth paying, if all of us can avoid the type of government under which the unfortunate population of Germany and Russia must exist.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)