Fun with words: Antifa and “The Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”
[Hat tip: commenter “AesopFan.”]
Leftist radicals are well aware of the importance of labels. There’s “Black Lives Matter” for a group run by Marxists, focusing only on those black lives ended by white police officers rather than on all black lives. And “Antifa” for a group that purports to be anti-facist but whose members act like brownshirts and have far left and/or anarchist goals.
And then there’s this interesting piece of Cold War history [my emphasis]:
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails, and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the “will of the people” from building a socialist state in East Germany.
GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the “Wall of Shame”, a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall’s restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to physically symbolize the “Iron Curtain” that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
the wall was not an ordinary border wall designed to keep foreigners from coming in without permission. It was a very different thing – a wall designed to imprison the populace of East Germany, not to keep people out. As propaganda, the name “Anti-Fascist” didn’t work very well because for the most part the people of East Germany knew better:
The East German government claimed that the Wall was an “anti-fascist protective rampart” (German: “antifaschistischer Schutzwall”) intended to dissuade aggression from the West. Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe. The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying out state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time, the border was only closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West, but not for residents of West Berlin travelling to the East. The construction of the Wall had caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.
Those of us old enough to remember the wall – and that’s most of us here – know full well what it was for, and know that pretty much the entire world knew it. Many of the young, however, probably haven’t a clue, and so analogies with our southern border wall may make sense to them.
But most of us who remember the Berlin Wall probably don’t remember its German name of “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart” or “Antifaschistischer Schutzwall.” Note those first six letters.
And here’s the history of the original “Antifa,” which began in Germany during the final years of the Weimar Republic:
Antifaschistische Aktion, commonly known under its abbreviation Antifa, was a militant anti-fascist organisation in the Weimar Republic started by members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) that existed from 1932 to 1933. It was primarily active as a KPD campaign during the 1932 German federal elections and was described by the KPD as a “red united front under the leadership of the only anti-fascist party, the KPD”. Under the leadership of the committed Stalinist Ernst Thälmann, the KPD viewed fascism primarily as the final stage of capitalism rather than as a specific movement or group and therefore applied the term to all other parties. The front focused largely on attacking the KPD’s main adversary, the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany, whom they referred to as social fascists and regarded as the “main pillar of the dictatorship of Capital”.
In the [post-WWII] era, the historical organisation inspired new groups and networks, known as the wider Antifa movement, many of which use the aesthetics of the historical Antifaschistische Aktion, especially its abbreviated name Antifa and a modified version of its logo. During the Cold War, the Antifaschistische Aktion had a dual legacy in East Germany and West Germany, respectively. In the east, it was considered part of the history and heritage of the KPD’s successor, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. In the west, its aesthetics and name were embraced by West German Maoists and later autonomists from the 1970s.
And yet today in the US and Europe the term “Antifa” (or “anti-fascist”) is meant to be taken by those not in the know to mean simply anti-Fascist – as in, anti-Nazi. Of course, Nazis and Fascists are anyone Antifa defines as such.
The Wiki article that you reference doesn’t include the fact that the “Wall” was initially barbed wire to test the new Kennedy administration. Kennedy did nothing and the Wall went up. Later Eisenhower was asked what he would have done. He said that he would have lined up bulldozers backed by tanks and knocked it all down until the Communists got the message and stopped trying. It was the first sign that the Soviet Union had that Kennedy was a weak man and eventually led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I know we’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating. One of the great successes of the left was to fundamentally establish the myth that fascism was a right-wing movement so as to be separated from the “good” communists on the left.
Also, for those of us who grew up with the Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie, it is hard to believe that (1961 to 1989 = 1989 to 2017) the Berlin wall has now been gone longer than it was in place
People who should know better accept the “anti-fascist” label of Antifa at face value, including NPR reporter Mara Liasson who tweeted a photo of US troops landing on Normandy as the largest Antifa event.
I have had some surreal exchanges with people who seemed to think that Antifa’s name constitutes irrefutable proof of their goodness. I admit to just a bit of surprise that an NPR person would try it.
Liasson, WaPo reporter Paul Farhi, and numerous leftist political operatives used the comparison:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jun/8/mara-liasson-journalists-compares-antifa-d-day-tro/
To get a feel for the times, as well as the sequence, you need to read writing contemporary with the events. Thus devoid of the whitewash of “history” and the propagandists. This goes double for anything about socialism/communism due to the huge number of apologists in academia.
To that end, I found Ludwig von Mises’ ‘Liberalism’ published in 1927 to get a better sense that fascism arose to confront communist violence and was considered to have saved Europe. Although, we know fascism in its most sociopathic form, Nazism, turned into a bitter pill and destruction anyway.
“Only when the Marxist Social Democrats had gained the upper hand and taken power in the belief that the age of liberalism and capitalism had passed forever did the last concessions disappear that it had still been thought necessary to make to the liberal ideology. The parties of the Third International consider any means as permissible if it seems to give promise of helping them in their struggle to achieve their ends. Whoever does not unconditionally acknowledge all their teachings as the only correct ones and stand by them through thick and thin has, in their opinion, incurred the penalty of death; and they do not hesitate to exterminate him and his whole family, infants included, whenever and wherever it is physically possible.
“The frank espousal of a policy of annihilating opponents and the murders committed in the pursuance of it have given rise to an opposition movement. All at once the scales fell from the eyes of the non-Communist enemies of liberalism. Until then they had believed that even in a struggle against a hateful opponent one still had to respect certain liberal principles. They had had, even though reluctantly, to exclude murder and assassination from the list of measures to be resorted to in political struggles. They had had to resign themselves to many limitations in persecuting the opposition press and in suppressing the spoken word. Now, all at once, they saw that opponents had risen up who gave no heed to such considerations and for whom any means was good enough to defeat an adversary. The militaristic and nationalistic enemies of the Third International felt themselves cheated by liberalism. Liberalism, they thought, stayed their hand when they desired to strike a blow against the revolutionary parties while it was still possible to do so. If liberalism had not hindered them, they would, so they believe, have bloodily nipped the revolutionary movements in the bud. Revolutionary ideas had been able to take root and flourish only because of the tolerance they had been accorded by their opponents, whose will power had been enfeebled by a regard for liberal principles that, as events subsequently proved, was overscrupulous. If the idea had occurred to them years ago that it is permissible to crush ruthlessly every revolutionary movement, the victories that the Third International has won since 1917 would never have been possible. For the militarists and nationalists believe that when it comes to shooting and fighting, they themselves are the most accurate marksmen and the most adroit fighters.
“The fundamental idea of these movements— which, from the name of the most grandiose and tightly disciplined among them, the Italian, may, in general, be designated as Fascist— consists in the proposal to make use of the same unscrupulous methods in the struggle against the Third International as the latter employs against its opponents.”
Mises, Ludwig von. Liberalism (1927).
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“Fascism can triumph today because universal indignation at the infamies committed by the socialists and communists has obtained for it the sympathies of wide circles. But when the fresh impression of the crimes of the Bolsheviks has paled, the socialist program will once again exercise its power of attraction on the masses. For Fascism does nothing to combat it except to suppress socialist ideas and to persecute the people who spread them. If it wanted really to combat socialism, it would have to oppose it with ideas. There is, however, only one idea that can be effectively opposed to socialism, viz., that of liberalism.”
Mises, Ludwig von. Liberalism (pp. 50-51)
“It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.”
Mises, Ludwig von (1927). Liberalism (p. 51).
Fascism is a leftist ideology in pursuit of consolidating capital and control through a consensus of public and private interests.
Nazis are also left-wing, not libertarian, at all, and were infamous for exercising liberal license to indulge diversity dogma (i.e. color judgments, class-based taxonomic systems, processes, and beliefs). They were also notable for adopting the secular Pro-Choice quasi-religion (a relativistic code of “ethics”), including selective-Jew, and, of course, social justice, including Jew-privilege… life deemed unworthy of life, denial of individual dignity, denial of individual conscience, color blocs, color quotas, affirmative discrimination, etc., the very model of progress.
There is a left-right paradigm of political ideology that ranges from self-organized (e.g. libertarian) to totalitarian (e.g. communism), and a left-right nexus that is leftist.
I spent 3 years in Berlin, 1981-1983. The DDR had to put up that wall because the East Germans were voting with their feet. They would travel to West Berlin and then they would emigrate to West Germany. East Germany was being depopulated. I had a pass that allowed me to enter East Germany and it was like stepping into the past. It didn’t look like the east Germans had modernized or replaced anything since WWII.
n.n.: Your explanation seems very good to me. The Nazi name short is for National Socialist. The Italian Fascists were run by Mussolini, who was a socialist all his adult life. This is a quote from him “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/benito_mussolini_109829
I have seen other, similar versions, too. They all point to fascists as on the left wing of politics, not the right wing.
Mussolini, the inventor of Fascism, was an Italian socialist and communist. He invented Fascism because he had a problem with communism. How do you have a proletariat revolution if you don’t have many prols? Italy was not a highly industrialized country, so Mussolini decided that no proletarian revolution was needed and he just took over the government in a putsch. Fascism is just the Italian version of communism, communism lite if you will.
Interesting comments. @ JK Brown: that’s a good point about contemporaneity.
Speaking of Thälmann, I could cross-link threads in an inconsequential way by mentioning that, while I know very little about Thälmann himself and have never thought of him as particularly important, I came across a statue of him in Weimar in 1991. It was not very prominently placed and I’m not sure if it’s still there, but FWIW, there you go. (I was in town to visit the Goethe/Schiller museum that day. This monument was on the way from the train station.) Thus to be reminded of statues again….
And here’s the history of the original “Antifa,” which began in Germany during the final years of the Weimar Republic
I believe I put that up and more a long while back…
frustrating..
Wondering how long before you discover the other things i put up…
Could have saved a lot of time…
cant put up the chinese… so just ignore the post…
your blog seems to be a big hidden hit at a celeb site.
“…no history…”
Hmmm. Soleimaini might beg to differ.
Might….
*Chuckles*