Manfred Agethen, Eckhard Jesse, Ehrhart Neubert. Der missbrauchte Antifaschismus: DDR-Staatsdoktrin und Lebenslüge der deutschen Linken. Freiburg: Herder Verlag, 2002. 446 S. EUR 18,00 (broschiert), ISBN 978-3-451-28017-7.

Reviewed by Catherine Plum (Department of History, Western New England College)
Published on H-German (January, 2005)

The precise meaning and strategic use of the term "antifascism" continue to stir up controversy in historical assessments and in contemporary politics. Published with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, this collection of essays reignites this debate. Consisting of thirty-two essays and introductory material by Wolfgang Schäuble, Eckhard Jesse, Manfred Agethen, and Ehrhart Neubert, Der missbrauchte Antifaschismus argues for a strong level of continuity in the ways with which the SED, the West German left and the PDS have used the concept of antifascism for political legitimation, consensus building, and as a political weapon against their opponents. The authors range from scholars in the fields of political science and history to writers and journalists, and the book is targeted more towards the educated public than towards scholars (p. 17). Many of the essays were first published as newspaper, magazine, or journal articles and were then reworked for this publication. Despite the clear conservative bias of this collection, the essays make some important contributions to the study of antifascist movements in Germany and to the broader discussion of the political appropriation of history.

Divided into four parts, the first section of the book examines historical and conceptual approaches to antifascism. Uwe Backes's essay provides useful background information by detailing the origins of a divided antifascism as fascist movements took root in Italy and Germany. The manner in which the Soviet Union used its antifascist stance strategically foreshadows the SED's use of antifascism. In his contribution "Der Schwur von Buchenwald," Manfred Wilke provides a sense of the timeline of SED-sponsored antifascism by supporting Manfred Overesch's argument that state antifascism increased in importance after the worker uprising of June 1953 as seen through the establishment of national memorials at former concentration camps located in the GDR. In the third and final essay, Steffen Kailitz emphasizes the contentious nature of the term "antifascism" by arguing that a central component of the Historikerstreit of the mid-to-late 1980s was the debate between leftist antifascism and a broader anti-totalitarian stance that conservative historians advocated. Kailitz maintains that left democrats often failed to distinguish between a democratic and an undemocratic antifascism. In this essay and throughout the book the political right is praised for its support of a more general anti-extremism and rejection of totalitarianism. Wilke's essay balances this account by acknowledging the role of the left with the advent of a spiritual Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

Combining formal essays and personal reflections, the second part of the collection focuses on the SED's political misappropriation of antifascism and the extent to which East German citizens internalized the official message of antifascism. Readers new to this field will find the contributions by Ralf Thomas Baus and Herfried Münkler particularly instructive. Concentrating on the period 1945-49, Baus examines the manner in which Soviet and SED authorities branded enemies such as "capitalists, imperialists and large estate owners" as fascists, and attacked and imprisoned them alongside true Nazis (p. 101). Baus provides ample evidence to dispel the notion that the GDR was founded with a strong democratic basis. Herfried Münkler explores how antifascism served as a foundational myth for the GDR as a way to distinguish itself from the West and to legitimate itself domestically. Münkler carefully explains that at the core of the national myth is the notion that German antifascists in the working class played an important role in the defeat of National Socialism alongside the Soviet army. The myth enabled a large percentage of GDR citizens to be on the winning side of history although few participated in resistance efforts. In this manner, GDR citizens could avoid critically coming to terms with the past. Münkler's treatment of this subject has explanatory value, but in the interests of experts in the field, a stronger analysis of myth and collective memory would be helpful.

A number of essays reveal that the SED antifascist platform cannot be separated from cold war politics and Jewish policy on the domestic and international level. Konrad Weiss's piece questions the GDR's claim to be an antifascist state given its anti-Semitic policies towards Israel and discrimination of Jewish citizens in the GDR. Weiss briefly summarizes the history of Jewish persecution in the Soviet-occupied zone and the GDR, but he fails to emphasize the role that Stalinism played. Lothar Mertens and Wolfgang Buschfort identify another important aspect of the cold-war politics of antifascism by noting how the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) was responsible for creating some of the anti-Semitic graffiti found in West Germany during the 1960s. An increase in the number of cases of anti-Semitic activity gave the East German government more fuel for their ongoing slur campaign against the West German society and government. Several leading West German politicians came directly under fire for their Nazi pasts, which were in some cases fabricated by the Stasi. As the East German government publicized examples of the persistence of anti-Semitism in West Germany, it concealed its own domestic problems in this area. Bernd Eisenfeld's article provides an important initial foray into this topic, which has yet to be fully investigated by scholars. He argues that right-wing extremism was a constant problem in the GDR which peaked in the second half of the 1970s within the army and the youth population. The contributions by Ehrhart Neubert and Peter Maser suggest that some GDR citizens rejected the increasingly stale state-sponsored antifascism in favor of an alternative notion of antifascism with a more balanced understanding of the nature of resistance and the diversity of victims of National Socialism.

Parts 3 and 4 of Der missbrauchte Antifaschismus investigate how the West German left and the PDS have used the concept of antifascism for their own political ends. West German leftist parties and the PDS are said to use the perceived threat of fascism and neo-Nazism as a means to support a leftist pluralism (Manfred Wilke) or Volksfront (Patrick Moreau and Rita Schorpp-Grabiak) as well as a cultural hegemony (Viola Neu). The political use of antifascism can also be examined using a generational analysis. Harmut Kühne categorizes the Schröder/Fischer government as being tied to the generation of 1968, and he posits that there is a certain arrogance to the way Schröder uses morality as a weapon in politics as seen through the public spotlight that was gleaned through the parliamentary debate on outlawing the NPD. On a more general level, Gerd Koenen and Hans Dieter Zimmermann focus on the generation of 1968 and young people's attitudes towards the fascist legacy. Both authors maintain that members of this pivotal generation wanted to relieve themselves of a sense of collective guilt. Indeed Zimmermann maintains that students played the role of both victim and antifascist fighter in battling against the fascism they perceived in the Federal Republic. However, Zimmermann believes that the now mature generation of '68 has developed a loyalty to the Federal Republik. Manfred Funke advances a far more negative assessment of the generation of 1968 and of young leftists today. He explores the financial ties between the SED and leftist organizations in West Germany, and he argues that there is a strong continuity between these historic relationships and contemporary PDS logistical and technical support for left-wing extremists.

Contemporary PDS support for left-wing violence is a dominant and recurring theme in this part of the work. Unfortunately, Funke fails to provide specific examples of PDS branches providing extreme left-wing groups with meeting space and technical assistance. Such evidence along with statistical information and sensitivity to regional tendencies would reinforce his argument. In contrast, Patrick Moreau and Rita Schorpp-Grabiak do point specifically to PDS connections to the unsavory group Antifaschistische Aktion/Bundesweite Koordination (AA/BO). Prevalent between 1992 and 2001, this group was known for countering neo-Nazi demonstrations with violent opposition. Moreau and Schorpp-Grabiak provide just one specific example of left-wing violence associated with AA/BO, when they refer to the situtation that errupted during the labor-day demonstrations in Berlin in May 2001. An analysis of the relationship between the AA/BO and local PDS representatives would strengthen Mueller's essay.

While the authors portray the threat of left-wing extremism to be very serious, the essays could provide more evidence for this assertion beyond referring to the Berlin demonstrations of May 2001 and a few incidents where left-wing counter-protesters injured police. Published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the annual reports on the protection of the constitution (Verfassungsschutzberichte) provide statistics on both right- and left-wing criminal acts that would be very helpful here. Evidence would have to be presented to make the claim that the potential for violence in the extreme left today is comparable to that of the extreme left in the 1970s or the extreme right in the 1990s. A fear of the potential power of the PDS and its supporters colors this work, although some authors point to the weakness of the party in Western Germany and the need for greater geographical diversity before the PDS could ever pose as a viable coalition partner on the national level. The aging membership of the PDS suggests that the party will have problems recruiting and supporting extremist youth groups in the future.

The authors of this collection concur on a variety of issues, and yet some differing interpretations surface particularly in the section of the book on GDR antifascism. Some authors refer to SED-sponsored antifascism as being "verordnet" or prescribed, using a term Ralph Giordano has popularized in academic literature (p. 169). Konrad Weiss and Annette Simon prefer the adjectives "broken" and "sadistic" to characterize their more personal reactions to the antifascism promoted by the SED. The autobiographical pieces by Peter Maser and Annette Simon also reveal very different childhood responses to antifascist education in the GDR. The adopted child of a Christian resistance fighter, Maser has positive memories of visiting Buchenwald for the first time at the age of twelve. In contrast, psychologist Annette Simon was literally overwhelmed by the "sadistic" form of antifascist pedagogy that she was exposed to at the age of eleven when she visited Ravensbrück. Bernd Eisenfeld, Frank Pergande, and Daniel Friedrich Sturm also disagree on the SED and the Stasi response to right-wing extremism, which was clearly a problem in the self-defined "antifascist" state. Based on his research on right-wing extremist crimes in the NVA, Eisenfeld concludes that the state dealt with such cases in a fairly stringent manner. Refering more generally to cases of right-wing extremist activity, Pergande and Sturm maintain that the authorities did not take such cases very seriously. Scholars will need to differentiate between the lack of public acknowledgement of the problem and the specific responses of different organs in the SED regime, such as the army, Stasi, police, and ministry of education.

Historians and social scientists will find that this text is worth investigating despite its clear political bias. While the book allows its authors to free themselves from the academic convention of footnotes, the sources listed after many of the essays and the selected bibiography at the end of the book contain an impressive number of books and articles on antifascism as a state policy. Many of the essays offer a summary of existing scholarship, and the pieces that explore antifascist film and pedagogy, youth reception, right-wing extremism, and alternative antifascisms in the GDR suggest fruitful avenues of research for scholars.

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Citation: Catherine Plum. Review of Agethen, Manfred; Jesse, Eckhard; Neubert, Ehrhart, Der missbrauchte Antifaschismus: DDR-Staatsdoktrin und Lebenslüge der deutschen Linken. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10120

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