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KPD
The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956. Founded in the aftermath of the First World War by socialists who had opposed the war, the party joined the Spartacist uprising of January 1919, which sought to establish a soviet republic in Germany. After the defeat of the uprising, and the murder of KPD leaders Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and Leo Jogiches, the party temporarily steered a more moderate, parliamentarian course under the leadership of Paul Levi. During the Weimar Republic period, the KPD usually polled between 10 and 15 percent of the vote and was represented in the national and in state parliaments. Under the leadership of Ernst Thälmann from 1925 the party became thoroughly St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann (; 16 April 1886 – 18 August 1944) was a German communist politician, and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933. A committed Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist, Thälmann played a major role during the political instability of the Weimar Republic, especially in its final years, when the KPD explicitly sought to overthrow the liberal democracy of the republic. Under his leadership the KPD became intimately associated with the government of the Soviet Union and the policies of Joseph Stalin. The KPD under Thälmann's leadership regarded the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as its main adversary and the party adopted the position that the social democrats were "social fascists". Thälmann was also leader of the paramilitary ''Roter Frontkämpferbund'' (which was banned as extremist by the governing social democrats in 1929). In 1932 he established Antifaschistische Aktion, commonly shortened to " Antifa". He was arrested by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merger Of The KPD And SPD Into The Socialist Unity Party Of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) merged to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) on 21 April 1946 in the territory of the Soviet occupation zone. It is considered a forced merger. In the course of the merger, about 5,000 Social Democrats who opposed it were detained and sent to labour camps and jails. Although nominally a merger of equals, the merged party quickly fell under Communist domination. The SED became the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949; by then, it had become a full-fledged Communist Party–for all intents and purposes, the KPD under a new name. It developed along lines similar to other Communist Parties in what became the Soviet Bloc. The SED would be the only ruling party of the GDR until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in December 1989. Background Among circles of the workers' parties KPD and SPD there were different interpretations of the reasons for the ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spartacist Uprising
The Spartacist uprising (German: ), also known as the January uprising (), was a general strike and the accompanying armed struggles that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the November Revolution that broke out following Germany's defeat in World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) led by Friedrich Ebert, which favored a social democracy, and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. In 1914 Liebknecht and Luxemburg had founded the Marxist Spartacus League (), which gave the uprising its popular name. The revolt was improvised and small scale and quickly crushed by the superior strength of government and paramilitary troops. The death toll was roughly 150–200, mostly among the insurgents. The most prominent deaths were th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Resistance To Nazism
Many individuals and groups in Germany that were opposed to the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime engaged in active resistance, including assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, attempts to remove Adolf Hitler from power by assassination or by overthrowing his established regime. German resistance was not recognized as a collective united resistance movement during the height of Nazi Germany, unlike the more coordinated efforts in other countries, such as Italian Resistance, Italy, Denmark, the Soviet partisans, Soviet Union, Polish Underground State, Poland, Greek Resistance, Greece, Yugoslav Partisans, Yugoslavia, French Resistance, France, Dutch resistance, the Netherlands, Resistance in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Czechoslovakia and Norwegian resistance movement, Norway. The German resistance consisted of small, isolated groups that were unable to mobilize widespread political opposition. Individual attacks on Nazi authority, sabotage, and the successful disclosure of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socialist Unity Party Of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany) from the country's foundation in October 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Marxist–Leninist communist party, established in April 1946 as a merger between the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party of Germany. Although the GDR was a one-party state, some other institutional popular front parties were permitted to exist in alliance with the SED; these parties included the Christian Democratic Union, the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Farmers' Party, and the National Democratic Party. In the 1980s, the SED rejected the liberalisation policies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, such as '' perestroika'' and '' glasnost'', which would le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Levi
Paul Levi (11 March 1883 – 9 February 1930) was a German communist and social democratic political leader. He was the head of the Communist Party of Germany following the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919. After being expelled for publicly criticising Communist Party tactics during the March Action, he formed the Communist Working Organisation (KAG / ''Kommunistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft'') which in 1922 merged with the Independent Social Democratic Party. This party, in turn, merged with the Social Democratic Party a few months later and Levi became one of the leaders of its left wing. Biography Early years Paul Levi was born on 11 March 1883 in Hechingen in Hohenzollern Province to a well-to-do Jewish merchant family. He attended the Gymnasium in Stuttgart. Levi started work as a lawyer in Frankfurt in 1906 and also joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) the same year. There he became part of the party's left wing together with Rosa Lux ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spartacus League
The Spartacus League (German: ''Spartakusbund'') was a Marxism, Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the "International Group" by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who were dissatisfied with the party's official policies in support of the war. In 1916 it renamed itself the Spartacus Group and in 1917 joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which had split off from the SPD, as its left wing faction. During the November Revolution of 1918, November Revolution of 1918 that broke out across Germany at the end of the war, the Group re-established itself as a nationwide, non-party organization called the "Spartacus League" with the goal of instituting a Soviet republic (system of government), soviet republic that would include all of Germany. It became part of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) when it was formed o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag from 1912 to 1916, where he represented the left-revolutionary wing of the party. In 1916 he was expelled from the SPD's parliamentary group for his opposition to the political truce between all parties in the Reichstag while the war lasted. He twice spent time in prison, first for writing an anti-militarism pamphlet in 1907 and then for his role in a 1916 antiwar demonstration. He was released from the second under a general amnesty three weeks before the end of the First World War. During the November Revolution that broke out across Germany in the final days of the war, Liebknecht proclaimed Germany a "Free Socialist Republic" from the Berlin Palace on 9 November 1918. On 11 November, together with Rosa Luxemburg and others he founded th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat party, the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), the Spartacus League (), and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Born and raised in an assimilated Jewish family in Poland, she became a German citizen in 1897. After the SPD supported German involvement in World War I in 1915, Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht co-founded the anti-war Spartacus League () which eventually became the KPD. During the November Revolution, she co-founded the newspaper (''The Red Flag''), the central organ of the Spartacist movement. Luxemburg considered the Spartacist uprising of January 1919 a blunder, but supported the attempted overthrow of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Rote Fahne
''Die Rote Fahne'' (, ''The Red Flag'') was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg famously published it in 1918 as organ of the Spartacus League. Following the deaths of Liebknecht and Luxemburg during the chancellorship of the Social Democratic Party of Germany's Friedrich Ebert, the newspaper was published, with interruptions, by the Communist Party of Germany. Proscribed by the National Socialist Worker's Party government of Adolf Hitler after 1933, publication continued illegally, underground. History 1876 Wilhelm Hasselmann of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany and member of the German Reichstag founded a short-lived, weekly newspaper called ''Die rote Fahne''. 1918–1933 Using the newspaper's subtitle as indicator of its political allegiance, ''Die Rote Fahne'' wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic (german: Deutsche Republik, link=no, label=none). The state's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s. Following the devastation of the First World War (1914–1918), Germany was exhausted and sued for peace in desperate circumstances. Awareness of imminent defeat sparked a revolution, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, formal surrender to the Allies, and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic on 9 November 1918. In its i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Communist Party
The German Communist Party (german: Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, ) is a communist party in Germany. The DKP supports left positions and was an observer member of the European Left. At the end of February 2016 it left the European party. History The DKP considered itself a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which had been banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956 for its aggressively militant opposition to the West German constitution. The new party was formed in 1969 by former KPD functionaries in close cooperation with East Germany's ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED), from which the DKP received both political directives and – through covert transfers – most of its funds. The foundation was preceded by talks between former KPD functionaries and Gustav Heinemann, the West German minister of justice, who explained to them that while a refounding of a banned party was not legally possible, Communists were free to form an entirely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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