''Die Rote Fahne'' (, ''The Red Flag'') was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader

Wilhelm Hasselmann Wilhelm Hasselmann (September 25, 1844 – February 25, 1916) was a German socialist politician and activist and editor of various social democratic newspapers. Early life He was born in Bremen and baptized Protestant however later became an ...

, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communists.

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 ...

and

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, ...

famously published it in 1918 as organ of the

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, ...

. Following the deaths of Liebknecht and Luxemburg during the chancellorship of the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

Friedrich Ebert Friedrich Ebert (; 4 February 187128 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the first President of Germany (1919–1945), president of Germany from 1919 until his death in office in 1925. Eber ...

, the newspaper was published, with interruptions, by the

Communist Party of Germany 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 German ...

. Proscribed by the National Socialist Worker's Party government of Adolf Hitler after 1933, publication continued illegally, underground.

History

1876

of the

Socialist Workers' Party of Germany The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SAPD) was a centrist Marxist political party in Germany. It was formed as a left-wing party with around 20,000 members which split off from the SPD i ...

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'' was successively the

central organ Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

of: *

: 9 November 1918 to 30 December 1918 *

: 1 January 1919 to 19 September 1920 (reflecting the KPD's submission to the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...

on *

: 19 September 1920 to roughly 23 March 1933 (date of passage of the Nazi

Enabling Act An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it (for authorization or legitimacy) the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to car ...

The publication was proscribed from October 1923 to March 1924, as part of the ban on the German Communist Party. The newspaper continued in illegal production and distribution, sometimes renamed "Rote Sturmfahne" ("Red Storm Flag") or "Die Fahne der Revolution" ("The Flag of the Revolution"). In 1926, the newspaper moved into the Karl Liebknecht House, to which it added in July 1928 a rotary press. On 23 February 1933, Nazi police occupied Karl-Liebknecht-Haus and closed it the following day, anticipating the Nazi ban on all communist and socialist press after the Reichstag fire a few days later (28 February 1933). Many prominent Germans and others worked on the newspaper: * Founders included:

Paul Frölich Paul Frölich (7 August 1884 – 16 March 1953) was a German journalist and left-wing political activist and author, a founding member of the Communist Party of Germany and founder of the party's paper, ''Die Rote Fahne.'' A Communist Party deputy ...

* Publishers included"

Hans Marchwitza Hans Marchwitza (25 June 1890 – 17 January 1965) was a German writer, proletarian poet, and communist. Life Marchwitza was the son of miner Thomas Marchwitza and his wife Thekla Maxisch, and was born in Scharley (Szarlej) (now a part of Piek ...

and Johannes R. Becher * Editors included: Ernst Meyer (1918-1919),

August Thalheimer August Thalheimer (18 March 1884 – 19 September 1948) was a German Marxist activist and theorist. Early life He was born in 1884 in Affaltrach, now called Obersulm, Württemberg, Germany in to a Jewish working-class family. He studied at the ...

(1919-?),

Julian Gumperz Julian Gumperz (May 12, 1898 in New York City – February 1972 in Gaylordsville, Connecticut) was a United States-born German sociologist, communist activist, publicist, and translator. Institute for Social Research Julian Gumperz studied p ...

(1920? -- later, second husband of

Hede Massing Hede Tune Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" (also "Hede Eisler," "Hede Gumperz," and "Redhead") (6 January 1900 – 8 March 1981), was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United State ...

), Werner Scholem (1920--?),

Gerhart Eisler Gerhart Eisler (20 February 1897 – 21 March 1968) was a German politician, editor and publicist. Along with his sister Ruth Fischer, he was a very early member of the Austrian German Communist Party (KPDÖ) and then a prominent member of the Co ...

(1921-?? already, first husband of

Arkadi Maslow Arkadi Maslow ; russian: Аркадий Маслов , born Isaak Yefimowich Chemerinsky ; russian: Исаак Ефимович Чемеринский (March 9, 1891 – November 20, 1941) was a communist politician in the German Republic, ...

(1921-?),

Heinz Neumann Heinz Neumann (6 July 1902 – 26 November 1937) was a German politician from the Communist Party (KPD) and a journalist. He was a member of the Communist International, editor in chief of the party newspaper ''Die Rote Fahne'' and a member of the ...

(1922-1928?),

Max Matern Max Matern (19 January 1902 – 22 May 1935) was a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) who was convicted of murder and executed for his role in the assassinations of Police Captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. The murders took plac ...

(1925-?),

Hans Lorbeer Hans Lorbeer (15 August 1901 – 7 September 1973) was a German politician and writer. Life Hans Lorbeer was born as the illegitimate child of a worker girl in Lutherstadt Wittenberg in the Province of Saxony and grew up with foster parents in ...

(1928--?),

Erika Heymann Erika Heymann (née Erika Lasallelie Geck; ; Offenburg, Germany, 1895 – Amsterdam, 6 April 1950) was a German woman posthumously granted the status of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for helping several Jews hide during the German occu ...

(1930-1933), Albert Norden (1930-1933),

Lutz Łask Lutz is a surname and given name, occasionally a short form of Ludwig. People with the name include: Surname *Adolfo Lutz (1855–1940), Brazilian physician * Aleda E. Lutz (1915–1944), American Army flight nurse *Alois Lutz, Austrian figure ...

(1930s and husband of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

's lover

Dora Diamant Dora Diamant (Dwojra Diament, also Dymant) (4 March 1898 – 15 August 1952) is best remembered as the lover of the writer Franz Kafka and the person who kept some of his last writings in her possession until they were confiscated by the Gest ...

), Franz Koritschoner,

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and ae ...

Wolfgang Harich Wolfgang Harich (3 December 1923 – 15 March 1995) was a philosopher and journalist in East Germany. A deserter from the German army in World War II and a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Harich became a professor of philosophy ...

(1923 – 1995) * Contributors included:

Emil Barth Emil Barth (Heidelberg, 23 April 1879 – Berlin, 17 July 1941) was a German Social Democratic party worker and socialist politician who became a key figure in the German Revolution of 1918. Life Barth joined the anti-war Independent Social Dem ...

(1918?),

Lilly Becher Lilly Becher ( Korpus, 27 January 1901, Nuremberg – 20 September 1978, Berlin) was a German writer, journalist and communist activist. Noted as one of the first Antifascism, anti-Nazi writers to produce documentary work dealing with the persec ...

(1921--?),

Willi Schlamm William S. (Willi) Schlamm (originally Wilhelm Siegmund Schlamm, June 10, 1904 – September 1, 1978) was an Austrian-American journalist. Biography Schlamm was born into an upper middle class Jewish family in Przemyśl, Galicia, in the Austrian ...

(1923--?), Albert Hotopp (1923-1926),

Hanns Eisler Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was an Austrian composer (his father was Austrian, and Eisler fought in a Hungarian regiment in World War I). He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artisti ...

(1927),

Erich Mielke Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (''Ministerium für Staatsicherheit'' – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 u ...

(1928-1931), John Sieg (1928-1933?),

Jürgen Kuczynski Jürgen Kuczynski (; 17 September 1904, Elberfeld – 6 August 1997, Berlin) was a German economist, journalist, and communist. He also provided intelligence to the Soviet Union during World War II. By 1936, Kuczynski had followed his father an ...

(1930-1933), Max Zimmering (1935-1938?),

Thomas Ring Thomas Ring Petersen (born 17 February 1980 in Copenhagen, Denmark), better known as Thomas Ring or simply as Thomas, is a Danish singer who rose to fame as the winner of the third Danish series of ''The X Factor''. Thomas started as table tenn ...

* Artists included:

John Heartfield John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld; 19 June 1891 – 26 April 1968) was a 20th century German visual artist who pioneered the use of art as a political weapon. Some of his most famous photomontages were anti-Nazi and anti-fascist statements ...

1933–1942

Outlawed after the end of the

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 al ...

and the Reichstag fire in 1933, it was illegally distributed during the

National Socialist Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

government by underground groups close to the Communist Party until 1942. Wilhelm Guddorf was known to have been an editor of the newspaper in the late 1930s.

1970 and afterwards

Following the events of 1968, several projects of ideologically divergent groups of the so-called old and the new left arose in the Federal German Republic to build a new communist party. In addition to the German Communist Party (DKP), which is widely known as the West German KPD successor party and publishes the newspaper ''Unser Zeit'' as a party organ , various competing small communist parties , the so-called K groups, were founded, each of which was associated with different ideological concepts of communism (from Maoism to Stalinism to Trotskyism). Out of these groupings, there were several newspaper projects in the 1970s called ''Rote Fahne''. The

(KPD), a fringe party founded in 1990 by disgruntled members of the

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 German ...

, publishes its own version of ''Die Rote Fahne''.

References

External sources

Die rote Fahne
-

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin This is a list of the state libraries (german: Landesbibliothek) for each of the Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany. These libraries hold the right for legal deposit for the publications in their respective state. Landesbibliothek S ...

Rote Fahne News

Rote Fahne Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rote Fahne 1918 establishments in Germany Communism in Germany Communist newspapers Defunct newspapers published in Germany Newspapers published in Berlin German-language newspapers German-language communist newspapers Publications established in 1918 Publications with year of disestablishment missing Daily newspapers published in Germany