The League of West German Communists (german: Bund Westdeutscher Kommunisten, abbreviated BWK) was a
Maoist communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
political organization in the
Federal Republic of Germany, active between 1980 and 1995 and one of the last surviving "
K Groups" established in the aftermath of the
German student movement
The West German student movement or sometimes called the 1968 movement in West Germany was a social movement that consisted of mass student protests in West Germany in 1968; participants in the movement would later come to be known as 68ers. T ...
. Following the
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
, it merged into the
Party of Democratic Socialism.
Foundation
BWK was founded in
Mannheim on September 20, 1980, following a split from the
Communist League of West Germany
The Communist League of West Germany (''Kommunistischer Bund Westdeutschland''; KBW) was a Maoist organization in West Germany which existed from 1973 until 1985. The KBW contested the general elections in 1976 and 1980 in West Germany and was ra ...
(KBW).
[''Der Spiegel''. ]
Verschärft ausgebeutet
' The split in KBW occurred in the midst of the
1980 Bundestag election campaign.
[Olzog, Günter, and Hans-Joachim Liese. ]
Die politischen Parteien in Deutschland: Geschichte, Programmatik, Organisation, Personen, Finanzierung
'. München ; Landsberg am Lech: Olzog, 1996. p. 220 BWK was led by
Jörg Detjen (
de) and
Martin Fochler (
de).
Around 600 KBW militants took part in founding BWK. BWK published the bi-weekly ''Politische Berichte''.
[Alexander, Robert Jackson. ]
Maoism in the Developed World
'. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2001. p. 86 The organization had its headquarters in
Cologne. In 1980 BWK founded the publishing house ''Gesellschaft für Nachrichtenerfassung und Nachrichtenverbreitung mbH'' (GNN) in Cologne.
In West German politics
By the late 1980s, BWK was one of few remaining "K-Groups" in West Germany. As of 1988 BWK reported it was active in seven of the ten
States of West Germany. ''Politische Berichte'' had a circulation of 1,300, and the pamphlet-review ''Nachrichtenhefte'' with a circulation of around 1,000.
BWK was a dominant force in the Cologne-based
People's Front against Reaction, Fascism and War (''Volksfront gegen Reaktion, Faschismus und Krieg'',
de).
Entry into PDS
On June 5, 1993 BWK set up a Working Group of the League of West German Communists with the
Party of Democratic Socialism/Left List (''Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bund Westdeutscher Kommunisten bei der PDS/LL'') in
Hamburg. By the end of the year, BWK was active in all West German states, setting up Working Groups in the PDS.
[Lang, Jürgen P., Patrick Moreau, Viola Neu, and Jürgen Hoffmann. ]
Auferstanden aus Ruinen ...?: die PDS nach dem Super-Wahljahr 1994
'. Sankt Augustin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1995. pp. 17, 56, 75 BWK was dissolved in March 1995. Its members joined PDS. BWK was the first West German left group to dissolve itself and merge into PDS.
[Thienel, Wolfram. ]
Die PDS
'. GRIN Verlag GmbH, 1997. p. 13 The AG BWKs continued to exist within PDS, and later evolved into Forum of Communist Working Groups (''Forum kommunistischer Arbeitsgemeinschaften''). The Forum of Communist Working Groups was dissolved on December 2, 2007 and replaced in January 2008 by a new association, the Association for Political Education, Left Criticism and Communication (''Verein für politische Bildung, linke Kritik und Kommunikation''). The board of the new association consisted of Brigitte Wolf, Christoph Cornides, Rüdiger Lötzer, Christiane Schneider, Jörg Detjen, Martin Fochler and Alfred Küstler.
[Verein für politische Bildung, linke Kritik und Kommunikation. ]
Ergebnisse und Materialen
'. December, 2007.
References
{{Authority control
1980 establishments in West Germany
1995 disestablishments in Germany
Defunct communist parties in Germany
Political parties established in 1980
Political parties disestablished in 1995
Maoist organisations in Germany