Communist party of Germany

Birth of the party and German Revolution (1918-1919)

In December 1918, the League Spartakiste creates, with some other less important groups, the Communist party of Germany. To mark continuity, the complete name adopted on December 30th, 1918 was Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (SpartakusBund) - Communist party of Germany (Spartakiste League).

The repression of the revolts of January and March 1919 involves the assassination of many militants and the principal leaders of the party: Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Leo Jogiches (see: German Revolution).

The KPD under the Weimar Republic (1919-1933)

The bolchevisation of the party

The catch in hand of the KPD by the Bolchevik S involves several series of exclusions/scissions:

that of KAPD in 1919 with Hermann Gorter, them excluded criticizing authoritarianism from Lénine and parliamentarism.
that of Paul Levi in 1921, excluded on decision from the direction from International (Levi defended a revolution carried out by the proletariat, it new direction of the KPD and that of International wanting a revolution carried out by a party). The KPD passed then under the direct control of Moscow.
that of KPD-O in 1928, with Paul Frolich, August Thalheimer and Heinrich Brandler, them excluded refusing the support for the the USSR, and in a broader way the Stalinism.

In 1929, the KPD became thus a party completely under domination of PCUS, and defends an extremely different Stalinist policy, even completely contradictory with the policy luxembourgist of the founders.

The fight against social democracy and the Nazism

With the sixth congress of the International Communist in Moscow in September 1928, Stalin decides to give priority to the fight against the Social-démocratie. The German Communists must follow. According to the historian of socialism Jacques Droz, they “regard the social democrats as their principal enemy, and go even until their preferring the Nazi S, whose excesses think, will cause the civil war then dictatorship of the proletariat. (.) Under these conditions, it is obvious that the collaboration between the two left parties, which would have been essential to resist terror Nazi, cannot be organized. In November 1931, the Rote Fahne , the communist body, dares to write: " the Fascism of Brüning is not better than that of Hitler… It is against social democracy that we carry out the combat principal." ”

In December 1931, the KPD refuses to take part in the republican iron Face against the Face of Hazburg (nationalist).

In 1931-1932, the KPD and Nazi party NSDAP take actions parallel and sometimes concerted in order to reverse the Weimar Republic: the referendum against the social democrat government of Prussia in August 1931, the motion of censure against the social democrat government of Prussia in March 1932, motion causing the dissolution of the German Parliament of July 1932, the common strike of transport of Berlin in November 1932.

The historians also underline an ambivalent attitude at the base of the party. On a side, street battles without concession between militants Nazis and Communist militants. In 1931, one thus raises death of 103 Communist militants and 79 militants Nazis. Other, part of the proletarian base oscillates between the Communist party and the Nazi party. The Communist party on several occasions tries to allure the left Nazi and in particular SA the most famous case is that of Richard Scheringer, hero Nazi, convert with Communism and future West German Communist leader after 1945.

On the whole, and in spite of the martyrdom which the party under the Third Reich will undergo, certain historians judged very severely the strategy of the German Communist party vis-a-vis the Nazisme (preceded in that by contemporaries). The historian of socialism Jacques Droz writes as follows: “Of this evolution which led to the collapse of the two great parties of the German left wing, it is incontestably the Communist party which takes the heaviest responsibility. By denouncing social democracy, and not the Nazism, like the enemy to be cut down, it had certainly contributed to appease personal hatreds of Stalin, but it had shown of a servility and a blindness whose history must require account of him. ”

Repression Nazi and resistance (1933-1945)

The German Communists (members or not of the KPD) are massively interned since 1933 and the come to power of Adolf Hitler, in Concentration camps like Dachau. An activity will be maintained in certain camps (in particular Buchenwald), organizing solidarity, and an extremely difficult and dangerous resistance. Certain leaders having fled in time organize a KPD in exile.

See also: the German Resistance to the Nazism.

The KPD after 1945

Following the division of the Germany, the KPD is divided in fact.

In the Soviet zone of occupation, the KPD amalgamates with SPD under the pressure of the USSR to form the SED, which is transformed quickly into party of the Stalinist type exerting a dictatorship. As from 1989 and multi-party system, the SED is transformed into PDS.
In FRG, the KPD is interdict as from 1956. Militants continue a clandestine activity, but from 1970 the remainders of the KPD of FRG are divided into many scissions and become largely unimportant. In 2007, certain small groups assert themselves as being “the KPD”.

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