75 years after the triumph over Nazism, we look back to when socialists gave birth to Antifa.
The origins of the word âantifaââshorthand for decentralized, militant street activism associated with its own aesthetic and subcultureâmight be murky to most readers. Even in Germany, few know much about the popular forms of antifascist resistance that coined the term.
The movementâs short but inspiring political legacy proved too uncomfortable for both Cold War-era German states, and was ignored in schools and mainstream history. Today its legacy is almost entirely lost to the Left.
Out of the Ruins
By 1945, Hitlerâs Third Reich lay physically destroyed and politically exhausted. Basic civil society ceased to function in many areas, as the Nazi grip on power faltered and regime supporters, particularly in the middle- and upper classes, realized that Hitlerâs âfinal victoryâ was a fantasy.
On the Left, many Communists and Social Democrats had either been outright murdered by the Nazis, or died in the ensuing war. The unimaginable human and material destruction wrought by Nazi rule killed millions and turned German society upside down, decimating the labor movement and murdering most of the countryâs Jewish population. Millions who had supported or at least acquiesced to the regimeâincluding many workers and even some former socialistsânow faced a new beginning in unknown political terrain.