scholarly journals Outwitting the Gestapo? German Communist Resistance between Loyalty and Betrayal

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942199790
Author(s):  
Udo Grashoff
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Grey Zone ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

This article discusses ambiguous tactics of German Communist resisters in the Third Reich. The official historiography of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) portrayed Communist resisters as unfaltering heroes. By contrast, revisionist studies published after 1990 presented Communists as traitors and renegades. This study transcends these approaches that revolve around legitimation or de-legitimation of the dictatorship, and examines the dubious manoeuvring of three German Communists who strategically collaborated with the Nazis, namely Theodor Bottländer, Friedrich Schlotterbeck and Wilhelm Knöchel. While Knöchel's attempts to outwit the Gestapo failed and could not prevent his execution, Schlotterbeck and Bottländer found ways to survive - largely without betraying their comrades. Even so, the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD), as well as its successor in the GDR, the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), reprimanded venturesome, inventive and obstinate Communists, excluded them from the party and brought them to court. The harsh reactions are indicative of the inability of Communist historiography to acknowledge ‘Eigen-Sinn’, and highlight a central shortcoming of the antifascist doctrine. Likewise, more recent revisionist approaches have failed to recognise various attempts of Communists to minimise harm and survive in the grey zone between betrayal and loyalty.

Issues Surrounding the Development of the Neo-Nazi Scene in East Berlin

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Brothers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Culture ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

The rise of neo-Nazism in the capital of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was not inspired by a desire to recreate Hitler's Reich, but by youthful rebellion against the political and social culture of the GDR's Communist regime. This is detailed in Fuehrer-Ex: Memoirs of a Former Neo-Naxi by Ingo Hasselbach with Tom Reiss (Random House, New York, 1996). This movement, however, eventually worked towards returning Germany to its former 'glory' under the Third Reich under the guidance of 'professional' Nazis.

scholarly journals Nationale Musik — Musik im Dienst am Volk. Zu einer Variante sozialistisch-realistischer Musik der frühen DDR: Der Fall Kurt Schwaen

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 301-316
Author(s):  
Gesine Schröder
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Third ◽  
Children's Songs ◽  
The Third Reich

‘Middle music’ and the ‘middle music theory’ of the German Democratic Republic have received little interest, although their products survive until today. Kurt Schwaen is known for his compositions for folk instruments and for his famous children’s songs such as “Wenn Mutti früh zur Arbeit geht” [When mom goes to work early in the morning]. Schwaen was an author of music for the folk, namely for amateur singers, mostly children, or lay instrumentalists, who played in mandolin or accordion orchestras. Schwaen’s compositions may be considered as a variant of socialistic realism in music. They form a modern folk music by both respecting neomodal writing, derived from the 1920s, as well as by including international folk material and promising an authentic and unsuspicious tune which German folk music lacked since the Third Reich.

«The enemy of my enemy»: actions of Azerbaijan «Musavat» party in Germany (1933–1939)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Й. Шнелле
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Second World

В данной статье рассматриваются отношения "Мусават", бывшей правящей партии Азербайджанской Республики и наиболее активной партии азербайджанских эмигрантов, с Третьим Рейхом в довоенный период. В 1933–1939 гг. Германия сыграла большую роль для партии «Мусават» в поисках союзников в борьбе против СССР. Мусаватисты некоторое время сотрудничали с Антикоминтерном в области антикоммунистической пропаганды и в 1939 г. были под покровительством Внешнеполитического управления НСДАП. Тем не менее положение «Мусават» в Германии оставалось неустойчивым вплоть до начала Второй мировой войны, надежды этой партии на эффективную поддержку со стороны Берлина не оправдались. The article examines relations between «Musavat», the former leading party of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the most active party of Azerbaijan immigrants, and the Third Reich during the pre-war period. In 1933–1939 Germany helped the party in search for anti-Soviet allies. Members of «Musavat» collaborated with the Anti-Comintern in Anti-Bolshevik Propaganda activities in 1939, they were under the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs protection. Never the less «Musavat» party haven’t gained a steady position till the beginning of the Second World War, it’s hopes for effective help and support from Berlin were not realized.

scholarly journals Refleksje na temat książki Sebastiana Fikusa „Trudny spadek dysydentów III Rzeszy w Republice Federalnej Niemiec”

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 163-168
Author(s):  
Maria Zmierczak
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Other ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The Third ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The One

REFLECTIONS ON SEBASTIAN FIKUS’S TRUDNY SPADEK DYSYDENTÓW III RZESZY W REPUBLICE FEDERALNEJ NIEMIEC DIFFICULT LEGACY OF THE THIRD REICH’S DISSIDENTS IN FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANYThe reviewed book contains a description of state policy towards the German opponents of Hitler’s regime after the fall of the Third Reich. The death sentences of military courts, Volksgericht and special war courts were treated as legal and the victims and their descendants were not vindicated until 2009. It means that they figured as criminals for more than 50 years. The author suggests that this was connected mainly with economic reasons and the need to restore the national economy. The commentary of the reviewer underlines the importance of other aspects: on the one hand, it was not easy to declare that the Federal Republic of Germany is a new state and to break the continuity of state, especially in the face of the existing German Democratic Republic. On the other hand, it is not easy to declare that the law was not legal, and to punish judges or officers who had acted according to the legal prescriptions; not to mention the old sentence lex retro non agit. 

The Rehabilitated Austrians and the Borodajkewycz Affair

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 360-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Milan Kropiunigg
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
University Professor ◽  
New Construction ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The Right

Ladies and Gentlemen! Where are we living? What age are we living in? Is this the Democratic Republic of Austria or a part of the Third Reich? Have we got twenty years of reconstruction and new construction of our fatherland behind us, or do we stand before the year 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War Two? Has all the terror, all fright, completely bypassed such educators of the youth? Has nothing made an impression on them that would have changed them? Just as a Socialist parliamentarian spoke these words on 31 March 1965, an affair surrounding the Viennese University Professor Taras (von) Borodajkewycz culminated in the Second Republic's most violent street fights and allegedly sole political death to date. In the course of the early 1960s, the professor's antidemocratic references and nostalgic statements on the Third Reich in his lectures had also come to the attention of the wider public. Clashes in March between Rightist and Leftist students ensued, and the Borodajkewycz Affair finally reached its height when on that last day in March the right-wing student Günther Kümel delivered a deadly blow to a 67-year-old Communist.

The Language of Ideology: Lingual Manipulation of Readers in German Literature of the Third Reich

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Michael Press
Keyword(s):  
German Literature ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historical Argument ◽  
Underlying Basis ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Post War ◽  
German People

In recognizing more than just hyperbole in their critical studies of National Socialist language, post-war philologists Viktor Klemperer (1946) and Eugen Seidel (1961) credit persuasive words and syntax with the expansion of Hitler's ideology among the German people. This popular explanation is being revisited by contemporary philologists, however, as new historical argument holds the functioning of the Third Reich to be anything but monolithic. An emerging scholarly consensus on the presence of more chaos than coherence in Nazi discourse suggests a new imperative for research. After reviewing the foundational works of Mein Kampf (1925) and Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930), the author confirms Klemperer and Seidel’s claim for linguistic manipulation in the rise of the National Socialist Party. Most importantly, this article provides a detailed explanation of how party leaders employed rhetorical language to promote fascist ideology without an underlying basis of logical argumentation.

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