Die Rote Fahne Explained

Type:Daily newspaper
Owners:-->
Founders:Wilhelm Hasselmann, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Paul Frölich
Maneditors:-->
Political:Communist
Language:German
Publishing Country:Germany

Die Rote Fahne (pronounced as /de/, The Red Flag) was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's Party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground,[1] by German Socialists and Communists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg famously published it in 1918[2] as organ of the Spartacus League.[3]

Following the deaths of Liebknecht and Luxemburg during the chancellorship of the Social Democratic Party of Germany's Friedrich Ebert,[4] [5] the newspaper was published, with interruptions, by the Communist Party of Germany.[6] [7] Proscribed by the National Socialist Worker's Party government of Adolf Hitler after 1933,[8] publication continued illegally, underground.[9]

History

1876

Wilhelm Hasselmann of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (now SPD) and member of the German Reichstag founded a short-lived, weekly newspaper called Die rote Fahne.[10]

1918–1933

Using the newspaper's subtitle as indicator of its political allegiance, Die Rote Fahne was successively the central organ of:

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:

1933–1942

Outlawed after the end of the Weimar Republic and the Reichstag fire in 1933, it was illegally distributed during the Nazi regime by underground groups close to the Communist Party[30] until 1942. Wilhelm Guddorf was known to have been an editor of the newspaper in the late 1930s.[31]

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 Unsere 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 Communist Party of Germany (KPD), a fringe party founded in 1990 by disgruntled members of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, publishes its own version of Die Rote Fahne.

External sources

Notes and References

  1. Book: Marrus, Michael Robert. The Nazi Holocaust. Part 5: Public Opinion and Relations to the Jews in Nazi Europe. 2011-08-02. Walter de Gruyter. 9783110970449. en.
  2. Book: To the Masses: Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Communist International, 1921. 2015-02-13. BRILL. 9789004288034. en.
  3. Book: Weitz, Eric D.. Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State. 1997. Princeton University Press. 91–92. 0691026823.
  4. News: Luxemburg und Liebknecht: Dauerfehde um einen Doppelmord. Habbe. Christian. 2009-01-09. Spiegel Online. 2019-06-27.
  5. News: Märtyrer der KPD: So starben Karl Liebknecht und Rosa Luxemburg. Kellerhoff. Sven Felix. 2019-01-14. 2019-06-27.
  6. Book: Sewell, Rob. Germany 1918-1933: Socialism or Barbarism. 2018-11-12. Wellred Books. 9781900007986. en.
  7. Web site: Zeitungsinformationssystem ZEFYS - Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Zeitungsabteilung. zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de. de. 2019-06-27.
  8. Web site: Münchner Rote Fahne, 1919 – Historisches Lexikon Bayerns. www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de. 2019-06-27.
  9. Web site: Ein Tanz auf Messersschneide- Kommunistische Tätigkeiten vom Ende der Weimarer Republik bin in die frühe Bundesrepublik anhand ausgewählter Karlsruher Beispiele. Marotta. Alina. ns-ministerien-bw.de. 27 June 2019.
  10. Book: Messer-Kruse, Timothy. The Haymarket Conspiracy: Transatlantic Anarchist Networks. 2012-07-26. University of Illinois Press. 9780252037054. en.
  11. Web site: Die Rote Fahne, #1 (9 Nov 1918) and #16 (16 Jan 1919). Hardwig. Florian. 2019-01-15. Fonts in Use. 2019-06-27.
  12. Web site: Paul Frölich, American Exile, and Communist Discourse about the Russian Revolution. Altieri. Riccardo. publishup.uni-potsdam.de. 27 June 2019.
  13. Web site: Biographische Datenbanken: Marchwitza, Hans. bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de. 27 June 2019.
  14. News: Unvermutete Verwandtschaft zwischen Bert Brecht und Johannes R. Beches: Über das hartnäckige autoritäre Denken. ZEIT (Archiv). D. I. E.. 1981-08-07. Die Zeit. 2019-07-02. de-DE. 0044-2070.
  15. Web site: Ernst Meyer, Weggefährte Rosa Luxemburgs in der Weltkriegszeit und sein Kampf um ihr Erbe in der KPD. Wilde. Von: Dr Florian. 2011-01-17. Wilde Texte. de-DE. 2019-07-02. 2019-07-02. https://web.archive.org/web/20190702072641/http://wildetexte.blogsport.de/2011/01/17/ernst-meyer-weggefaehrte-rosa-luxemburgs-in-der-weltkriegszeit-und-sein-kampf-um-ihr-erbe-in-der-kpd/. dead.
  16. Web site: August Thalheimer- Zur Erinnerung an einen revolutionären Kommunisten. Haible. Wolfgang. rosalux.de. 2 July 2019.
  17. Book: Wiggershaus, Rolf. The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance. registration. 31. Julian Gumperz rote fahne.. 1994. MIT Press. 9780262731133. en.
  18. Web site: AUSSTELLUNG im Haus der Geschichte des Ruhrgebiets in Bochum erinnert an den früheren Reichtstagsabgeordneten WERNER SCHOLEM und die Ehefrau EMMY. Lokalkompass. de. 2019-07-02.
  19. Web site: Biographische Datenbanken- Maslow, Arkadi. bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de. 2 July 2019.
  20. Web site: Heinz Neumanns Bußrituale- auch ein Nachtrag zum Protokoll der Brüsseler Konferenz der KPD. Müller. Reinhard. kommunismusgeschichte.de. 2 July 2019.
  21. Web site: Biographische Datenbanken- Lorbeer, Hans. bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de. 2 July 2019.
  22. Web site: Biographische Datenbanken- Norden, Albert. bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de. 2 July 2019.
  23. Book: Grieser, Dietmar. Was bleibt, ist die Liebe: Von Beethovens Mutter bis Kafkas Braut. 2018-06-06. Amalthea Signum Verlag. 9783903217188. de.
  24. Book: Wolf, Norbert Christian. Revolution in Wien: Die literarische Intelligenz im politischen Umbruch 1918/19. 2018-08-13. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 9783205200789. de.
  25. Book: Vosskamp, Wilhelm. Klassik im Vergleich: DFG-Symposion 1990. 2016-02-17. Springer-Verlag. 9783476055583. de.
  26. Book: Danzer, Doris. Zwischen Vertrauen und Verrat: deutschsprachige kommunistische Intellektuelle und ihre sozialen Beziehungen (1918-1960). 2012. V&R unipress GmbH. 9783899719390. de.
  27. News: HEILSKÜNDER / SCHLAMM: Chuzpe. 1960-05-11. Spiegel Online. 2019-07-02. 20.
  28. Web site: Object Metadata @ LexM. www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de. 2019-07-02.
  29. Web site: Die Photomontage Heartfields: das ist Photographie plus Dynamit. Harth. Dietrich. archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de. 2 July 2019.
  30. Web site: Ein Tanz auf Messers Schneide- Kommunistische Tätigkeiten vom Ende der Weimarer Republik bis in die frühe Bundesrepublik anhand ausgewählter Karlsruher Beispiele. Marotta. Alina. ns-ministerien-bw.de. 11 July 2019.
  31. Book: Shareen Blair Brysac. Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra. 6 February 2019. 23 May 2002. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-992388-5. 206.