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New Roads #10
The German Communist Resistance
When the KPD was banned, its paramilitary formations numbered over 100,000 members. The Antifa League had 250,000 members. Nazi repression left activists who had been unable or unwilling to leave Germany with a choice between three mindsets. Some, discouraged by the terrible defeat of the communist movement, deprived of leadership and intimidated by state terror, abandoned the struggle, and a small number collaborated with the regime. But tens of thousands of communists adopted a position of resistance. Party structures crumbled, cadres were imprisoned or exiled, sympathizers were watched. But clandestine Party organizations were reconstituted very quickly, to be generally just as quickly dismantled… and rebuilt again. This book tells the forgotten story of this communist resistance.
114 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 26, 2023
‘The German Communist Resistance 1933-1945’ by T. Derbent is an excellent recounting of the KPD’s anti-fascist and resistance activities in that time period. It covers KPD actions within Germany itself, in exile, in countries occupied by the Nazis, among soldiers, inside concentration camps, and so on.
It illustrates a breadth and depth of KPD-led campaigns and undertakings which were only really previously acknowledged by the GDR, which naturally had an interest in accentuating, and sometimes exaggerating the KPD’s role.
In uncovering a history which is often skimmed over and not fully acknowledged by the mainstream historical consensus (more focused on the July 20 conspirators and the White Rose) the author has carried out a worthy task.
The aforementioned July 20 conspirators are overly idealised, as illustrated by the film ‘Valkyrie’ starring Tom Cruise as German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg; their anti-Nazi record is far from unblemished, and to a considerable degree was not motivated by a consistent anti-fascism even of the conservative variety, but more prosaic considerations of changing bad policy by removing Hitler.
Whereas while principled anti-fascist resistance organisations like the well known pacifists of White Rose do indeed deserve attention for their bravery and courage, it is no slander to point out that on the spectrum of resistance they existed on a far smaller scale with much more limited capabilities than what the KPD and its dedicated cadres were capable of doing.
The author’s acknowledgement of non-KPD communist and socialist resistance is meritable. However, the book’s remit is solely concerned with the KPD, and its greatest sympathies are reserved for them.
Besides a few quibbles, such as the assessment of the political role of organisations like the National Committee for a Free Germany which the author undoubtedly regards as highly positive and effective - certainly highly fascinating, though one wonders how sincere was the conversion to the Committee’s anti-Nazi aims of the field marshal in charge of the 6th Army after the battle of Stalingrad ended in Nazi defeat and his capture - it could have perhaps been contrasted with alternative strategies to winning over and convincing Wehrmacht soldiers to surrender, lay down their arms, break with their commanders and any loyalty to Nazism.
Such as that offered by German and French Trotskyists, which made some headway in occupied France before the people involved were captured and executed, noting the strengths and weaknesses thereof in political and organisational terms.
However, comparative analysis is ultimately not the role of a work with such a KPD-centric focus.
Correcting the omissions of the standard historical account when it comes to the KPD’s significance in the resistance to fascism - particularly inside Nazi Germany - is what T. Derbent’s little book sets out to do, and in that it admirably succeeds.
It illustrates a breadth and depth of KPD-led campaigns and undertakings which were only really previously acknowledged by the GDR, which naturally had an interest in accentuating, and sometimes exaggerating the KPD’s role.
In uncovering a history which is often skimmed over and not fully acknowledged by the mainstream historical consensus (more focused on the July 20 conspirators and the White Rose) the author has carried out a worthy task.
The aforementioned July 20 conspirators are overly idealised, as illustrated by the film ‘Valkyrie’ starring Tom Cruise as German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg; their anti-Nazi record is far from unblemished, and to a considerable degree was not motivated by a consistent anti-fascism even of the conservative variety, but more prosaic considerations of changing bad policy by removing Hitler.
Whereas while principled anti-fascist resistance organisations like the well known pacifists of White Rose do indeed deserve attention for their bravery and courage, it is no slander to point out that on the spectrum of resistance they existed on a far smaller scale with much more limited capabilities than what the KPD and its dedicated cadres were capable of doing.
The author’s acknowledgement of non-KPD communist and socialist resistance is meritable. However, the book’s remit is solely concerned with the KPD, and its greatest sympathies are reserved for them.
Besides a few quibbles, such as the assessment of the political role of organisations like the National Committee for a Free Germany which the author undoubtedly regards as highly positive and effective - certainly highly fascinating, though one wonders how sincere was the conversion to the Committee’s anti-Nazi aims of the field marshal in charge of the 6th Army after the battle of Stalingrad ended in Nazi defeat and his capture - it could have perhaps been contrasted with alternative strategies to winning over and convincing Wehrmacht soldiers to surrender, lay down their arms, break with their commanders and any loyalty to Nazism.
Such as that offered by German and French Trotskyists, which made some headway in occupied France before the people involved were captured and executed, noting the strengths and weaknesses thereof in political and organisational terms.
However, comparative analysis is ultimately not the role of a work with such a KPD-centric focus.
Correcting the omissions of the standard historical account when it comes to the KPD’s significance in the resistance to fascism - particularly inside Nazi Germany - is what T. Derbent’s little book sets out to do, and in that it admirably succeeds.
February 24, 2021
I don't know how convinced I am of Shaw's preface comparing the conflict between the NSDAP and the SPD to the conflict between Trump and Biden, but that aside the lessons which we, as anti-fascists today can learn from the political interactions between the KPD, SPD and NSDAP are irreducibly important.
The most salient message of the book is, without a doubt, that when push comes to shove, the social democrats will either side with the fascists or will mount only an insignificant resistance to them, largely because of their faith in the police and in other state aparatuses. In 1930s Germany, the largest organised internal resistance to Nazism was by members/ former members of the KPD, not only because of the militant network which they had set up by the 1920s, but also because their program was not subservient to the current organisation of the state.
We do not get past fascism via the state; we get past it contra to the state.
The most salient message of the book is, without a doubt, that when push comes to shove, the social democrats will either side with the fascists or will mount only an insignificant resistance to them, largely because of their faith in the police and in other state aparatuses. In 1930s Germany, the largest organised internal resistance to Nazism was by members/ former members of the KPD, not only because of the militant network which they had set up by the 1920s, but also because their program was not subservient to the current organisation of the state.
We do not get past fascism via the state; we get past it contra to the state.
March 4, 2024
nice little book giving an overview of the extensive kpd resistance to the nazis, which has previously been largely ignored or outright dismissed in western historiography.
June 21, 2024
Although my disagreement with the central argument put forward by both the author and the prefacer—the best tactic against organized fascism is a united left-wing front, and that communists should organize themselves in a party à la leninist—that doesn't negate the achievement of this book, to present how opposition to Hitler's regime started from day 1, and that resistance, wich was feeble, yet solid, heroic yet suicidal at the same time was led in it's most succesful version by the KPD.
Derbent denounce of the silencing of communist resistance is fair, recognizing how much the Capitalist western bloc practically re-integrated the entirety of the Nazi apparatus in West Germany, and that mean an entire attack on the memory of communist partisanship by germans, and recognizing that East Germany although openly vindicated the role of the KPD resistance against Nazi germany it also biasedly interpreted its own history in relation to the KPD central committe.
A necessary book to all those resistance fighters who were murdered twice: In life and in memory.
Derbent denounce of the silencing of communist resistance is fair, recognizing how much the Capitalist western bloc practically re-integrated the entirety of the Nazi apparatus in West Germany, and that mean an entire attack on the memory of communist partisanship by germans, and recognizing that East Germany although openly vindicated the role of the KPD resistance against Nazi germany it also biasedly interpreted its own history in relation to the KPD central committe.
A necessary book to all those resistance fighters who were murdered twice: In life and in memory.
March 29, 2022
Must read forgotten history of anti-fascist communist resistance in Nazi Germany!
March 15, 2021
Very good and serves to highlight an ignored but significant resistance against Nazi Germany. Hopefully someone will follow up this great but short book with a more exhaustive examination of the German communist resistance.
February 5, 2022
"This resistance demonstrates that, whatever the scale and ferocity of the repression, the experience of the struggle and organization of the communist movement gives revolutionaries to get throught the worst ordeals - provided that they show sufficent determination. "The worst enemy of the Party is not the Gestapo, it is panic," Eric Wollweber used to say. The worst chains are those which the oppressor forges in the heads of the oppressed. The anti-Nazi resistance of the NPD, carried out in inconceivlabe difficulties and at the cost of unheard-of sacrifies, is not only a page of glory but also a valuable experience for the communist movement. This is more than enough to explain the wretched lies of official history written about it."
"Show yourselves
Just for an instant, you
Uknown men; you can cover your face while we
Utter our thanks." ("Praise of Illegal Activity, Bertolt Brecht.)
One of the most amazing books I've read for a while, a forgotten history so powerful that uttered wrecked me, heroic human beings at their best in the worst circumstance possible. Glory to the fallen, may we remember them some day.
Not so sure about the preface though... Calling fascism "anti-bourgeois" in a book that was made to show how the only German resistance from the begin to end of Nazism was the Communists and that the bourgeois clearly used fascism to preserve capitalism in the most brutal form of class struggle in recent history. Also not a fan of camparing the political struggle and interactions between the SPD, KPD and the NSDAP in pre-1933 Germany to the modern political situation in the US with Trump vs Biden lol.
"Show yourselves
Just for an instant, you
Uknown men; you can cover your face while we
Utter our thanks." ("Praise of Illegal Activity, Bertolt Brecht.)
One of the most amazing books I've read for a while, a forgotten history so powerful that uttered wrecked me, heroic human beings at their best in the worst circumstance possible. Glory to the fallen, may we remember them some day.
Not so sure about the preface though... Calling fascism "anti-bourgeois" in a book that was made to show how the only German resistance from the begin to end of Nazism was the Communists and that the bourgeois clearly used fascism to preserve capitalism in the most brutal form of class struggle in recent history. Also not a fan of camparing the political struggle and interactions between the SPD, KPD and the NSDAP in pre-1933 Germany to the modern political situation in the US with Trump vs Biden lol.
June 10, 2021
Quick and interesting read about the underrepresented/covered-up history of the KPD's active resistance to Nazism. It is a history and not a manual, but there are of course lessons to be drawn from the variety of tactics the KPD employed to undermine Nazism, reconstitute their organizations when dismantled by the reactionary state, or build resistance among the soldiery and masses. Likewise, there are also some useful bits and bobs to be garnered about tactics (e.g. recruiting among the soldiery led to gains but also infiltration by the Gestapo once they got wind and planted informants). Of course, there are warnings vis-a-vis the tendency of social democracy not only to not support communist or otherwise revolutionary movements, but to actively suppress them to the point of siding with fascism, because they rightfully understand themselves to be reliant on the status quo and thereby threatened by the thought of an overthrow of the bourgeois state.
My biggest gripe, since the rest of the book reads so fast and is full of exciting anecdotes, is Shaw's preface. Like a previous reviewer, I find the parallels he chooses to make between then and now shaky, and I am not convinced by his conceptualization of fascism, which like many others focuses on some of the manifestations of fascist violence and as a result construes fascism as an insurrectionary and anti-bourgeois movement. I remain a believer in George Jackson's definition: “Fascism must be seen as an episodically logical stage in the socio-economic development of capitalism in a state of crisis.” Indeed, it is not a break from, but an intensification of the modes and relations of production of finance capitalism, accompanied by a rearranging and reimagining of superstructural norms and institutions to maintain and advance bourgeois gains. Any material analysis of fascist Italy or Germany (the two undisputed examples) renders the idea that fascism is anti-bourgeois moot.
My biggest gripe, since the rest of the book reads so fast and is full of exciting anecdotes, is Shaw's preface. Like a previous reviewer, I find the parallels he chooses to make between then and now shaky, and I am not convinced by his conceptualization of fascism, which like many others focuses on some of the manifestations of fascist violence and as a result construes fascism as an insurrectionary and anti-bourgeois movement. I remain a believer in George Jackson's definition: “Fascism must be seen as an episodically logical stage in the socio-economic development of capitalism in a state of crisis.” Indeed, it is not a break from, but an intensification of the modes and relations of production of finance capitalism, accompanied by a rearranging and reimagining of superstructural norms and institutions to maintain and advance bourgeois gains. Any material analysis of fascist Italy or Germany (the two undisputed examples) renders the idea that fascism is anti-bourgeois moot.
April 16, 2021
An engaging look at the communist resistance to the rise of the Nazis, and a stark analysis of how liberalism and policing/repression of “acceptable” forms of resistance ultimately provide cover for the rise of fascism
March 25, 2025
Excellent short read. Really eye opening and shows just how resilient, brave and successful the German communists were in fighting the Fascists from within the beast and abroad. A great piece of history that is usually ignored, downplayed, or overlooked by bourgeois historians
September 10, 2025
A very good short book about the Germany Communist Resistance to the Nazis. I particularly found the very last section about how the FRG still went on to arrest communists as late as the 1950s very interesting but then again the FRG and its successor state have always been fascist.
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