German CP, ban of Communist Party of Germany (KPD) sixty years ago
On August 17, 1956 - just 11 years after the defeat of Hitler fascism - the Federal Constitutional Court banned the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) at the request of the Adenauer government.The KPD, founded by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Wilhelm Pieck in 1918, had already been banned all over the 12 years of Nazi rule. 150,000 of the 300,000 members of KPD were imprisoned in concentration camps or prisons, 30,000 were killed by the fascists.The court ruling had a lot to do with the US and NATO policy of Cold War against the Soviet Union and the split of Germany after 1945. In the "rollback" strategy the West German state played an important role as "spearhead" of NATO.From the point of view of the ruling class the resistance against the rearmament of West Germany was to be criminalized. The ban of KPD would make illegal the protest movement and it had that effect for the labor movement.
Nearly 200,000 preliminary proceedings and about 10,000 sentences, ending in detention, job loss, disenfranchisement and other discrimination followed and had their deterrent effect.
Until today the KPD ban is an important political lever to weaken the resistance against the imperialist course of the German government - both before and after 1990.The German government is again about to become a world power and to develop economic and military capabilities. And as in the past new and old fascist forces in Ukraine, Hungary and the Baltic States are benevolently supported and pampered. The campaign against Russia and the deployment of NATO and Bundeswehr units on the Russian western borders is an existential threat to our continent and world peace.
This political course provokes resistance, as it did in the 1950s. The German Communist Party (DKP), protests against the continuing KPD ban with a manifestation act in Karlsruhe, on 10th of september. Letters of solidarity of the fraternal parties are welcome!
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