Civil Society from the Underground

Abstract

In the 1980s, the “red border town,” as Potsdam was called then, was a center of the East German left-wing punk and skinhead movement; as a countermovement it soon became a location for right-wing extremist violence and counter-violence. To confront right-wing organizing, Antifa groups were established in Potsdam and other towns nearby, bringing the taboo topic of neo-Nazism as a social problem to the public’s attention. Initially, the SED state tried to downplay the confrontations as typical conflicts between youth groups; however, the newly founded Antifa groups were openly criminalized from the start. This course of action led to protests by both the left-wing alternative scene and the political civil rights movement. In memorandums and practical political actions, the Antifa groups fundamentally criticized the state, its failure to mold a socialist people, its militarization of society, and the state-enforced consensus of silence. In 1989, this critical approach became a part of the revolutionary, pro-democratic protest and reform movement, and Potsdam’s anti-Nazi League itself became an active factor of local revolutionary upheaval, a factor that has been largely ignored by research as well as memorial culture. This article uses the city of Potsdam as an example of how communication—a democratic process in itself—between subcultures and information transfer occurred between the center and periphery, that is, socialist capital, district town and surroundings. In addition, the article will also analyze the Antifa movement as a political and urban phenomenon of town environments and follows the question as to which locations the confrontations arose and why.