ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: FROM RED TO GREEN IN ... - Isioma

This anti-fascism had several consequences. For one thing, the Left’s anti-fascism
led to a remarkable and unfortunate blind spot when it came to understanding
the nature of the Nazi past and the lessons to be applied to the present. A
dogmatic and simplistic analysis of the rise of National Socialism that
emphasized the fascist nature of the regime to the exclusion of other elements
such as racism and anti-Semitism permitted the Left, which considered itself
staunchly anti-Nazi, to occasionally perpetuate anti-Semitic rhetoric and
images. 64
This understanding of the Nazi past persisted to a large degree within the
AL. As an outgrowth of the New Left, the AL continued to promote discussions
about the legacy of National Socialism. But it also continued some of the
problematic aspects of the New Left’s approach to coming to terms with the past,
especially regarding an undifferentiated discussion and analysis of fascism. This
was still present on the Left in the 1980s, as I show in the section on the housing
squatters in West Berlin. This dissertation also shows, however, that the AL
confronted these attitudes and distanced itself from them in the course of the
1980s.
The anti-fascist ideology extended far beyond a condemnation of the Nazi
past: it also entailed a rejection of the West. Like its predecessor in the Weimar
64
On anti-Semitism on the Left, see Martin Kloke, Israel und die deutsche
Linke (Frankfurt: Haag and Herchen, 1994), and Henryk Broder, Der ewige
Antisemit (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1986).
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