Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between Authenticity and Performance

by Timothy S. Brown

Exploring the gray zone of infiltration and subversion in which the Nazi and Communist parties sought to influence and undermine each other, this book offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between two defining ideologies of the twentieth century. The struggle between Fascism and Communism is situated within a broader conversation among right- and left-wing publicists, across the Youth Movement and in the “National Bolshevik” scene, thus revealing the existence of a discourse on revolutionary legitimacy fought according to a set of common assumptions about the qualities of the ideal revolutionary. Highlighting the importance of a masculine-militarist politics of youth revolt operative in both Marxist and anti-Marxist guises, Weimar Radicals forces us to re-think the fateful relationship between the two great ideological competitors of the Weimar Republic, while offering a challenging new interpretation of the distinctive radicalism of the interwar era.

Genres: History, Politics

225 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[ehk2 · Rating 1 out of 5]

crudely speaking, I see just another attempt to equate Communists with Nazis, i.e. as they both shared main parameters of the political culture of Weimar era. Chapter 4 is especially insulting with its highly use of very subjective/pejorative adjectives against KPD & communist movement -no matter how historically they pursued wrong tactics, resembled national socialists etc.

In the conclusion, author writes: "National Socialism and German Communism ... should not be seen as two sides of the same totaritarian coin -they were not the same; but both did pursue a mythological politics ... which meant that they possessed certain common characteristics ..." (p.151)

But throughout the book he implies the contrary, I think.