Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists
The Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists is a German political confederation founded in 1947 and based in Berlin. The VVN-BdA, formerly the VVN, emerged from victims' associations in Germany founded by political opponents to Nazism after the Second World War and the end of the Nazi rule in Germany.
During the Cold War, the VVN was the subject of political struggles between East and West Germany. In the West, the association was seen as dominated by the Communist Party; in the East, the VVN was accused of spying. In 1953, East Germany banned the VVN and founded the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters in its place.
Since 2002, the association has extended to cover the whole of Germany, including camp communities of former prisoners of the concentration camps as incorporated associations. The VVN-BdA claims to be the biggest and oldest anti-fascist organization in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Purpose of the association
The VVN-BdA presents itself as an independent organisation, with a focus of resistance against fascism and war as its defining moral principle, however in West Germany, the organisation was seen as taking its lead from the Communist Party of Germany in the 1950s, and after 1968 of being controlled from the top by German Communist Party members. Nowadays, the spread of membership continues to come from a wide range of political elements, including orthodox communists, members of The Left party, and political independents, along with members of Green Party and Social Democratic Party.The VVN-BdA is a member of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters – Association of Anti-Fascists.
History
Establishment of the organisation
With the end of World War II, self-help groups of former resistance fighters were founded in "anti-fascist committees", known as "Antifas", involving working class militants, in particular but not only Communists, which were banned immediately by the military administrations of each of the British and American occupation zones for being far politically left. They supported attending to 200,000 up to 250,000 former political persecutees by the social administrations instead.By 26 June 1945, an "association of political prisoners and persecutees of the Nazi system" had been founded in Stuttgart, and in the following weeks and months, there were regional groups of ex-political prisoners and other persecuted individuals formed with the permission of the allied forces, in each of the four occupation zones. Their concern, next to providing social help for those in need, was to bring the voice of resistance, the political and moral weight of the opponents of the Nazi regime to form a new anti-fascist, democratic Germany.
The initiative for the VVN came from representatives of the labour parties, which had committees that provided direct assistance to people persecuted or victimised by the Nazis, whether political, religious, or racially based. It set out to be a multi-party organisation, an umbrella group for everyone, regardless of political affiliation, according to its manifesto in August 1946.
Representatives from all the regional organisations in the four occupied zones met in Frankfurt am Main from 20–22 July 1946 and adopted a charter for the "Society of People Persecuted by the Nazi Regime". On 26 October 1946, the first state organisations was founded in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia. Others soon followed.
From 15–17 March 1947, the 1st Inter-zonal States Conference of the VVN convened in Frankfurt am Main with 68 delegates from all four of the occupied zones and the city of Berlin and formed an organisation representing all of Germany, with a similarly constituted council and two co-chairmen at the helm.
On the territory of the Soviet occupation zone, the SMAD orders no. 28 and no. 92 put the compensation on solid formal ground. The SMAD order no. 228 nullified the judgements in political proceedings of the Nazis and therefore made judicial rehabilitations easier; later decrees on regaining the German citizenship made the returning to Germany easier for expatriated emigrants. A similar, but however hesitant development was pursued by the administrations in the western occupation zones.
The "red triangle", the sign sewn on the concentration camp uniforms of political prisoners, was adopted as the symbol for the VVN. The aim of the organisation was to support former prisoners, but the founding VVN members uniformly did not want to limit themselves to just this purpose. Having experienced terror personally, they wanted to be true to the Buchenwald Oath, to never again let fascism become a reality, "Our motto is the extermination of Nazism to its roots. Our goal is the creation of a new world of peace and freedom".
The political confrontation of the cold war affected the VVN heavily. Kurt Schumacher, leader of the SPD, declared a resolution of incompatibility for Social Democrats, which has been abolished on 25 October 2010. Nonetheless, many SPD members remained in the VVN. Prominent Nazi opponents, such as Eugen Kogon, who were close to the Christian Democratic Union resigned from the VVN for political reasons. These actions led to a political narrowing of the VVN, although the organization continued to seek out all Nazi opponents and victims of persecution.
German Democratic Republic (former East Germany)
In 1949 and 1950, the Stalinist purges had repercussions in the Soviet occupation zone, later to become the German Democratic Republic, with the SED accusing leading members of the VVN of being agents of the west. At the same time, in connection with the Rudolf Slánský trial in the former Czechoslovakia, the policies of the GDR leadership began to evidence an increasing anti-semitism toward the Jewish Communists who had fled to western countries after 1933. Julius Meyer, an SED member and elected member of the People's Chamber, Hans Freund and other Jewish members of the VVN fled to West Germany in December 1952 and January 1953 because of the threat of persecution. Even Leo Zuckerman, a former state secretary and co-author of the GDR constitution, fled to the west.Without the consultation of the VVN, the decision was made on 15 January 1953, to dissolve the organization. The VVN's publishing house was dissolved and in its place the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters was set up. The overnight dissolution of the VVN met little opposition from within the organization itself. The Committee maintained close contact with the VVN in the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 1990, after the democratic revolution in the GDR, the Association of Former Participants of the Anti-Fascist Resistance, Persecutees and Survivors took over as successor to the committee. In October 2002, the IVVdN merged with the West German VVN, forming one organization for all of Germany.
Federal Republic of Germany (former West Germany)
The Communists had a major influence within the organization. The organization was led by the SED and DKP till the German reunification in 1989. In 1989, all state chairmen, nearly all the main employees, as well as two-thirds of the membership of the national board and the steering committee were all members of the DKP.The political scope during the founding years was distinctly limited by the Cold War. Compounding that, were the declaration of incompatibility by the SPD in May 1948 and the resignation of prominent Nazi adversaries Eugen Kogon, Heinz Galinski and Philipp Auerbach, which all caused the VVN to be viewed in public discourse as a "Communist front organization". Public servants risked dismissal if they remained members of the VVN, despite being survivors of Nazi terror.
The splits and resignations resulted in a numerical and political dominance of left-wing members. Former Communist Resistance fighters found in the VNN a political forum in which they could to meet legally while the KPD itself was legally banned.
A number of Bundesländer tried to ban the VVN during the 1950s. A judicial ruling forced Lower Saxony to lift its ban and in Hamburg, "VAN" was left as a "replacement" organization, but in Rhineland-Palatinate, the ban remained in effect. At the end of the 1950s, the federal government went to federal court to establish a ban against the VVN at the national level. The opening of the trial erupted into political scandal when it was revealed that the presiding judge, Senate President Prof. Dr. Werner had been an aggressive Nazi, resulting in the discontinuation of the case. The anti-communist climate continued to plague members of the VVN during the postwar era, though in sight of constitutional protection and during the 1970s, they were at times criticized by radicals.
From the outset, the VVN concerned itself with care for the victims of Nazi injustice, as well as the admonition and remembrance of the crimes of National Socialism. This included, for example, social counseling according to the federal law on compensation for victims of Nazi persecution, which came into force in 1956, but was retroactive to 1 October 1953. One section of the statute was problematic for VVN members, however. It excluded payments from anyone who advocated communism.
Since the 1960s, among the VVN's key spheres of political activity has been confrontation of old and new Nazis. The VVN has worked against SS reunions, against the National Democratic Party, and against Auschwitz denial and other forms of revisionist history.
A crucial step was the May 1971 expansion of the organization to include the "Association of Anti-fascists". This extended the possibility of membership beyond just the persecuted and their family members, to young who have felt a bond with concentration camp survivors and their legacy. The broadening of the VVN changed the organization considerably during the 1970s and 1980s.