Talk:Antifa (Germany)

The Logo

As the picture of the logo in this article obviously doesn't show two red flags but a red and a black one, you could mention, that the black flag in the actuell logo is a symbol of anarchism. I don't want to edit in the article, emotions rising to high for me and due to my poor English. Shug (talk) 10:37, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Shug-I think this is now addressed in the article, both in the picture caption and the symbolism section. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:45, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Terroristic organization

This could perhaps get mentioned, that they had been declared a terroristic organization in the USA. (In 2019 or perhaps before.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.144.221.12 (talk) 08:04, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

This is false information. The USA has never declared Antifa, or a variant of that name, from any country, a (foreign) terrorist organization. Germany keeps a list of domestic terrorist organizations but does not list Antifa as one either. 141.70.80.5 (talk) 17:49, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The topic of this article

An editor has bizarrely claimed that this article on a political current/movement in Germany is a fork of Antifascistisk Aktion, a tiny group described in its article as a far-left network in Sweden. This is of course patently wrong. The articles have literally nothing to do with each other whatsoever beyond sharing a somewhat similar title. The fact that the editor isn't able to distinguish between a group in Sweden and a political current in Germany demonstrates why it is difficult to take his "contributions" here seriously.

The topic of this article is the wider political current/movement in Germany known as Antifa that primarily consists of groups and people who identify as communists and anarchists, today divided into an anti-imperialist and an anti-German camp, and that consists of many groups/organisations/publications/activities and so on.

Antifaschistische Aktion, a historical organisation in Germany, is a part (an aspect) of this topic, but at most constitutes a third of it (maybe less considering its short history and how diverse the later Antifa movement is), namely its early history. Notably, the Cold War-era history of the wider movement and the modern Antifa movement that exists today have little to nothing to do with Antifaschistische Aktion organisationally/historically, with the exception of partially using a modified version of its logo and being part of the wider political current that is covered in this article. In this article, less than 25% is concerned with Antifaschistische Aktion, which is covered in the form of a summary with a link to the main article on AFA that I intend to expand further when I'm done with this article on the wider movement.

In the German Wikipedia Antifa and Antifaschistische Aktion are also covered in separate articles, because most reliable sources regard them as separate topics today, namely a wider movement, and a specific historical organisation. This article is also three times longer than any articles on any partial aspects of its topic, and is by far the most well written and structured within this group of articles, based on a conscientious reading of German scholarship of this topic, in contrast to the largely undeveloped article on AFA that still requires much work. --Tataral (talk) 22:07, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• It's pretty evident that this article, created and edited exclusively by you after your preferred edits were disputed at Antifa (United States) is a POV fork of extant articles on the German movement and, frankly, WP:POINTED. Furthermore, if you want to contest the speedy deletion tag, as article creator, you do so by clicking the contest button, not by removing the tag - this is spelled out very clearly in the tag. The article creator is not to remove it. Full stop. Simonm223 (talk) 12:01, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
  • So far you have not demonstrated any insight or made any constructive contributions to articles on the Antifa movement in Germany, and all your edits have consisted of disrupting my work, including revert-warring and placing frivolous tags for false reasons (that it is a fork of an unrelated Swedish article). It's time you stop your disruptive behaviour in connection with this and other articles. This article has nothing to do with Antifa (United States) either; it's about Antifa in Germany, and certainly editors familiar with and interested in that topic should be able to work on that in peace. I have no interest in Antifa (United States) beyond how the original, German Antifa that I am interested in (since long before anyone in the US had heard the term Antifa) is covered. --Tataral (talk) 14:21, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Tataral, I must say that when I saw the first version of this article, I noticed that there was substantial overlap in the sourcing of the article:

• Moreau (2002) also cited in Antifaschistische Aktion
• Fippel (2003) also cited in Antifaschistische Aktion
• Sewell (1988) also cited in Antifaschistische Aktion
• von Saldern (2002) also cited in Social fascism
• Richter (2006) also cited in Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism
• Schuster (1975) also cited in Antifaschistische Aktion
• Malycha (2009) also cited in Merger of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
• Telegraph (2011) also cited in Post-World War II anti-fascism
• Chronik () also cited in Post-World War II anti-fascism
• Jacobin (2017) also cited in Post-World War II anti-fascism
• Opfer-Rechter-Gewalt also cited in Post-World War II anti-fascism
• Ogman (2013) also cited in Post-World War II anti-fascism
• Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (2016) not cited anywhere else
• Verfassungsschutzbericht 2018 not sure
• Peters (2007) not sure
• BPD (2008) also cited in Post-World War II anti-fascism
• OED not sure

It did occur to me at the time that this could be perceived as an attempt to write a POVFORK of Antifaschistische Aktion. I thought it might be best to let you work on it to see where it would go. I think that it makes sense to have separate articles on the historical Antifaschistische Aktion, founded by the KPD on May 26, 1932 and the contemporary antifa, with roots in the autonome Szene. I'm not quite in agreement with the treatment of the contemporary groups, the inclusion of the material on he historical Antifaschistische Aktion, and a number of other issues that I'd like to address later, but the article is about a notable topic that we should have an article on. I think that a clearer description of the topic, perhaps using {{Short description}} would be helpful. Vexations (talk) 22:43, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

I did not intend to make any fork of any other existing article but an article on a clearly separate topic, although I used some material mainly written by myself elsewhere initially (since then the article has been significantly expanded). When for instance Moreau (2002) is cited in both articles, it is because I have introduced the same reference in both articles. Obviously these two articles are overlapping to some extent because AFA is an important (partial) aspect of the wider movement, and their relationship will require some consideration. As I explained above, my starting point is that Antifaschistische Aktion comprises until a third or so of this wider topic. I haven't really focused on the Antifaschistische Aktion article since I started working on this article, but I intend to make the distinction between the articles clearer and reduce unnecessary overlapping content in time; however it is probably unavoidable that some sources will be used in both articles. The Antifaschistische Aktion article is very much undeveloped and should also be expanded further on the history of the historical Weimar-era organisation, but I haven't gotten to that yet. I view this article on the movement as work in progress and welcome any views and improvements. --Tataral (talk) 23:02, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Speedy

The nomination for speedy deletion of Antifa (Germany) refers to Antifascistisk Aktion, but I wonder if the nominator, @Simonm223: did not mean Antifaschistische Aktion instead. If Antifa (Germany) is a WP:POVFORK, then Antifaschistische Aktion is a much more likely candidate than Antifascistisk Aktion. Note that the articles have been moved Vexations (talk) 13:28, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, that was my mistake. Simonm223 (talk) 13:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This article should not be speedy deleted as being recently created, having no relevant page history and duplicating an existing English Wikipedia topic, because:

See the above discussion; this is not a fork of anything, not of any unrelated Swedish group as falsely claimed in the speedy tag, and not of anything else, but a separate topic that has its own article in the German Wikipedia as well (separate from Antifaschistische Aktion), and this article is far more extensive than any articles that cover just a partial aspect of it.

Antifaschistische Aktion is just a partial aspect (at most a third) of the topic of this article, and belongs here in the form of a summary with a link to the main article on the organisation. Any overlapping content is written by me in both articles. This article is about three times as long as Antifaschistische Aktion and covers two additional historial periods not covered in that article, neither of which belong in Antifaschistische Aktion. Antifaschistische Aktion is still relatively undeveloped because I have focused on expanding this article in recent days, but I expect to expand Antifaschistische Aktion further as well regarding its history in the Weimar Republic when I have completed this article.

In sum, Antifa (Germany) is an article on a wider movement, and Antifaschistische Aktion is an article on the first organisation that existed within that movement. Today the movement is composed of numerous groups, individuals and publications that have nothing to do with the historical organisation and that need to be covered here rather than in an article on a specific historical organisation. In addition to the fact that the German Wikipedia has a separate article on this movement/political current, we also have a similar article for the United States, Antifa (United States). Considering that the German Antifa is the original Antifa, it would be absurd to have such articles for offshoots in other countries but not for the original, historically much more significant German movement. --Tataral (talk) 14:16, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

As is clear from the edit summary and discussion above this on the article talk page, it was a typo. Simonm223 (talk) 14:33, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

As a procedural note could you please refrain from repeatedly editing your comments and instead post a new comment when you have something new to add. It makes it very difficult for a casual reader to understand the flow of the conversation.

With that aside, I'd mention that you created this article specifically after you went on a spree of edits to antifa articles which had a pretty clear POV. When it became clear that you didn't have support to rewrite the history of antifascism into a communist plot, you just created your own article. Exclusively edited by you. In mainspace. Circumventing drafts. Largely consisting of precisely the material that was disallowed at other venues. In short it's a pretty obvious POV fork. Simonm223 (talk) 16:13, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

That is just a bunch of falsehoods, and you of all people should be the last person to lecture me about any POV – I'm a centrist editor who edits this and other articles on the far left (and far right; for instance Breitbart is described as far right now primarily due to my efforts) based on mainstream scholarship, while you openly hold a very strong (fringe) POV. I proposed a short addition regarding German Antifa in the Antifa (US) article in the context of an existing discussion of its German origins, but some editors claimed that German Antifa wasn't relevant to the topic of a US article. The fact that you are now following me to this, unrelated article on the German movement simply to obstruct my work, while offering nothing of substance and no constructive contributions is a behaviour on your part that is unaccaptable. --Tataral (talk) 16:23, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Following you to this? I brought it up at usertalk as a POV fork several days ago and then waited to see if other editors would pick it up before taking action so that's a bit of a difficult claim to make stick. Simonm223 (talk) 16:25, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

You have shown no previous interest in the German Antifa movement and your edits exclusively consist of edit-warring, abuse of speedy tags and so on. Also, since I'm mostly interested in the German Antifa it is perfectably reasonable for me to start on an article on that movement when we already have an article on the US movement. --Tataral (talk) 16:28, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this; this article is about a political current formerly headed by Antifaschistische Aktion and existing long after the latter's dissolution, not the organisation itself. The difference in subject should almost definitely make this article A10-proof. Geolodus (talk) 16:49, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed the goings-on in the article where some random IP from India is removing the tag. Apparently this is a long-term abuse issue and a reincarnation of an already blocked editor[1]. I'm waiting for an administrator to remove the tag as baseless, and the IP's edits are disruptive and unhelpful. --Tataral (talk) 17:17, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Malfunctioning template?

Shouldn't the template indicate that the deletion is contested when a corresponding section has been written here? --Tataral (talk) 15:18, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Scholarly assessments

This section seems dubious to me. These are not scholarly assessments of Antifa (Germany) but opinions from an arbitrary selection of academics about the term "anti-fascism". What justifies them being here?BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:42, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Bobfrombrockley, It reads as a POV attempt to link contemporary antifa to communism. What it omits is that contemporary antifa has its roots in the "autonome szene", not in the KPD. Vexations (talk) 10:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

This whole article is a POV fork. Simonm223 (talk) 15:52, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Agree. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:20, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

As everybody who contributed to this discussion agreed and nobody disagreed and plenty of time has passed, I've deleted it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:23, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

describe themselves as anti-fascist

Re this edit by Tataral. (Tataral, could you use the edit summaries for your edits please?) Tataral inserts the text Do not describe the groups or individuals that Antifa opposes as "fascists" in Wikipedia's voice; many of them, like the German government, social democrats and others, are not considered fascists by anyone outside of the Antifa movement, KPD and its successors into the page itself, which I think is inappropriate, as I feel this is a topic for talk not guidance we should be giving to editors. I am dubious about the formulation "groups and individuals who describe themselves as anti-fascist", rather than simply the term anti-fascists. Some editors might not think members of the Communinist Party are real communists, or members of the Conservative Party are real conservatives, but we don't use phrases like "the party which describes itself as communist". I am not sure if this falls under MOS:SCAREQUOTES or WP:WEASEL, but it feels in that territory. Other editors' thoughts? BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:07, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

There is a major difference between a sentence that describes how a group perceives itself while making no claims about others (e.g. a party that calls itself communist), and a sentence that includes a biased statement about other people, here: that other people (such as social democrats) are "fascists" when they do not regard themselves as such, and when no reliable sources regard them as such. Stating in Wikipedia's voice that the people and groups that this far-left movement has branded as "fascists" (in the sense of the epithet fascist) are actually fascists (in the sense of historical fascism; cf. the distinction between "fascism in a scholarly sense" and "fascism in a far-left extremist sense" that de:Armin Pfahl-Traughber discussed[2]) is both POV and politically extreme – we are largely talking about groups and people who aren't actually considered fascists by anyone other than hardcore Stalinists, such as the Federal Republic of Germany, the United States and Israel as countries, and their governments, social democrats in general (who were seen as the main fascists for a time), businesses, NATO/the west, capitalism in general and so on. Stating quite simply that they describe themselves as anti-fascist is entirely neutral, and in fact rather lenient.

Of course, we are not required to maintain a Wikipedia:False balance here either; this is a fringe movement composed of relatively few people (per the annual reports on its activities by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) typically wearing masks and black clothes, that is officially regarded as extremist by German authorities, and that promotes a fringe definition of fascism associated with the tradition of the KPD and later of tiny far-left groups in West Germany that deviates substantially from the mainstream and historical/scholarly understanding of the word fascism, and that is largely aimed at attacking non-fascists, including the centre-left, by (falsely) branding them as fascists, as part of the struggle against liberal democracy, as the Federal Office has noted.

If, say, the Ku Klux Klan had rebranded itself the "Anti-Race Traitors Society" or something that made a politically extreme claim, it would be equally biased to state in Wikipedia's voice that "they oppose race traitors." The history of this movement of calling centrists and social democrats "fascists" is equally insulting, inappropriate and extreme. --Tataral (talk) 18:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

There is a major difference between a sentence that describes how a group perceives itself while making no claims about others Yes, but we're talking about the self-description as anti-fascists. They describe themselves as "anti-fascists". Your opinion on what fascism is and isn't is not relevant to that. You also misrepresent their conception of fascism in this talk page: it is not the case that pre- or post-war German Antifa "largely" or "mainly" attacks business, Israel or liberals. You have cherry-picked the literature to push a very POV account. I really think this page needs other editors to balance these edits. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Re: "it is not the case that pre- or post-war German Antifa "largely" or "mainly" attacks business, Israel or liberals": This seems to me like a strawman. The article includes multiple very high-quality sources, including multiple core definitions from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, that state that the struggle against capitalism and against the liberal democratic order is the underlying core goal of the current movement ("Im eigentlichen Fokus steht der Kampf gegen die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung"; "Eigentliches Ziel bleibt der „bürgerlich-demokratische Staat“"). The word "liberal" here refers to the liberal democratic basic order which has a specific legal meaning in Germany, and there is no doubt that German authorities regard them as opposed to the liberal democratic basic order; each year the German federal ministry of the interior publishes an extensive public report on the enemies of the liberal democratic basic order which has included Antifa for several decades. "Liberal" is not a term that is synonymous with "the left" in Germany, neither in a general sense nor in a party-political sense (the main political party that calls itself liberal is widely despised by the radical left in Germany).

I have never written that they "mainly" attack Israel, which they don't since they consist of two factions that primarily disagree over Israel. There was no Israel before the war, so Israel isn't relevant to the pre-war movement, only to post-war debates on anti-fascism in Germany where Israel has occupied a central role (in the east and west), ever since anti-Zionism became a core part of "anti-imperialist" communism during the Cold War.

I have written a conscientious article based on thorough reading of mainstream German scholarship on communism and official sources regarding a movement in Germany; I have received much positive feedback regarding how well-written, balanced and informative this article is;[3] you can also read mostly similar accounts in the reports that the German extremism experts at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Agency have published, but until recently only specialists in German extremism research really cared much about Antifa, as a now tiny movement of the German ultra-left. What this article doesn't need is to be embroiled in battles in the Anglophone world (especially the United States) related to Trump (a person I spent literally years writing critically about), by editors who confuse a German movement with Sweden (as happened when a former editor tried to disrupt my work), or by self-declared supporters of a movement that is regarded as "extremist" by German authorities, as opposed to us centrists who write in a mainstream tradition on both the far left and the far right based on scholarly sources. Also, the first paragraph mentions both that they consider themselves anti-fascists and regard their opponents as fascists, so I don't see the problem. The paragraph is more lenient towards them than most similar paragraphs in articles on groups on the political fringes, including paragraphs I've written myself about far-right groups or people. What we absolutely can't do is to write about what is historically a Stalinist group, and that is nowaways a fairly marginal group of a few hundred people that German authorities regard as extremists, as if their worldview and perception of German bishops, policemen and business owners as fascists are somehow equally valid as the views of their country's government, experts and other reliable sources. --Tataral (talk) 09:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Most of what you have written here, Tataral, does not relate to anything I wrote, so I will not respond. I will note you seem to have a strong sense of your ownership of this article. My main point is that "who describe themselves as anti-fascist" is bad wording in Wikipedia terms, from the point of view of WP:WEASEL and MOS:SCAREQUOTES. Personally, as a Marxist, I don't regard Stalinist Commmunist parties like the KPD as "communist" in a strict sense, but I would never insist that the KPD article said it is "a party that describes itself as communist". My other point is that there is a danger (in this article and in Antifaschistische Aktion) of using the articles (and cherry-picking sources) to make a point about the KPD. It is true that the KPD, at various points, issued polemics against social democracy; but these generally came in the 1928-31 period, not in the period when Antifaschistische Aktion actually existed, when they had shifted position and prioritised anti-fascism again. Similarly, in the Cold War period, we have two long paragraphs in this article on the Stalinist state's misuse of the concept of anti-fascism, but I don't think that's particularly relevant to an article about Antifa, the topic of this article. This amount of weight given to a very particular interpretation - in Wikipedia's voice, rather than attributing views to their authors - gives the impression of an article dedicated to a particular narrative, not an encyclopedic account of a heterogeneous movement. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, once again please use edit summaries to explain and justify edits and enable other editors to track your changes. Wikipedia is a collaborative project. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:45, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The KPD and AFA hadn't really changed their position that much regarding the social democrats in 1932. The AFA "Unity Congress" featured banners that mocked the SPD, and the leadership of SPD had rejected any cooperation with KPD in that year. They also presented it as a front "led" by KPD, so it wasn't really something that involved social democrats. When the KPD changed their strategy later in the 1930s Thälmann was already in prison. The struggle against the social democrats took front and centre stage in the KPD in the early 1930s, it wasn't something they did on the side.

The anti-fascist tradition that is the most direct heir to the original AFA was the Socialist Unity Party and the East German government. It was their party, their front, their invention, their history, and surviving members of the KPD/AFA became part of the government apparatus in East Germany. The West Germans in the 1970s-80s mostly just adopted the logo and name, with a new ideology. In terms of influence East Germany, with a government apparatus at its disposal, was vastly more influential until 1989 than a small group of people in West Germany. It clearly is an important part of the history of the anti-fascist or Antifa movement in Germany, the terms being used largely synonymously in Germany. The East German use of the term stood in a direct tradition based on how the term had originally been used within the communist movement, so it wasn't really a "misuse"; they didn't appropriate someone else's term, Comintern and its affiliates had largely invented the term, at least as a distinct concept, and they and their successors used it in a largely consistent manner where anti-capitalism was always at the core of the definition. Based on such a definition their use of the term wasn't really frivolous, it was just based on a different understanding of the word than the western and non-communist understanding.

The "very particular interpretation" is the interpretation that is dominating in German official sources and scholarship; it may very well be different in other countries, but in Germany this term/topic is intimately linked to a political tradition dating back to KPD and which until 1989 had two different heirs, one in East Germany and one in West Germany. --Tataral (talk) 14:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You assert that the "struggle against the social democrats took front and centre stage in the KPD in the early 1930s", but I don't believe that is supported by the sources we cite here, who make this point in relation to the 1928-31 period. The AFA flag, with its two red flags signifying socialism and communism, was precisely a turn away from that position - even though, of course, the KPD remained sectarian against its rivals and sought to control its fronts, which is a different thing. You assert that the term "Antifa" and "anti-fascist" are used interchangeably. You give one source for this, Peters. I don't think that's an uncontroversial claim, as Antifa is a much more restricted and rarely used term, so I think you need stronger sourcing for that claim.[4] BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It is correct that Antifa has a very specific meaning, but on the other hand it is part of a coherent anti-fascist (understood as anti-capitalist) political tradition in Germany with a shared heritage (including the logo they still use), and the ideology of the movement is anti-fascism (as they understand it). The article includes multiple sources that use the terms more or less interchangeably. --Tataral (talk) 15:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It is clearly true that all Antifa groups and activists follow the ideology of anti-fascism as they understand it. But it is not the case that all the groups and activists in Germany who identify themselves as following the ideology of anti-fascism would describe themselves or be described as Antifa. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

It is true that the term "anti-fascism" is used very differently, and the usage of anti-fascism in the sense of resistance to fascist and Nazi movements is of course also found in Germany. My line of thought regarding the topic of the article is this: The topic is the left-wing, anti-capitalist movement that is variously called Antifa or anti-fascists in Germany (German government authorities often call them anti-fascists in quotation marks); when anti-fascist/anti-fascism is used here in the context of this article (Antifa (Germany)) it refers to that movement and their ideology, but that doesn't mean that the term anti-fascism isn't also used (by some) in other contexts such as German resistance to Nazism. Although, particularly in Germany, as Peters noted, the term has mainly been used by the left because of its association with the left-wing movement that is covered in this article, that is particularly strong in Germany, and the ambiguity of its meaning in Germany and parts of Europe particularly after about 40 years in which the term was used by the East Germans as synonymous with the party line there, and its later association with far-left groups in West Germany and the reunified Germany. Even in the Weimar Republic, the term was mainly used by the KPD as a result of the early confrontations between communists and Italian fascists, while the various other parties tended to use other terms for their anti-Nazi resistance/opposition. In the Reichsbanner tradition they would rather stress their position as "democrats" in pointed opposition to both Nazis and the KPD ("Schutzorganisation der Republik und der Demokratie im Kampf gegen Hakenkreuz und Sowjetstern"). With the onset of the Cold War and the increasingly politicized use of the term in East Germany, the term was largely avoided in West German media, society and officialdom. --Tataral (talk) 12:08, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Antifa committees in the lead

This edit seems to me to contradict the text in the body. Social Democrats and Christians were clearly not "remnants" of AFA, but of the wider anti-fascist movement. "Local Antifa committees were created across Germany in the wake of the defeat of the Nazis in 1945" summarises what our body says and what its sources say. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:57, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You have misunderstood the comment. It referred to the sentence "the remnants of the first movement (=AFA) were absorbed into" what became the SED, which you had changed to "many (of the committees) were absorbed into" the SED. That is true in the east, but it was already adequately covered by the "remnants" sentence, and for the lead it made more sense to focus on the bigger picture than the relatively few non-communist members of these committees that existed for a few weeks. They are discussed in more detail below, but are not lead material. Immediately after the war surviving KPD/AFA members reorganized, and the most significant impact of this reorganization of the party's and movement's remnants was as part of what became the Socialist Unity Party. --Tataral (talk) 15:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Antonia Grunenberg

I don't understand the relevance of the Antonia Grunenberg quote in the "Main factions and ideology" section of the article. Her book does not talk about Antifa. It talks about anti-fascism. The terms are not synonymous. So here it just feels like editorialising with undue weight. There are plenty of more left-wing commentators that would dispute her analysis. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:00, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

In Germany anti-fascism and Antifa are synonymous to a large degree (for instance one of the government sources cited in the article starts in this way: Die Aktivitäten „antifaschistischer“ Linksextremisten (Antifa) dienen ...), and anti-fascism certainly is the ideology of the anti-fascist movement or the Antifa movement in Germany. This article of course discusses both the movement and its ideology dating back to the KPD era. The quote is important for understanding the term and ideology, and the perception of it, outside of the movement itself, in Germany. Her book discusses anti-fascism as a concept and ideology in Germany, which is certainly within the scope of this article. It wouldn't make sense to have yet another article on the ideology as opposed to the movement (we already have a different article on German resistance to Nazism, so that isn't the topic of this article, the topic is the left-wing movement and "fundamentally anti-capitalist" (as noted by Langer) ideology or strategy of anti-fascism that started with the KPD in the Weimar Republic, and that spawned different heirs/incarnations over nearly a century). Another reason why Grunenberg is relevant is that she is very much a representative of the dominating research tradition in this area that German government agencies build upon in their treatment of the anti-fascist or Antifa movement, so without some explanation of that position, also regarding the term and its meaning and use, it seems as if the German government agencies that regularly monitor and criticize anti-fascism do it out of the blue because non-experts from western countries often aren't aware of how the term is seen as problematic (especially in Germany and central/eastern Europe) and has been used in ways they wouldn't expect. Grunenberg is cited by Peters (yes, he is a (mostly former) CDU politician, but in this case he is primarily a scholar with a PhD on German anti-fascism), along with other key scholars, in a book that discusses the anti-fascist tradition in Germany, including the modern Antifa groups, and the tradition during the KPD and SED era. The book itself by Grunenberg is a widely cited book, for its field. --Tataral (talk) 15:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Tataral. That's helpful. I do think this material would be usefully balanced by historians, social movement studies scholars and others who have written about the interwar and postwar Antifa movements, who do not sure share that dominant perspective but are nonetheless not fringe. Re Peters, I recognise he is a scholar in his own right; the book was based on his PhD research, which was sponsored by the CDU's foundation (as he was already a CDU activist at that point. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:08, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

"According to some critics"

I don't think the addition of "According to some critics" in the sentence "the use of the epithet fascist against opponents and the understanding of capitalism as a form of fascism are central to the movement" is really accurate. Perhaps they wouldn't phrase the first part as "use of the epithet fascist" but that is simply a factual description of what they actually do phrased in a neutral manner; regarding the second part it is wrong that it is "critics" who assert that. That is key to how the movement has always understood itself, both in the KPD era, the SED era, and the modern Antifa groups; as Langer notes in his sympathetic history, "antifascism was always a fundamentally anti-capitalist strategy" and "communists always took antifascism to mean anti-capitalism." "Anti-capitalism" has never been considered a slur or anything like that within this movement.

When I wrote that sentence in the lead I tried to summarize in a concise and neutral manner a key point that I believe both critics and supporters of the movement could agree with, and based on the coverage of the material in the body (e.g. Langer, the government reports on the movement). The second point of the sentence isn't that different from what is also stated in the lead as factual in the Antifa (US) article ("Individuals involved in the movement tend to hold (...) anti-capitalist views"); in Germany Antifa is a much more coherent movement than in the US, so while Americans only "tend to hold" such views, the anti-capitalist understanding of anti-fascism really is at the very centre of how the movement in Germany perceives itself and how it is different from "bourgeois" people who just oppose the far right's excesses while supporting a "system" that Antifa believes is inherently fascist and being, in Antifa's view, "part of the problem"; I prefer not to make that sentence about "critics" but about that key point in their own understanding of their movement. --Tataral (talk) 15:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Low quality edits

Rupert loup has (yet again) copied sections from other articles and included it in odd places, where the material doesn't make sense chronologically, isn't relevant or is very much undue and/or off-topic. This is a carefully written and composed article, and these edits reduced the overall quality of the article. He has admitted that he doesn't understand German, doesn't know any of the sources used here, hasn't shown any previous interest in German political history, and all his contributions here consist of copying (irrelevant) material from other articles instead of engaging with the material and article in a meaningful way. That he shows up to make this kind of edits isn't helpful and is reminiscent of his attempt to prominently mention Walter Janka in an article where that would seem very odd. --Tataral (talk) 21:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I concur. His attempts to insert undue material about Janka should be reverted; some competence is required. However, it is not clear to me that, as of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antifa_(Germany)&oldid=963274387 there are any parts of the article that can be attributed to that editor; according to the Who Wrote That? gadget, 74.6% was written by Tataral, and 17% by Davide King. Loup wrote less than 1% of the page: "After the forced dissolution in the wake of the Machtergreifung in 1933, the movement went underground". Is that what you're objecting to? Vexations (talk) 21:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Davide King had made a number of helpful edits, so I didn't want to blanket revert, but I have partially restored the version from before. There may be some material that was lost in the process, so I will look into the article in more detail later. --Tataral (talk) 21:54, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Davide King restored some parts of the article, and I restored other parts, so there aren't that much left of Loup's edits. For instance excessively detailed material about West German politicians' Nazi past and East Germany added to the section that discussed the contemporary movement that is mainly a product of the 1980s (with some predecessors in the 1970s). Other than that, there were problems with repetition, no sense of proportionality (e.g. an excessively detailed addition in the lead on a minor aspect, i.e. non-communists' involvement in anti-fascist committees for a month or two in 1945 that belongs in the body, but not as the dominant issue in the lead) and overall low quality of the edits, on a topic he hasn't demonstrated any competence in, and it's my feeling that he is suddenly showing up here in this article written overwhelmingly by me simply to hound my edits after engaging in similar behaviour in a number of other articles. --Tataral (talk) 14:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Vexations what are you talking about? I didn't insert nothing about Janka. Rupert Loup (talk) 03:00, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Also if this page is about Antifa why the excessive focus and content about the GDR keep being added here? That should go to Anti-fascism in Germany, not here. Rupert Loup (talk) 03:46, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

There seem to be three main bones of contention here (with links to the diffs containing the potential text): (a) how much information should there be on the West German student movement and the origins of contemporary Antifa [5] (Rupert wants more; Tataral wants less); (b) how much information should there be about the use of the term "anti-fascism" in East Germany during the Cold War [6] (Rupert wants less; Tataral wants more); (c) should we give space to the Antifa committees that emerged as the Nazis were defeated, before the consolidation of the two post-war German states [7] (I think Rupert wants something and Tataral wants almost nothing?). My view: (a) there should be a concise summary only, and only where clearly relevant to Antifa movements, with links to the more relevant pages denazification, West German student movement, Außerparlamentarische Opposition, Historikerstreit; (b) I think this is largely irrelvant as it refers to anti-fascism in Germany in general and not Antifa in particular and can only be included here if we agree the two terms are completely interchangable in Germany which I continnue to dispute. Unfortunately, we have no Anti-fascism in Germany article and that link redirects to a German section of the general Anti-fascism article which bizarrely doesn't cover the post-war period. A way to resolve the dispute would be to create such an article, include this material there and summarise it concisely here; (c) I think this material is completely relevant and deserves a short paragraph; it's a key link in the history of the movement and the committees were called "Antifa". BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

(c) I don't object to mentioning these committees from 1945. They got lost in the process by accident and were mentioned at the start of the cold war section with a paragraph before, which I think is appropriate, proportionate and makes sense chronologically, considering that they existed for a very brief time, as in weeks or a couple of months (at least as something that was separate and distinct from the East German government and official anti-fascism there), and that they were to a large extent dominated by the KPD and simply a less formal predecessor to what is covered in the section now called East Germany. But they shouldn't be made a dominant issue in the lead, in a way that exaggerates non-communists' involvement.

(b) The KPD, and its successor the Socialist Unity Party, was the direct heir to the original Antifa, much more than today's movement (and even included some of the same people), and the East German tradition of anti-fascism clearly was very significant in Germany as a whole during the Cold War (and also influenced and informed West German political debates on the left and the student movement). It's a big part of the history of Antifa movements in Germany, in which the main incarnations don't have that much in common organizationally, beyond the use of the tradition derived from the first Antifa.

One of the reasons that we don't have an article on Anti-fascism in Germany (we do have German resistance to Nazism) is that German Nazism was and is usually called national socialism or Nazism in Germany, except by East Germany. The Soviet Union and East Germany didn't like the term Nazism/national socialism and preferred to call it fascism in a generic sense for various reasons (that included communists' early confrontations with Italian fascists, that Nazism called itself "socialism", and that the Soviet and East German communists had this whole elaborate theory of what fascism was, that linked it to capitalist society and that included at times e.g. the theory of social fascism, and that they wanted to link it to other regimes they viewed as fascist). I'm not sure if we need more articles when we have German resistance to Nazism, Denazification, a number of articles on the student movement and political culture in West Germany in the postwar era, plus articles on the specifically left-wing Antifa tradition, and a bunch of articles on those organizations that opposed Nazism, e.g. social democratic and centrist organizations. If an article on opposition to Nazism in general is needed (i.e. beyond what is covered in German resistance to Nazism), it should use the term Nazism rather than fascism, like the resistance article. --Tataral (talk) 11:17, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

This article is not about tradition of antifascism. You already stated that in the other article. Antifa movement are inspired by the WW2 organizations not the GDR. I think that is a WP:SYNTH stating that the GDR is relevant here. If it's relevant then the West German goverment antifascist policies also are relevant here. Rupert Loup (talk) 15:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

And why this is a "low quality edit"? You are not giving reasons to delete the content, you are being WP:DISRUPTIVE. Rupert Loup (talk) 15:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

BobFromBrockley: I'm for a better summarization, would you revise my edits to give a better presentation? Also I support the expansion of Anti-fascism in Germany. Rupert Loup (talk) 15:42, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Your edits to this and other articles where you so clearly lack knowledge/competence are disruptive, and it's clear to me that you have now shown up in this article written by me simply to disrupt my work, and by hounding my edits. I only engage with serious editors who demonstrate a minimum level of competence; it seems to me that you are just wasting everyone's time here and in other articles (e.g. in the article where you wanted to include Walter Janka even though that seemed totally inappropriate and out of place). Also, I've explained why I deleted irrelevant additions of yours here on the talk page (that only consisted of material copied from other articles, partially even written by me). Furthermore, before you get to make drastic changes to the stable version of a carefully written, lengthy article such as this one, you need to get consensus on the talk page. That is also your chance to demonstrate that you understand the topic and that you are able to do anything else than copy irrelevant material from other articles. --Tataral (talk) 20:46, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

However, I'm happy to answer your question in this edit summary[8] because it demonstrates the overall problems with your edits to this article: It's a low quality edit (note: not low quality material in itself) because you add the material to the wrong section, on the Weimar Republic-era organisation, and even though the material was already included in the article, in the correct section (on the Cold War era). Such edits demonstrate that you haven't even properly read the article, and that you don't engage with it in a conscientious manner. Also, the focus on Olbernhau, a random small town in East Germany with 10,000 inhabitants, is nearly as undue/intricate detail on some random factlet and bizarre as the attempt to include Walter Janka in the other article. And again, we're talking about material written by other editors, not something you have actually contributed; in fact you haven't contributed a single sentence as far as I can tell, only copied stuff written by others and moved it to the wrong places or articles where it is out of place/irrelevant/undue, in a way that reduces the editorial quality of this article. Why don't you find a topic that you are knowledgeable on and able to produce actual, original sentences on, or write an article from scratch instead? --Tataral (talk) 21:06, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Criminal activities

What about criminal activities? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.8.232.69 (talk) 09:50, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

What about what-aboutery? 2.28.151.246 (talk) 08:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

NPOV addition

This source is a WP:SELFPUBLISHED blog, and the author seems to fail WP:PROF. Also could you stop warring please. Rupert Loup (talk) 02:11, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, the good news is that you both get a week to discuss this. El_C 02:13, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

The article is written by a recognised expert in this field (Jan C. Behrends, who has had a biography in the German Wikipedia for nearly a decade), and the exact same source and point are included in the corresponding German article. Clearly the editor Rupert Loup, who has demonstrated his lack of knowledge/competence in this and other related articles (as discussed before by several editors), is trying to inhibit my work by randomly reverting uncontroversial additions simply to frustrate me and make all work on the article impossible. That is plain disruption to this article. I, as the author of this article and a serious contributor, am not required to put up with WP:HOUNDING behaviour of an editor with no competence in the field, who reverts edits to articles I've written simply out of spite and to disrupt my work. --Tataral (talk) 02:16, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Is that a reliable 2ndry source? El_C 02:17, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's clearly a reliable source. It's a German online journal. The claim that the article is self-published is false, but even if it were, the source would still be reliable because it's written by an expert on the topic. --Tataral (talk) 02:20, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what "online journal" is supposed to indicate exactly. We have to make sure the source is reliably representing the respective expert, in any case. El_C 02:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Also recognized by who? He doesn't seem widely cited by secondary RS. Rupert Loup (talk) 02:28, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the article Jan C. Behrends can give an idea about that. El_C 02:29, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

He has a perfectly acceptable number of citations for a well-established humanities scholar in a niche field (with a limited number of scholars, and hence citations) in continental Europe. The German Wikipedia, which is less inclusionist than the English edition, has deemed him notable since 2012. His number of citations is no reason against using him as a source for a brief quote on something he is an expert on, in an article specifically on a German topic. --Tataral (talk) 02:39, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

According with his article he is member of the Wilson Center, a think tank closely related with the US government, I see Mike Pompeo there. Other source used is "legacies-of-communism.eu". That author seems to have a strong bias, we have enough of those already here in this article. Rupert Loup (talk) 02:48, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Rupert Loup has not at all backed up his false claim that Behrends "has a strong bias" and this seems to be just a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT on Loup's part. Legacies of Communism is a research project at the Centre for Contemporary History. Behrends worked at the Centre for Contemporary History and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. He does not work at the Wilson Center but wrote something for them or was invited to lecture there or something like that. --Tataral (talk) 02:57, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe you two should consider 3rd Opinion... El_C 02:59, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for starting the process, Rupert Loup. El_C 03:07, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

On the nature of the source

The article[9], written by Jan C. Behrends (German: de:Jan C. Behrends) and used only as a source for his opinion as a well-established expert on the topic that he writes about (which was also included in the German counterpart of this article), was published on a website that also has its own article in the German Wikipedia, de:Salonkolumnisten, that describes the nature of that website. The article quotes a lengthy article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung[10] that discusses the website, and notes that the website had its roots in a roundtable at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation on the "radicalization of political discourse," and that it was founded to counter populism, Russian disinformation campaigns and fans of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. --Tataral (talk) 04:07, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the comprehensive account, Tataral. El_C 04:09, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

It says that the nature of the website is a community blog (Gemeinschaftsblog), the Konrad Adenauer Foundation is a "German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)." As I said, we already have enough of that POV here. Rupert Loup (talk) 04:36, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps consider a compromise? El_C 04:40, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

For all practical purposes a "community blog" with invited experts and an online journal (not a scholarly journal) are often the same thing these days. They publish a range of authors with opinions from centre-left to centre-right, and the fact that the website was inspired by a roundtable on radicalization that KAS was involved in organising doesn't make everyone who contribute to the website CDU. The article by Behrends is of particularly high quality due to its historical perspective that encompasses the entire topic of this article and due to his expertise on the political movement that Antifa originated in, and the Behrends article is already used in the German counterpart of the article to make the exact same point. There is absolutely no evidence that Behrends himself is affiliated with the CDU, the party of Angela Merkel, but even if he were, I wouldn't see why it would be a problem that Behrends had centrist, mainstream opinions. Loup's personal dislike of it is no reason to exclude it. --Tataral (talk) 05:00, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Rupert loup, in fairness, the scholar in question could be of interest. The source cited for that is probably fine, actually. Whether this violates NPOV in tone and content, in your view, is another matter. But I'm not seeing a reason to dismiss the source when its record is suitable to represent its author of note. El_C 05:10, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't have problem with it if other opposing views are described clearly in the article in order to balance it. That would be a compromise. I'm still waiting for secondary RS that demostrate his notability or the impact that he made in the field as described above. Rupert Loup (talk) 05:24, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Tataral, this seems like a reasonable request — surely, there's something from the scholarship you can bring to the fore. El_C 05:37, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

The article includes vast discussion of the self-perception of the Antifa movement, and their views on their opponents, so there are plenty of "opposing views" as compared to modern, centrist scholars. In this article I have even used sources published by the Association for the Promotion of Antifascist Culture. I don't really feel inclined to go looking for unnecessary fringe sources that would possibly create a Wikipedia:False balance, just because Loup says so, and it isn't reasonable to expect that I do all the work – I have already written nearly the entire article, and in addition been forced to spend much time on unncessary discussions with Loup, an editor who has admitted that he doesn't know much about the topic, doesn't read the sources etc. (I could have used all that time more productively on the article). Loup also has a history of adding material that everybody else agreed was completely irrelevant (to a related article), that also resulted in a huge waste of other editors' time. If Loup had a particular source in mind it would be easier to discuss it. --Tataral (talk) 05:54, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Tataral, while your work on the article is commendable, the WP:BURDEN would still be on you, the WP:ONUS-editor. El_C 06:00, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Loup is the one arguing for the inclusion of unspecified views/sources, so the onus for that is really on him. Without any concrete proposal from him, it's difficult to know what he is arguing for. --Tataral (talk) 06:13, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I may have mixed between you two. El_C 06:39, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

this one as example Rupert Loup (talk) 06:56, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I have no particular objection to that source, that deals with the material that is discussed in the section on the postwar committees that existed for a brief time and that could certainly be used in that section to elaborate somewhat on that, but what has the inclusion of that source got to do with your unjustified removal of a completely different source, that discusses a different aspect of the article, in a completely different section of the article? If you wanted to include that source there wouldn't have been any need to engage in horse trading over a different source. --Tataral (talk) 07:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

"The fact that so many committees adopted similar names and policies poses the question of whether there was a centralised organisation at work. Communists were prominent in nearly every Antifa despite the opposition of Moscow. Walter Ulbricht, the KPD leader, criticised the ‘spontaneous creation of KPD bureaus, people’s committees, and Free Germany committees’, but he could do little as the KPD central apparatus had no communication link with the rank and file. Once communications were restored he could report: ‘We have shut these [Antifas] down and told the comrades that all activities must be channelled through the state apparatus.’The Western Allies were equally disconcerted by the Antifas self-proclaimed ‘ruthless struggle against all remnants of Hitler’s party in the state apparatus, the local authorities and public life’. The US authorities expelled the Leipzig committee from its offices, ordered the removal of all leaflets and posters from the streets, and then banned it. Any further use of the name ‘Free Germany National Committee’ would be punished severely. The military government stopped Solingen’s workplace councils purging Nazi activists and then abolished them. Brunswick’s Nazis had been arrested by the Gluckstein Antifa, but were liberated by Allied command. When Frankfurt Antifa housed people made homeless by bombing in apartments abandoned by fleeing Nazis, the authorities evicted them." I think that this is a good balance to the CDU Government sanctioned claim "Stalin created Antifa". And I'm sure that is more, it took me less than a minute to find it. That the content be balanced is what I'm willing to compromise. Rupert Loup (talk) 07:39, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

As I mentioned, I have no objection to including some of that in the section on the committees. The source deals with committees, heavily dominated by communists, that briefly existed around 1945 before being suppressed in the west and east (where activities were "channeled" into the the regular communist party apparatus where they could more easily be controlled by the party). Antifa was created as a Stalinist tactic more than a dozen years before the events discussed by the source, and the source doesn't contradict that. This is not a "CDU claim" but a statement of historical fact. --Tataral (talk) 08:27, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

We await high-quality sources to confirm this as an "historical fact." El_C 08:29, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

The very source we are discussing here, and at least a dozen other sources currently included in the article, address this very issue. --Tataral (talk) 08:55, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe cite a couple of these here with a brief summary, just for the record. El_C 08:59, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

The whole first section discusses that. It's not my understanding that this issue is even under debate here. Those who want to learn more can read the article which includes sources and quotes. It seems to me that the most recent issue with Loup has been resolved anyway. I have no objection to the material he now wants to include too. --Tataral (talk) 00:42, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

This particular source seems legitimate in itself: it is not self-published and he is a scholar so even if it was it wouldn't be ruled out. But I do think there is a bit of a balance issue. The majority of the article, with historical detail, is well sourced and, as Tataral says, the sources are varied, including many sympathetic to Antifa. But whenever we move from facts to interpretations (to generalisations), the perspective narrows. In the current version, we have the opinions of Antonia Grunenberg and Tim Peters, both centre-right (Peters is active in the CDU) and the inclusion of Jan C. Behrends (from a CDU-linked website) would add further weight to that perspective. My preference would be to strip away their opinions as they don't seem that relevant and I am not convinced of the case for their noteworthiness. But there is clearly not consensus for removing them the better and more consensusal course would be to balance with other mainstream viewpoints. Clearly, the onus for adding such sources would be on editors like me or Rupert who are arguing for this sort of balance, but I would suggest that we wait until such sources are included before adding more centre-right voices (e.g. Behrends) unless of course there is a compelling reason for seeing them here, e.g. wide reporting in secondary sources that suggests noteworthiness. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:57, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Capitalisation

bobfrombrockley, Rupert loup, Tataral, I was reading this and I wondered why here it is capitalised. In Germany and German language, it may be probably capitalised, but this is the English Wikipedia, it is not an organisation or a proper noun and so it should not be capitalised. It is a political movement (feminist movement, socialist movement, etc.), short for anti-fascist or anti-fascist action movement. I also agree with BobFromBrockley comment there that "[i]n fact, the opposite is true with antifa, where capitalising it creates confusion with actual formal groups." I thought when capitalised, it is referring to Antifaschistische Aktion, where we write it is "commonly known under its abbreviation Antifa." In other words, Antifa should be used as abbreviation for Antifaschistische Aktion and antifa should be used for the movement, whether American or German, as in this case. Thoughts?
—Davide King (talk) 13:20, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Good question Davide King. I don't feel I know enough about German or about Wikipedia conventions around foreign language words to be authoratitive, but my strong instinct would be that if the word is being used as the short version of a proper noun (the name of an organisaton such as Antifaschistische Aktion) then we should capitalise, and that we shouldn't in other instances, as we are not German-language Wikipedia. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:19, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Bobfrombrockley, that was my thought too. It should not be capitalised, unless it is part of a proper noun such as Rose City Antifa. I think Antifa should probably be used only as abbreviation at Antifaschistische Aktion. In articles such as Rose City Antifa or Anti-Fascist Action, we should use the acronym (RCA and AFA, respectively). Incidentally, Deutsche Welle (in English) does not capitalise it. Davide King (talk) 14:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, as you know, in German, all nouns are capitalized. The adjective "antifaschistische" typically wouldn't be, but the original article in Die Rote Fahne [11] that announced the Antifaschische Aktion did capitalize it, and not just in the headline, but also in full sentences like "Die Antifaschistische Aktion muß durch den Massenkampf für eure Forderungen, für die Verteidigung des Lebensinteressen aller Werktätigen, durch die Streiks der Betriebsarbeiter, durch die Massenaktionen der Millionen Erwerbslosen, duch den politischen Massenstreik der geeinten Arbeiterklasse dem Hitlerfaschismus den Weg zur Macht verlegen!". Note the difference between "politischen Massenstreik" and "Antifaschistische Aktion" that shows that "Antifaschistische Aktion" is a proper name in this context. Duden (https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Antifa) seems to think that the term is a proper name and gives this example: "sie ist in der Antifa aktiv". Perhaps we can agree to capitalize it only when used as a proper name, and not try to make an implied distinction between (O)rganization and (m)ovement, which our poor readers than have to decode. Vexations (talk) 14:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Vexations, that it is capitalised in German (no suprise) does not mean or imply that it ought to be capitalised in English, too. I just gave a link, used in the article, to an English article by Deutsche Welle that says antifa. We should only capitalise it as a shorthand for Antifaschistische Aktion when referring to this specific organisation. I also do not understand what you mean "not try to make an implied distinction between (O)rganization and (m)ovement, which our poor readers than have to decode." I think that using antifa actually helps avoid confusions, as commented by bobfrombrockley; and considering that the right-wing thinks it is a centralised organisation and capitalises it, even in full letters, that is just one more reason, among many, to support non-capitalisation (except when referring to actual groups such as Roce City Antifa or the German Antifaschistische Aktion), so that this conspiracy theory antifa is an actual organisation, rather than a movement (again, the first thing we say here is that it is a "political movement"), does not further spread here and causes actual confusion. In other words, it is more confusing to capitalise it at all times as we do in this article, implying it is some sort of organisation, rather than capitalise it only when it is referring to a specific group; and non-capitalise it when it is referring to the broad movement, which is the topic of this article. Davide King (talk) 15:00, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Davide King, I tried to point out that even in German, one can tell that something is a proper name, and that the very first mention of "Antifascistische Aktion" in the document that established it was as a proper name. That means it should be capitalized. That it was, even then, an organization is dubious. I'm not against making a distinction between an organization, movement and (anti-)ideology, but making that distinction by capitalizing some things and not others isn't helping our readers; it's something that we, as editors, maybe understand, but it doesn't help to understand the distinction. And if this antifa/Antifa is some a way for some media to suggest that Antifa is a Domestic Terrorist Organization and other media that antifa isn't an organization, that's silly. We should write clearly and unambiguously so that readers who come to us get reliable information do not depend on such subtleties as capitalization to make that distinction. Vexations (talk) 15:26, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we're all agreed that "Antifaschistische Aktion" is a proper name, and that when Antifa refers to Antifaschistische Aktion it should be capitalised. But I think what Davide and I are arguing is that it does not always do so, and when it doesn't it isn't a proper name and therefore shouldn't. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:08, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Bobfrombrockley, yes, I think we're in agreement: when it's not a proper name it should not be capitalized. Vexations (talk) 21:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

bobfrombrockley, Vexations, I agree too. So my point is: do we refer to the main topic of this article (the wider far-left political current in Germany) as antifa or Antifa? Note that for the United States article there was consensus to use antifa and capitalises it only when it is a proper name. I think we should do the same here and use Antifa as a shorthand, for example, when referring to Antifaschistische Aktion. Davide King (talk) 19:35, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Useful additional source?

Article in THe New Inquiry: https://thenewinquiry.com/from-autonomen-to-antifa/ also at https://www.academia.edu/44068961/From_Autonomen_to_Antifa Haven't looked closely enough yet to see if useful. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:36, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Bobfrombrockley, have you looked more closely now? I also agree with your comment here. Davide King (talk) 09:05, 15 November 2020 (UTC)