The Fighting Group against Inhumanity: The Incarnation of Anticommunism in a Divided Germany 1948-1959

Presentation 

Cold War International History Project

Wed. Oct. 21 2015, 3:00pm — 4:30pm, 4th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC

The “Fighting Group Against Inhumanity” (“Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit” / KgU) has for a long time been considered the incarnation of both anticommunism and hostility to the German Democratic Republic in both East and West. Founded in 1948 in response to the wave of releases of prisoners from the Soviet “special camps” and resolved during the second Berlin crisis in 1959, the KgU not only undertook humanitarian activities, disseminated leaflets, and took action as intelligence service – it also promoted and temporarily practiced itself violence as a means of resistance against the communist government in Eastern Germany. This study examines the emergence, the organizational structure and the fields of action of this privately run, but politically highly effective organization.

“The book is a scientific work, an analysis, objective and without emotional outbursts or ethical judgments. It is this that makes it so valuable; because its reading is as exciting as a thriller.”

- Egon Bahr

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