Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART ONE ELECTORAL POLITICS IN AN AUTHORITARIAN REGIME
- PART TWO GENDER, IDENTITY, AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
- PART THREE LOCAL DIMENSIONS OF POLITICAL CULTURE
- 9 Democracy or Reaction? The Political Implications of Localist Ideas in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany
- 10 Communist Music in the Streets
- 11 Weimar Populism and National Socialism in Local Perspective
- 12 Political Mobilization and Associational Life
- PART FOUR THE NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES
- Index
10 - Communist Music in the Streets
Politics and Perceptions in Berlin at the End of the Weimar Republic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART ONE ELECTORAL POLITICS IN AN AUTHORITARIAN REGIME
- PART TWO GENDER, IDENTITY, AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
- PART THREE LOCAL DIMENSIONS OF POLITICAL CULTURE
- 9 Democracy or Reaction? The Political Implications of Localist Ideas in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany
- 10 Communist Music in the Streets
- 11 Weimar Populism and National Socialism in Local Perspective
- 12 Political Mobilization and Associational Life
- PART FOUR THE NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES
- Index
Summary
the incident
At 6.20p.m. on 29 September 1930, a group of 130 to 150 people - 60 to 70 of whom were children - gathered at the Reuterplatz in Berlin's working-class borough of Neukolln. Their subsequent march through the streets was ostensibly to protest the firing of Fritz Beyes, a Communist teacher in one of Neukolln's schools. This protest, sponsored by some Communist parents and students from Neukolln, wound its way through the borough, ending at Richardplatz at 7:35 P.M. The column was led by members of the Young Spartacus League (Jung Spartakusbund or JS), an organization for ten- to fourteen-year-old children affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands or KPD). Wearing uniforms consisting of a smock, neckerchief, and insignia, these children bore a striking similarity to the American Cub Scouts. One of them carried a red flag that read “From the Lenin Youth League of Charkow to the Communist Children of Berlin!” Members of the Communist Youth League of Germany (Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands or KJVD) and a number of local working-class parents also took part. Some of the adults carried four other banners, all bearing the motto “Struggle Against the School Fascism.” In addition to the banners and flag, participants shouted the slogans “We are protecting the red teacher” and “Where are the free school books?” The marchers sang a number of Communist songs.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Elections, Mass Politics and Social Change in Modern GermanyNew Perspectives, pp. 267 - 286Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992