Antifascism in the Neighborhood: Daily Life, Political Culture, and Gender Politics in the German Communist Antifascist Movement, 1930–1933

This article examines grassroots communist antifascist politics in Germany during the final years of the Weimar Republic. In contrast to most studies on Weimar’s street politics, which focus on political violence, this research demonstrates that daily life, political culture, and gender relations shaped the communist antifascist movement in working-class neighborhoods. It argues that daily conflict with distinct political overtones or undertones increased steadily in the early 1930s. As a result, quarrels between neighbors were often colored with political narratives, and sometimes ordinary disputes escalated into political conflict and even violence. Political culture inflamed the tensions, particularly when Nazis and communists littered proletarian boroughs with their symbols. Women were often at the center of the conflict. Many joined the frontlines of communist antifascist struggle, where they faced widespread discrimination from male comrades who, flaunting a militant hypermasculinity, insisted that women belonged only in the rearguard.

streets under the auspices of the spd's Reichsbanner. With a membership of three million, the Reichsbanner was Germany's largest paramilitary force, and it was the most vocal spd organization to call for a militant antifascist response. Other social democrats enlisted in the Eiserne Front [Iron Front], a defense league that was established in December 1931 by the spd and the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund [adgb; General German Trade Union Confederation] to counter both Nazism and communism.3 In their antifascist activities, social democrats engaged in propaganda work, electioneering, demonstrations, and physical struggle. While they sometimes battled communists, on the ground many called for joint action against the Nazis.4 The picture that thus emerged was one of social democrats, communists, and Nazis participating in a wide range of street actions. By 1931, Germany's working-class neighborhoods had become overtly politicized with all groups boldly strutting their politics in ways that profoundly altered everyday life, from marching in demonstrations decked out in political insignia, to hanging banners from their apartment windows, to yelling militant slogans as they marched through neighborhoods, to battling foes over local turf, to murdering enemies.
This examination of the communist antifascist movement is informed by Klaus-Michael Mallmann's research on communists in the Saarland. Situating communist politics within working-class communities or 'left-proletarian milieus' , Mallmann gives a prominent voice to those beyond the kpd's 'avantgarde' , arguing that at the grassroots level, communists operated with considerable autonomy, resisting party directives when they found them to be contrary to their realities on the ground.5 This interpretation challenges an older historiography, advanced foremost by Hermann Weber, which asserts that kpd leaders, heeding Kremlin directives, enacted a process of 'Stalinization' whereby they silenced party dissent and created a cadre of 'obedient soldiers' .6 Shifting from institutional politics to grassroots politics, Mallmann countered that 'the interpretation of communism as a monolithic, one-dimensionally defined system . . . misunderstands that members were primarily subjects who formed their politics on the ground . . . ignoring instructions from above when they held them to be false.'7 Democracy and the Rise of Nazism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 102-105; Voigt, Kampfbünde der Arbeiterbewegung, 97-108, 127-141. 3 Harsch, German Social Democracy, 169-202. 4 Ibid.,[196][197][198] Klaus Mallmann's monograph ignited a strident historiographical debate, centered on the question of whether communists toed the party line. In Andreas Wirsching's view, Mallmann underestimates the kpd's coercive methods and the Soviets' role in directing the kpd, which began with the issuing of the Comintern's 'Twenty-One Conditions' in 1919/20.8 Despite his unyielding critique, Wirsching convincingly points out that Mallmann downplays the ways that the kpd did cultivate a party culture that extolled discipline. From the perspective of institutional politics, abundant evidence exists to demonstrate that kpd leaders doggedly sought loyalty. The numerous expulsions alone provide sufficient proof of the measures leaders took to induce loyalty, albeit not very successfully. This political narrative is buttressed by a cultural analysis. When the communist movement is examined through a cultural lens, the uniformity of the kpd's rhetorical arsenal was undeniable. The same rituals, symbols, and languages appeared and reappeared, and the performance of these ritualistic acts was decisive for cultivating a disciplined political community.
Mallmann's questioning of the kpd's totalitarian features, nevertheless, has merit. In fact, party documents are replete with reports of members disregarding edicts. At the grassroots level, political fidelity was uneven, for supporters appropriated political positions and practices in ways that made sense to them on the ground. This was particularly true regarding antifascist violence. While the kpd advocated mass action and ordered its cadre to avoid battling Nazis, at the grassroots level, many activists disregarded these directives, particularly when they perceived that conditions in their neighborhoods necessitated immediate action. An analysis of gender relations within the antifascist movement similarly demonstrates supporters' inconsistent implementation of party directives. While many activists endorsed the Party's call to welcome women as equal political actors, others resisted. This study, thus, forges a middle ground between the older historiography that stresses a heavy-handed enforcement of party discipline and the newer scholarship that emphasizes rank-and-file autonomy.9 It shows not only that party leaders did attempt to coral supporters, but also that members and sympathizers adapted or resisted directives, particularly when they belied realities on the ground.
To investigate the communist antifascist movement from activists' perspective, this research relies upon the writings of rank-and-file communists and sympathizers. Beginning in 1924, the kpd solicited workers to pen articles about their everyday lives. Known as 'worker correspondents' , these writers submitted articles on a wide range of topics to the party press.10 Simultaneously, the kpd organized itself into factory and neighborhood cells, many of which published cell papers. kpd leaders instrumentalized the Worker Correspondent Movement and cell papers to integrate followers into party work. The writers were to serve as megaphones for the kpd by linking everyday issues to party platforms. kpd dailies regularly published a section entitled 'From the Lives of Workers' , which featured a series of individual worker correspondences that were accompanied by an editor's analysis and the latest party slogans. Cell papers were similarly influenced by kpd leaders. A careful perusal of cell papers shows that many printed not only the same slogans but also the same artwork, demonstrating some success at 'Bolshevizing' the cadre.
Situated at the nexus of party organization and everyday life, worker correspondents and cell paper authors offer unique insight into the historiographical debate regarding Weber's Stalinization Thesis. As noted above, party leaders implored supporters to pen articles as a strategy to tie followers to party organization. However, the benefits the kpd reaped from worker correspondences and cell papers were ephemeral, for these writings were published largely erratically. In fact, most of the authors submitted only a single report and never joined the Party. It would, therefore, be short-sighted to dismiss the writers as the pawns of party leaders. Indeed, a close reading of these sources reveals instances of both editorial heavy-handedness and authorial independence. This is especially true for cell papers, which were largely amateurish publications due to the fact that the kpd did not possess the staff to oversee them. But it was precisely this lack of editorial oversight that provided cells with the autonomy to tailor the papers to their own interests, such as complaining about dirty beer glasses in the work cafeteria.11 This body of sources, thus, presents a more complex picture of grassroots communism than viewed from above. Although certainly influenced by party platforms and edicts, these writers were not simply sloganeers for the kpd, for daily life also shaped their politics, and in many cases, it was the experiences of everyday life that prompted them to pick up a pen. This investigation of the communist antifascist movement at the intersection of everyday life, political culture, and gender relations in proletarian districts demonstrates that the politicization of the ordinary was a defining feature of the late Weimar polity. Historians disagree as to whether the political violence should be characterized as an everyday experience.12 While the most severe violence did ebb and flow in the early 1930s, daily conflict with distinct political overtones or undertones increased steadily during those same years. Indeed, mundane arguments between neighbors routinely escalated into political conflict and at times into brutal clashes. Although most disagreements did not lead to physical struggle, the disputes did contribute to an atmosphere of rising tensions that periodically escalated into violence. In this context, fascist and antifascist political cultures were especially incendiary. Particularly when deployed in everyday terrains, political symbols, rituals, and languages contributed to interpersonal friction. Gender relations likewise fueled conflict. While the violence was chiefly a masculine political exercise, women also figured prominently in the conflict. However, as they mounted the barricades, antifascist women faced widespread discrimination from male comrades who, defying kpd directives and flaunting a militant hypermasculinity, insisted that women belonged only in the antifascist rearguard.

Founding the Communist Antifascist Movement
The seeds for establishing the communist antifascist movement were planted in 1929 after a three-day insurrection in Berlin The kpd's foremost objective for its antifascist organizations was to challenge National Socialism through mass protest. Activists were charged with an array of propaganda work, such as hosting factory and neighborhood meetings, selling literature, and conducting door-to-door campaigns. Their most important task was organizing demonstrations. From small towns to large cities, communists held regular demonstrations, sometimes even when open-air rallies were prohibited. These gatherings were intended to counter the Nazis' growing popularity and to spur sympathizers to action. By 1932, antifascist protests took place nearly every week. In smaller cities, they usually attracted about one hundred people; other demonstrations were massive, such as the one in Berlin on 3 July 1932, which Die Rote Fahne reported assembled over 100,000.19 The antifascist organizations' second cardinal mission was to build a mass movement by recruiting sympathizers, as expressed by one cell paper: 'We are calling on Christian and social democratic workers: Come to us and fight with us against fascism. The new Fighting League is not a Communist Party organization, but an organization of the broadest fighting united front of the working people!'20 The kpd touted its antifascist groups as 'above-party' , 'united-frontfrom-below' organizations to unite the working-class masses in a common struggle against fascism. Nevertheless, most activists did not join a kpd antifascist organization.21 18 On Similar to the kpd's other attempts to forge a 'united front from below' , the antifascist organizations were intended to drive a wedge between the members and leaders of other labor groups, particularly the spd. Before World War One, many communists had belonged to the spd, but antipathy between the former comrades steadily increased after their split in 1917.22 Founded in the final days 1918, the kpd was to represent a revolutionary alternative to the spd. For communists, the break became irrevocable in January 1919 when the kpd's leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, were assassinated. Communists pinned the murders on the spd brass, and thereafter, they relentlessly inveighed against the spd leadership. The Comintern's 1928 'Third Period' doctrine, which portended a severe economic crisis that would create revolutionary conditions, unleashed a new wave of attacks.23 Following Moscow's cues, the kpd charged that the spd concealed its fascist-capitalist agenda, which rendered the spd more dangerous than the nsdap. As Die Rote Fahne pronounced, social democracy was 'socialism in words, fascism in deeds.'24 The ideological divide between the spd and the kpd did not deter communists from attempting to recruit social democrats to their antifascist banner by

Antifascism in the Neighborhood
Communist antifascist organizations were intended to serve as neighborhood watch groups.27 Given that the kpd's labor organization floundered in the wake of skyrocketing unemployment brought on by the Depression, the neighborhood increasingly became the locus of its communist work. Tensions ran high in proletarian districts, particularly when rumors of nearby Nazi activity surfaced. Cell papers cautioned neighbors that Nazis appeared 'deviously in the darkness of night to put up their lying flyers.'28 They also warned that uniformed sa men marched through neighborhoods, indiscriminately assaulting residents.29 In his influential monograph on Nazi and Italian fascist paramilitaries, Sven Reichardt asserts that sa men 'resembled invaders' in the eyes of residents in proletarian neighborhoods.30 By contrast, Eve Rosenhaft maintains that the image of sa men as menacing infiltrators was largely the work of kpd propaganda.31 Whether real or merely propaganda, Nazis were painted as community outsiders. Upon hearing that Nazis were closing in on their neighborhoods, activists regularly assembled to confront them. Such was the case in Cologne-Kalk in January 1931 when, according to a working correspondent, residents participated in a 'spontaneous' demonstration, successfully confronting Nazis who were marching into the borough. The writer defiantly declared, 'Kalk is red and will remain red.'32 Such proclamations highlighted several key elements regarding communist antifascist strategy. First, activists viewed the battle against Nazis through the lens of the neighborhood, underscoring the localized nature of antifascist politics. While antifascists' activities were influenced by kpd politics, their neighborhoods served as their most immediate frame of reference. Second, activists did indeed characterize Nazis as external threats to working-class communities, even though the nsdap's rolls included many workers who in some instances lived right next door to antifascists.33 Third, there was a clear proprietary dimension to antifascist defense, as activists attempted to seize political ownership of their neighborhoods. Finally, in their neighborhood defense, communists sought to leverage tightly-knit communities by appealing to neighborhood solidarity.34 To convince residents that Nazis violated the sacred bonds of the working-class community, communists employed denunciation, consistently publishing stories about Nazis' nefarious activities. Representative of such denunciations was an article about Cologne shop owner Hans Schult. According to a worker correspondent, Schult had refused to allow two men to hide from the police in his store. The author characterized Schult as a neighborhood 32 Worker Correspondent 88, 'Massenprotest gegen die braune Mordpest,' Sozialistische Republik, 26 January 1931. Worker correspondents (Arbeiterkorrespondenten) were rankand-file communists and sympathizers who wrote articles for the kpd press. In kpd organs, worker correspondents were typically assigned numbers to protect their identities, although not all worker correspondences were designated with numbers. . . . Not a penny more in this Nazi-store!'35 This example illustrates some essential facets about the nature of communist antifascist denunciation. Above all, activists published stories to spur neighbors to action. Often printing the names and addresses of suspected Nazis, they also attempted to localize Nazism.36 In other words, they tried to convince neighbors that the fascist danger existed right next door, despite contradictory characterizations of Nazis as outsiders.
Finally, by denouncing Schult as a 'communist-devourer' , this worker correspondent presumptuously and probably mistakenly conflated his neighbors' politics with his own. In their denunciations, antifascists frequently called Nazi masculinity into question. One of their most consistent motifs was cowardliness. Using humor to appeal to neighbors, one cell paper ridiculed two Nazis who timidly hid from two workers because they were without their uniforms and fellow comrades. The cell derided the Nazis, stating that they whispered to each other, 'There's two of them, but both of us are all alone.'37 Without their brothers in arms, the Nazis cowered, mocked the cell, revealing their compromised masculinity.
Antifascists also denounced Nazis as failed husbands. One worker correspondent, for instance, defamed a certain Wilhelm Schnepp who had reportedly shot a man in 1932. Publishing an exposé on Schnepp's private life, the writer claimed that Schnepp physically abused his wife and had left her twelve times.38 Devoting more ink to Schnepp's private life than his politics, the author besmirched the Nazi by stressing his spurious masculinity, suggesting that the author assumed that a rebuke of Schnepp's masculinity would resonate more with neighbors than criticism of his politics. In another example, a cell paper reported on a certain Herr Harbrink, whom it accused of accosting neighbors with a revolver in hand. To disgrace this 'legendary Christian' , the cell called Harbrink's masculinity into question by painting his home as a virtual brothel. It even insinuated that Harbrink's wife had conceived of a child with a fellow Nazi.39 Impeaching Harbrink's feeble familial authority and sexual impotency, two common themes in the cuckold trope, the cell ridiculed Harbrink as a cuckold, the ultimate condition of emasculation.40 From the cell's perspective, there was a logical relationship between masculinity and the antifascist struggle. Specifically, the cell linked Harbrink's compromised masculinity, exemplified by the apparent patriarchal disorder in the fool's household, to his compromised politics.
Communist denunciations made clear that in the tense atmosphere of late Weimar, many people wrote political narratives onto the ordinary disputes of daily life. Nearly any quarrel could be filtered through a political lens. For example, in a letter published in a children's cell paper, a boy told a story of picking cherries with a friend when they were attacked by a certain Herr Suhr, 'a prominent Nazi' , and his two sons.41 However, the report never clarified if the boys had been on Suhr's property, which might have justified Suhr's actions. In another incident, a worker correspondent reported on a woman who complained about a neighbor who stomped on the floor as if he were 'marching in a Nazi parade' .42 In this case, noise, a common source of discord in tenement living, was given a political reading. As such examples illustrate, communists often transposed politics onto quotidian disputes, using the label 'Nazi' indiscriminately to defame community transgressors. Indeed, in no small measure did communists stoke interpersonal conflict by coloring disputes with political narratives.
The most compelling evidence of the politicization of daily life in proletarian boroughs was the street violence. Political violence mounted steadily during the waning years of the Weimar Republic, ultimately exploding in 1932. The sites of the violence were largely working-class districts. Whether as active fighters or passersby caught in the crossfire, residents faced violence on a weekly, if not a daily, basis.43 Propaganda activities often catalyzed violence, for confrontations regularly occurred when one side was distributing literature, when activists marched through neighborhoods, or when antifascists attended Nazi meetings and vice versa. Most commonly, conflict erupted in the evening after one side had been drinking in a local pub.44 Activists stressed that it was often the happenstances of daily life that sparked violence or threats of violence. For example, in summer 1932 a woman informed a kpd organ that a Nazi had threatened her after she had refused to relinquish her streetcar seat to a woman wearing a swastika. '[O]ne of the brown heroes rushed towards me and threatened me with a raised fist: "I will hit you right in the trap".'45 Antifascists also recounted incidents of physical assault. In a remarkable story, a cell paper from Mittweida claimed that Nazis had ambushed a family as they unwittingly passed by a Nazi house during an evening stroll. According to the cell, the Nazis dumped 'the stinking contents of a chamber pot' on them because they were not wearing swastikas. A physical altercation ensued, as five or six Nazis reportedly attacked the entire family.46 Through such tales of violence, communists sought to warn neighbors that they could be targeted by Nazis. That many such accounts highlighted women as victims underscored the gender dynamics of the antifascist campaign. Casting proletarian women as especially vulnerable, communists contrasted female defenselessness with Nazi brutality.
Despite the escalating violence in working-class districts in the early 1930s, the kpd's stance on violence was riddled with inconsistencies. Throughout 1931, the Central Committee repudiated acts of 'individual terror' , insisting that the fight against fascism was 'not a physical fight but an ideological fight' .47 In other words, activists were to refrain from committing individual acts of violence; instead, they were to participate in 'proletarian mass terror' or mass action. On the ground, however, many activists pressed for a more militant strategy. Similar to rank-and-file social democrats who advocated an aggressive posture against Nazism, including armed struggle if necessary, communist antifascists generally endorsed a more aggressive response than kpd leaders.48 Cell papers, in particular, demanded militancy. Mocking a local spd leader for instructing workers to stay in their homes when Nazis marched in the neighborhood, a cell paper from Lauter urged, '[T]he workers must not stay seated when their own property is being threatened or when their class comrades are being knocked down . . . . [ The Berlin Viehhof factory cell concurred: 'Only by actively fighting will the National Socialist hordes be knocked down. The best defense is attack.'50 kpd leaders' inconclusive stance on the use of violence underscored the fact that the Party's overall antifascist strategy was mired in inconsistency and grave misjudgment. Guided by the Comintern's 'Third Period' doctrine, the kpd vacillated on the question of how to respond to Nazism. On the one hand, party leaders endorsed a militant response, encapsulated in the slogan 'Smash the fascists wherever you meet them!' On the other hand, leaders instructed activists to focus on propaganda activities. This lack of clarity rippled through the antifascist movement, for the strategic contradictions confused activists and prompted them to act in ways that made sense to them on the ground.51 A grassroots response to Nazism rooted in the everyday realities of working-class communities was reinforced by the fact that most antifascists remained outside the kpd and its organizations.52 While hundreds of thousands confronted Nazism, from marching in demonstrations, to participating in neighborhood defense, to quarreling with fascist neighbors, the overwhelming majority never joined the kpd or its antifascist organizations.53

Political Culture and Political Conflicts
Borrowing heavily from the kpd's repertoire of rituals, symbols, and languages, antifascists consistently deployed political culture to confront Nazism. The most public forum for communist antifascist culture was the open-air demonstration. In 1931 and 1932, antifascists held frequent marches that assembled thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of people. Funerals for the victims of political violence provided the consummate forums to showcase communist culture. In Cologne on 10 July 1932, for example, thousands of people . . the will of the Antifascist Action.' In closing, the crowd sang The Internationale.54 As this description underscores, antifascist demonstrations were replete with symbolic practices: celebrants marching in lockstep, fighting songs, battle cries, raised fists, and thousands of red flags. These rites, however, were more than a collection of ritualistic practices designed to boost the kpd's public profile. They were militant practices that conveyed intransigent enmity to both Nazism and the Republic.55 Communist ritualistic practices stoked militancy and transformed activists into political soldiers who were willing to don antifascist emblems and to defend their turf. Operating in the same political space that reviled parliamentary democracy, the nsdap developed a culture that was equally provocative.56 Communists documented the growing presence of Nazi ritualistic practices in proletarian districts and the ways they escalated tensions. While political battles on cultural terrains were hardly novel in the early 1930s, the extent to which ritualistic practices engendered violence was indeed new. What distinguished late Weimar from other epochs was the dramatic, even deadly, competition over political symbols, for Weimar's street violence included a war of symbols between political opponents who fought daily over flags, insignia, battle cries, and songs. Communist political culture served a number of critical functions. First, it was designed to cultivate loyalty. According to Guy Debord, the 'spectacle' serves as a device of social control that propagates a moral order.57 With activists partaking in collective rituals, antifascist culture integrated followers into the kpd fold, scripting celebrants to commit themselves to struggle on the public rostrum. Second, communist culture was deployed to forge an esprit de corps among antifascists. Scholars have long noted the importance of collective rites in the cultivation of solidarity.58 For communists, collective rites prompted activists to perform antifascist fraternity. Third, communist cultural practices were choreographed to fuel militancy. Ritualistic practices, as Arnold van Gennep asserts, are instrumental in effecting the personal conversions of celebrants.59 Communist symbolic practices had the capacity to move activists to action, to transform them into warriors. Finally, by cultivating 'shared mental grids' , political cultures shape celebrants' beliefs, as Mabel Berezin theorizes.60 With each repetition of a symbolic gesture, antifascists reaffirmed their commitment to the communist moral order. The compounding impact of the repeated performances influenced participants' consciousness, as celebrants learned the language of antifascism and internalized the semiotic repertoire to such a degree that they modified both their personal behavior to conform to the style of communism and their personal beliefs to adhere to tenets that undergirded the political culture. One outcome of this disciplining process was that celebrants transferred communist symbolic practices from official demonstrations to their neighborhoods to address the challenges they faced every day.61 Among the most potent symbols in the communist cultural arsenal was the antifascist flag. As seen in figure 1 Mülheim is now going to be cleared out. You won't be hanging any more red flags outside!'64 In another article, a Hamburg cell paper reported that Nazi Youths marched into a proletarian district and destroyed several flags on election day in September 1930, which instigated a physical confrontation with antifascists.65 Political music was another common source of conflict between communists and Nazis, for both groups regularly marched through working-class boroughs singing political songs, especially after meetings or rallies.66 Singing on both sides was the cause of continual conflict. While antifascists mobilized to check the Nazis' singing, Nazis similarly challenged antifascist singing. Typical of such clashes was a song battle at a 1931 Nazi meeting in Oberlahr, as recounted by a worker correspondent. As a Nazi took to the podium, 'The Internationale roared through the hall!' Nazis responded with a rendition of the Deutschlandlied, but the 'revolutionary workforce' rebutted with The Internationale. Suddenly, the meeting erupted into a mêlée. 67 In this instance, not only did communists deploy The Internationale to goad the Nazis, but more importantly, the antifascists' singing ignited the violence, an outcome that was hardly surprising to anyone present. In another incident, a worker correspondent reported that two sa men spent an entire day in Cologne-Kalk singing 'Nazi death songs' and wielding pistols. According to the author, neighbors retorted with The Internationale, which led to a brawl that culminated in the defenestration of the Nazis. 68 For communists, recitations of Nazi battle cries and salutations were particularly alarming. Both activists and the kpd press frequently reported that Nazis traversed city streets, yelling slogans, such as 'For every Red, a death!' and 'Heil Hitler!'69 As one worker correspondent recounted, the Nazis woke up the entire neighborhood with a 'Howl-Hitler cat concert' .70 During such ritualistic actions, Nazis allegedly approached passersby and ordered them to salute. Such incidents usually concluded only with threats, but on some occasions, the confrontations spiraled into combat, particularly when the target responded with 'Red Front!' In short, battle cries either sparked or accompanied conflict, as shouting matches between fascists and antifascists were often preludes to physical confrontation.
In an atmosphere of extreme political volatility, uniforms were especially inflammatory, which is why government officials periodically banned both communist and Nazi clothing in the final years of the Republic. Communists viewed National Socialist insignia as particularly menacing, especially when sa men donned it collectively.71 One worker correspondent wrote, 'In the light of day' , Nazis walk around without uniforms, appearing 'civil' , but in the dark of night, they are decked out in their uniforms.72 The sinister reading of the Nazi uniform was on prominent display in Berlin's Dunker Street after someone nailed a Nazi uniform to a wall and wrote in eighteen-meter-tall letters: 'This is the uniform of the killers of workers' .73 Communists also sported incendiary insignia. Mindful of workers' deteriorating economic status with the onset of the Depression, the kpd created affordable emblems that could be affixed to one's clothing and worn by the maximum number of people. Among the most popular was the Antifascist Action badge, typically worn by men on their caps.74 Identifying wearers as communist, antifascist insignia regularly stoked conflict.75 According to activists, Nazis saw the antifascist badge as especially provocative, and they frequently assaulted those wearing the emblem.76 Nazi and communist political cultures were at the center of considerable conflict, as both sides deployed symbols and rituals to cultivate fraternity among their comrades and to express their political views. These ritualistic practices also fomented confrontation, including violent clashes. Particularly when deployed in neighborhoods, these political cultures contributed decisively to the mounting tensions that pervaded working-class communities in the early 1930s.

The Gender Politics of the Communist Antifascist Movement
While the overwhelming majority of stories of political violence detailed fracases between men, there is a significant body of sources that testified to the violence that women also faced. To be sure, women were among the victims of the violence, and the violence against them increased in 1932 amid the rising violence more generally.77 In some cases, women encountered violence as they engaged in political work. For example, the kpd press reported that twenty couples were attacked by Nazis while conducting propaganda work in Worms in November 1932. One woman and her husband were even allegedly thrown out of a window.78 Other times, women fell victim due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as seemed to be case with a 63-year-old cleaning woman whom Nazis shot near the Görlitzer train station in Berlin in July 1932.79 Such accounts underscored that women were caught up in the street politics. Whether as victims, political organizers, or warriors, women figured prominently in the daily confrontations with Nazis.
When the kpd founded its antifascist movement, leaders welcomed women and directed the cadre to recruit them. 'Working women and girls belong in 77 Other than noting the predominance of male antagonists, the first wave of scholarship With the founding of its antifascist movement, the kpd called on women to prepare for battle. In fact, both the Fighting League and the rfmb instructed women to take up military training.84 On the ground, many agreed that women should serve as frontline soldiers, as conveyed in figure 2 from a Kiel neighborhood cell paper. Towering over two Nazis, this female figure is positioned squarely on the battlefield. She is portrayed as strong, committed to struggle, and battle-ready. The rfmb regularly published similar images, showing women in militaristic garb and wielding weapons.85 Such depictions suggest that many communists cultivated female antifascist militancy.
The recruitment of women as antifascist soldiers was not merely propaganda, however, for many women fought directly on the frontlines. Oftentimes, women battled alongside their male comrades. For example, Die Rote Fahne when a rfmb drum corps, traveling to Elmshorn for a rally, brawled with Nazis. According to an internal report, when the Nazis saw the women bedecked in rfmb gear, tensions quickly rose and a battle ensued.87 That women were antifascist fighters was borne out by court statistics as well. For example, in August and September 1932, 23 women were incarcerated for political violence. 88 Despite the kpd's call for women to engage in struggle, some male activists staunchly rejected women as frontline soldiers. On the ground, many activists believed that women should serve exclusively as propagandists: they should convene women's meetings, sell literature, host singing evenings, and sew banners.89 The rfmb summarized this perspective: 'From the beginning, we had to overcome significant resistance among male comrades who . . . took the position that women have nothing to seek in a military organization.'90 Internal reports confirmed this assessment. For example, some Fighting League members threatened to quit the organization if women formed combat units; others even blocked doors to prevent women from entering meetings.91 kpd leaders responded by repeatedly reprimanding male comrades, as in the following directive: 'The fight against fascism is not a thing only for men . . . . Every local group, every squadron, is obligated to accept the organization of women and girls immediately . . . Whoever refuses or sabotages this work has no place in our ranks.'92 But party leaders made little headway in changing deeply entrenched antifeminist views.93 Communist men's refusal to accept women as equal comrades was not simply evidence of resistance to party directives, for the kpd, itself, did not always prioritize the organization of women. Indeed, other than issuing pronouncements of gender equality and setting up separate women's organizations, the kpd brass never fully committed itself to gender equality. That Rosa Luxemburg, Ruth Fischer, and Clara Zetkin stood at the highest echelons of the kpd should not overshadow the fact that women's presence at all ranks in the Party was marginal.94 As Silvia Kontos concludes, the kpd fought 'like a man' .95 Especially notable in this regard was the rfb's expulsion of its political sisters in May 1925, charging that women were physically unfit, susceptible to nervous disorders, and psychologically unsuited for military operations.96 Thus, while the kpd ostensibly welcomed women to both the Party and its ancillary organizations, male members at all levels largely relegated women to the status of adjunct revolutionary. This was replicated in the Fighting League, whose female membership ranged from ten to fifteen percent nationally.97 That women played a subordinate role in the antifascist movement was demonstrated in Thuringia where the local leadership, under financial duress, sent organizational materials only to men in 1932. 98 Communist men's antifeminism grew more pronounced in the final years of the Weimar Republic when they trumpeted a militant masculinity in the face of a political opponent that threatened their core beliefs and a cataclysmic economic crisis that challenged their role as provider. As Karen Hagemann asserts, many working-class men 'sought to create "women-free" spaces in the political arena' as a self-preservation strategy.99 Contributing decisively to the antifeminist views was the belief that the struggle against Nazism, particularly as it played out in their backyards, was a test of masculinity, for confrontations with Nazis provided antifascist men with forums to flex their revolutionary muscles. By the early 1930s, communists had constructed a masculine archetype who earned his battle stripes by fighting fascists.100 In this context, the kpd advanced a visual lexicon that glorified hypermasculinity, as depicted in figure 3. This drawing offers a common communist depiction of revolutionary fighters in the final years of the Republic. As they seize the streets, the men, uniformly dressed in working-class garb, prepare for confrontation. They wear an expression of grim determination, marching in closed ranks from the factory. Their fists tightly clenched, their square jaws jutting forward, they project an Downloaded from Brill.com12/25/2020 11:00:11AM via free access unmistakable image of militant masculinity. Such militancy was replicated on the streets, as seen in figure 4, which is a photograph from the 1931 May Day demonstration in Berlin. Marching and singing in martial formation with raised fists, the men convey political resolve in imagery that strikingly mirrors the previous illustration. From their caps to their jackboots, these fierce communists are ready for battle. They personify communist antifascist masculinity.

Conclusion
When the kpd launched its antifascist movement, it set out to establish a movement composed of workers of all political stripes. Clearly, communists failed not only to build a mass movement, but more importantly, to defeat Nazism. Numerous factors contributed to their failure. Foremost was the fact that the nsdap was on the march with the support of many Germans who perceived communists to be a greater threat than Nazis. Contributing to communists' political failure was also the kpd's confounding antifascist strategy. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of activists mobilized to challenge Nazism. While the Reichstag set the stage for high politics, it was the figure 4 Antifascist men demonstrating in Berlin on Bülowplatz, 1 May 1931. Source: Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der ehemaligen ddr im Bundesarchiv (sapmo-ba), Berlin, Zentrales Parteiarchiv, Bild Y1-11838.
antifascism in the neighborhood Fascism 9 (2020) 167-194 Downloaded from Brill.com12/25/2020 11:00:11AM via free access working-class neighborhood that provided the forum for citizens to express their views. In the early 1930s, proletarian districts were the scenes of the most acute political expression, violence. Political violence intensified in 1932, claiming someone's life nearly every week, if not every day. While violence stood at the center of struggle, political conflict was more pervasive than measured only by acts of violence. Indeed, in working-class communities throughout Germany, neighbors clashed over a host of issues, including the mundane matters of everyday life. In the context of rising tensions, communists sought to radicalize their neighbors by politicizing ordinary quarrels. Everyday arguments were increasingly colored with political narratives, which antifascists exploited. In no small measure did the kpd's and nsdap's symbolic repertoires contribute to this radicalization, particularly when one side sought to conquer spaces symbolically with political emblems that staked out territory.
Few, if anyone, could escape the mounting tensions. Therefore, women joined men in the struggle, from sewing banners, to conducting neighborhood surveillance, to marching in demonstrations. Some women also battled Nazis to the dismay of many communist men who insisted that combat was exclusively a masculine political charge. Parading a militant hypermasculinity in the face of a lethal adversary, many men blocked their political sisters from the frontlines of struggle. sewell Fascism 9 (2020) 167-194