Morning Comrades.
Time yet again to speak about Antifa. Obviously, and as many of you know I have participated and been organized in several antifascist action groups over the last two decades and no matter the political climate I do consider the work done in these groups as important, relevant and worthy of support. With Trump’s election and his overt embrace and support of far-right paramilitary organizations in the US we all witnessed a welcoming increase in anti-fascist work in the U.S. as well as here in Europe, in response to the ever increasing fascist realities of our so-called free democratic “western” world.
Biden’s “return to normality” has lulled many interested parties back into inaction whilst the political realities haven’t changed, or rather, they have gotten incrementally worse since. The old proverb “No matter who you vote, the government remains in power” comes to mind and with that, I once again, wanted not only draw attention to these networks of opposition to fascism but dig a little deeper into the fascinating history of its artwork and people.
As it stands I still firmly believe that organizing into anti-fascist groups is not only a sure way to actually help fight the ever increasing fascist realities here but that by doing so, you can also act as the much needed bulwark against a lot of the bullshit that is heading our way. With that, rather than focusing on the actual history of these organizations I wanted to tip my hat to the person and the groups he was involved in that gave us the original anti-fascist flag and offer you a little introduction.
The original and first anti-fascist action logo was designed and drawn by Max Gebhard in 1932, or so the story generally goes. Even according to his private memoirs as recorded by his daughter, no specific date was ever recorded, but for the sake of this record, it was around spring time in 1932. Not all that much is known about the Max Gebhard himself but what is, is worth sharing.
Originally from Hagen, Germany, he applied for to go to art school in Berlin in 1926, but couldn’t afford the tuition fees at the time. Miraculously, he was offered a free place of study by Walter Gropius, at the Bauhaus School in Dessau, ( I have to emphazise how wildly amazing that must have been at the time ) which he joined in the same year. For over two years he worked predominately on typography and poster design under these masters and it was here that he was introduced to Communist theory and praxis, resulting in him joining the German Communist Party in 1927 - considering the historical context with the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism in Germany all quite intense I would imagine.
By 1929 he was working as an independent artist in Berlin and it is here where he joined the Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists ( ASSO ), essentially the Agit-Prop division of the German Communist Party that worked closely with their Russian counterpart in Moscow. It is here, at the Karl-Liebknecht House where he met other revolutionary artists such as Jon Heartfield, whom we have previously spoken about:
The ASSO’s members reads like the who is who of German Communist and Anti-Fascist artists and their collective works are definitely something anyone with even the remotest interest in illustration, poster design and graphic design should get into. The Rote Fahne ( a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party ) reported on June 19, 1928, that the Asso had been founded as a "brother organization" to the Association of Revolutionary Artists of Russia.
Left-wing artists had already formed groups, such as the November Group, Dadaist groups, or from 1924 to 1926, the Red Group, with which George Grosz, John Heartfield and Rudolf Schlichter were involved. Heinrich Vogeler had also formed the Arbeitsgemeinschaft kommunistischer Künstler ("Working Group of Communist Artists"). Further impetus to form a larger organization came from the "Central Atelier for Visual Propaganda", an arm of the KPD offices at the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus in Berlin.
The Asso published a journal called Der Stoßtrupp ( The Vanguard ) and its first exhibition was in Berlin in 1929. For many Communist artists, art was a "weapon" to be used rallying the masses to the class struggle. Accordingly, the Asso produced placards, posters, propaganda art and banners for the Communist Party, Rote Hilfe ( The German Arm of the Internal Red Aid ) and other organizations.
It was here that for the Unity Congress of Anti-Fascists in 1932 that Max Gebhard designed the original Anti-Fascist Flag. Contrary to the modern version used today, this design held two red flags to symbolize left, anti-fascist unity - something that wasn’t the vase prior to 1932. Both the more moderate, centrist Democratic Socialist Party and the Communist Party had direct action based groups that more often than not fought each other as well as their opposing Nazi groups. The unity congress for which this flag then was designed was meant to end that infighting, which happened, albeit too late as the Nazi’s had essentially seized power by 1933 and forced all of this work and organization into the underground. Most members fled Germany, others were killed.
As to Max Gebhard himself, he remained in Germany during the 3rd Reich, actively working in the resistance against the Nazi’s at extremely high costs to his health and safety. He remained in the Communist Germany after the war and worked as graphic designer for a number of Communist Party publications in Communist Germany, and the spent the last ten years of his working life at the Karl-Dietz Publishing Company. For those curious, the Karl-Dietz Verlag, founded in 1946, is the main publisher of all works by Marx & Engels and Rosa Luxemburg, they’re still very active today, luckily so.
As to the Anti-Fascist flag itself, it all essentially fell out of memory and usage post WW2 - with the majority of European Student Organizations from the 50s to the lat 70s focusing more on anti-imperialism and communist work, rather than anti-fascist work. Granted, that was incorporated in their work but the flag itself was essentially forgotten. It was here, in Hamburg, that by the late 1970s various Communist Groups realized and decided to rebuild Anti-Fascist Action Groups in response to the ever increasing fascist tendencies of the West German state as well as ever increasing neo-nazi groups appearing in public. It would a few years but by mid-1980s various groups across the North of Germany had organized into what we today consider modern Anti-Fascist groups. It is here that the modern version of the flag appears, this time with a black flag added to the red flag, to symbolize the anarchist component in these organizations. Since then thousands of version have appeared and will continue to exist, I hope so in any case.
In the end, Max Gebhard remains essentially unknown, there are no photographs of him in the public and in the very few publicly available interviews he speaks very little of the design itself, only once referring to it “as just another piece of work” but I felt it worthwhile to honour and remember his long-lasting contribution to the revolutionary artwork that we all still use today.
Thank you for your time, attention and support.
Yours, without compromise,
V.