Wayne Thompson noted that “Members of the KPD who opposed the merger that resulted in the VSP reconfirmed their adherence to the old party statutes and program. Calling themselves the ‘correct’ KPD, they maintain headquarters in West Berlin. A separate Workers League for the Reconstruction of the KPD claims about 300 members, maintains a Communist University League in Bavaria, and publishes two editions of Kommurdstische Arbeiterzeitung”[202]
The second significant Maoist party to be organized in West Germany was the Kommurdstische Partei Deutschland (KPD). It is not to be confused with the original pro-Soviet KPD, which was outlawed in the 1950s, and (except perhaps in its own view) it was in no sense a continuation of that party which, in theory at least, continued to exist in West Germany as a clandestine organization—although after the formation of the DKP that probably was no longer the case.
The Maoist KPD had its origins in the establishment of the KPD Aufbauorganisation, that is, Organization to Rebuild the KPD (KPD-AO), by New Left students in 1970. In July 1971, the KPD-AO changed its name to KPD.[203]
The KPD gained some notoriety in April 1973, when it “occupied” and vandalized the Bonn city hall. In that same year it moved its headquarters to Dortmund and had an estimated membership of about 300. Among its recognized leaders were Christian Semler and Jurgen Horlemann. It had the Communist Student Union and the Communist High School Students Union under its control and was reported to have “some influence” in the League Against Imperialism. It was also seeking to establish a Revolutionary Trade Union.[204]
By 1974, the KPD was recognized as the “most significant’’ Maoist party. It claimed 5,000 members and another 5,000 sympathizers. The average age of its membership was 25. Some 25 percent of the members were women. Aside from its Central Committee, Politburo and Permanent Committee, it had at least four regional committees, city committees in Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Bremen, and West Berlin, and a “network of Trade Union Opposition Groups … in factories and in the DGB.” Its weekly periodical, Rote Fahne, published about 25,000 copies, and its Rote Presse Korrespondenz, 4,000.
The KPD held its first congress in Cologne in June 1973. There were 153 delegates, of whom 34 percent were said to have been workers in large factories, 16 percent office workers, 31 percent “working intelligentsia,” the rest students and pensioners.
The KPD ran 20 candidates in the Land elections in Hesse in October 1973. These received 4,152 votes, or 0.1 percent of the total. On the same day, it got 6,719 votes in Bavaria Land elections, which was also approximately 0.1 percent.[205]
In October 1976 elections, the KPD received 22,714 votes, again 0.1 percent of the total. Eric Waldman reported that “The KPD also participated in Land and municipal elections and submitted candidates in 70 factory elections of shop stewards. KPD candidates were elected in 30 industrial firms.[206]
In 1976, Eric Waldman sketched the subsidiary and front organizations of the KPD. He said that “The Communist Youth League … is the youth organization of the KPD. … It considered itself as the ‘fighting organization of the working youth and the reserve of the party. ‘ … The KPD-affiliated student organization, the Communist Student League … is highly active in many universities. The Communist High School Student League … has its own central organ, the Sckulkamp. KPD-controlled ‘mass organizations’ include the Rote Hilfe, the product of the merger of several Rote Hilfe groups. … Another is the League Against Imperialism … which celebrated its fourth anniversary on 14 July 1975. It has headquarters in Cologne, with units in several Lander, and an official organ. … The Association of Socialist Artists … was founded at Whitsuntide 1975. … The VSK [Ver-eingigung Sozialistischer Kulturschaffender] has local groups in at least 12 cities.”[207]
Presumably following what it thought to be in the best interests of the Chinese, the KPD in 1975 not only endorsed the maintenance of U.S. troops in Europe but even the arming of West German troops with atomic weapons. Concerning the latter, Rote Fahne, the KPD paper, wrote that “Nuclear weapons in the hands of the West European states are weapons of justice when they serve to defend freedom and independence against the superpowers.”
As for U.S. troops staying in Western Europe, Rote Fahne said that “Today the situation is such that European countries do not have sufficient defense forces of their own to counter successfully a military attack by Soviet social imperialism, the major enemy of the European peoples and states. … The struggle against U.S. troops in our country serves only Soviet social imperialism.”[208]
