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Shattered Dreams of Anti-Fascist Unity: German Speaking Exiles in Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia, 1937–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2016

ANDREA ACLE-KREYSING
ANDREA ACLE-KREYSING*
Affiliation:
Historisches Seminar der LMU, Abteilung Neueste Geschichte und Zeitgeschichte, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München; Global and European Studies Institute, Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften und Philosophie, Leipzig Universität, Emil-Fuchs-Straße 1, 04105 Leipzig; [email protected]
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Abstract

Between the late 1930s and early 1940s Mexico City and Buenos Aires became the centres of activity for the two most relevant anti-fascist organisations of German-speaking exiles in Latin America: the communist-inspired Free German Movement (Bewegung Freies Deutschland; BFD) and the social-democratic oriented The Other Germany (Das Andere Deutschland; DAD). Both organisations envisaged the creation of an anti-fascist front within Latin America, one which would allow for greater unity of action, and thus carried out extensive congresses at Mexico City and Montevideo in 1943. Due to crucial ideological and tactical differences, this dream of anti-fascist unity led to a power struggle between BFD and DAD, well illustrated in the impact it had on Bolivia. This article seeks a new perspective on how, thanks to the establishment of transnational networks, a continental debate on the meaning and methods of anti-fascism then took place, while also shedding light on the influence the Latin American context had in shaping the exiles’ plans for a new Germany.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 25 , Special Issue 4: Transnational Anti-Fascism: Agents, Networks, Circulations , November 2016 , pp. 667 - 686
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

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8 I am indebted to Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas, whose ideas on the psychology and dilemmas of exiles helped shape my approach to this topic.

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