The Antifa-Block chimera. In search of the form of government for a "better Weimar " in the Soviet Occupation Zone

Abstract

Between 1945 and 1948, in the Soviet zone of occupation the surviving party leaders of the Weimar era tried jointly to re-establish German democracy by correcting the mistakes of the past that in their opinion had opened the way for Nazism. On Communist initiative an unprecedented governmental institution was launched – the Antifa-Block – which, by correcting the dysfunctions of Weimar parliamentarianism, should have laid the structural foundations for a “better Germany”. To avoid the erosion of parliamentary democracy caused by the contradictions of class society, the decision-making process was bound to the unanimous rule. In addition, to ensure against the instability of governmental coalitions and the obstructionism that had delegitimized the governments of the 1920s, the parties were denied the right to abandon the government and forced to “constructive solidarity.” The launch of the Cold War in 1948 allowed the Stalinist wing of the SED to alter the rules of Antifa-Block and turn it into the instrument with which the SED state-party monopolized power in a seemingly democratic way. The question of the potential of the institute in itself remains open, especially the issue if parties divided by opposed social interests were able to combine political pluralism and unanimous cooperation. The denunciation of any opposition in the name of “armed democracy” was a valid response to the Weimar parliamentary crisis? And lastly, did the (relatively) free local and regional elections of September-October 1946 prove that the solidarity of Antifa-Block could contain the political conflict that accompanies democratic voting procedures?