The German Left and the Weimar Republic: A Selection of Documents

The German Left and the Weimar Republic illuminates the history of the political left by presenting a wide range of documents on various aspects of socialist and communist activity in Germany. Separate chapters deal with the policy of Social Democracy in and out of government, the attempts of the Communist Party to overthrow the Weimar Republic, and then later to support it. Later chapters move away from the political scene to deal with the attitudes of the parties to key social issues, in particular questions of gender and sexuality.

The book concludes with a presentation of documents on various groups of socialist and communist dissidents. Many of the documents are made accessible for the first time, and each chapter begins with an original introduction indicating the current state of research.

Ben Fowkes taught history at the universities of Sheffield and North London. He carried out archival research in Vienna, Bonn, Prague and Moscow, and wrote a number of books, including Communism in Germany under the Weimar Republic. He also did a number of translations, such as Karl Marx: The Economic Manuscript of 1863-1865 (Capital, Book Three) and Henryk Grossman: Selected Works (edited by Professor Rick Kuhn).