From Anti-fascism to Anti-Zionism to Undeclared War: The West German Left, the East German Regime and Israel 1949-1989

After Nazism and the Holocaust the East German government became a fierce opponent of the state of Israel, one that it denounced as a “spearhead” of US imperialism. Beginning in the 1960s and continuing to the end of the Cold War, the East German Communists combined hostile propaganda with military training and delivery of weapons to the Arab states at war with Israel and to the Palestine Liberation Organization and its affiliates engaged in terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. In West Germany, the Red Army Faction and the Revolutionary Cells organization also collaborated with Palestinian terrorist groups. This talk draws on research in government and non-government archives to present details and offer causal interpretations of one of the most important, yet under examined, chapters of German and European history since 1945.