Vertrauen und Politik im Alltag. Die Arbeiterbewegung in Leipzig und Lyon im Moment der Krise 1929-1933/38

Why were French socialists and communists able to respond quickly with united action to the threat to the Third Republic that the radical right seemed to pose in 1934, whereas the German Communists and their party, the KPD, were locked in an intensive struggle against the Social Democrats (SPD) as their alleged ‘main enemy’ while the Nazis destroyed the Weimar republic in 1933 and forced both wings of the socialist labour movement into illegality? Why was, in short, a popular front of the labour movement possible in France, but not in Germany? This tautly conceptualized, extremely well written and thoroughly researched book provides fresh and compelling answers to this question through a comparative study of labour movement activism and working-class politics at the local level, taking Lyon and Leipzig as examples. Both cities were important strongholds of socialist labour in their respective countries, and their equal size makes them suitable for a comparison. In line with a majority consensus in recent historiography, Häberlen argues that the KPD had in fact an agency of its and was not only the transmission belt of directives coming from Moscow.

Agency (philosophy) · Art · Democracy · Economic history · German · Humanities · Nazi Germany · Nazism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social Democratic Party · Social science · Sociology · Weimar Republic · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · History · Law