Red Front Fighters’ League
적색전선투사동맹
A legally registered paramilitary organisation of the Weimar Republic affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany. Its first branches appeared in July 1924, Ernst Thälmann became its chairman in 1925, and it was banned in 1929 after the bloody May Day clashes in Berlin.
In depth
Its newspaper was Die Rote Front, and it was known for the clenched-fist salute and the greeting “Rot Front!”. It fought the SA and the Stahlhelm in the streets. After the “Blood May” of 1 May 1929, when police fire killed more than thirty people at a May Day demonstration banned by Berlin’s police president, it was outlawed in Prussia and nationwide and continued only in small underground groups.