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Fritz Felgentreu (SPD), former member of the German Bundestag.
© Gregor Fischer/dpa
100 years ago, the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Red-Gold was founded in Magdeburg in February 1924.
What is the organization all about?
And why do they still exist today?
Magdeburg - crowds of people in large squares.
In Magdeburg, Berlin, Potsdam - and many other places in the republic in the 1920s.
Historical photographs show black, red and gold flags and clear commitments against the National Socialists.
The Reichsbanner Black-Red-Gold mobilized hundreds of thousands in Germany over 100 years ago.
“Back then there were local groups in practically every town,” says Saxony-Anhalt SPD state leader Andreas Schmidt.
For male Social Democrats, the Reichsbanner was virtually a must.
On February 22, 1924, the non-partisan alliance to protect democracy was founded in Magdeburg.
There were mainly people from the SPD, but also members of the liberal German Democratic Party and the Catholic Center Party.
But why Magdeburg of all places?
“The city was already centrally located in Germany and there was a relatively strong industrial base,” says the federal chairman of the Reichsbanner, Fritz Felgentreu.
In addition, many people were rooted in the SPD and the working class.
“That was the backbone of the Reichsbanner.”
The Weimar Republic was on shaky ground from the start.
Left-wing and right-wing extremist coup attempts characterized the early years.
Democrats wanted to counteract this with the Reichsbanner.
So the alliance became a mass organization - until it was banned after the National Socialists came to power in 1933.
At that time, so-called military associations were part of the leisure activities of many men.
The Stahlhelm, the association of frontline soldiers, was also founded in Magdeburg after the end of the First World War.
However, according to the German Historical Museum, this association acted “in clear opposition to the political system of the Weimar Republic”.
The Reichsbanner Black-Red-Yellow, on the other hand, campaigned for the protection of parliamentary democracy.
“Many organizations at that time were monarchist or extremist.
They wanted to do something to counteract that,” says SPD politician Schmidt, who is also a historian.
Schmidt is now one of around 800 members of the Reichsbanner, which also calls itself the League of Active Democrats.
Crowds are no longer mobilized today.
Since the re-establishment of the Reichsbanner in 1953, the focus has been on political-historical education and remembrance work - and it is precisely this educational work that many politicians are currently calling for in view of the increasing poll numbers for right-wing populists.
“Democracy has to be learned,” says federal chairman Felgentreu.
A free, democratic basic order is not a given.
The aim of the Reichsbanner today is still to encourage a combative attitude to protect democracy and to recognize threats in a timely manner, said Felgentreu.
There is no decision on the AfD.
However, he is in favor of submitting the question of a ban to the Federal Constitutional Court.
The party is classified as “certainly right-wing extremist” by the state offices for the protection of the constitution in Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.
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The state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt wants to honor the 100th anniversary of the Reichsbanner next week with a ceremony in Magdeburg.
Felgentreu is grateful for that.
“This is worthy of all recognition - not because we are so important, but because what it is about is important.”
Before the Nazi ban, Karl Höltermann was federal chairman of the Reichsbanner.
In the 1920s, the journalist worked for the “Magdeburger Volksstimme,” among others.
At the last Federal General Assembly of the Reichsbanner in February 1933, he said that governments would come and go.
“After Hitler we come!
It will once again be the German Republicans who will have to clean up the mess.
We are preparing for this day.” dpa