A “quest” for using information

Abstract

After several unsuccessful attempts to take power by force, the German Communist Party (KPD), from 1923 on, concentrated its efforts on electoral politics, trade union activity, and the struggle against Social Democratic reformism. However, the Communists had not relinquished their goal of a forcible seizure of power, as shown by the existence throughout the Weimar period of a secret Communist apparatus (Apparat) whose goals were to undermine the German armed services and police, train party cadres for insurrectionary combat, and carry out other subversive activities. Developed with Soviet assistance and headed by German Communists who had been trained in Russia, the Apparat controlled a network of spies, agents, and informers that penetrated German army and police units, government offices, and hostile political organizations. The Apparat also distributed illegal propaganda, furnished “military‐political” training and literature to KPD members, performed espionage and counterespionage duties, and made preparations for the party's continued operation were Communist organizations to be outlawed. Occasional terrorist acts can be laid to the Apparat, which, although prosecuted vigorously by Weimar authorities, scarcely constituted a serious revolutionary threat. The most important function of the Apparat was to control the Communist rank and file itself through surveillance of party members, searches and interrogations, and denunciations and betrayals. Ironically, it was the very existence of the Apparat that provided the Nazis with further corroboration for their claims to have saved Germany from Bolshevism.