80 years of NKFD - the resistance against war and fascism got a form

The “Manifesto of the NKFD,” the actual founding declaration, stated:
“The National Committee expresses the thoughts and the will of millions of Germans at the front and at home who have the fate of their fatherland at heart. (…) Hitler is leading Germany to ruin. (…) No external enemy has ever plunged us Germans so deeply into misfortune as Hitler. The facts prove: The war is lost. Germany can only drag it on at the price of immeasurable sacrifices and privations. The continuation of the hopeless war would mean the end of the nation. But Germany must not die! It is now a question of the existence or non-existence of our fatherland. (…) The German people needs and wants peace immediately. (…) The goal is called: free Germany. This means: a strong democratic state power (…) complete elimination of all laws based on hatred of nations and races, of all institutions of the Hitler regime which dishonor our people, repeal of all coercive laws of the Hitler era directed against freedom and human dignity. Restoration and extension of the political rights and social achievements of the creators, freedom of speech, of the press, of organization, of conscience and of religion. (…) Just, unsparing judgment on the war criminals, on the leaders, their backers and helpers, who plunged Germany into ruin, guilt and disgrace (…)” The most important activity of the NKFD on the Eastern Front was reconnaissance work by volunteer front-line officers with the aim of persuading members of the Wehrmacht to defect or to be taken prisoner voluntarily. The second field of work was political reconnaissance in the prisoner-of-war camps in order to win over soldiers and officers for an anti-fascist-democratic new beginning after liberation.

The idea of a national movement of all German forces capable of opposing Hitler and the Nazi regime also spread in the occupied territories and in Western exile. Thus, in France and neighboring countries in particular, the “Committee Free Germany for the West” (CALPO - Comité Allemagne libre pour l’Ouest) came into being, and in Great Britain the “Freie Deutsche Bewegung” (Free Germany Movement in Great Britain) was formed. An important role on the American continent played the “Free German Movement” in Mexico under the leadership of Ludwig Renn (Spain fighter) and Paul Merker with their magazine “Alemania Libre”. The FIR reminds of this collecting movement against fascism and war. It shows nevertheless, which broad social alliances in the anti-fascist sense are possible in existential constellations and which contribution they made as part of the anti-Hitler coalition to the victory over the fascist barbarism.

International Federation of Resistants Fighters (FIR) - Association of Antifascists