While the connection between North Korea
and the NPD fell into disrepair almost a
decade ago, the “solidary and amicably [sic.]” relationship between the Chosun Workers’
Party and Anti-Imperialist Forum (in German, Anti-Imprerialistische Platform/AIP)
is becoming closer.
On November 7, 2014, KCNA reported the
following:
“A committee for honoring the memory of
leader Kim Jong Il was inaugurated by the Anti-Imperialist Forum of Germany in
November 1. The chairman of the Forum was elected as the chairman of the
memorial committee…”
But who is AIP’s chairman? His name is
Michael Koth, a well-known figure in the German
neo-Nazi scene. Born in the former West Berlin, as a school student Koth came into contact with the Socialist Unity Party of West
Berlin (in German, Sozialistische
Einheitspartei Westberlins/SEW) and joined its youth
organization.
However, in 1979, after 15 years of active
membership of the SEW, he was barred from the party. The reason for this, Koth claims, was his “opposition to Gorbachev’s policy.” But at the time,
Leonid Brezhnev was at the head of the USSR, with Gorbachev a virtual unknown
outside the country!
Regardless, in the aftermath of this Koth switched his allegiance
to the Communist Party of Germany/Marxist-Leninist (KPD/ML) and became its chairperson in West Berlin. In 1986, when the KPD/ML merged with the
International Marxist Group (a Trotskyite group in West Germany) to form the
Unified Socialist Party, Koth founded his own “party” and, accordingly, named it KPD/ML.
At that time, near the end of 1986, I moved
from West Germany to West Berlin, and got my first taste of personal contact
with Michael Koth. Near to our flat I saw a poster inviting me to a seminar with the
headline: “Comrade Stalin is still alive!” Wondering what would happen there, I went
along. It was a back-room meeting in a skid row corner bar,
wherein the facilitator, Koth – possibly a little tipsy – proceeded to
tell the audience why we should defend Stalin and Enver Hoxha’s socialist
Albania. The whole affair was confusing, and by the end he was
thoroughly intoxicated.
In 1994, five years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall, this group (the so-called “KPD/ML”) merged with the Communist Party
of Germany (KPD-Ost) and he became a member of the new entity’s Central Committee. But only
two years later Koth was kicked out because of this, too, for, he says, “neo-Stalinist
leanings”. But as you can see in the image below, the so-called KPD itself is a “Stalinist”
organization…
At the same time, Koth got engaged in activities supportive of the former leaders of the GDR, including a number of visits to former East German leader Erich Honecker in Berlin
Moabit, a detention center.
At the same time Koth (image above: center) also got a “brand new”
idea: “We must unite the ‘left’ and the (far) right, to fight together against
imperialism.”
To be continued…
* The views expressed in Guest Columns do
not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK.
