Communist Party of Germany/Marxists–Leninists

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The Communist Party of Germany/Marxists–Leninists (

The KPD/ML was founded on 31 December 1968 in Hamburg, West Germany, and was centered around the leadership of Ernst Aust. Rival organisations who were similarly named distinguished themselves by calling the KPD/ML the "Roter Morgen Group", after the party's newspaper Roter Morgen. The party's headquarters were moved from Hamburg to Dortmund in 1973.

The KPD/ML opposed the German Communist Party (DKP), which it believed to be revisionist, and initially oriented itself around Maoism. Aust made his first international trip in 1974, travelling to Albania to meet Enver Hoxha in a private audience. Yao Wenyuan, a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party later received Aust on 1 June 1975. At its fourth congress in 1978, the KPD/ML adopted a new programme and disassociated itself entirely from the Chinese Communist Party, rejecting in particular Mao's Three Worlds Theory. Relations between the KPD/ML and the Party of Labour of Albania had significantly cooled by 1984.

Owing to his failing health, Aust resigned as chairman in 1983. Horst-Dieter Koch was elected as the party's new chairman at the conclusion of the fifth party congress on 6 November 1983.

In 1986, the KPD/ML merged with the

At the end of 1975 and beginning of 1976, the foundation by the KPD/ML of its own section in the East Germany was made public. The corresponding declaration was published in Roter Morgen on 7 February 1976.[3] While the KPD/ML had already been formed in 1968 in West Germany, the nucleus of the East German section emerged within East Germany itself.

In the beginning of the 1970s, some students in the eleventh and twelfth grades at an Extended Secondary School (Erweiterte Oberschule) in

In Magdeburg, in 1969 and 1970, pupils, students and apprentices got together to form the Progressive Youth (Progressive Jugend), inspired by, among others, the Black Panthers. Besides the classical authors of Marxism–Leninism, various forbidden texts (of Mao, Stalin, the Black Panthers, etc.)^{[dubious – discuss]} were read and discussed by this youth group, whose activities spanned across East Germany and which was composed of around 100 young people. Following the dissolution of the Progressive Youth by the East German authorities, the "hardcore" elements of the Progressive Youth formed a KPD/ML cell in 1976.

In Rostock, too, an autonomous circle of students was formed with a similar political orientation. Being interested in further ideological inspiration, many of these groups and circles – by themselves – got in touch with various left organizations in West Berlin and with the Albanian embassy in East Berlin.

Besides the young people, who were the majority within the East German section, some older, battle-hardened comrades joined the section. For instance, Heinz Reiche, who had spent 11 years in Nazi prisons and concentration camps, took part in activities in Weißwasser (a township south of Cottbus). Reiche had already come into conflict with the SED in the 1950s.

During the following years, the KPD/ML was successful in gaining supporters and organizing them into party cells in East Germany. These cells were inspired by the cell system of the illegal KPD during the Nazi dictatorship. According to declassified Stasi files, almost a dozen such cells were formed by 1980. The total number of members or supporters of the KPD/ML in East Germany amounted to three dozen people. In addition, there were about 50 to 60 sympathizers who were in direct personal contact with the above-mentioned circle.^[4]

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