So many interesting historical things happened today, July 10th. Just a few that are meaningful to me, cobbled together from different places:
7/10/1932: Founding of the 'Antifascist Action' group by the KPD (german communist party) in Berlin, with the goal of forming a "unified movement of workers, the unemployed, civil servants, farmers, artisans, and intellectuals" capable of "break[ing] the murderous terror of Hitler fascism through organized red mass self-defense in the broadest united front." They focused on combatting Nazi street violence in working class neighborhoods. The two-flag logo is still used by autonomous antifascist groups who do the same thing around the world today 🖤
7/10/1934: Erich Mühsam, Jewish German anarchist poet and artist, was found dead at the Orianenburg concentration camp. A queer man and prolific poet, playwright, and lifelong propagandist, his major works were collected in English translation in 2011. In 1933, four weeks after Hitler’s ascension to power, Mühsam (an early critic of the Nazi regime) was arrested in his Berlin home. He spent the last sixteen months of his life in detention and was tortured and eventually hung in Oranienburg.
7/10/1944: Bruno Neri, an Italian antifascist Fiorentina footballer and member of the partisans, fell in combat facing the Nazis in an ambush in the town of Marradi. In 1931, at the inaugural match of a new stadium named Giovanni Berta, Neri was the only player who refused to give a fascist salute in honor of Mussolini before the game, instead keeping both arms down in front of the dictator himself. His antifascist conviction would ultimately lead Neri to take up arms against fascism and enlist in the Italian Partisan Resistance, where he fought Mussolini and the Nazis until the day of his death. (x)
