Communist League (West Germany)

The Communist League (German: Kommunistischer Bund, KB) was a radical left-wing organisation active in West Germany from 1971 until 1991. The KB emerged from the protests of 1968 and initially had a Maoist orientation. Later in the 1980s it became a leading organisation of the "undogmatic left" (undogmatische Linke). It was one of several rivaling minor communist groups in West Germany collectively called "K groups".

The KB was created by the merger of the Hamburg Socialist Workers' and Apprentices' Center (Sozialistisches Arbeiter- und Lehrlingszentrum; SALZ) with the Communist Workers' Confederation (Kommunistischer Arbeiterbund, KAB) of Hamburg, SALZ Bremerhaven, SALZ Frankfurt, the Communist Construction Group (Kommunistische Aufbaugruppe, KAG) Oldenburg and the Communist League/Marxists-Leninists (Kommunistischer Bund/Marxisten-Leninisten, KB/ML) in Flensburg and Eutin.

The KB originated from the late sixties' youth movement, with early Marxist-Leninist forces that developed from the banned Communist Party of Germany (KPD) like the small cadre group KAB Hamburg led by Knut Mellenthin merging with the SALZ that had emerged from the Hamburg apprentices' movement. They were joined by a majority of the Communist League of High School Students (KOB), but only a minority of the SALZ's sympathisers among university students while most of them joined the Socialist Students' Group that became part of the Communist League of West Germany (KBW), a rivaling Maoist organisation. This split can be seen as a reason for the bitter enmity between KB and KBW that competed for a similar circle of supporters, first in Northern Germany and after c. 1975 in all of West Germany.

The KB dissociated itself strictly from the Communist League of West Germany (KBW) and the Communist Party of Germany/Marxists–Leninists (KPD/ML) and used a less dogmatic diction than the two latter groups. The Hamburg Green-Alternative List (GAL or AL) was essentially supported by KB activists after 1984. With the rise of the GAL, KB lost its importance. A spin-off was the Group Z that later joined The Greens and included many future Green politicians like Thomas Ebermann, Rainer Trampert, and Jürgen Trittin.

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