Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime

The Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime/Federation of Antifascists (Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes – Bund der Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten) (VVN-BdA) is a confederation founded in 1947 and based in Berlin. The VVN-BdA, formerly the VVN, emerged from victims' associations in Germany founded by political opponents to Nazism after the Second World War and the end of the Nazi dictatorship.

During the Cold War, the VVN was the subject of political struggles between East and West Germany. In the West, the association was seen as dominated by the Communist Party (KPD); in the East, the VVN was accused of spying. In 1953, the VVN was abolished in the GDR and the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters was founded in its place.

Since 2002, the association has extended to cover the whole of Germany, including camp communities of former prisoners of the concentration camps as incorporated associations. The VVN-BdA claims to be the biggest antifascist organisation in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The VVN-BdA is characterised as an independent organisation, with a focus of resistance against fascism and war as its defining moral principle. In West Germany, the organisation was seen as taking its lead from the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the 1950s, and after 1968 of being controlled from the top by German Communist Party (DKP) members. Nevertheless, the spread of membership continues to come from a wide range of political elements, including orthodox communists, members of the party Die Linke, and political independents, along with Green Party members and Social Democrats (in spite of a dissenting resolution adopted by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which remained in force till October 25, 2010).

The VVN-BdA is a member of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants (International Federation of Resistance Fighters), along with organisations from all over Europe and from Israel.

With the end of World War II, self-help groups of former resistance fighters were founded in "anti-fascist committees", which were banned immediately by the military administrations of each of the four occupation zones. They supported attending to 200,000 up to 250,000 former political persecutees by the social administrations instead.

By June 26, 1945, an "association of political prisoners and persecutees of the Nazi system" had been founded in Stuttgart, and in the following weeks and months, there were regional groups of ex-political prisoners and other persecuted individuals formed with the permission of the allied forces, in each of the four occupation zones. Their concern, next to providing social help for those in need, was to bring the voice of resistance, the political and moral weight of the opponents of the Nazi regime to form a new anti-fascist, democratic Germany.

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