The Federal Republic of Germany annexed the German Democratic Republic today 33 years ago. The capitalist takeover of the former state-owned businesses that had been a source of employment for many GDR citizens was an economic catastrophe for them.

The transition from a state that prioritized collective ownership to a neoliberal laboratory for West German capitalists came at the expense of the East German people. For many, their right to work as they had known it abruptly ceased to exist.

Over three decades later, the economic gap between East and West Germany continues to be a dividing line in the country, and, if anything, it is widening. The challenges posed by rising homelessness, a cost of living crisis, and stagnating wages in present-day Germany starkly contrast to the economic stability and guaranteed employment and housing that the citizens of the former GDR enjoyed.

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On this day in 1935 Benito Mussolini's Italian fascist regime invaded Ethiopia in an unprovoked and racist act of aggression. Following the invasion and subsequent occupation, the Italian fascists had killed between 120,000 and 382,000 Ethiopians by 1941. The invasion was promoted by Mussolini's deluded fantasy about making Italy a colonial power in the mold of the ancient Roman Empire. There was also a strong racist element to the invasion and occupation based around Colonial Minister Alessandro Lessona's genocidal idea of an 'Ethiopia without Ethiopians'.

Italian troops committed numerous war crimes, including the use of mustard gas as well as deliberate attacks on ambulances and hospitals. The fascists launched a genocide against Ethiopians including the butchering of between 19,200 and 30,000 people in Addis Ababa in 1937. This horrific reign of terror only ended with the defeat of Italian forces in the region during the Second World War in 1941. Read on.

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