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On this day, 12 April 1943, young Walter Mayer was jailed by a Nazi court in Düsseldorf for stealing state property and being a member of the Edelweiss Pirates, and later sent to a concentration camp. The Pirates were working-class youths who fought the Hitler Youth in the streets. Mayer recounted that his justification for forming a group of Pirates was “anti-authoritarian. We’re not going into psychoanalysis here but it may be because I hated authority.”In particular, he resented the attitude of people who joined the Nazis for a taste of power: “I was pretty much the king on the street. If something had to be done, like stealing apples or whatever, they would call me. I saw guys that I considered sissies and weaklings. They suddenly got a star, they became lieutenants and I had to salute them. Well, I was not about to do a thing like that… There were others who kind of felt the same way I did. That prompted me to start a little movement.”Mayer’s group would meet in a café on Kings Avenue in Düsseldorf, and discuss their plans:“Someone would say, ‘What are we going to do next?’ Maybe someone would say, ‘The Hitler Youth store their equipment at such and such a place. Let’s make it disappear.’ ‘Okay, when are we going to meet?’ ‘We’ll meet at such and such a time.’ That’s what we did. It came to the point where we became enemies and people began to look for us because we went a little too drastic. We started maybe by deflating the tyres and then we made the whole bicycle disappear. It came to the point when there were too many complaints.”This increased attention eventually led to Mayer's arrest and imprisonment, during which he became extremely ill and almost died. But in 1945 he managed to escape from the concentration camp, and was sheltered by a local farmer.Our podcast episode 72 is about the Pirates and other anti-fascist youth movements, including testimony from Walter: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/72-edelweiss-pirates-swing-kidsTo access this hyperlink, click our link in bio then click this photoPictured: Mayer more recently

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On this day, 13 April 1985, Danuta Danielsson, a woman of Polish-Jewish origin whose mother had been put in a concentration camp during World War II, hit a neo-nazi on the head with her handbag in Växjö, Sweden. The Nordic Reich Party (NRP), originally named Sweden’s National Socialist Struggle, had organised a march in the town. Especially in the 1980s, many members of the party involved in carrying out acts of terrorism, and crimes including murder, bombings, harassment and assault.During their march, photographer Hans Runesson captured this iconic image of 38-year-old Danielsson hitting one of the Nazis. Approximately 2500 residents of the town many left-wingers, also took to the streets and attacked the Nazis. First they threw eggs and tomatoes, then fights broke out. One Nazi was kicked unconscious, and in the end the Nazis fled, and had to be escorted out of the town by police for their own safety.Local authorities in Växjö blocked plans to erect a monument to Danielsson, on the grounds that it might be seen to be "advocating aggression". Instead, a sculpture of her was built in the town of Alingsås.The Nazi hit by Danielsson subsequently murdered a gay Jewish man, and was imprisoned. The NRP folded in 2009, but some of its members were involved, with other fascists and white supremacists, in forming the Sweden Democrats in 1988. As of 2024, the Sweden Democrats are the largest member of Sweden’s right-wing governing bloc.We have numerous books and other items about anti-fascism available in our online store, with global shipping: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/anti-fascistTo access this hyperlink, click our link in bio then click this photo

Good Idea: Sea trash bins

🙏 to our friends @klimadeswandels

Jeden Tag 20'000 neue Vertriebene im Sudan – Berlin und Paris rufen zu Hilfe auf https://www.watson.ch/!303988296

Bosses, landlords, and tax collectors steal from you—turnabout is fair play!

Unpopular Opinion mayhaps, but if you've got close friends or partners engaging in problematic behaviors, and instead of confronting them and helping them you instead do nothing, then you're actually just reinforcing those problematic behavioral patterns and legitimizing them.

Friends and family oughta help one another, even if that help is slapping someone awake to their own actions, yk?