Antifascism | Antonin Dick: Against injustice, oppression and evil spirit

Most of his family was murdered in German concentration camps. Others are considered missing. Antonin Dick searched for them for years through the International Red Cross. "So far, without success," he admitted in an essay in the "nd" newspaper over 20 years ago.

Antonin Dick was born in 1941 in the English immigrant town of Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. His mother was one of the co-founders of the Free German Youth in Great Britain. After the military defeat of the Nazi Reich, she was one of the many anti-fascists who wanted to build a new, anti-fascist Germany. She was friends with the painter Oskar Kokoschka, among others, and also with the later East German diplomat Horst Brie.

The young Antonin Dick studied theater studies in Leipzig, worked as a dramaturge at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and as a director at the theater in Gera. But early on, he became disturbed by the authoritarian structures in the GDR, rebelled, and in 1982 was banned from performing a pacifist play. Five years later, he and like-minded people founded the GDR Citizenship Law Working Group, which dealt with the legal issues surrounding emigration from the country. This led to clashes with other GDR opposition figures who wanted to change the GDR from within. Dick moved to West Berlin, primarily because he wanted to support his now elderly mother, who lived there. She died in 2012 at the age of 101. After her death, it was important to him to preserve her anti-fascist legacy from being forgotten.

Dick also used artistic means to combat racism and the resurgent fascism. In the early 1990s, he founded the Jakob van Hoddis Theater, named after a Jewish writer. With other artists, he sought to build on the traditions of Jewish cultural life that had been violently interrupted by the Nazis. As a freelance theater director, Dick experienced firsthand the precarious life of a left-wing activist. In 2004, he participated in the powerful demonstrations against Hartz IV and the Agenda 2010 program of Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, hoping that this could spark a new emancipatory movement. His call for the formation of unemployment councils was a much-discussed contribution at the time.

Dick himself had to apply for basic social security benefits after 2005 and experienced the harassment and bullying of a Hartz IV recipient. He also wrote various articles about this, including for the "nd" newspaper. He reacted with horror to the growing anti-Semitism, even among parts of the social left, to which he felt a strong sense of belonging until the very end. The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, filled him with sadness. The fact that the action was even celebrated as a liberation in some parts of the left-wing movement frightened him.

For health reasons, Dick had to withdraw from public life in recent years. However, until the end, he remained conscious of the political situation as a staunch anti-fascist. He was unable to live to see the 80th anniversary of the unconditional surrender of the Nazi regime. As has only just been announced, he died quietly at the end of April at the age of 84. With his passing, we are missing a wise and passionate voice against injustice, oppression, and the evil spirit of fascism.