Rotfrontkämpferbund (English: Red Front Fighters' League, Red Front Fighters Association) was a paramilitary

Paramilitary

A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....

 organization of the Communist Party of Germany

Communist Party of Germany

The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

 created on 18 July 1924 during the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

. Its first leader was Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...

. It was banned in 1932.

The RFB engaged in street fights with the Nazi party's Sturmabteilung

Sturmabteilung

The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...

 (SA) before being banned.

Greetings and paper

They had a greeting: "Rot Front!" ("Red Front!") was spoken while the right arm was raised with fist clenched, fingers facing forward.

The RFB issued their official newspaper, Die Rote Front.

There was also a youth organization (ages 16-21), Rote Jungfront (Young Red Front).

Der rote Wedding (Red Front), lyrics by Erich Weinert

Erich Weinert

Erich Bernhard Gustav Weinert was a German Communist writer and a member of the Communist Party of Germany .-Biography:...

 and music by Hanns Eisler

Hanns Eisler

Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...

 (1928) is an anti-Nazi battle hymn for the Red Front:

The drums are beating

The working class is marching...