analyse & kritik

analyse & kritik

Type	Alternative weekly
Format	Tabloid
Owner(s)	Hannah-Maria Eberle and Jan Ole Arps
Publisher	Verein für politische Bildung, Analyse und Kritik e. V.
Founded	1992
Language	German
Headquarters	Hamburg
Circulation	5400 copies
ISSN	0945-1153
Website	akweb.de

analyse & kritik (ak) (full German title: "analyse & kritik - Zeitung für linke Debatten", in English, analysis & critics - Newspaper for left debates) is a monthly newspaper in Germany. Published in Hamburg it is one of the best known left magazines in Germany. It is published by the Verein für politische Bildung, Analyse und Kritik e.V., with a circulation of 5400 as of December 2019. The newspaper was founded in 1971 by the initially Maoist orientated Communist League (German: Kommunistischer Bund, KB) in West Germany and is now close to the iL movement.

History

ak - analyse & kritikis startet as Arbeiterkampf (AK) (workers struggel) the newspaper of Kommunistischer Bund in Hamburg with a focus on Antifacism. KB was one of the initially maoist K-Groups in West-Germany. The KB emerged from the protests of 1968. In the 1980s KB was the leading organisation of the "undogmatic left" (undogmatische Linke). The first edition of AK was published in December 1971.

The newspaper soon turned its attention to the new social movements. The newspaper closely followed the rise of the anti-nuclear movement in West-Germany. When the Green Party emerged from this movement at the beginning of the 1980s, the Arbeiterkampf was divided over the question of whether communists should join the Greens and whether this party was actually left-wing or bourgeois. One part of the Kommunistischer Bund, like Jürgen Trittin joined the Greens, another continued to lead the AK.

After the GDR joined West-Germany, the Kommunistischer Bund fell out over the question of how to implement left-wing politics in Germany. The newspaper remained when the KB disbanded in 1991. For a little longer than a year, until summer 1992, it was produced conjointly by both the majority and the minority fraction of the KB as an umbrella organization. From August 1992 (issue no. 345) the former majority of the KB was the sole publisher, and the newspaper received its current unaltered name: ak - analyse & kritik. In 1999, the Verein für politische Bildung, Analyse und Kritik e.V. became publisher and the newspaper focus since then has been left, but in a broader sense.

The newspaper is close to the Interventionist Left (IL) and acts as a mediator between various left-wing scenes. The analysis should “not only describe social relationships and conditions, but also make them tangible in order to be able to think about overcoming them.” ak wrote.

Content

On the occasion of its 40-year-long existence, the newspaper was restructured in December 2011. Since then it consists of four "books": Politik, Thema, Bewegung, Gesellschaft. Thematical sections are Aktion, Deutschland, Diskussion, Gender, Geschichte, International, Kultur, Rechte, Wirtschaft & Soziales. ak publishes articles from a Marxist, feminist, radical-leftist, or reformist perspective. It covers social movements and poses them critical questions. Antifascist and anti-racist topics are discussed frequently. Every issue contains a leading article of three to five pages. The main topics of 2018 were Imperiale Lebensweise, Black History Month, 1968, China, Sexarbeit, Fußball-WM, Lagersystem, Solidarität, Klima, Novemberrevolution, Über den Wolken. Additionally, there are series of articles, the last of which was published in 2018 as a book.

The newspaper today of 2024 avoids the controversial topics of the Middle East conflict and the Left Party, which previously caused so much controversy.