82

This article outlines the development of the West German anticommunist propaganda, the Volksbund für Frieden und Freiheit, active from 1950-1970. Its supervision and financing by several ministries made it a West German governmental tool. An anticommunist policy seemed necessary in the framework of the cold war and the division of Germany to guarantee its connection to the West as well as its return among the powers and to affirm its identity. In many respects, this association resembles Paix et Liberté. But the use of managers from the national-socialist anticommunist propaganda makes it necessary to question the continuity and the primacy of a State anticommunism and poses the problem of the democratization of the German society in the 1950s and 1960s.