Mark Bray interviewed on his “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook”

‘The abbreviation “antifa” was sometimes used in Germany between the wars. Later, revolutionary socialist “Antifa committees” sprung up amidst the carnage of the end of World War II … The term gained its modern connotation through its use by German autonomous anti-fascists in the 1980s (especially in the late eighties).  In the United States, most antifa groups in the eighties, nineties, and early 2000s were part of the Anti-Racist Action Network. Beginning in the late 2000s … more American groups started calling themselves antifa … It wasn’t really until West Coast antifa shut down Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley, however, that the term gained the mainstream attention that it has now.’