As The Atlantic's Peter Beinart wrote for the magazine's September issue, Antifa's roots be traced back to Europe, when anti-fascists (hence the name "Antifa") violently battled the rise in fascism in countries like Germany and Italy.
Beinart notes that when fascism in Europe began to die down after the second world war, the anti-fascist movement receded with it. Furthermore, both Beinart and other experts on Antifa point out that post war rises of Antifa come after the reemergence of fascists or neo-nazi groups in different countries.
Eventually, the movement spread to the U.S., around the 80s and 90s, according to Mark Bray, a historian at Dartmouth College. Bray told Vox.com
