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Title: Anarchist Media in Germany Author: Bernd Drücke Date: 2011 Language: en Topics: Germany, history, anarchist media, media Source: Drücke, Bernd. “Anarchist and Libertarian Media, 1945–2010 (Federal Germany).” Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media, edited by John D. H. Downing, SAGE Reference, 2011, pp. 36–43.
Right after the end of World War II, the few anarchists who had survived
war and fascism started to reorganize the anarchist movement, which had
been shattered during the Nazi dictatorship. On May 20, 1945, German
anarchism once again raised its journalistic voice, with the journal
Mahnruf (Warning Cry), published by Otto Reimers in Hamburg.
In 1947, the journal Befreiung (Liberation) was published for the first
time in MĂĽhlheim. This newspaper went through several editorial changes
and inconsistencies in its content. During its final years in Cologne
until its closedown in 1978, it linked old and young anarchists and
represented anarcho-syndicalist positions. It had a national circulation
of 1,500 copies.
Many early postwar anarchist journals were produced on a duplicator. Not
so Die Freie Gesellschaft (The Free Society), published by the
Föderation Freiheitlicher Sozialisten (Federation of Free Socialists).
This “monthly journal for social criticism and free socialism”
(subtitle) saw 43 issues between 1949 and 1953.
Neoanarchism was mainly influenced by 1960s anticolonialist liberation
struggles. The majority of the antiauthoritarian and
AuĂźerparlamentarischen Opposition (APO; Extra-Parliamentary Opposition)
movement tried to challenge the U.S.-Vietnam War, which was supported by
the authorities of the German Federal Republic and the mass media. The
APO also opposed the emergency laws of the “grand coalition,” consisting
of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the conservative parties
(Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union) and Germany’s
mediascape, dominated by the Springer media conglomerate. They contested
Germany’s “sclerotic institutions” and their representatives,
old-fashioned ideas about morality, and the indifference and complacency
of society at large.
In June 1967, after the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead by a police
officer during a Berlin demonstration against the visit of the Iranian
despot Shah Reza Pahlavi, many activists within the Sozialistischer
Deutscher Studentenbund (Socialist German Student Union) became
increasingly radical. Only a year later, anarchist literature gained
currency on a hitherto unimaginable scale. At first, classical anarchist
writings were published as pirate editions; later on they were produced
in high print runs by big publishing houses. Anarchism saw a
renaissance. The new anarchist movement consisted mainly of students,
pupils, and apprentices. There was no continuity with the old,
working-class anarchists, who looked very skeptically at the younger
ones from middle-class families.
Anarchism researcher Rolf Raasch has argued that there were theoretical
divisions between the younger and the older generations. The students
initially were committed to a critical version of Marxism. Their attempt
at mediation between Marxism and Anarchism, cheerfully unconcerned with
past grievances, was inevitably repugnant to seasoned anarchists, who
had deeply internalized the historical clashes between both
movements—not least because some of them had personally experienced
Marxist socialism as practiced in the German Democratic Republic.
From February 1968 onward, the neoanarchist movement sharply increased
its presence. Neoanarchist, undogmatic, and antiauthoritarian magazines
were launched in 1968, particularly in West Berlin. They were models for
many subsequent “underground papers.” Their scene jargon and their
layout, inspired by Dadaism, differed clearly from the magazines of the
old anarchists with their tidy composition and simple layout.
Linkeck (Left Corner), which called itself “the first anti-authoritarian
paper,” was the organ of a Berlin anarchist commune by the same name,
founded in 1967. It was published nine times from May 1968 and had a
circulation of about 8,000. It became known nationwide because Germany’s
biggest yellow press daily, Bild, ran editorials against the “left
terrorist paper.” Four Linkeck editors were charged with “libel” and
“distributing obscene writings.” The commune broke up in 1969, due to
overwork, legal problems, and internal conflicts. Its paper ceased to be
published. The anarchist publishing house Karin Kramer Verlag in Berlin,
which still exists, emerged from Linkeck in 1970.
With a similar layout, agit 883 was published every 10 to 14 days,
beginning in February 1968. It achieved a circulation of up to 7,000. It
was a left-wing information bulletin from Berlin, served as a “leaflet
for agitation and social practice” (its subtitle) and dealt with current
events.
On April 11, 1968, a man “incited” by the politics of Bild tried to
assassinate student activist Rudi Dutschke. As a reaction, crowds of
protesters spontaneously blocked buildings of the Springer media
conglomerate to prevent deliveries from its premises (including Bild).
This conflict went down in history as Osterkrawalle (the Easter riots).
Soon afterward, “urban guerrilla units” emerged. Discussions about the
activities of these armed groups were intense in many far left and
anarchist papers. In May 1970, the first public statement from the Red
Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion, RAF) was published in agit 883 under
the headline “Building the Red Army Faction.” At that time, agit 883 was
a largely uncensored discussion organ of militant left-wing groups with
a focus on anarchist and Marxist theories. They rejected the avantgarde
claim and the authoritarian dogmatism of those they saw as Leninists
with guns (agit 883 about RAF). They agreed, however, with the
internationalist principles of RAF and its perception of the strategic
use of violence as an essential weapon against the state and U.S.
imperialism.
The agit 883 editorial collective was frequently raided, the paper often
confiscated or banned. After 88 issues and a number of conflicts among
the editorial staff, agit 883 closed down in February 1972. The
collective had already split up in 1971 over evaluating RAF.
Former agit 883 editors left the collective, and in 1971 in Berlin, they
formed the militant underground paper FIZZ. It declared its solidarity
with RAF in contrast to agit 883, which appeared simultaneously. FIZZ
appeared for 1 year. Nine of its ten editions were confiscated and
banned. FIZZ’s successors were Berliner Anzünder (Berlin Incendiary,
1972), Hundert Blumen (Hundred Flowers, 1972–1975) and Bambule (German
prison slang for “shindig,” 1972–1974).
In September 1971, the Föderation Neue Linke (FNL; New Left Federation)
published the first edition of MAD with “Materials, Analyses, Documents”
as its subtitle. When the FNL, which understood itself as a “federation
of autonomous, local anarchist and grass-roots groups,” dissolved, MAD
was published as an “anarchist magazine” (subtitle). It published
anarchist calls for action and Situationist texts and articles about
strategies of industrial struggle. Looking back, one of its editors
commented on how important it was felt at that time to show that poetry
and revolution belonged together and to include Dadaism and surrealism
into the origins of the new anarchism.
After the U.S. “satirical magazine” MAD took legal action against the
anarchist project having the same name, it was discontinued in 1973,
after magazine issue number 4/5 had been published. After that, the
anarchist MAD was published under the name Revolte, until issue number
6/1973 with the subtitle “anarchist journal, formerly MAD—anarchist
magazine.” From 1977 until 1982, Revolte was published by Hanna
Mittelstädt and Lutz Schulenburg of the publishing house Verlag Edition
Nautilus. From 1981 onward, they published Die Aktion as a “journal for
politics, literature and art.”
In the summer of 1972, the pilot issue of the Graswurzelrevolution (GWR)
came out. The editorial collective was inspired in concept and
orientation by Anarchisme et Nonviolence (Paris), which was published
between 1965 and 1974 in the French-speaking regions of Europe as a
nonviolent and anarchist paper; by Peace News, published in London since
1936; and by Direkte Aktion—Zeitung für Gewaltfreiheit und Anarchismus
(Direct Action—Newspaper for Nonviolence and Anarchism), which was
published in Hannover in 1965–1966. The GWR editorial group was oriented
toward movements in other countries, for example, Britain and the United
States. Gandhi’s methods had undergone further development in the fight
against the nuclear bomb and for civil rights, and the “grassroots
movement” had taken a new shape.
From its beginning, GWR tried to widen and develop the theory and
practice of nonviolent revolution. Besides critique of existing
conditions, the GWR tried and continues to try to organize at least the
seeds of a just and livable future society. It is the newspaper’s
declared aim to point out the connection between nonviolence and
libertarian socialism, to contribute to the pacifist movement becoming
libertarian socialist and the left-wing socialist movement becoming
nonviolent in their forms of struggle.
Since issue 52 in 1981, the periodical has been published monthly with a
July-August break. Before that, it was published every 2 to 3 months.
Since 1989, it has had an eight-page supplement of “libertarian book
pages” every October. It has been published by different editors in
Augsburg (1972–1973), Berlin (1974–1976), Göttingen (1976–1978), Hamburg
(1978–1988), Heidelberg (1988–1992), Wustrow (1992–1995), Oldenburg
(1995–1999), and Münster (since 1999). The different editorial
collectives each determined their own style. 2009 was GWR’s 38^(th) year
of publication, circulating between 3,500 and 5,000 copies. It is the
longest-lived anarchist newspaper in the German-speaking area and a
leading outlet for grassroots activists.
A special antimilitarist edition of GWR about the war in Afghanistan in
2003 had a circulation of 55,000. The nonviolent-anarchist youth paper
Utopia, a bimonthly since 2007, is a supplement to GWR. It has a much
wider distribution than GWR and in March 2009 it rose from 18,000 to
25,000.
In November 1977 the first issue of the anarcho-syndicalist paper
direkte aktion appeared in Hamburg. Initially it was supposed to serve
as a regional voice of antiauthoritarian people who were organized in
local groups of the Initiative-Freie Arbeiter Union in northern Germany
and who had just started.
The editors followed the tradition of the anarcho-syndicalist Freie
Arbeiter Union Deutschlands (FAUD; Free Workers Union of Germany), which
was smashed by the Nazis. The FAUD had at times 150,000 members and was
the most influential anarchist organization in Germany. Its main
publication was Der Syndikalist, and in 1920 its weekly circulation
amounted to 120,000 copies.
The formation of direkte aktion is to be seen as an attempt to get a new
start for anarcho-syndicalism in Germany. Inspired by the reactivation
of the Spanish ConfederaciĂłn Nacional del Trabajo, people from several
cities came together to build a new anarcho-syndicalist organization at
the beginning of 1977, the Freie ArbeiterInnen Union (FAU; Free Workers
Union [Innen is capitalized to pinpoint women’s activism rather than
incorporating it under the masculine Arbeiter]). It started with the
experience of many people in their work situation and with the politics
of the DGB (Federation of German Trade Unions) and its member unions,
who were “stifling initiatives from the grassroots.”
They argued that the reformist unions were organized undemocratically;
they would hold their members dependent on the leadership, and this
would mean to keep the capitalist economy in existence. Many people had
tried to reform the apparatus from below, but all had failed, were
shunted aside, or expelled, or had become part of the union bureaucracy.
Another reason to form an anarcho-syndicalist union was the
disorganization, isolation, and lack of new perspectives in small groups
and individuals among the libertarian-socialist people. They argued that
anarcho-syndicalism presented important opportunities for organizing
political action on a libertarian basis, to deal with the problem of
political isolation, and to create networks and forums for joint
discussion.
From July 1978 onward, direkte aktion has been published as a joint
paper of anarcho-syndicalist initiatives from all over Germany. It
continues to be produced bimonthly by changing editorial groups in
different cities and has a nationwide circulation of 2,000.
Between 1986 and 1995, at least 310 different libertarian and autonomous
periodicals were started but ceased publication to a great extent. Today
anarchists start much less anarchist print media mainly because many
anarchists are active on the Internet. Ever since 2006, for example,
supporters of the Projektwerkstatt Göttingen have published Fragend
Voran (Questioning Forward), which appears irregularly. Anarchists in
Berlin produce Abolishing the Borders From Below, which is mainly a
voice of anarchist groups in eastern Europe. In Leipzig, the regional
anarchist paper Feierabend (Quitting Time at Work) is published
approximately biweekly with a circulation of 600. The
individualist-anarchist espero appeared irregularly with a circulation
of about 500 since 1994. Contraste, published in Heidelberg, is a
monthly on workers’ self-management. It has a strong anarchist tendency
and a circulation of 2,000. In Magdeburg, GrĂĽne Blatt (Green Leaf) has
an ecological orientation and a circulation of 800. The quarterly DIE
AKTION (The Action) is a sophisticated intellectual journal about
libertarian theory.
Bernd DrĂĽcke
See also Anarchist and Libertarian Press, 1945–1990 (Eastern Germany) ;
Anarchist Media ; Culture Jamming ; EuroMayDay ; Free Radio Movement
(Italy) ; Industrial Workers of the World Media (United States) ;
Indymedia (The Independent Media Center)
DrĂĽcke, B. (1998). Zwischen Schreibtisch und StraĂźenschlacht?
Anarchismus und libertäre Presse in Ost-und Westdeutschland [Between
writing desk and street battle? Anarchism and the libertarian press in
East and West Germany]. Ulm, Germany: Verlag Klemm & Oelschläger.
DrĂĽcke, B. (Ed.). (2006). ja! Anarchismus. Gelebte Utopie im 21.
Jahrhundert [yes! Anarchism: Lived utopia in the 21^(st) century].
Berlin, Germany: Karin Kramer Verlag.
Jenrich, H. (1988). Anarchistische Presse in Deutschland 1945–1985
[Anarchist press in Germany 1945–1985]. Grafenau, Germany:
Trotzdemverlag.
After World War I, the anarchist movement in Germany had, for some time,
boasted more than 150,000 active members. After World War II, the few
anarchists who had survived 12 years of Nazi dictatorship tried to
reorganize the movement. In Eastern Germany, in spite of extremely
serious obstacles, the movement survived underground in minimal versions
but came to play a pivotal role in the latter years of the Soviet
system, in significant measure because of some printing concessions
reluctantly conceded to the Protestant Church.
Anarchists had a hard time asserting their anti-authoritarian and
anti-Stalinist positions, especially in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ,
1945–1949). The SBZ ruling powers and, later on, the Communist German
Democratic Republic (GDR) were hostile toward libertarian socialists.
Following Lenin, they defined anarchism as a petty-bourgeois,
pseudo-revolutionary political and ideological current, objectively
functioning to divide the anti-imperialist movement and strengthen
monopoly capitalism.
Because paper was scarce postwar and the Soviet Military Administration
was repressive, libertarian socialists in the SBZ were able to circulate
only a small number of leaflets and circulars. Some activists, like
Willi Jelinek, an agitator from Zwickau who tried to organize a
libertarian-socialist network in the SBZ as early as 1945, were
arrested.
The GDR statist Marxists continued quite successfully suppressing
anarchist, or libertarian-socialist, tendencies. In journalism,
anarchist groups had hardly any perceptible influence up to the
mid-1980s. However, there had been illegal leaflets even in the 1950s
and 1960s. Traces of East German subculture did exist—especially in
niches created by the well-educated. The Extra-Parliamentary Opposition
movement, which came into being in the Federal Republic of Germany in
the mid-1960s, and the neoanarchist groups following in its wake, also
contributed to the GDR opposition movement.
From the 1970s, GDR oppositionists largely advocated socialism. However,
as Wolfgang Rüddenklau, editor of the Umweltblätter (Environment Pages)
magazine, used to put it, the socialism they wanted was real,
democratic, based on workers’ councils, or anarchist—quite opposed to
the ruling regime. The more explicitly anarchist, being but a small part
of a poorly structured opposition, were virtually forced to act in a
conspiratorial fashion.
In the GDR’s “real socialism,” the media published only official
opinions and reports approved by the authorities. There was hardly any
legal access to other sources of information. There were photocopiers in
office and company buildings, but they were under strict surveillance,
and their use was limited to an elite group loyal to the party.
The late 1970s brought changes in the media that were inspired by the
ideas of grassroots democracy and anarchism. Erich Honecker, the
long-time GDR leader, was facing a growing crisis in economic and social
policy. To ease tension, in 1978 he entered into negotiations with
Albrecht Schönherr, the bishop of the East Berlin Protestant churches.
As a result, he granted the church a printing permit for internal
information leaflets, announcements, and the like.
In the following years, this printing permit became a loophole heavily
used by opposition groups. In the early 1980s, a serious civil rights
movement grew up under the auspices of the Protestant Church, completely
independent from the ruling Communist Party. Part of this movement
became increasingly radical and outspoken about their anarchist
positions. In 1982, for example, a politically active group was founded
in Dresden’s church organizations. It became known throughout the GDR by
the name of Anarchistischer Arbeitskreis Wolfspelz (AAW; The “Wolf’s
Clothing” Anarchist Working Group). With the quiet help of a printer at
the newspaper Sächsische Zeitung, they managed to circulate
leaflets—some of them numbering more than 20,000 copies—and to call
people to action.
Other anarchists typed, stenciled, and circulated texts by Mikhail
Bakunin, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, and other anarchist classics.
However, due to the poor copying techniques available, many of the texts
were nearly illegible.
The first libertarian-socialist, underground periodicals in the GDR
appeared in 1986. Like almost all the opposition’s publications, they
were printed and distributed under the relative protection of the
Protestant Church.
Kopfsprung (Header [a soccer move], 1987—1991) was the name of an
overtly anarchist underground magazine. It dated back to the GDR
Protestant Church Congress in 1986 where a group called Kirche von Unten
(Church From Below, KVU) formed “in opposition to the existing church
bureaucracy.” This rather atheistic group did not see themselves as a
Christian base community acting against highly privileged church
dignitaries or as a religious reform group. Instead, they were mainly
anarchists and punks acting against the existing system. Over time,
rather than remaining a mere “anti” movement, KVU grew up to be a group
with positions of its own.
The movement later split into several groups focusing on a variety of
topics. In 1986, KVU issued at least three issues of mOAning-STAR, a
hectographed periodical promoting libertarian-socialist views. The first
issue of Kopfsprung, edited by an anonymous group, appeared in East
Berlin in spring 1987, without stating either date or place of its
publication. The next issues were stenciled and duplicated. The
typewritten, single-column political texts were embedded in a sparse
layout but enlivened by handmade drawings and lyrics.
In 1986, the liberal-left Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte (Peace
and Human Rights Initiative) in East Berlin launched the uncensored
Grenzfall (Marginal Case), which became widely distributed throughout
the GDR. Unlike the Umweltblätter, the editors of Grenzfall did not
consider their project anarchist.
The goals pursued by anarchist groups such as KVU, AAW, and
Umwelt-Bibliothek Ostberlin (East Berlin Environment Library) were
different. They believed that, by expanding on the freedoms to be gained
after a reform of the GDR or by undermining the state structure, they
would be able to start the process they wanted—the process of growing a
“new society from below.”
In the fall of 1986, Umweltblätter, subtitled “Informational Bulletin of
the Peace and Environment Circle,” appeared in East Berlin, initially
published by the Umwelt-Bibliothek, an anarchist group founded that year
under the Zion Parish Church’s “umbrella.” Umweltblätter, like most, was
stenciled and duplicated in A4 format, with the heading “Internal church
information only. “ Due to the poor print and layout quality, the
single-column texts were often difficult to read.
Nevertheless, the small libertarian-socialist movement used
Umweltblätter as their organ. They tried to “convey an unobtrusively
anarchist attitude,” as their editor Wolfgang Rüddenklau put it. They
primarily published articles dealing with suppressed information on
everyday life in the GDR. In winter 1986—1987, Umweltblätter disclosed
the fact that the upper limits of smog concentration had been exceeded
ninefold in Berlin. The GDR authorities were not happy to read this and
were not happy about the fact that the periodical was developing into a
GDR-wide discussion forum used by a variety of independent
environmentalist, peace, and civil and human rights groups. Indeed, the
magazine, passed from reader to reader, created a counter-public sphere,
in spite of its relatively low nominal circulation of 600 copies.
In November 1987, the controversies between the GDR authorities and
opposition groups reached a new pitch. The night of November 24, the
secret police—known as the Stasi (abbreviation for State Security)—for
the first time searched the Protestant Church’s premises. Five people
were arrested. The raid was aimed at Umweltblätter, of which 12 issues
had been published by that time, and Grenzfall. About 20 Stasi and the
state prosecutor’s officials confiscated copying machines, manuscripts,
and books published in the West.
This prompted public protest and vigils throughout the GDR. Dissidents
who had been shunted off to West Germany in earlier years provided a
regular flow of information about these events, obtaining international
media coverage. In the end all those arrested were released and the
charges dropped. Umweltblätter continued publishing.
In 1994, RĂĽddenklau would observe that the Zion Parish Church affair was
the beginning of the end of the GDR. From then on, domestic crises
repeatedly showed that the regime could no longer rely on the terror
that had kept people in fear and secured the GDR’s existence.
Understanding that the emperor had no clothes, people took to the
streets in growing numbers until, in late 1989, the regime broke down.
The successful ending of the Zion affair gave an enormous boost to the
opposition’s publications. Although the Stasi was successful in stopping
Grenzfall with the help of repeated technical sabotage carried out by an
“unofficial collaborator,” Umweltblätter simply took over Grenzfall’s
role as a GDR-wide opposition periodical. Correspondents from numerous
towns and villages in the GDR forwarded news, comments, analyses, and
general descriptions of the situation to East Berlin and had them
published in Umweltblätter.
In early October 1989, things started happening very fast. The
Umweltblätter editorial group decided to keep pace by issuing 7-to
10-page newsletters every few days, “as needed.” On October 9, when the
crisis reached its first crunch point, the magazine appeared under the
title telegraph for the first time. (This title continues to the present
day for a now irregularly appearing publication.)
Troops had been massed against the Leipzig Monday Rally. Armored scout
cars and other army vehicles were patrolling the inner city of Leipzig.
RĂĽddenklau recalled in 1994 that printing the first 4,000 copies of the
first issue on rickety duplicating machines was a laborious task. These
copies sold out to the demonstrators at the East Berlin Gethsemane
Church in a matter of 20 minutes. Another print run of 2,000 copies
followed while the next issue was being prepared.
From now on, telegraph continued at intervals of 7 to 10 days. The
editors did their own investigations, and their work was based on
anti-Stalinist as well as anticapitalist views. This was how they
critically accompanied the transition from one system to another. There
were numerous articles on how to come to terms with the past, on the
Stasi, and on the partially anarchist opposition movement.
In 1989, the small oppositional scene grew into a mass movement.
Hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the powerholders in East
Berlin under the slogan, “We are the people!” On November 8, the
Politburo resigned and instantly reassembled under the leadership of
Egon Krenz.
After the Berlin Wall was opened the next day, GDR libertarian-socialist
groups began procuring paper and printing facilities outside church
facilities. Contacts with groups and printing collectives in the West
intensified. Whereas communists and anti-imperialists rejected the
anarchist movement in the GDR as being “anticommunist,” many anarchists
in the East and the West rejoiced at the fall of the Wall and the
“incipient decline of state capitalism.”
Anarchism in the GDR contributed more to the fall of communism than is
generally known today.
Bernd DrĂĽcke
See also Anarchist and Libertarian Media, 1945–2010 (Federal Germany) ;
Anarchist Media ; Citizens’ Media ; EuroMayDay ; Free Radio Movement
(Italy) ; Indymedia (The Independent Media Center) ; Prague Spring Media
; Revolutionary Media 1956 (Hungary) ; Samizdat Underground Media
(Soviet Bloc)
DrĂĽcke, B. (1998). Zwischen Schreibtisch und StraĂźenschlacht?
Anarchismus und libertäre Presse in Ost-und Westdeutschland [Between
writing desk and street battle? Anarchism and the libertarian press in
East and West Germany]. Ulm, Germany: Verlag Klemm & Oelschläger.
DrĂĽcke, B. (Ed.). (2006). ja! Anarchismus. Gelebte Utopie im 21.
Jahrhundert [yes! Anarchism: Lived utopia in the 21^(st) century].
Berlin, Germany: Karin Kramer Verlag.
Rüddenklau, W. (1992). Störenfried [Mischief maker]. Berlin, Germany:
Verlag BasisDruck.