Action analytical organization

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The Action Analysis Organization (AAO), also known as AA-Kommune, Muehl-Kommune or Friedrichshof-Gruppen, was a commune that emerged from a shared apartment in 1970 and was founded by the action artist Otto Muehl . In its heyday it comprised up to 600 members. The AAO saw itself as a social experiment, as a model of a future form of coexistence and described its principles as “new humanism”.

Basics

Muehl's Vienna Commune was initially one of many. In the summer of 1972 Muehl began to set up consultation hours for the members and immediately called this treatment "action analysis". The theoretical basis of the AAO that has now emerged was a postulated return to nature and free love . Further theoretical foundations were a mixture of theses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Karl Marx , Wilhelm Reich (“character analysis”), psychodrama , Arthur Janov (“primal scream”) and slogans of the 1968 left student movement for the liberation of sexuality.

The AAO attributed social conditions to the harmful effects of life in small families. The character armor that was created in this way was to be broken up by radically breaking through all feelings of fear, shame and disgust as well as taboos in a kind of drama called “self-expression” within the commune . That should lead to a kind of "rebirth" and a higher consciousness ("AA consciousness"). The aim was a new model of society to be introduced worldwide. For a while, the community members were numbered according to their corresponding "level of consciousness" in the sense of a pecking order .

In the opinion of critics, however, the AAO was an authoritarian and hierarchical organization with irrevocable promises of salvation, shortened answers to complex problems that are repeatedly attributed to an overly repressive approach to sexuality, an extreme isolation from criticism and doubt, elitist and sometimes eschatological ideas and a very strong focus on Otto Muehl as a leader and thought leader, which led to controversial and sometimes very critical evaluations.

1970s

AAO teams appeared at various German universities in the 1970s to promote their cause. The members were immediately recognized by their uniform clothing, dungarees, and their short-cut hair, which was very unusual among young people at the time.

An essential basis of the AAO was, in addition to free, shared sexuality, the abolition of private property. There should only be common property. Therefore the members had to donate their entire wealth to the community. From 1974 the head office was set up in Friedrichshof in the market town of Zurndorf in Burgenland . Several children were born here in the following years who were considered to be common children. In many other cities there were branches whose economic basis was craft businesses; the proceeds were administered jointly. Every member was obliged to work in their own businesses. The AAO ran agriculture, cleared out and ran shops and cafes. There was also its own literature production company.

Decline

With the reintroduction of private property, the AAO gradually became more bourgeois. As early as 1978, private property was re-admitted to a limited extent, with each member being granted their own disposal amount. In 1979 the principle of community ownership was declared ended. Uniform clothing also disappeared. The movement lost momentum and many members turned their backs on it. Otto Muehl, who seemed to be fading more and more into the background, finally dared to make a completely new beginning in 1986: he emigrated to the Canary Island of La Gomera with around 200 loyal followers . He broke with the previous principle of shared sexuality and declared Claudia Weissensteiner his "first" wife and her son his future successor. In the manner of a patriarch, he ruled his crumbling "empire" until he was indicted in an Austrian court.

resolution

Otto Muehl , founder and head of the group, was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment on November 13, 1991 in Eisenstadt in Burgenland, Austria. The charges were the practices in his organization, fornication and sexual intercourse with minors, abuse of a relationship of authority and various drug offenses. Muehl admitted most of the accusations. According to later statements by Muehl, which were broadcast on Bavarian television, many members of the AAO were involved in sexual abuse, for which various reports exist. Following the sentencing, the group broke up.

The AAO helped shape later community experiments. Dieter Duhm , according to his own statement, took "first inspirations" from this. According to Andreas Schlothauer (dropout and author), the first concept of the ZEGG was developed within the AAO.

Muehl was released from prison in 1997. Elements of the AAO lived on in various start-ups, including a small group around Muehl himself. Otto Muehl died in May 2013 in his domicile in Portugal.

Quote

"Anyone who wants to abolish war must first eliminate the nuclear family."

- Otto Mühl, after Frank Nordhausen and Liane von Billerbeck : Psycho sects. P. 187.

documentary

literature

  • The AA model volume 1, AAO, Action-Analytical Organization of Conscious Life Practice , AA-Verlag, Neusiedl / See 1976, ISBN 3-85386-003-6 . (Contains the Commune Manifesto 1973 and other short texts by Otto Muehl and other authors; the announced Volume 2 has not been published.)
  • AAO - Pros and Cons. Critical comments on the AAO. AA-Verlag, Nuremberg 1977, ISBN 3-85386-004-4 . (Statements by Volker Elis Pilgrim , Dieter Duhm , Aike Blechschmidt , Rudolf Mraz and others)
  • Bernd Laska : The Action-Analytical Organization Vienna . In: Wilhelm-Reich-Blätter, Heft 3, 1976, pp. 42–43
  • The trap. AAO = continuation of politics by other means. Parallel-Verlag, (West) Berlin 1977 (authors: Jürgen Fischer, Peter Eedy, John Joachim Trettin, Friedel Kremer, Willi Trienen)
  • Handbook of Religious Communities, Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh 2nd edition 1979, ISBN 3-579-03585-1 .
  • Hermann Klinger: AAO: KO or How we do not imagine liberation. (Diploma thesis), self-published, [approx. 1980]
  • Andreas Schlothauer: The dictatorship of free sexuality. AAO, Mühl-Kommune, Friedrichshof. Publishing house for social criticism, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-85115-157-7 .
  • Peter Stoeckl: Commune and ritual. The failure of a utopian community. Campus publishing house, Frankfurt a. M. / New York 1994.
  • Frank Nordhausen, Liane von Billerbeck: Psycho sects - the practices of the soul catcher. Verlag Chr. Links, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-86153-135-6 ( section on AAO )
  • Toni Elisabeth Altenberg: My life in the Mühlkommune. Free sexuality and collective obedience. Verlag Böhlau, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-205-98953-8 .
  • Theo Altenberg: The Paradise Experiment. The utopia of free sexuality. Friedrichshof Commune 1973-1978. The Paradise Experiment. The Utopia of Free Sexuality. Friedrichshof Commune 1973-1978. Triton Verlag, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85486-091-9 .
  • Robert Fleck: The Mühl Commune. Free sexuality and actionism. Story of an experiment. Walter König, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-88375-453-6
  • Friedrich-Wilhelm Haack / Bernd Dürholt / Jutta Künzel-Böhmer / Willi Röder: "Therapy" as a substitute for religion - the Otto Muehl movement. Working group for religious and ideological issues, Documentation Edition 18, 1st edition Munich 1990, 178 pp.

See also

Material action

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Toni Elisabeth Altenberg, p. 12
  2. ↑ See e.g. B. Frank Nordhausen, Liane von Billerbeck: Psycho sects. The practices of the soul catcher. CH. Links Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-86153-135-6 , excerpts online .
  3. ↑ cf. Andreas Schlothauer: The dictatorship of free sexuality. AAO, Mühl-Kommune, Friedrichshof. Publishing house for social criticism, Vienna 1992, p. 126.
  4. ^ Report by Bavarian TV on March 6, 2004 in the cultural program Capriccio [1]
  5. ↑ From Schlothauer: The dictatorship of free sexuality : “Another shock for the pubescent boys and girls from 12, 13, 14 years of age was that there was no gentle, loving, self-determined entry into the world of sexuality, but that Mühl and his Woman who introduced young people personally to free sexuality. ”Mühl tried to break through the strong resistance - especially from some girls - by applying pressure.
  6. ↑ cf. Andreas Schlothauer: The dictatorship of free sexuality. AAO, Mühl-Kommune, Friedrichshof. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna 1992, pp. 111, 126.
  7. ↑ Rüdiger Paulsen, Hans and Susan Schroeder-Rozelle, Elke and Ulf von Sparre: “According to the latest state of knowledge, Otto Muehl started in the 1970s, toddlers from the age of 4–5. Sexually abusing them regularly over many years. This abuse even took place in part in the presence of his small leadership group and was not discussed in the 1991 trial. "
  8. ↑ See also the report in Spiegel 10/2004 of March 1, 2004.
  9. ↑ Andreas Schlothauer: The dictatorship of free sexuality. AAO, Mühl-Kommune, Friedrichshof : “The left-wing intellectuals in the AAO were given more freedom to develop their ideas. Dieter Duhm and Aike Blechschmidt jointly designed the concept of a 'Center for Experimental Society Design' (ZEGG). "