Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Memorial stone at Lanzenanger in Burglengenfeld

The Anti-WAAhnsinns-Festivals were seven politically motivated rock concerts in Burglengenfeld , Bavaria , which  took place in the 1980s to support the protests against the planned Wackersdorf reprocessing plant (WAW).

"German Woodstock"

In 1986, the fifth of these festivals (also known as the “German Woodstock ”) marked the climax of the citizens' protests against the WAA: With over 100,000 visitors on July 26th and 27th, 1986, Burglengenfeld experienced the largest rock concert in German history to date the best-known interpreters of the German rock music scene - from BAP , Die Toten Hosen , Udo Lindenberg , Rodgau Monotones , Purple Schulz , Rio Reiser to Herbert Grönemeyer - were represented. As a result, the anti-nuclear movement received an unprecedented media response. Around 6,000 police officers were on duty around Burglengenfeld; Contrary to many fears on the part of the government authorities, the event was absolutely peaceful.

"When, late in the evening of the second day, around 100,000 people were singing ' Somewhere over the Rainbow ' with Rio Reiser in the glow of lighters, the movement had its awakening experience, its Woodstock."

- Christoph Seils in Der Tagesspiegel 2007

The beginnings of the festival

The first Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival took place in 1982 in Burglengenfeld on the Lanzenanger site. The autonomous youth center Burglengenfeld was in charge of this. Such music festivals already had a long tradition in the youth center; between 2000 and 4000 people attended the annual concerts. Since many members of the youth center were also actively involved in the resistance against the reprocessing plant, the board decided to turn it into an "anti-WAA" festival. The main aim of the events was to generate greater public interest in the WAA and the protests. Thanks to the committed cultural work of the youth center, it was possible to very quickly establish contacts with Bavarian musicians such as Haindling or Biermösl Blosn , who also spoke out publicly against the construction of the reprocessing plant. Since these festivals met with ever greater public response, the idea matured to inspire a number of artists known throughout Germany - such as BAP, Udo Lindenberg, Herbert Grönemeyer or Die Toten Hosen - for the project. Last but not least, the good contacts with the management of BAP contributed to the fact that the record company EMI Electrola was able to persuade its artists to participate in the festival.

The festival as a political bone of contention

The original intention of the organizers was to have the anti-WAAhnsinns festival take place in the immediate vicinity of the WAA site. After violent riots on Easter and Whitsun , the climate in both camps, especially due to the Chernobyl disaster , worsened. The Bavarian state government issued a " ban mile " of 120 square kilometers around the site of the reprocessing plant. The organizers finally decided on the Lanzenanger in Burglengenfeld as the venue. In the run-up to the planning, some CSU city ​​councilors and the mayor of Burglengenfeld, Stefan Bawidamann, had expressed massive concerns and feared riots on the sidelines of the festival. At the city council meeting on June 18, 1986, the organizers' request to hold the open-air concert on the site was discussed in detail. At that time, two blocs faced each other in the city council: the SPD faction on the one hand, the CSU and 'Free Voters' on the other. The vote of the mayor Bawidamann was decisive, so that the voting ratio of 13 to 12 was usually in favor of the CSU. In the decisive vote, however, the city council surprisingly approved the festival - the decisive factor was the 27-year-old CSU city councilor Josef Bachfischer.

Although the Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival was officially approved by the city, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior and the Upper Palatinate government announced their intention to ban the event in early July 1986. At that time, the organizers had already sold 60,000 tickets. A special meeting of the city council was scheduled for July 15, which again voted to hold the festival. After the vote, the Mayor Bawidamann declared the vote to be invalid, citing Article 19 of the State Penal and Ordinance Act, as this seems necessary to "prevent dangers to life, health or property or to protect the general public from considerable nuisance". The decision on the approval of the festival was now in the hands of the next highest supervisory authority - the Schwandorf district office . The District Administrator Hans Schuierer declared the decision of the city council to be legally valid and instructed the government of the Upper Palatinate to re-examine the legality of the repeal of the city council resolution.

In the meantime, the “Association for Advice and Promotion of Cultural Youth Work”, which was founded especially for the festival, applied to the Regensburg Administrative Court for an injunction to restore the resolution of the Burglengenfeld City Council; There were only a few days left before the festival began. It was only because of the countless voluntary helpers that it was possible to carry out the construction work within a very short time after the final legal approval had been granted by the Bavarian Administrative Court in Munich. The Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival was able to take place on the Lanzenanger from July 26th to 27th as planned, but with some restrictions: no stalls were allowed to be set up and no alcohol served on the festival site, visitors were limited to 35,000 (later 40,000) and one Enlargement of the parking areas for 10,000 cars and 200 buses as well as their minimum distance of 15 kilometers to the WAA.

The festival

The event area on the Burglengenfelder Lanzenanger was divided into two sections. In the sector closer to the stage, loudspeaker towers were also set up for participants who were far away from the stage. Behind it was the area prepared for the overnight visitors.

The Kuhle Wampe motorcycle club took care of admission and security . Feces had to be removed almost every hour. Fields within a radius of several kilometers were leased by the organizer as parking areas. Some of these areas were harvested shortly before the festival began, even though the grain was not yet ripe. Because such a high number of visitors was not expected, additional fields had to be designated as parking spaces at short notice. On such an area as a stubble field, near the village of Greinhof, a hot catalytic converter caused a conflagration in which several vehicles burned out. Only through the courageous commitment of a farmer who dug a firebreak with the plow could major damage be prevented.

The town of Burglengenfeld, with a population of around 10,000, was not prepared for such an influx of visitors. On the eve of the festival, all basic foods and alcoholic beverages were sold out in the city's supermarkets. Several shops closed and did not open on the following Saturday. With no cell phones yet, the church doors were full of pinned written notices telling whom to meet whom. Every shell was used by visitors as a “roof over their head”, as a place to sleep. In the village there were no thefts, property damage or even riots feared by the population, but at the festival there were problems with numerous stewards from the Kuhlen Wampe. Around eighty cash registers were openly taken from several gastronomic stands, many of which did not reappear later, as well as around 184,000 DM, which, according to the expert opinion of a sworn auditor, were taken without authorization.

21 artists and groups with over 600 musicians created a 28-hour program over 2 days and waived their fees. The income of over DM 900,000 should help strengthen the WAA resistance and reduce the costs of the trial for demonstrators who were brought to justice.

Eisi Gulp and Evi Seibert hosted the program . A total of 600 journalists from 10 countries reported on the WAAhnsinn; 1300 volunteers ensured that everything went almost smoothly. There is different information about the number of visitors participating in the festival. It is said to have been over 100,000 (120,000), which in view of the available space does not seem completely impossible.

aftermath

After the WAA in Wackersdorf ended in 1986, the 5th Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival remained a unique event in terms of the number of spectators (100,000 visitors) and the quality of the musicians performing. "In memory of the resistance against the WAA in Wackersdorf and the peaceful music festival in 1986" a memorial stone was erected on the "Lanzenanger" event site in Burglengenfeld.

Line up

Film and sound documents

  • WAAHNSINN - The double live LP or double live CD from the 5th WAAhnsinnsfestival 26./27. July '86 Burglengenfeld
    Musically, the festival was recorded as an unedited live recording on both a double live LP (1986) and a double live CD  (2008). The LP was released under the EMI label, the proceeds of which went to the citizens' initiatives against the WAA. - The booklet lets many artists have their say and Günter Wallraff's speech can also be read in it.
  • WAAhnsinn - The Wackersdorf Film (Documentary, 1986)
  • Waahnrock - video reconstruction by WAAhnsinn (1987)
  • 3 chords for a hallelujah (documentary about the music group "Die Toten Hosen", 1989 - the film contains festival recordings of the band from July 27, 1986.)
  • Wackersdorf (feature film, 2018)

literature

  • Mike Allnutt, Michael Herl (eds.): WAAhnsinn - The Wackersdorf film. The film images, songs, texts, speeches, interviews, documents , Nördlingen 1986. ISBN 978-3-89190-750-4
  • Florian Hoffarth: "You have the fortress, we have the festival" - The 'Anti-WAAhnsinns-Festival' 1986 as the climax of the citizens' protests against the reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf , in: Annual volume on culture and history in the Schwandorf district, vol. 16/17 (2005/06), ed. from the district of Schwandorf, pp. 102–123.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Franziska Biederer: "The festival will be the German Woodstock". Mittelbayerische.de, March 10, 2012, accessed on March 12, 2016 .
  2. concertbuero-franken.de: Advertising poster for the 5th Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival. Archived from the original on August 10, 2014 ; accessed on March 12, 2016 .
  3. Defend yourself, resist - 25 years ago the battle for Wackersdorf began. A revival of the anti-nuclear movement ( Der Tagesspiegel of February 17, 2007)
  4. HOU: Evaporation long ago - Onetz. onetz.de , July 27, 2016, accessed on March 11, 2020 .
  5. A motley crowd in the fight against the WAA - 100,000 people celebrated the Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival in July 1986. Organizer Walter Dürr remembers wild days. - ( Mittelbayerische Zeitung of July 29, 2011)
  6. ^ "Anti-WAAhnsinnsfestival" in Wackersdorf - 25 years ago the biggest rock concert in German history took place - ( Deutschlandradio Kultur from July 26th, 2011)
  7. With music against atom and lobby - tones! Stones? Shards. - ( The time of July 25, 1986)
  8. cf. this z. B. steals the till - folders in the rocker look grabbed eighty till at the giant anti-nuclear festival in Burglengenfeld, Bavaria. Since then, almost 200,000 marks have disappeared. - ( Der Spiegel of January 26, 1987)
  9. WAAhnsinn and fun in Burglengenfeld - Ulrich Stock reports on the Anti-Wackersdorf Festival - ( The time of August 1, 1986)
  10. 25 years later: A look back at the Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival in Burglengenfeld 1986 - ( Schwandorfer Wochenblatt of July 27, 2011)
  11. Burglengenfeld: "It was an obligation for all of us" - songwriter Wolf Maahn and his moving visit to the "Lanzenanger" - ( Oberpfalznetz, November 25, 2013)
  12. WAAHNSINN - The double live LP and double live LP from the 5th WAAhnsinnsfestival 26./27. July '86 Burglengenfeld - (music collector)
  13. VARIOUS ARTISTS - Waahnsinn - Live at Wackersdorf - (Terrorverlag, accessed on August 12, 2014)
  14. Woodstock in Wackersdorf - ( Musikexpress of January 2, 1987)

Web links

Coordinates: 49 ° 12 '  N , 12 ° 1'  E