Bernd Langer

Bernd Langer (* 1960 in Bad Lauterberg ) is a former member of the autonomous scene, artist and writer.

Life

Langer has been associated with the autonomous scene since 1977. He was involved in militant actions as well as in the organization of the autonomous Antifa movement in Bad Lauterberg , the West Harz, Eichsfeld, Göttingen and the surrounding area.

In addition, art plays a major role in his life. With others he initiated KuK (Art and Combat) in the mid-1980s, an initiative that propagated a new concept of art and in the framework of which mainly posters, but also oil paintings, were created that were increasingly persecuted by state security agencies.

At the end of the 1980s, Langer advocated the development of a policy of alliance between the autonomous and established political organizations ( trade unions , the Greens , etc.). From 1981 to 1989, he worked nationwide in the North German Antifa Coordination, which resulted in the first nationwide Antifa structure. In the 1990s he was a well-known member of the Autonomen Antifa (M) in Göttingen, which was part of the Antifascist Action / Nationwide Organization (AA / BO). In 1995 he was one of 17 defendants in proceedings against the Autonome Antifa (M) for the formation of or advertising for a criminal or terrorist organization (§129 and §129a StGB ). The trial was the largest at the time that was conducted against the left-wing scene in the Federal Republic. The investigation and the indictment were based among others. a. on a poster by KuK and were only discontinued in 1996 after a settlement with the public prosecutor's office.

Langer has lived in Berlin since 2001 . One focus of his work in recent years has been the discussion of the history of the revolutionary, anti-fascist movement, just as art remains his central concern. Among other things, he appeared in the initiative “48 hours Neukölln” in 2007 with an exhibition of his oil paintings. Further exhibitions took place in 2009 in the Junge Welt shop gallery and in the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin

In 1997 his book "Art as Resistance" was published, in which the work of KuK and its persecution are documented. In 2004, Bernd Langer's autobiographical novel "Operation 1653 - Stay rude, stay rebel" followed. In September 2009 the catalog for the exhibition “The art goes on” was published in Tacheles. His book “Revolution and armed uprisings in Germany 1918-1923” has been available since March 2010.

In September 2015 Bernd Langer was sentenced to a fine of 500 euros for approving a crime and disturbing the public peace. In an interview, he described an attack on the new right-wing weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit in 1994 as “a super action”. Langer announced that he would appeal. In December 2017, Bernd Langer was finally acquitted by the Berlin Court of Appeal.

Bernd Langer also speaks out in daily political media, for example in the Junge Welt , the taz or the New Germany .

Publications

• Art as resistance. Posters, oil paintings, campaigns, texts from the Kunst und Kampf initiative. Pahl-Rugenstein, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-89144-240-8 (English translation under the title Art as Resistance [...] Aktiv-Druck und Verlag, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-932210-03-4 )
• Operation 1653. Stay rude - stay rebel. Plättners, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-9808807-0-2
• Struggle. Evidence from the autonomous resistance. Audio book "Operation 1653", picture gallery and video. Aktiv-Druck und Verlag, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-932210-02-6 (electronic resource, consisting of an audio CD / CD-ROM and a video CD)
• The art continues: looking back ahead. Posters, paintings, campaigns. Verlag Tacheles, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-9812503-9-8
• Revolution and armed uprisings in Germany 1918-1923 , Aktiv-Druck und Verlag, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-932210-07-5
• 80 years of Antifascist Action , Association for the Promotion of Antifascist Culture eV, Göttingen 2012
• Did we do everything right? Interview on the resistance in Buchenwald concentration camp with Paul Grünewald , CD, Berlin 2013
• Antifascist Action - History of a Left Radical Movement , UNRAST-Verlag, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-89771-574-5
• Art as resistance - the American issue. Posters, Oil Paintings, Actions, Texts from the German projekt Kunst und Kampf (Art and Struggle) , Little Black Card, Berkeley / USA 2015, newly translated and updated edition
• Antifascist Action - History of a Left Radical Movement , 2nd updated and expanded edition, UNRAST-Verlag, Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-89771-581-3
• Art and combat , UNRAST-Verlag, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-89771-582-0
• The flame of the revolution. Germany 1918/19 , UNRAST-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89771-234-8
• Antifa: histoire du mouvement antifasciste allemand / Bernd Langer; traduit de l'allemand par Sarah Berg , Montreuil 2018, ISBN 978-2-37729-050-5
• Antifascist Action - History of a Left-Wing Radical Movement , 3rd updated and expanded edition, UNRAST-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89771-259-1
• The 1918 sailors' uprising in Kiel , October 2018, 16-page brochure, with comic illustrations throughout
• All power to the councils - 100 years of the Berlin January Uprising , 40-page brochure, Berlin 2019, DNB 1174923385
• Leipzig, March 1920: Fight against the Kapp Putsch , 34-page brochure, Leipzig 2020, DNB 1206372605
• Cottbus, March 1920: The resistance against the Kapp Putsch in Niederlausitz , 36-page, illustrated brochure, Cottbus 2020, DNB 1207553379

Web links

• Literature by and about Bernd Langer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Bernd Langer's website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Paul Liszt: "We had the militant antifa monopoly" (Neues Deutschland). In: neue-deutschland.de. November 1, 2014, accessed September 28, 2015 . 
2. ↑ Peter Nowak : Fine for Antifa activists: "A super action". In: taz.de . September 23, 2015, accessed September 28, 2015 . 
3. ^ Elsa Koester: acquittal for anti-fascist Bernd Langer. In: neue-deutschland.de , December 20, 2017, accessed on December 27, 2017
4. ↑ See for example: Fire freely. Berlin "Blutmai" [May 1, 1929], in: Junge Welt, April 29, 2019.