Mescalero from Göttingen

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The Göttingen Mescalero was the pseudonymous author of the text Buback - An Obituary , who in 1977 commented on the assassination of the Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback by the Red Army Fraction (RAF) in a way that could be interpreted as approval of the murder. The Mescalero affair sparked a controversial public debate about sympathizers and the relationship of the extreme left to RAF terrorism . In 2001, the future German teacher Klaus Hülbrock confessed to his authorship, after he personally contacted the murdered man's son, the Göttingen chemistry professor Michael Buback , in 1999.

Buback - an obituary

The text was written shortly before the culmination point of West German terrorism, the German Autumn . The discussion about terrorism also took place in the media. A dispute arose over sympathizers who judged the Federal Republic similarly to the terrorists, but rejected the terror itself. Criticism has been raised that the rule of law is getting under the wheels in the fight against terrorism. In a political climate of fear, suspicion spread.

In his pamphlet Buback - an obituary , which was published on April 25, 1977 in the newspaper of the AStA of the University of Göttingen , the Göttinger Nachrichten , the Göttinger Mescalero describes his spontaneous joy over the murder of Buback:

“My immediate reaction, my 'dismay' after Buback was shot down, is quickly described: I couldn't and didn't want (and don't want to) hide a secret joy. I've heard this guy rush a lot. I know that he played a prominent role in the persecution, criminalization and torture of leftists. "

The scribe called himself " City Indians " and signed the pamphlet with " Mescalero ", the name of an Apache tribe. He identified himself as a member of the Undogmatic Spring movement , which at that time provided the Göttingen AStA with the “Socialist Alliance List”.

In the media, in particular, the "secret joy" expressed by the author was quoted and criticized. The second part of the text, which contained a partial renunciation of violence, was mostly not published by the media at the time. For example, the author opposed the use of force “regardless of the respective 'political economic situation'” - that is, without taking public opinion into account. "These considerations alone were enough to stop inner hand rubbing." He also criticized the too great responsibility for individuals to decide which target persons were "suitable victims" and the lack of acceptance among the population: "We all have to get away from it. to hate the oppressors of the people on behalf of the people. ”Finally, he demanded that the terrorists should stand out from the system against which they were fighting, not only in terms of aim, but also in terms of means, and that a new concept of militancy should be developed:

"Our purpose, a society without terror and violence (even if not without aggression and militancy), [...] this end does not justify every means, but only some. Our path to socialism (because of me: anarchy) cannot be paved with corpses. [...] Developing a concept and a practice of violence / militancy that are cheerful and have the blessing of the masses involved, that is (turned to the practical end) our daily task. "

Reactions

Four days after the appearance, the RCDS filed a criminal complaint . The Göttingen judicial authorities initiated an investigation . The President of the Lower Saxony State Parliament, Heinz Müller (CDU), also filed a criminal complaint. There were searches by heavily armed police units at the ASTA at the University of Göttingen and among members of various left-wing groups in Göttingen. The article was viewed by the security authorities as support for terrorism and the killers of Buback. The state is investigating a number of the suspected editors and authors for alleged support for terrorism and Buback's murder.

Thereupon there were solidarity actions throughout the Federal Republic, the initiators of which were of the opinion that the freedom of the press in the Federal Republic guaranteed such an expression of opinion. The Buback obituary was reprinted en masse. The initiators expressly did not adopt the content of the text as their own.

Students were the first to react: student newspapers published copies of the pamphlet at various universities. As a result, they sometimes had to deal with fines or problems with the university administration.

Then in June 1977 there was a reprint by a number of German professors, other university members and lawyers, which was expanded to include a preface. The 48 editors, including 17 people from Bremen , 14 from Berlin and 10 from Oldenburg , criticized the reaction of the state and society and called for “a public discussion of the entire article”. They admitted that this obituary "violated the rules of civil decency in form and content." Nevertheless, they thought a publication would be desirable and justified that u. a. as follows:

“This obituary has sparked violent reactions: its dissemination is being followed by the judiciary, police forces and university administrations; In the mass media, including in the bourgeois-liberal newspapers, this obituary is declared as the product of “sick brains” and a prime example of “pure fascism” ( Frankfurter Rundschau ). The full text is not published anywhere; on the contrary, the central intention of the article - its rejection of the use of force - is suppressed. "

An association of left bookstores, the VLB, also printed the obituary. This in an annotated brochure. With the Göttingen AStA and others who reprinted the article, there were a total of more than 140 accused. Criminal proceedings were only opened against a few. The proceedings, most recently against 13 university professors from Lower Saxony and 35 colleagues from the rest of Germany who had published a documentation Buback - an obituary , mostly ended with acquittals or smaller fines. However, there were also convictions. In Augsburg , a 29-year-old was sentenced to six months in prison without parole for distributing the “obituary”. The case of the Lower Saxony university professor Peter Brückner attracted particular attention . He was u. a. suspended from duty for co-editing in October 1977; the suspension was lifted in October 1981 after four years of judicial review.

Aftermath

In December 1979, Mescalero from Göttingen anonymously addressed the portrayal of himself in the media in course book 58 :

"In the German Autumn [then] there was a Rumpelstiltskin pleasure that consisted of remaining unrecognized and at the same time observing at close quarters all those procedures that turned me into a poor theory-hostile sausage, a coward, a terrorist sympathizer, who might be able to pick up the gun tomorrow to finally give in to his lust for murder, which he has been painstakingly restrained; or the unfortunate victim of a poor upbringing in a middle-class family; or governor with a completely different intention, which aims to gag the labor movement and restrict the Basic Law; [...] I wasn't all of that [...] was a good inmate of a dormitory during that time, who didn't attract anyone's attention, was an honest dog lover and forest walker, desperate debtor of many creditors, collector and dealer of junk and knickknacks, skat player, television, right through and through and not alternative, well-established and well-fed and a member of a political men's round table, who pitched their windy tents because of a strong tendency to drunkenness [...] and none of this is particularly funny or particularly subversive, but also not to cry about . "

In 2001 the literary scholar and German teacher Klaus Hülbrock (* 1947) identified himself to the taz as the Göttingen Mescalero and pointed out that in 1999 he had written a letter to Michael Buback , the son of the murdered Attorney General. In it he expressed, wrote Hülbrock in an open letter 2001, that his words from 1977 "hurt him today".

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Michael Buback spoke in 2007 in connection with the discussion about the release of Christian Klar and Brigitte Mohnhaupt about the Mescalero letter:

“I found it a relief when the author revealed himself in a letter to me more than two decades later. I wrote this to him too, although it was not easy for me to write the letter and I would have liked to see less resonant salutations than 'Dear Mr. H.' would have been usable. "

literature

  • Peter Brückner : The Mescalero Affair: a lesson for enlightenment and political culture . Internationalismus Buchladen u. Verlagsgesellschaft, Hannover 1977. Republished several times, most recently Anares-Verlag, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-935716-64-8 .
  • Stefan Spiller: The sympathizer as an enemy of the state. The Mescalero Affair . In: Wolfgang Kraushaar (ed.): The RAF and left-wing terrorism . Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-936096-65-1 , pp. 1227-1259.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Why Klaus Hülbrock wants to establish "Goethe's Gurkentruppe" in Weimar . In: [1]
  2. ↑ '68 debate: quarrel of the chiefs . In: [2]
  3. ↑ "One in five thinks something like Mescalero". Berlin's Senator for Science Peter Glotz about sympathizers and the situation at universities. In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1977, pp. 49-63 ( online - the interview doesn't have that topic directly, but it is mentioned casually that there are legal proceedings against students who reprinted the "Buback obituary").
  4. ↑ How to roll the dice . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1978, pp. 62–65 ( online - More than 100 proceedings against “reprinters” are mentioned here and some judgments are pointed out.).
  5. ^ "Buback - an obituary" , June 1977.
  6. ^ Butz Peters : RAF: The German Terror Year 1977 . On: Welt-Online, February 18, 2007.
  7. ↑ Mescalero: Memoirs of a city Indian graying in office or: Attempt to dissolve a career in nothing . In: Karl Markus Michel , Harald Wieser (Ed.): Course book 58. Careers . Kursbuch / Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 1979, p. 21 ff.
  8. ↑ An encounter with Klaus Hülbrock. A yellow flower blooms on the television . In: taz , February 10, 2001: "Two years ago, Mescalero declared himself for the first time in a letter to Buback's son Michael."
  9. ↑ Klaus Hülbrock: MESCALERO. Open letter to Michael Buback (graphic) ; (Text) . In: RZ-Online , January 28, 2001. Compare the editorial text: “Mescalero” reveals itself: Sorry to Buback-Sohn . In: RZ-Online , January 28, 2001.
  10. ↑ Michael Buback: Debate about release. Strange, distant murderers . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 24, 2007, p. 2 (online version from January 23, 2007).
personal data
SURNAME Mescalero from Göttingen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hülbrock, Klaus (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author of the text "Buback - An Obituary"
DATE OF BIRTH 1947