Hartmut Gründler

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Hartmut Gründler (1930–1977) sticker "No plutonium to Gorleben" (1977)

Hartmut Gründler (* 11. January 1930 in Hümme ; † 21st November 1977 in Hamburg ) was a German , in the environment of dedicated Tubingen teachers. On November 16, 1977, he doused himself with gasoline in Hamburg, set himself on fire and died five days later in hospital. His self-immolation took place during the SPD federal party conference. It was a protest against the alleged false information in the nuclear policy of the federal government at the time , especially on Asse II , and the refusal of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to enter into a dialogue with him.

Professional background

After the journeyman bricklayer examination in 1952, a broken off architecture course at the TH Darmstadt and a pedagogy course in Jugenheim (1957-59) Gründler worked as a teacher in the Hessian school service. In 1964, after a six-month training course in French, he passed the secondary school teacher examination. From November 1965 to 1967 on leave to teach German at the Goethe-Institut and then as part of the German-French youth exchange, he completed a degree in pedagogy, educational psychology and general linguistics in Tübingen and Besançon with a master's degree (1969). He started a doctoral thesis on a psycholinguistic topic.

Tübingen years from 1970 to 1977

Early on in questions of environmental protection and politics, Gründler worked in the Marxist-Leninist-oriented Tübingen Committee for Environmental Protection (KfU) from the end of 1970. In 1971 he founded the Tübingen Association for Environmental Protection (BfU), which is committed to nonviolence . However, because of his unwillingness to give up his own path, inspired by Gandhi's Satyagraha , in relation to the majority decisions of the plenary, he was soon expelled there and in 1972 called the smaller "Working Group for the Protection of Life - Nonviolent Action in Environmental Protection" V. “(AKL) into life. In collaboration with the BfU, he sharply criticized the Stuttgart exhibition “Environment 72”. At the general meeting of the Federal Association of Citizens' Initiatives (BBU) on 27./28. In April 1973 in Frankfurt Gründler was elected to the extended board. Due to escalating disputes with the first chairman, Hans-Helmuth Wüstenhagen , on November 14, 1973 the group around Herbert Bruns , which was dedicated to the protection of life, left the group. HU Brand, Dr. D. Heinemann and G. Werner belonged. From 1974 he was also involved in the dispute over the nuclear power plant planned for Mittelstadt (Reutlingen district). He strongly advocated a coordinating umbrella organization for the various environmental protection associations, which emerged at the end of 1975 under the patronage of former Federal President Gustav Heinemann as the German Council for the Protection of the Environment and Life . On July 25, 1975, Gründler submitted an unsuccessful criminal complaint to Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback against Research Minister Matthöfer “for genocide”.

From 1975 onwards he took part in some lead in a total of 20 lawsuits against nuclear projects. In February 1977 he filed a constitutional complaint about restricting his right to petition . In his estate there was no evidence of an answer from the Federal Constitutional Court during his lifetime.

Gründler's way of public relations

Convinced that his fellow citizens would act for environmental protection if they were only well informed and addressed in their responsibility, Gründler carried out extensive public relations work. He relied particularly on leaflets, which he mainly distributed and had distributed in the university town of Tübingen.

According to the principle of “everyone knows that everyone knows”, he also set up a communication network, the specialty of which was that he added his addressee list to the numerous writings and appeals he addressed to public figures and decision-makers.

Gründler's "experiment with truth"

Influenced by Gandhi , he tried to force a change in energy policy through hunger strikes (including in Wyhl , Tübingen , Kassel ) and numerous open letters to parliamentarians, ministers, journalists, etc. His first conflict partner, Federal Research Minister Hans Matthöfer , responded to the demand for a discussion in the Citizens' Dialogue on Nuclear Energy , which he had granted in July 1975 , but in June 1976 he finally committed to the long-term implementation of the nuclear program in a letter. From the summer of 1976 Gründler turned to Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt . He called for a public clarification of the contradictions that he saw in the Bonn hearings in June 1976 (in the Research Committee on June 2 and in the Interior Committee on June 9) with the environmental program of the social-liberal coalition of September 29, 1971, which had been in effect until then Chancellor never answered him personally. Gründler's last indefinite hunger strike , which was planned in November 1977, did not take place due to external difficulties.

Self-immolation

On November 16, 1977 ( Day of Repentance and Prayer ) Gründler doused himself with gasoline in front of the St. Petrikirche on Mönckebergstrasse in Hamburg, set himself on fire and died five days later in hospital. His self-immolation took place during the SPD party conference in Hamburg. It was a protest against the "continued government misinformation" in energy policy, particularly with regard to disposal. He informed the press and politicians, including the Chancellor, in advance in writing, enclosing his political will. This was dated November 14, 1977, two days before his self-immolation, and was entitled “Please pass on ... Please inform a publicist from the press, radio or television quickly! ... Also to members of the Bundestag !!! - Self-immolation of a life protector - appeal against atomic lies ... "

On a double-sided A5 flyer he wrote - speaking of himself in the third person - among other things:

“Gründler calls his action an act not of despair, but of resistance and determination. He wants the constraint there to counter the greed, the stupid catch, the surprise attack here, the inertia and cowardice a constraint of conscience. "

- Hartmut Gründler : leaflet dated November 14, 1977

In the "Appendix" to this appeal addressed directly to the Chancellor, he also wrote:

"I choose the last and most extreme form of protest and instead of the [to add:" granite "lighthouse planned for three weeks) at least use the sand castle as a fire sign [...]"

- Hartmut Gründler : Appendix to the leaflet dated November 14, 1977

Reactions and effects

The mass media hardly reported the background. In his biographical book Der Scandal Gründler, Wolfgang Hädecke particularly criticized the magazines Spiegel and stern . In general, he lamented a "blatant disproportion between the sparse, rapidly fading reporting and the poor commentary with many distortions in the Gründler case on the one hand and the powerful indignation after the self-immolation of Palach and especially von Brüsewitz on the other."

After a planned parade with the hearse through various German sites of his work had been forbidden by Hamburg authorities, Gründler was buried on November 30, 1977 in the Tübingen mountain cemetery with the participation of around 1000 mourners from Germany and abroad.

At the subsequent commemorative event in the auditorium of the university, which ended in a tumultuous manner , also through the participation of the “Remstal rebel” Helmut Palmer, some representatives of previously divided ecological currents met on the podium, some of whom later worked together in the Greens : This is what futurologist Robert Jungk and the member of the Bundestag spoke Herta Däubler-Gmelin (SPD), who tried to explain the result of the party congress, prominent representatives of the Federal Association of Citizens' Initiatives Environmental Protection (BBU), the World Association for the Protection of Life (WSL), the Federation for the Protection of Life (BfL), the Action Group of Independent Germans (AUD) , the five-percent bloc and the Tübingen Association for Environmental Protection (BfU), so that the Schwäbisches Tagblatt headlined: Is the “Green Front” now marching?

In his still existing working group for the protection of life, numerous documents from Gründler's creative period as well as from the period that followed were archived. The collection is continuously supplemented, also as the basis for an extended biography, and enriched with eyewitness testimony. For the time being, this material is being looked after by Wilfried Hüfler from Reutlingen.

In September 2017 dtv published the novel Ein Mensch brennt by the writer and journalist Nicol Ljubić , which focuses on Hartmut Gründler.

Publications (selection)

  • Open letter to Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt u. a. : "Revelation of the nuclear lobby" October 5, 1976.
  • Nuclear energy advertising. The linguistic packaging of atomic energy - From the dictionary of thought, Rowohlt literary magazine 8 "The language of the big brother", December 1977.
  • Nuclear energy advertising. The linguistic packaging of atomic energy - From the dictionary of thought, in: Wood fire in a wooden stove. Essays on political language criticism, ed. by Hans J. Heringer. Tübingen (Narr) 1982, pp. 203-215.

literature

  • Roland Vital [d. i. Roland Vogt ]: Hartmut Gründler , obituary from bbu current environmental magazine , Nov./Dec. 1977, new in: Nonviolent Action 2008 No. 153/154, ISSN  0016-9390 , pp. 39–41.
  • Herbert Bruns : Hartmut Gründler † - For truth and honesty in the protection of life and in biopolitics - self-immolation of a protector of life in: Biologische Abhandlungen No. 53-54, Biologie-Verlag Wiesbaden 1977.
  • Walter Soyka: Are the dead heard more than the living? Der Rechtssweg, series of documents from the Archives for Biosafety, No. 4, November 22, 1977. Contents and a .: On the suicide of Hartmut Gründler. Information material and documentation on lawsuits against weapons-grade plutonium technology in Germany.
  • Hansjürgen Bulkowski: The signal that was not understood. The self-immolation of the environmental politician Hartmut Gründler. Funkessay. WDR: 1978 (repetition 1988).
  • Wolfgang Hädecke: The Gründler scandal , 1979, ISBN 3-7846-1201-6 .
  • Schrenk, Martin: Zwiedenken. In memory of Hartmut Gründler 213, Scheidewege Volume 9, born in 1979
  • Roland Bohlinger (Hrsg.): The Mülheim-Kärlich-Trial of the plaintiffs "Forum Humanum - Hartmut Gründler - Plaintiffs Association for Public Health and Biological Safety". Documentation of a judicial scandal, publisher for holistic research and culture 1982.
  • Wilfried Hüfler, Manfred Westermayer (Hrsg.): Hartmut Gründler - a life for the truth, a death against the lie. Writings - Documents - Appreciations. Gundelfingen: G & M-Westermayer Verlag 1997, 80 pages. ISBN 3-923596-06-5 .
  • Udo Grashoff , Tobias Barth: A death for life? The public self-immolation of Hartmut Gründler on November 16, 1977 in Hamburg , feature for the SFB, broadcast November 13, 2002.
  • Roland Vogt: Being radical, but not disturbing , (on the Gründler commemoration in Tübingen November 2007), in: non-violent action No. 153/154, 2008, ISSN  0016-9390 , pp. 35–38.
  • Wilfried Hüfler: Commemorative speech “Hartmut Gründler” (Tübingen, November 16, 2007), in: non-violent action No. 153/154, 2008, ISSN  0016-9390 , pp. 17–24.
  • Wilfried Hüfler: A life for the truth, a death against the lie. Biographical summary (on the Gründler commemoration in Tübingen November 2007), in: Violent Action No. 153/154, 2008, ISSN  0016-9390 , pp. 25–34.
  • Christine Werner: A life for the truth - a death against the lie. The self-immolation of Hartmut Gründler and the nuclear policy. SWR2 radio feature, May 30, 2012
  • Nicol Ljubić: A person is on fire . dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-28130-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edo Reents: The Terrible Fire Sign. FAZ, April 6, 2011, accessed on November 16, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Gründler, Hartmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author, self-immolation as a protest against “lies” in nuclear politics
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Hümme
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1977
Place of death Hamburg