Use Schwipper

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Ilse Schwipper ( née Nikolaus ) (born June 24, 1937 in Berlin ; † September 27, 2007 there ) was a German anarchist feminist . Due to their marriages, she sometimes had the surnames Bongartz and Jandt and was referred to as Rote Ilse by the local press because of her anarchist activities in Wolfsburg .

Life

Childhood, adolescence and marriage

Ilse Schwipper was born out of wedlock to the accountant Clara Schwipper in Berlin. There she grew up with her great aunt and her great uncle. He was active as an anarchist of the anti-fascist action in the resistance against the Hitler regime . In 1944, the mother Clara met the cigar manufacturer Heinrich Henneke from Helmstedt and moved there with Ilse. Use's stepfather had an authoritarian character and was an avowed supporter of the NSDAP . Shortly before the end of the war, the family moved to the nearby "City of the KdF-Wagons" . Ilse finished secondary school and later dropped out of business school. She began an office apprenticeship at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg and continued to work as a worker due to misconduct. In 1955 she married Helmut Bongartz, a colleague. She had four children and became a housewife.

Political commitment

In the early 1960s, she became aware of the poor living conditions of the Italian guest workers at the VW plant. She collected signatures, wrote letters to the editor and, as a mother, was also involved in neighborhood work for playgrounds. The death of her eldest daughter in 1968 at the age of twelve as a result of an illness was the signal for Ilse Schwipper to become politically active. She got involved with the Jusos and joined the SPD in 1969 , although she did not feel like a social democrat but rather an anarchist. A short time later she was excluded from the SPD along with 18 other lawyers because of collecting signatures for the DKP in Wolfsburg . Their marriage broke up. In 1970 she founded " Kommune K 3" (referring to the Berlin municipalities 1 and 2 ) in the previously married apartment on Breslauer Straße in Wolfsburg . In addition to her and her three children, this included mostly young roommates. As a 34-year-old, she was considered the "head" among younger people.

Arrested in 1971

The Wolfsburg criminal police had been investigating the residents of the "Kommune K 3" since 1970 on suspicion of various crimes. After several arson attacks had been carried out in Wolfsburg in April and May 1971 , a large-scale operation of the local police took place on June 10, 1971. The residents of another municipality in Grauhorststrasse, who were accused of break-ins and hashish trade, were also affected. Ilse Schwipper, then Bongartz, and her eight roommates were pending trial in 1972 in custody . Except for them and two residents, the arrested confessed to a number of crimes. They cleared one arson at a youth club (which should be converted into a club with membership cards ), two arson at a Wolfsburg school (because of a planned NPD event), the attempt to derail a freight train with new VW cars near Fallersleben , Damage to local monuments ( Porsche bust), the unsuccessful demolition of the displaced person memorial, bomb threats against the police, the town hall and the Hotel Holiday Inn as well as several property crimes (car theft, break-ins). In some cases, the acts were attempted acts that had no intended success. The police put the damage caused by the offenses at several hundred thousand DM . A roommate of the community led the police in July 1971 into a wooded area in Wolfsburg- Detmerode . There he had buried two small-bore rifles and several hundred rounds of ammunition that had come from a break-in.

Trial 1972

The trial before the Hildesheim Regional Court against Ilse Schwipper, who had no criminal record, and eight male adolescents lasted seven weeks from February to April 1972. The length of the trial was also based on the revocation of the original confessions. The press dubbed the trial after the defendant Ilse Schwipper, then Bongartz, the "Bongartz trial". The charges were for one complete and two attempted arson attacks, an explosives attack, an attempted train derailment and numerous break-ins. On the occasion of the negotiation, an “initiative group for the K 3 process” was formed. According to its leaflets, the crime committed by Commune K 3 was its political attitude and practice with the support of the Bundeswehr - deserters , prisoners and fugitive welfare children . On the part of the public prosecutor's office, a political argument in the process was completely denied, it was about purely criminal acts. During the trial, Ilse Schwipper read a declaration that the city of Wolfsburg was a " Nazi " foundation and an expression of capitalist exploitation . In the closing words she called for “acquittal for Commune 3 and for life”. You have not committed any criminal offenses, but wanted to give children and young people an anti-authoritarian education . The court sentenced her to three years' imprisonment, which she had been imprisoned since 1971 until the end of 1973 in the Vechta women's prison. The co-defendants were judged according to youth criminal law and received suspended sentences . During the trial, there were several turbulences on the part of the accused and the audience, who expressed their sympathy. He was accompanied by strict security measures with a larger police force.

Dismissal and remarriage

After being released from prison, Ilse Schwipper returned to Wolfsburg. Together with young people she founded another community project in an older farmhouse in the Bäckergasse in the historic Wolfsburg- Heßlingen district . The group contacted and sympathized with the left-wing extremist terrorist organization Movement June 2nd without being involved in its actions. In 1973 Ilse Schwipper, then still Bongartz, met Wolfgang Jandt, who was part of the anarchist scene , in Hamburg in the commune of the RAF terrorist Werner Hoppe . He had been convicted of department store arson. As a result of her marriage in 1973 she was named Jandt. The marriage lasted only a few weeks. Then she made the acquaintance of Jürgen Bodeux in Berlin in 1974 , who had already written to her during her imprisonment in 1973. He also lived in her commune in Wolfsburg-Heßlingen and became her lover.

Schmücker trial and detention

At the end of 1973 Ilse Schwipper made the acquaintance of the Berlin student Ulrich Schmücker , who belonged to the terrorist group Movement June 2nd . He visited her in Wolfsburg. At that time Schmücker was already as an undercover agent of the Berlin intelligence service . After he was murdered in June 1974 in Berlin, Ilse Schwipper was summoned in the same month as a witness and as they denied statements for three weeks in Beugehaft taken. In August 1974 she was arrested again in Darmstadt on suspicion of membership in a criminal organization . The other five members of their community in Heßlingen were also arrested. All were suspected of being involved in the murder. One of those arrested, Jürgen Bodeux, became a key witness for the prosecution. Because of his statements, including that he and Schwipper had scouted the later crime scene, charges were brought against both. In June 1976 the court convicted Schwipper and the co-defendants in the first Schmücker trial for collective murder. She received a life sentence and the five other defendants were sentenced to juvenile sentences. Only Bodeux accepted the judgment. For Schwipper, after three appeal proceedings , the proceedings did not end until 1991 when the proceedings were discontinued, because the offense could no longer be resolved, among other things because of the involvement of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. While still in custody , Ilse married the male nurse Jürgen Schwipper. The marriage soon ended in divorce. "My prison conditions were 6.5 years of solitary confinement with all the characteristics of white torture out of a total of almost 12 years, " explained Schwipper in an interview with the magazine Graswurzelrevolution in 2002 . “These conditions of detention led to serious physical and mental illnesses, so that on May 2nd at 3:15 pm, 1982, I was released as seriously ill and incapable of detention. To this day I have often struggled with the long-term effects. "

Later political engagement

In the same interview, she said in retrospect “that the policy of the urban guerrilla was the right one.” She last lived in Berlin and was involved, among other things, in promoting anarchist feminism and better prison conditions for political prisoners , especially in Turkey. She was connected to the anarchist scene in Berlin through the “ Library of the Free ” and was involved in an event about Zenzl Mühsam in the House of Democracy and Human Rights in 2005 .

literature

  • The isolation cell system as a scientific research project. Article by Ilse Schwipper in: Peter Nowak , Gülten Sesen, Martin Beckmann (eds.): With a living body. From Stammheim to the F-type cells, prison system and prisoner resistance in Turkey. Unrast, Münster 2001.
  • Stefan Aust : The decoy. The fatal story of an undercover agent between the protection of the constitution and terrorism. Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-498-00063-2 .
  • “ I still dream of the revolution .” An interview with the ex-urban guerrilla Ilse Schwipper, in: Bernd Drücke (ed.), Yes! Anarchism. Lived utopia in the 21st century. Interviews and discussions, Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-87956-307-4 , pages 221-233.
  • Various articles by Ilse Schwipper appeared in the Schwarzen Faden - quarterly journal for lust and freedom in the grassroots revolution - monthly newspaper for a non-violent, domineering society , and in the daily newspaper Junge Welt .
  • Birgit Schneider-Bönninger, Simone Neteler: The "Rote Ilse" and her dream of the revolution. In: The Wolfsburg saga. 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary dated December 7, 2007 in the Berliner Tagesspiegel
  2. ↑ Wolfsburger Nachrichten May 27, 1971: Arsonists on the move again, fire burned in the auditorium
  3. ↑ Wolfsburger Nachrichten June 12, 1971: Wolfsburg terror gang caught in police action
  4. ^ Wolfsburger Nachrichten July 27, 1971: Most Communards made confessions
  5. ↑ Wolfsburger Nachrichten February 24, 1972: The "Rote Ilse" and their Wolfsburg commune in court in Hildesheim.
  6. ↑ Wolfsburger Nachrichten April 6, 1972: Ilse Bongartz: "Freedom for Life"
  7. ↑ Wolfsburger Nachrichten February 26, 1972: "'Rote Ilse' also conducts in the dock"
  8. ↑ "I'm still dreaming of the revolution" (September 2002) ( Memento from October 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Schwipper, Ilse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anarchist feminist
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 2007
Place of death Berlin