concrete (magazine)

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concrete
concrete logo
description Journal of Politics and Culture
publishing company KVV "concrete" sales company for printing and other media GmbH & Co. KG
First edition 1957
Frequency of publication per month
Sold edition 42,263 copies
(Specifically, Q3 / 2018)
Editor-in-chief Wolfgang Schneider (responsible; politics),
Marit Hofmann (culture),
Philipp Schmidt
Editor Friederike Gremliza
Web link Betonet-magazin.de
ISSN (print)

concrete is a German magazine founded in 1957 , which - with an interruption from November 1973 to October 1974 - appears to this day. The monthly magazine for politics and culture takes positions far left ; While it sees itself as the "only left-wing popular magazine in Germany", the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies it as "undogmatic left-wing extremism ".

Forerunner student courier

The forerunner Studentenkurier , innovative in style and aggressiveness, was founded in 1955 by Klaus Rainer Röhl in Hamburg and was for the first time accessible to West German academic youth beyond the local student magazines . It appeared until 1957 with the participation of authors such as Werner Riegel , Peter Rühmkorf , Arno Schmidt , Kurt Hiller and also the graphic artist Verner Witting . The founding was largely financed by the GDR through the former FDJ functionary Klaus Huebotter .

specifically from 1957 to 1974

In the first few years of its existence, Konkret had a particularly strong influence on the socially critical student body. At the height of the student revolt (see the 1968 movement ), the magazine appeared fortnightly, from 1972 until the bankruptcy in November 1973 even weekly.

Initially, the magazine, renamed Concrete , was a student magazine, which was also widely used at universities. Specifically, it received financial support from the GDR and received up to DM 40,000 per issue until 1964. Klaus Rainer Röhl, Ulrike Meinhof and other editors often traveled to the GDR for this. Sometimes they received their instructions in the West through emissaries from the GDR. Röhl later stated that the editors had been instructed by instructors from the KPD, which had been illegal in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1956 . This became clear, for example, when socialists critical of Moscow such as Kurt Hiller were pushed out of the paper.

Since there were constant problems with the financing of the magazine in the following years, and at the same time its distribution and popularity increased enormously, KR Röhl was looking for a way to safely expand and distribute the magazine. Since articles critical of the GDR were sometimes printed and payments were not made at the end of the day, the presentation and content (in the early days of sexual emancipation) were increasingly shaped by sexual issues using nude photos, as this meant that a high circulation could be expected. At the same time, through this measure, the magazine acquired the long-standing reputation of a “political porn postille” from its opponents. A bare chest only appeared on the cover in 1969, at the same time that large magazines like stern were also trying to win over readers with revealing covers.

Peter Rühmkorf , the former close ties with East Germany were not known, wrote on May 19, 1969 in concrete (11/1969) in its column agents provocateurs : "The fate of the magazine concretely , their external challenges and their internal irritations are not separate from the tensions in the left movement in general. "

Among the editors of this time are Stefan Aust and Uwe Nettelbeck . But the most famous employee of the magazine at the time was Röhl's wife Ulrike Meinhof, who was also editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1964. In the course of her political radicalization and the resulting differences with large parts of the other employees, she wrote in the Frankfurter Rundschau on April 26, 1969 : “I am now discontinuing my work because the paper is about to become an instrument of counterrevolution which I don't want to conceal through my work. ”On May 7, 1969, the house of the specific publisher Röhl in Hamburg-Blankenese was stormed and devastated by several activists. Meinhof's participation in the violent liberation of Andreas Baader on May 14, 1970 marked the final end of her journalistic career.

specifically from 1974

Under the editorship of the former editorial staff member and former Mirror -Redakteurs Hermann L. Gremliza the first issue of the "new" was released in October 1974 specifically . It was Gremliza's concern to make the magazine “the journalistic spearhead of a serious leftist […], [after] Röhl after separating from Ulrike Meinhof [ specifically ] turned it into a kind of yellow press for Apo ”. (Under Röhl's direction, for a while, full-page pin-up photos appeared on the cover picture and inside the sheet .) Gremliza regularly wrote the introductory column and a final page with linguistic critical considerations. Concretely , even after the introduction of the new German spelling, it is sticking to the old spelling rules; however, the new use of the ß was adopted from the September 2014 issue.

In 1983 the Federal Prosecutor's Office investigated the suspicion of revealing state secrets against the magazine and had the editorial offices searched. The search was preceded by the specific title topic: “The Moral of Helmut Kohl”. In the relevant issue it was reported that the then Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl had a relationship with his Bonn office manager. concrete designates itself and is characterized as a (radical) left-wing magazine, i. In other words, it stands on the political spectrum to the left of the parties represented in the Bundestag (cf. Neue Linke ). One of the magazine's motto is “read what others don't want to know”. The place of publication of concrete is Hamburg .

Konkret Literaturverlag, owned by Hermann Gremliza's sister Dorothee Gremliza, is closely connected to the magazine.

Controversy over the attitude to the Middle East conflict

In a substantial part of the faction of the radical left , which sees itself as anti-imperialist , criticism is specifically directed above all because of the fundamentally pro-Israel stance and the approving stance on the Iraq war .

For these reasons, Jürgen Elsässer's work at concrete ended . At the end of 2002 he agreed to Herta Däubler-Gmelin 's comparison of the methods of Hitler and Bush with regard to the imminent Iraq war, criticized the Left for its “in dubio pro bello” (= in case of doubt for war) and wrote: “Bei Bush, as with Hitler, the war was not just a diversionary maneuver from the economic difficulties, but the only possible solution to a secular crisis. ”In two articles in the newspaper Junge Welt a month later, Elsässer expected“ war lies from the left ”, especially in specifically and threw the magazine u. a. political cynicism as well as a dubious and grotesque inflation of the "victim balance of the Baath party".

Specifically , a little later he terminated the employment contract with Elsässer as editor and wrote in early 2003: “The reasons for this were work-related and political in nature; […] The political ones concerned Elsässer's attempt to transfer his own political reorientation to the magazine against the will of the publisher and the editorial team and at the expense of other KONKRET authors. "

A document from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution sums up:

“In particular, the monthly magazine 'Beton' and the Bahamas Group have now declared that military intervention in the Gulf is necessary and correct to protect Israel . From the point of view of traditional left-wing extremism, this was a taboo break because it included the advocacy of 'imperialist aggression'. The 'concrete' faction immediately received the stamp of ' bellicists ' from its opponents to illustrate that, as a traitor , it had broken away from the anti-imperialist 'peace struggle' and had changed camp. "

concrete -Editor Gremliza is quoted from the brochure with the comment:

“Iraq, the innumerable crimes that Saddam Hussein's regime has committed, must not be spoken of at the peace camp. Anyone who does it anyway is a warmonger. Since my reputation in this regard is sufficiently ruined, I can say it: If it were guaranteed that Saddam Hussein's regime could be eliminated and replaced by a more philanthropic one without collateral killing fifty, hundred thousand or more Iraqis and at the same time unleashing other monsters in other places I have no concerns. "

Death of the editor Gremliza

Hermann Gremliza died on December 20, 2019. Friederike Gremliza became the new editor.

Authors (selection)

Over the years, many well-known freelance journalists were among the concrete employees, e.g. B.

Not only professional journalists made contributions to the concrete , university professors such as u. a. the professors

furthermore well-known writers like

as well as (ex) politicians like

Among the authors there were also those who were later heavily criticized in the journal; among them were u. a. (in brackets the year of your last contribution):

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Editions, 3rd quarter 2018, p. 6 , concrete, PDF
  2. Self-presentation on Konkret Online
  3. ↑ In response to a written question from CDU MP Georg Schirmbeck , the federal government specifically classified 2003 as an “organization-independent left-extremist / left-extremist-influenced publication”; see. the answer of State Secretary Lutz Diwell of August 1, 2003, Bundestag printed matter 15/1474, No. 40, p. 21. In 2004, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ordered extremism in Germany - manifestations and current inventory , June 2006, p. 202 f. ( online ( memento of July 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )) the magazine to "undogmatic left-wing extremism". The North Rhine-Westphalia protection of the constitution referred to specifically as anti-German Publication "within the extreme left spectrum"; see. Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia (Ed.): ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Antideutsch ). Retrieved March 6, 2018. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.mik.nrw.de
  4. Reinhard Mohr: Under the spell of the Stasi: How the GDR bought the left and terrorists of the FRG . In: THE WORLD . March 11, 2012 ( welt.de [accessed October 4, 2018]).
  5. Henning Bleyl: The prices of Mr. Huebotter . In: The daily newspaper: taz . January 23, 2007, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 23 ( taz.de [accessed October 4, 2018]).
  6. Willi Winkler: The great tangled head . In: sueddeutsche.de . 2010, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed October 4, 2018]).
  7. Hubertus Knabe : An agent as a key witness. In: Berliner Zeitung . May 8, 2000, accessed June 8, 2015 .
  8. ^ Hans-Joachim Noack: Roses from East Berlin. In: Der Spiegel. 2006/11, pp. 46-49.
  9. specifically December 1965 , review on derleser.net
  10. ^ Hermann L. Gremliza: In conversation. Sisyphus' laughter. THE POLEMICIAN BECOMES 60. Interview with Hermann P. Piwitt In: der Freitag . November 10, 2000.
  11. from concrete - concrete online. Retrieved October 8, 2018 .
  12. Die Wende article on searching the editorial rooms. In: Der Spiegel . January 17, 1983, accessed August 4, 2015.
  13. Details on "Operation EVA"
  14. ^ Front page of the Konkret Literaturverlag homepage
  15. ^ Jürgen Elsässer : Deficit bombing. In: Concrete. 11/2002, p. 13
  16. Jürgen Elsässer: How they learned to love the bomb. Left, war and anti-Semitism, first part. In: Socialist Positions. Hanover, online presence.
  17. ^ Jürgen Elsässer: Lying with Auschwitz. Left, war and anti-Semitism, part two. In: Socialist Positions. Hanover, online presence.
  18. Konkret , 1/2003, p. 4
  19. Federal Ministry of the Interior (ed.): Extremism in Germany - manifestations and current inventory. P. 202, published on bmi.bund.de ( Memento from December 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). See also the reaction from concrete to their concrete online 5/2006 .
  20. Betonet-verlage.de
  21. Betonet-verlage.de
  22. Betonet-verlage.de
  23. http://www.konkret-magazin.de/search-results.html?keywords=Sahra+Wagenknecht
  24. Willi Winkler: 50 years ago the magazine "concrete" started. In: Süddeutsche.de . November 26, 2008, accessed June 8, 2015 .
  25. The Elders of Zion Do Not Die from issue 02/2008
  26. Kay Sokolowsky : Willemsen's World - His interviews with prisoners from Guantánamo could have been meritorious - but Roger Willemsen takes himself more seriously than his subject. Issue 04/2006.
  27. Cut & Glue Issue 07/2008