Kurt Gustav Wilckens

Kurt Gustav Wilckens

Kurt Gustav Wilckens (born November 3, 1886 in Bramstedt , † June 15, 1923 in Buenos Aires ) was a German trade unionist and anarchist .

Life

Wilckens was born in Bramstedt (back then no 'Bad'), Segeberg district , as one of eight children of August Otto Wilckens and Johanna Henriette Harms. He started working in the mines of Silesia at an early age and emigrated to the United States at the age of 24 , where he found work in the mines of Arizona .

He came into contact with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a revolutionary syndicalist union. He took part in strikes and appeared as a speaker in the mass gatherings of mine workers. Against the growing power of the unions in the Bisbee area , the mine owners hired armed strikers to attack the strikers. There were shootings with deaths on both sides, finally a solid uprising that ended in the defeat of the strikers. On July 12, 1917, 1,186 workers, including 104 IWW members called "Wobblies", were arrested, transported in 23 cattle trucks to Hermanas, Luna County , New Mexico, and abandoned there after a 16-hour drive.

Wilckens was captured as an IWW union member, managed to escape, but was soon caught again and deported back to Germany. In Germany he had contact with the anarchist magazine Alarm around Carl Langer in Hamburg and became an employee. But it didn't last long in Germany, this time he left Europe for Argentina .

At the end of September 1920, Wilckens arrived in Buenos Aires . He worked for a while as a showman in the port and moved in anarchist circles, which at that time had a mass base in Argentina. The repression of the police brought him to prison for four months in May 1921, and he escaped deportation. After his release, he used all of his energy and money to support his captive comrades.

He pursued the massacre of the rural population of Patagonia committed by the Argentine military in 1921 from Buenos Aires. The anarcho-syndicalist Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA) had organized the farm workers for a general strike; Colonel Héctor B. Varela commanded the massacre of them with 1,500 victims. They deeply shook the vegetarian , abstainer and anarchism of Leo Tolstoy , who was guided by high ethical values .

He decided to act and planned an assassination attempt on the "butcher of Patagonia " Colonel Varela on his own . On January 27, 1923, he threw a grenade at him. Although his legs were injured, the latter made preparations to attack his assassin, whereupon Wilckens shot him with a revolver. When security guards overpowered him, he exclaimed, “I have avenged my brothers!” At the trial, he stated that he shot Varela to prevent him from killing anyone again.

Kurt Wilcken's murder by Pérez Millán, contemporary illustration

The court sentenced Wilckens to 17 years in prison. The judgment, too mild, met with no approval from the army or the Argentine right. A plot was forged. On the night of June 15, 1923, prison guards smuggled Ernesto Pérez Millán, a member of the fascist, anti-Semitic group Patriotic League , which was supported by the army, church and businessmen, into the prison. While Wilckens slept in his cell, Millan shot him in the chest. Wilckens died the following day. Then there was a general strike in Argentina. In Germany there was a protest rally organized by FAUD on July 9, 1923 in Berlin, speakers were Rudolf Rocker , Augustin Souchy and Berthold Cahn .

Kurt Gustav Wilckens wrote poems and songs ( El Heroe ) as a memorial in Argentina , because he was considered a hero of the working class in Argentina. Millan was admitted to a mental hospital for imbalance, where he was soon shot by another patient.

Media reception

Osvaldo Bayer , who could perhaps be called the journalistic conscience of Argentina, was the first to research the connections between the uprising in Patagonia since 1968. He published four volumes in the 1970s under the title “Los Vengadores de la Patagonia Trágica”, and in the 1990s as: La Patagonia Rebelde ; Volume 4 deals with Kurt Wilckens. At the same time Bayer wrote the screenplay for the feature film "Patagonia rebelde" by Héctor Olivera. In 1974 the film won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The book La Patagonia Rebelde was banned during the military dictatorship (1976 to 1982). The screening of the film had previously been banned by the censors under the government of Isabel Perón and remained banned for a decade. Osvaldo Bayer had to flee after the military coup in 1976, he lived in exile in Germany for 8 years and became one of the most famous opponents of the dictatorship. In the 1990s, another film by Frieder Wagner and Osvaldo Bayer was released with the title: “El Vindicator! (The Avenger!) Kurt Gustav Wilckens “, it is thanks to Bayer that this chapter of workers' history and the victims was torn from oblivion! Various editions of “La Patagonia rebelde” appeared in Argentina, after 2000 Bayer published another edition of “La Patagonia rebelde” ('Edition Definiva') in one volume, this is the template for the German translation by Boris Schöppner ( in collaboration with Marlies Bayer) “Uprising in Patagonia”, which was published in 2010 by however publishing house . Radio Chiflado produced a critical tribute to Wilckens via podcast, (2007). The novel Woher der Wind blows by Guido R. Schmidt, who deals with the events in Patagonia, was published in German in 2010. On the Internet today there are a multitude of entries in different languages ​​on the uprising in Patagonia / Patagonia rebelde , the film, Kurt Gustav Wilckens and others involved in the uprising. In the province of Santa Cruz today there are monuments to all the leaders of the agricultural workers' strikes that were murdered by the military in 1921/22. In Kurt Gustav Wilckens' hometown of Bad Bramstedt, he is no longer completely unknown, after a leaflet campaign by anarcho-syndicalists at FAU - IAA Hamburg in 2003, a report about him in the local press followed. In 2011 an event in his hometown in memory of Kurt Gustav Wilckens followed with the book presentation of Uprising in Patagonia and the author Osvaldo Bayer and a subsequent film screening, as well as reports in the local press, including the Segeberger Zeitung.

literature

• Website for the book: "Aufstand in Patagonien", 423 pages, anyway publisher ISBN 978-3-86569-910-7 and the author Osvaldo Bayer : http://www.aufstand-in-patagonien.de/
• Osvaldo Bayer LA PATAGONIA REBELDE, tomo IV: El Vindicador , Editorial Planeta, [554 pages booket / TB] Buenos Aires 1997.
• Holger Marcks / Matthias Seiffert (eds.) The big strikes. Episodes from the class struggle. Unrast Verlag , Münster, 2008. (therein: O.Bayer Den Hunden zum Fraß. The agricultural workers ' strike in Patagonia ; H. Marcks: The organizational concept of the FORA. An excursus on the Argentine workers' movement ; M. Seiffert Vendetta Argentina. The German anarchist assassin Kurt Wilckens et al pages 47-62).

Movie

• El Vindicator! Kurt Gustav Wilckens film by Frieder Wagner (director) and Osvaldo Bayer (screenplay) can be seen in Spanish (Argent./deu. 1989) on the Anarchist Film Channel via Brightcove / ChristieBooks, partly on the Internet, among others the nephew Paul Wilckens is interviewed, as well as anarchist friends and FORA comrades such as Luis Oneto, Umberto Correale and others. Emilio Uriondo. Available online at ágora tv, there is also the film “La Patagonia Rebelde”.

The film: "Kurt Gustav Wilckens" in German (total length approx. 43 minutes. On YouTube):

• Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Web links

• The dogs to eat. The big strikes Part II: The agricultural workers' strike in Patagonia by Osvaldo Bayer from Direct Action , No. 171, Sept./Oct. 2005, page 8. See also the article on page 16: “Vendetta Argentino, the German anarchist assassin Kurt Wilckens”.
• Kurt Gustav Wilckens (with photo), from: Organize! Journal of the Anarchist Federation / UK
• La Patagonia Trágica (Spanish, many photos)
• Article about Wilckens in the Segeberger Zeitung, January 27, 2003
• Critical appreciation from radio chiflado
• Assassin and hero of the workers on www.alt-bramstedt.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Detailed (English) website of the Bisbee Deportation from 1917 from the Library of the University of Arizona (with contemporary photographs)
2. ↑ About Kurt Wilckens ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Segeberger Zeitung  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.