Socialist University Association

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The Social Democratic University Association (SHB) , from 1972 Socialist University Association , was a nationwide student association closely related to the SPD , which was founded on May 9, 1960 in Bonn and existed until 1992. The federal executive committee of the SHB published the magazine Frontal from 1961 to 1989 . Magazine for democratic students (later with the subtitle: magazine for universities, politics and culture ).

history

Beginnings as a "Social Democratic University Association"

The SHB was founded in 1960 at the height of the clashes between the SPD and its then student association SDS , during which several university groups oriented towards the SPD split off from the SDS and finally - with the support of the party leadership - merged to form their own federal association. In contrast to the SDS, the SHB committed itself to the Godesberg program of the SPD, but nevertheless got into conflicts with the parent party in the following years, particularly because of its demand for recognition of the Oder-Neisse border .

These tensions increased when, after its initial demarcation, the SHB began to approach the SDS again in the mid-1960s and eventually even joined the “Supreme Coalition” of SDS, LSD , HSU and other left-wing associations. In the course of the student movement , the SHB developed continuously to the left. Like the left student movement as a whole, the SHB also increasingly took up Marxist theoretical approaches and concepts. Above all, this was the analysis of the contemporary stage of capitalist development as state monopoly capitalism (SMK) , i.e. a historically new concentration of power by national and international corporations and the state authority intertwined with them, as developed by social scientists in Western and Eastern Europe. This, in turn, resulted in the necessity of a left-wing unity and cross-class anti-monopolitical alliance policy, the priority of the practice of democratic and social struggles over the “criticism of bourgeois ideology” or over avant-garde politics, as represented by other student groups. There was broad agreement between the SHB and the MSB Spartakus on these questions . In contrast to this, the SHB held the opinion that the SPD could also be changed in the sense of left-wing politics by the SHB being able to bring its positions to bear there in order to “regain greater validity and influence for socialist theory and practice within the SPD to help ”.

A minority, also inspired by Marxism, was constituted in 1971 as the “Socialist Fraction” (later: “Socialist Student Council”) and left the SHB soon afterwards. The attempt to organize as SHB / SF supraregional failed, however, even if individual groups in Göttingen, Gießen, Hanover, Frankfurt or Siegen continued for a few years and were at times represented locally in the general student committees.

"Socialist University Association"

The SPD broke away from the SHB in 1971 and cut all financial support from him. In 1972 the SPD party executive decided to revoke the name “social democratic” from the SHB and enforced this in court after the SHB waived the revision for financial reasons. Since then it has been called the Socialist University Association.

The SMK concept resulted in a view of the science sector and the universities as areas of society that, unlike others, are “bound to the goals and conditions of profit maximization”. The universities are "production sites" of scientific results and the qualification of workers. For the SHB (as for the MSB), this resulted in the policy of trade union orientation ("GO policy"), a perspective on the scientifically trained as parts of the wage-dependent population ("scientifically qualified skilled workers") as well as others who defend their interests only in “democratic mass struggles”, as practiced by the trade unions, would be able to prevail.

The SHB's political priorities in the 1970s and 1980s were university policy (“for a democratic reform of the education system”), against professional bans and in the peace movement. Members of the association worked in many student bodies and in their umbrella organization VDS . The close alliance between SHB and MSB Spartakus - not infrequently expanded to include other student groups - provided most of the general student committees in West Germany as early as the first half of the 1970s. Many SHB members were still active in the Jusos and in the SPD at the same time . They were of the opinion that the SPD could be changed to the left. In 1973, the then federal chairman of the SHB, Bernard Braun, named 80 groups with around 3,000 members. The SHB and its alliance partner MSB, as left-wing student associations, had acquired mass character in the student body since the 1970s (MSB 1972: 40 groups with 2,000 members). Despite demarcation and exclusion, the association was able to continuously increase membership numbers and election results until around 1987.

After the failure of the connection of the independent student organizations SDS and SHB to SPD politics, the party initiated " Juso university groups " at various universities , which were part of the organizational apparatus of the SPD. At the end of 1974 the Federal Juso Committee determined that "at the moment" there were two organizational options for social democratic students, but that uniform representation was desirable. In 1979 the Juso Federal Congress decided by a majority that the Young Socialists would “continue to regard the SHB as a politically and organizationally independent student association within the social democratic spectrum” despite serious differences of opinion. The Jusos criticized the SHB's attitude towards the arrest and conviction of the GDR dissident Rudolf Bahro . In the event of elections, however, the Juso federal organization would “naturally support the Young Socialist university groups” and “strive for the organizational standardization of the Juso positions in the university sector via the Jusos university groups”. An important communication organ of the leadership of the SPD "about tendencies within the party youth" and especially the SPD students was the working group "security" of the party executive committee, in which the SPD chairmen from the state offices for the protection of the constitution sat and results from the spying of the party youth , according to the SHB.

This development of increasing distancing from the area of ​​the SPD was accompanied by the employment and professional bans against leftists introduced in the context of the New Ostpolitik with the so-called Radical Decree since 1972, which were also used against members of the SHB such as the prospective teachers Thomas Jaitner or Aart Pabst were.

In the summer of 1989, clashes broke out over the student protests in Beijing. According to some critics, the SHB only half-heartedly condemned the crackdown on the Chinese student movement in Beijing's Tian'anmen Square at the time. As a result, individual members initially resigned. In June 1989, the SHB group at the University of Cologne left the federal association and briefly traded as "Independent SHB" (USHB) in order to later join the majority of the Juso University Group in Cologne.

Also in 1989 the SHB had to discontinue its federal magazine head -on because the sponsoring association of the magazine had gone bankrupt. The frontal was printed by Plambeck & Co. GmbH, which belonged to the commercial coordination department of the GDR government. In 1990 the SHB eV fund also filed for bankruptcy at the Bonn District Court.

Due to its dwindling influence, the SHB also lost further political backing within the Juso Federal Association, which had supported the Juso university groups and the SHB alike since the election of the Young Socialist Susi Möbbeck as federal chairman of the SHB and the Young Socialists (1988) . Individual members transferred to the Juso university groups. Individual SHB groups were unable to work and disbanded. In 1990 the SHB then proposed a joint social democratic university association to the Juso university groups. When the leadership of the Juso university groups refused, the SHB Federal Association dissolved in 1992.

Occasionally, local SHB groups continued to exist for some time. Some of them later worked temporarily in the - in the meantime dissolved again - alliance of left and radical democratic university groups (LiRa).

Local focus

The first group was founded in Cologne. The "Statute of the Social Democratic University Association at the University of Cologne" came into force on May 5, 1960. A federal association and regional association of the SHB did not yet exist. Heinrich Thies was the first chairman of the SHB Uni Köln. The statutes contained the preamble: “The university group of the Social Democratic University Association (SHB) at the University of Cologne is committed to the rule of law, parliamentary democracy and rejects any form of dictatorship. The group stands in theory and practice on the basis of democratic socialism. It is committed to human freedom and dignity, to the freedom of research and teaching, and strives for equal development opportunities for all people. Religious, social and racial origins are irrelevant for membership. ”On June 26, 1989, the SHB University of Cologne renamed itself the Independent Socialist University Association (USHB) University of Cologne.

On May 9, 1960, a group of the Social Democratic University Association was founded at the University of Bonn .

The first student parliamentary elections took place in 1967 at the Ruhr University in Bochum , which was established in the mid-1960s . In the following years, Spartakus and other left-wing groups acted in the left spectrum of the SHB alongside SDS and MSB. The SHB ran for the elections as "SHB & friends". In 1990 the TuWas! List founded by the SHB achieved an absolute majority in the student parliament and remained decisive for a long time. In 1999 the TuWas! List came under opposition. Seven meters of SHB files are in the archive of the Ruhr University Bochum. In 2014, the association was still entered in the Rector's Register of the Ruhr University Bochum (Reg.-Nr. 146 / 31-51).

At the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg , the local SHB group published the magazine Lauffeuer every semester . The group existed until around 2002. It was the last group of its kind.

Known members

literature

  • Wolfgang Abendroth / Georg Fülberth / Heinz-Gerd Hofschen / Erich Ott / Gerhard Stuby (eds.), Social Democracy and Socialism. August Bebel and the Social Democracy Today (= Small Library Politics Science Future, Vol. 55), Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein 1974 (in it: Appeal of the SHB ... and basic program and basic declaration of the Socialist University Association )
  • Willy Albrecht: The Socialist German Student Union. Bonn 1994 (therein on SHB p. 373ff. And 446ff.)
  • Peter Darmstadt & Thorsten Haupts: The Student Left at West German Universities 1982–1992. St. Augustine 1992
  • Torsten Bo Jørgensen: The American picture of the Social Democratic University Association SHB 1960-1969 (= series of publications of the archive of the workers' youth movement. Vol. 19), Oer-Erkenschwick 2001, ISBN 3-926734-56-6
  • Andreas Keller: University reform and university revolt. Marburg 2000 (therein p. 241ff.)
  • Christoph Meyer: Continuity through change. Notes on the history of SDS, SHB and Juso-Hochschulgruppe in Cologne (1946 to 1990). In: Young Socialists in the SPD, sub-district Cologne (ed.): "... they are also taking it too far." 75 years of Cologne Jusos - an anthology. Dortmund 1996, pp. 135–149 (also available on the Internet: [14] )
  • Christoph Meyer: unit of action, gossip and basic fetishism. A look back at the SHB. In: Spw - magazine for socialist politics and economy . 98 (1997), pp. 31-36

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SHB Federal Board (ed.): Results of the 13th or BDV, 3rd – 5th Nov. 1972, Program of Principles - Declaration of Principles - Statutes - Resolutions , Bonn 1972.
  2. ↑ SHB Federal Board (ed.): Results of the 13th or BDV, 3rd – 5th Nov. 1972, Program of Principles - Declaration of Principles - Statutes - Resolutions , Bonn 1972, p. 24.
  3. ^ Martin Oberpriller: Young Socialists . Bonn 2004, p. 188.
  4. ↑ Dieter Stephan: Jungsozialisten , Bonn 1980, 2nd edition, p. 44.
  5. ^ Ingrid Gabele / Paul Gabele: Programs progressive student associations , Starnberg 1974, p. 36.
  6. ↑ SHB Federal Board (ed.): Results of the 13th or BDV, 3.-5. Nov. 1972, basic program - declaration of principle - statutes - resolutions , Bonn 1972, p. 36ff.
  7. ^ Ingrid Gabele / Paul Gabele: Programs progressive student associations , Starnberg 1974, p. 36.
  8. ↑ Anne Rohstock: From the “Ordinary University ” to the “Revolutionary Headquarters ”? University reform and university revolts in Bavaria and Hesse 1957–1976 , Munich 2010, p. 366.
  9. ↑ Anne Rohstock: From the “Ordinary University ” to the “Revolutionary Headquarters ”? University reform and university revolts in Bavaria and Hesse 1957–1976 , Munich 2010, p. 365f.
  10. ↑ Martin Gorholt: On the history of the Juso university groups . In: Arbeitshefte Nr. 68 (1986), p. 9.
  11. ^ Federal Young Socialists Congress Aschaffenburg 1979: Support Juso university groups. In: Arbeitshefte Nr. 68 (1986), p. 49f.
  12. ↑ Jens Schultz: Social Democracy and Communism. The SPD's confrontation with communism under the sign of the New Ostpolitik 1969–1974 , Mannheim 2009, p. 36, see also: [1] .
  13. ^ "Professional bans and increasing neo-Nazism strongly condemned". In: Neues Deutschland , 23 August 1977.
  14. ↑ Wolfgang Rudzio: The erosion of demarcation: On the relationship between the democratic left and communists in the Federal Republic of Germany , Opladen 1988, p. 91.
  15. ↑ Cf. with an extensive list of cases of professional bans: Cornelia Booß-Ziegling / Hubert Brieden / Rolf Günther / Bernd Lowin / Joachim Sohns / Matthias Wietz: “Forgotten” history. Professional bans. Political persecution in the Federal Republic of Germany (booklet for the exhibition sponsored and supported by: Bildungswerk ver.di, DGB district Bremen-Lower Saxony-Saxony-Anhalt, GEW, Landesverband Niedersachsen, educational and support organization of the GEW im DGB e.V., Rosa -Luxemburg-Stiftung Niedersachsen eV), Hannover 2015, see also: [2] .
  16. ↑ Stefan Wolle: The ideal world of dictatorship . Berlin 1998, p. 209.
  17. ↑ Socialist practice , 3/1990.
  18. ↑ a b c Christoph Meyer: Continuity through change. Notes on the history of SDS, SHB and Juso-Hochschulgruppe in Cologne (1946 to 1990). ( online )
  19. ↑ BSZ ( online )
  20. ↑ Archives of the Ruhr University Bochum
  21. ↑ Rector's Register of the Ruhr University Bochum
  22. ^ SHB Erlangen Nürnberg ( Memento of July 8, 2004 in the Internet Archive ).
  23. ↑ "SPD: Very Hairy". In: Der Spiegel , H. 26, June 10, 1972, see also: [3] .
  24. ↑ Hans Altendorf: Stasi records authority is looking for a new director . In: Berliner Zeitung , October 17, 2013, see also: [4] .
  25. ↑ See Federal Association for Prevention and Health Promotion: [5] .
  26. ↑ See GEW NRW: [6] .
  27. ↑ See e.g. E.g .: [7] .
  28. ↑ See Ossietzky magazine : Archived copy ( Memento of the original from June 8, 2016 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. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sopos.org
  29. ↑ See HP TU Dortmund: [8] .
  30. ↑ HP Prof. Dr. Astrid Kaiser: [9] ; "Solidarity times at SHB Marburg": Solidary times at SHB Marburg .
  31. ↑ As a VDS board member: [10] ; "Solidarity times at SHB Marburg": Solidary times at SHB Marburg .
  32. ↑ See: [11] .
  33. ^ Matthias Herfurth / Stefan Hradil / Gerhard Schönfeld: B ibliographie zur deutschen Sociologie , Vol. 4, 1992–1995, Wiesbaden 2002, p. 564 .; "Solidarity times at SHB Marburg": Solidary times at SHB Marburg .
  34. ↑ See Center for Teacher Education Hamburg: Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 8, 2016 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. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zlh-hamburg.de
  35. ^ Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Willy Brandt Foundation: [12] .
  36. ↑ See GEW Bremen: [Hermann Tietke].
  37. ↑ "Students / VDS / SHB. Too little attitude ”. in: Der Spiegel , H. 15, April 5, 1971, see also: [13] .
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