Socialist office

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Newspaper title left

The Socialist Office (SB), based in Offenbach, was an organization of the New Left whose aim was to unify the socialist forces in the Federal Republic of Germany. The SB was founded in 1969 and was active until the end of the 1990s. In its own publishing house 2000 GmbH, the SB published the magazines links and express - newspaper for socialist company and trade union work, as well as other periodicals, and organized campaigns and congresses. The number of members of the SB in the 1970s was between 1000 and 1500, who were organized in groups in West Germany.

people

The active members of the SB came largely from the socialist spectrum of the so-called undogmatic left , the Easter march movement and partly from the Socialist Bund , which had dissolved in 1969. Among the founders were: Frank Deppe , Arno Klönne and Wolfgang Streeck . Klaus Vack became the organization secretary . The early self-service critic Oskar Negt took on a leading role as the organization's strategist in the 1970s. In October 1972 he gave his presentation at a self-service conference, not organizing according to people, but according to interests .

Other self-service members were: Elmar Altvater , Wolf-Dieter Narr , Joachim Hirsch , Dan Diner , Timm Kunstreich , Micha Brumlik , Detlev Claussen and Andreas Buro . In the mid-1970s, Rudi Dutschke also joined the company without being particularly active in SB.

The core of the SB was partly identical to the editorial staff of the periodical on the left . In addition to the aforementioned, it consisted of Hanne and Klaus Vack (secretaries), Hansgeorg Conert , Egbert Jahn , Roland Roth , Gert Schäfer , Eva Senghaas and Edgar Weick. Trade unionists such as Willi Scherer (Gelsenkirchen) and Willi Hoss (Stuttgart) were also important .

The second periodical published by the SB was express - newspaper for socialist works and trade union work , which offered left trade unionists, works councils and shop stewards a mouthpiece for opinions that were opposition and critical of the organization. Editors and active employees were: Eberhard Schmidt , Heinz Günter Lang, Klaus Kowol, Willi Michel, Walther Müller-Jentsch , Heide Langguth, Iris Bergmiller, Otto Jacobi, Rainer Erd , Edgar Weick, Volker Brandes and Heiner Halberstadt .

Magazine left

The most important magazine published by the SB was the left , its circulation was 8,000 in 1969 and rose to 12,000 by 1974. The circulation sank from the beginning of the 80s, by 1984 it was already below 6000. The last left edition reached fewer than 2,000 subscribers in 1997, and the free sale in left bookshops has long since ceased to play a role.

Like many organizations and projects of the New Left, the left editors also broke up because of differences of opinion about the Second Gulf War , the end of the Soviet Union and German reunification . Rescue attempts by former self-service celebrities could only keep the project alive for a short time. Many former SB members then worked on the Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy .

Campaigns and Congresses

Logo anti-repression congress 1976

Through campaigns and congresses (“Pentecost Congresses”) that took up political disputes with high symbolic value (“Repression”, Angela Davis , Portugal , Chile ), the “Socialist Bureau” was able to activate and mobilize far beyond its own spectrum. The successes of the SB included the implementation of an amnesty for all those charged with demonstration crimes around 1968, as well as the subsequent liberalization of the right to demonstrate. About 36,000 citizens signed the appeal for the solidarity congress “Using the Example of Angela Davis” in Frankfurt 1972. The “Antirepression congress” in Frankfurt 1976 had 20,000 participants.

  • 1972: "Angela Davis Solidarity Committee" and "Socialist Office": Angela Davis Solidarity Congress "Using the Example of Angela Davis" in Frankfurt
  • 1973: Committee "Solidarity with Chile" and "Socialist Bureau": Campaign "Chile, the struggle continues - Solidarity with the Chilean working class"
  • 1975/76: Portuguese campaign "Solidarity with the Portuguese Revolution"
  • 1976: "Campaign against oppression" - Pentecost anti-repression congress, Frankfurt ("Those who do not defend themselves live wrong")
  • 1980: Congress “Great Advice - Social Protest Movements and Socialist Politics” in Frankfurt (5,000 participants). Future workshop "Small steps in everyday life - Drafts for a socialist life" in Hamburg (1,000 participants).

Journalistic aftermath

express - newspaper for socialist company and trade union work has been published since 1997 by the Association for the Promotion of Political Education .

In 1981, former members of the health, social work and school fields of the Socialist Bureau, which at that time no longer existed as a comprehensive organization, founded the contradictions. Journal for politics in the education, health and social sector , which was published by Kleine Verlag for 20 years. The magazine has been published by the Westfälisches Dampfboot publishing house since 2011 . The publisher (as of 2014) is also the “Working Group for Political Education”.

A group around the former links editor Joachim Hirsch operates the online portal links-netz .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jörg Später: Needs must be organized (review of the book "Experience Traces" by Oskar Negt), in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung May 15, 2019, page 10
  2. ↑ Gerd Langguth: Myth '68: Rudi Dutschke's philosophy of violence - causes and consequences of the student movement , Olzog, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7892-8065-8 , p. 114 ( limited preview in Google book search)
  3. ↑ Information about the "links" number from April 1969 , provided by: Express - newspaper for socialist company and trade union work , accessed on August 3, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b c d Gottfried Oy: Searching for traces of the new left. The example of the Socialist Office and its magazine “links” from UTOPIE Kreativ , issue 197 (March 2007), online version in trend online newspaper, July 2007, accessed on June 2, 2014.
  5. ^ Socialist Office - Center for the Left , DIE ZEIT, Zeit online, August 25, 1972, accessed on April 23, 2014.
  6. ^ "Speech to the Angela Davis Congress 1972" , linksnet - For Left Politics and Science, June 5, 2001, accessed on April 23, 2014.
  7. ↑ Book Portuguese Campaign , accessed on June 2, 2014.
  8. ↑ New Left - Great Advice. In: Die Zeit online, July 4, 1980, accessed on April 23, 2014.
  9. ^ Anthology "Zukunftswerkstatt 21-23 November 1980 in Hamburg"
  10. ^ Journal of contradictions
  11. ↑ Online portal links-netz.de , an Internet revival of the magazine links