Meeting in Tunix

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The meeting in TUNIX took place from January 27th to 29th 1978 in the Technical University (TU) in West Berlin and was the short-term attempt of some initiatives by the "unorganized" to gather the still scattered new generation after the 1968 movement , which formed a counterpoint to the political understanding of the Maoist K-groups and the GDR- oriented organizations. The participants, the number of which was estimated by the organizers at 15,000, used a varied program to present their activities, for discussion, exchange and entertainment. As a result, a large number of groups and projects were founded in town and country, and therefore the meeting is considered the "hour of birth" of the alternative movement .

"Tunix" is a cheeky form of the imperative "do nothing" and alludes to the creativity that only arises in situations of "doing nothing".

prehistory

The meeting in TUNIX was initiated by the Berlin spontaneous scene and by grassroots groups from the previous professional ban strike at Berlin universities, colleges and technical colleges in 1976/77, also in response to the German autumn and was open to the entire left spectrum with the exception of dogmatists . In the announcement text, the initiators criticize the police search pressure of those weeks and the repressive excesses of the social-liberal policy of the time, which was often labeled with the term "Model Germany":

We’re here now! Winter is too dreary for us, spring too polluted and in summer we suffocate here. We've been stinking stink from the offices, the reactors and factories, from the city highways for a long time. We no longer taste the muzzles and neither do the plastic-tied sausages. The beer is too stale for us and so is the stuffy morality. We don't want to do the same work over and over again, always make the same faces. They commanded us enough, checked our thoughts, polished the ideas, the apartment, the passports, the face. We no longer allow ourselves to be canned and shrunk and made equal. We're all leaving! … To the beach of Tunix .

On the one hand, the appeal hit the mood of young people all over Germany, and on the other hand, the university strike in Berlin resulted in a high degree of mobilization of the “new student movement” already being discussed in public. In the meantime it had been recognized in politics and the media that there were no communist or even terrorist “masterminds” behind this movement. Although the "rendezvous of all fun spontaneous people, happy freaks, lively mescaleros" was ridiculed in the left-wing Berlin special service and a comparison was made with an "oriental bazaar" in the Berliner Morgenpost, the participants were not interested:

“Their principle was: 'We don't want a minimum consensus that is as flat and abstract as it is correct. We want the maximum for everyone. [...] we can nevertheless - or precisely because of it - fight together. '"

- Georg-Ludwig Radke: Spontis and Stadtindianer , in: Berlin Voice, February 4, 1978.

Course of the meeting

program

The program of the Tunix meeting comprised panel discussions, lectures, films and cultural events. There were also several panel discussions and the opening and closing events in the Audimax of the TU. From a feminist perspective, the main criticism in retrospect was that none of the events dealt with feminist topics and that the podiums were mostly made up of male speakers.

Friday January 27, 1978

  • 2 p.m. - 8 p.m .: Meeting point at the Technical University (foyer, Audimax): information, the large bazaar (group stands, catering).
    Music ( Defiance & Dreams , Klaus the Geiger , Mobile Operational Orchestra, High Cracks, Professor Faust-Troll)
    Theater (Theater group Ratiborstrasse, Hobbit-Puppenbühne, Gauckler and Feuerschlucker).
Cover sheet program of the meeting in TUNIX

parallel:

  • Meet alternative educational models in the school for adult education .
  • Final solution Stammheim (lawyers, representatives of the French and Italian press, Humanist Union )
  • Solidarity with the Agit printers (committee for the release of the AGIT printers arrested in the German autumn )
  • 8 p.m .: Opening event in the TU Audimax
  • 10 p.m .: the moon of Tunix shines pink (big party in the gay center )
  • 8 p.m .: cultural program in the youth center Drugstore

TUNIX FILM FESTIVAL [on all three days] with 26 films and events in the Yorck cinema

  • Alternative film work
  • Initiatives for left "newsreels" (topics: BI Westtangente , demolition of the Kreuzberg fire station, etc.)

Saturday January 28, 1978

parallel:

  • Self-managed youth centers ( Georg-von-Rauch-Haus and the extension of the rental agreement)
  • AGIT-ACTION (Possibilities of public relations. Purpose and sense of committees; Forms of actions)
  • Feminism and Ecology
  • Survival in the district
  • Event of the lone fighters
  • from 2 p.m .: Mobile cultural program (MEK-Bilk, Krause-Berlin, Berliner Stadtmusikanten, Los Tros Tornados , theater group Fuddels, theater from France: Studio 4, Les Maroniers)
  • 5 p.m., TU Audimax: Left daily newspaper in Germany (lawyer Ströbele , Günter Wallraff , Lotta Continua and alternative newspapers )
  • Science - Utopia - Resistance (event by the Berlin editors of " Buback - an obituary ")
  • Shimmering revolt ( Merve-Verlag with Ex-AStA Göttingen)
  • Relationship of the left to the state - reactions of the state to the left.

in the evening:

Sunday January 29, 1978

  • Psychiatry , antipsychiatry , (representatives of various psychiatry projects, David Cooper , Félix Guattari )
  • Basic groups on the situation at the universities
  • Gay working groups / Gay projects / Gay autonomous theory
  • Status of the anti-nuclear movement ( Gorleben , Grohnde , Kalkar )
  • Fight against city destruction (motorway, redevelopment, air pollution, boycott of electricity bills)
  • Self-sufficiency and building your own food chain
  • Alternative energy generation and technologies
  • Medical self-care and self-control of our health
  • Exhibition 'Enduring Energy' (in the Socialist Young Workers and Schoolchildren Center)

parallel:

  • Alternative city tour: where has the 'capital of Berlin' gone?
  • Survival in the district
  • Feminism and Ecology
  • Professional ban for lawyers
  • Alternative media practice - counter-public
  • Minority politics ( Merve Verlag and Autonomie )
  • from 2 p.m .: cultural program in the TU Audimax (hobbit puppet stage / children's theater), magician Bernd Heller ( GRIPS-Theater )
  • What's wrong with the left book trade
  • Is there a new fascism in the FRG? (Event of the magazines alternative , Berliner Hefte , Ästhetik and Kommunikation with Karl Heinz Roth and foreign guests) - TU Audimax
  • Left bars: counter-public or bottling station?
  • Preparation for the 'Freaktreffen in Frankfurt', July 1978

8 p.m .: Closing event in the Audimax

58 pubs and restaurants in six districts are recommended in the program. On the back of the program booklet a “Guide for Women” with 16 galleries, shops, workshops, centers, cafés and pubs.

Demonstration on January 28, 1978

"From the train of about 5000 participants [...] who had come from Berlin, West Germany and Western European countries - including so-called Spontis and city Indians as well as other unorganized leftists - were first given colored eggs in front of the women's prison on Lehrter Straße and later in front of the Courthouse in Moabiter Turmstrasse already thrown with cobblestones. "

- Der Tagesspiegel : The rally was violent. January 29, 1978.

On the way to the city center, the police managed to split the train “after the first stones hit the America House . [...] Then participants threw a real hail of stones from the separated train, so that the police had to back away and the train could reunite. He moved to Kurfürstendamm. "

“A large German flag with the inscription 'Model Germany' was tied to a loudspeaker van of the demonstrators and pulled through the dirt. At the corner of Kurfürstendamm and Joachimstaler Strasse, the flag was then set on fire in front of the police and passers-by. [...] After the flag was burned, the police evacuated and the demonstrators declared the train over. "

“About 30 police officers were injured, some seriously. More than 15 shop windows from banks and shops were broken. ”The Frankfurter Rundschau reported:“ The police announced on Sunday that 30 out of a thousand police officers deployed had been slightly injured. [...] There were no arrests. [...] According to eyewitness reports, a rocker group from Hamburg [in Moabit] started throwing stones at the police officers. "

Discussion event "The theory of the 2 cultures"

Immediately after the demonstration, the announced main event followed: "In a sometimes very excited atmosphere [...] the discussion with Senator for Science Glotz and FU President Lämmert in the auditorium maximum of the Technical University, which was overcrowded with almost 3000 listeners, began about Glotz's thesis that parts the student body is in a subculture whose language is no longer understandable for many. "

The discussion got off to a difficult start after the events at the demonstration, and Lämmert's declaration that “the demonstrators should come out in public with arguments and not with stones ...” did not reflect reality for many participants. One student pointed out that "one would find oneself in the dilemma of not wanting to be integrated through dialogue with politicians, on the one hand, and not wanting to prevent attempts at integration by throwing stones, but rather finding one's own way."

Glotz said that his approach was not a "hugging strategy", he was here because he had the impression that "a spiritual argument had started."

"The Ring of Christian Democratic Students ( RCDS ) welcomed the exemplary appearance [...] of Dr. In the TU, gawking in front of thousands of the free, democratic basic order of hostile students. 'Through well-founded arguments and a convincing demeanor, he succeeded in conducting a democratic dialogue with the newly emerging subculture Tunix.' In the words of RCDS chairman Köhler, this offensive dispute should serve as a model for all German politicians. "

Closing event on January 29, 1978

Spokesmen for the Tunix organizers announced that 15,000 visitors had been counted. They couldn't have prevented the chaos at the meeting. One also hopes for solidarity if “someone should be made legally responsible for the action with the German flag.” Foreigners from France and Italy said they took back the impression “that thousands in Germany rejected life under the repression.” FU professor Flechtheim advocated the thesis that “there is currently no fascism”. But there is a “slow and inconspicuous development of dismantling democracy bit by bit.” Participants said that it was possible to make the diversity of their own movement clear: “The 'Tunix' meeting, with a lot of music, theater, dance and Film programs came to an end, (for many) it was an event to experience an alternative way of thinking and feeling towards society for a few days en masse - that is what most of the assessments in the final discussion amounted to. "

On Monday, January 30, 1978, Senator for Science Glotz gave a press conference in which he took the view that the new generation had "had enough of the strenuous violent war games of the Maoist K-groups [...] However, he had no illusion that the " Alternative culture" aimed at by the spontaneous movement [...] is a challenge to what these groups call "social democracy". "

But the new dynamic of the movement was expressed in a leaflet from the ASH (Workers' Self- Help) Bonames - companies in self-administration -: "We are quite a lot [...] and we will not wait until forever - as they would like - and will be And don't start elsewhere - as you would like - but now and here, everyone in their city, right on Monday - after the big party. "

Meaning and impact history

The meeting was the organizational beginning of the alternative movement in Berlin and West Germany, it marked a turning point in the political style of the New Left. Alternative newspaper projects, including that of the later taz , were presented, including the concept of a nationwide ecology party - initially, “alternative lists” for elections were planned, and later the new party The Greens emerged . The women's movement also found the decisive boom here. The gay and lesbian Christopher Street Day parades from 1979 as well as the homosexual equivalent of the Tunix meeting, the Homolulu Congress, and the self-help network were initiated here. The “Black Café” in Kantstrasse was opened shortly beforehand as a meeting point in the city.

At the meeting in Tunix, the liberal discussion partners criticized - regardless of their “understanding of the development of an alternative culture” - that the movement was “directed against the central values ​​of pluralistic culture.” Leftists criticized that “the real goal of Tunix, inventing new forms of resistance had not been achieved. "The tabloid press concentrated its reporting on the violent actions of the demonstration:" Chaots on the Kurfürstendamm - 30 police officers injured "and the demand for" legal foundations ... in order to oppose such activity to be able to proceed at the TU. "

But the discussions and their topics - neither in the groups nor in the Audimax with Senator Glotz and FU President Lämmert, neither about the question of violence nor about the reality of two or more parallel societies - did not determine the importance of Tunix. The fact is that as a result of the meeting in Berlin and West Germany, a wave of projects began in all areas: The exchange with like-minded people had encouraged, made contacts possible and linked skills to an extent that could hardly be overestimated. It was no longer a question of overturning the existing society in the next step or just concentrating on the resistance against state power, but rather implementing alternatives - the “alternative movement” had manifested itself and became a concept.

See also

literature

  • Michael March: Left protest after the German autumn. A history of the left spectrum in the shadow of the “strong state” 1977–1979 . Transcript, Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-8376-2014-6 .
  • Geronimo: Fire and flame. On the history of the autonomous . 4th edition. Edition ID archive, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-89408-004-3 .
  • Anina Falasca: " Spontaneous fun" and "happy freaks". On the theoretical reorientation of the New Left around 1978 , in: Magic of Theory - History of the New Left in West Germany, special issue of Work - Movement - History , Issue II / 2018, pp. 72–87.
  • Wolfgang Neuss : Tunix is ​​better than unemployed. Sayings of a survivor . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-499-15556-7 .
  • Jens Gehret (Ed.): Counterculture. From Woodstock to Tunix, from 1969 to 1981 . MarGis, Asslar 1985, ISBN 3-921764-12-2 .
  • Ronald Glomb: Off to Tunix . In: J. Gehret (Ed.): Counter culture today. The alternative movement from Woodstock to Tunix . Azid Presse, Amsterdam 1979, ISBN 90-70215-03-9 , pp. 137-144.
  • Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm , Otto Kallscheuer , Eberhard Knödler-Bunte: Two cultures. TUNIX, Mescalero and the consequences . Verlag Ästhetik und Kommunikation, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-88245-201-3 .
  • Jana König: "Wrong paths and new beginnings". The meaning of theory in times of left-wing crises - In the context of "German Autumn" 1977 and "Reunification" 1989 , in: Magic of Theory - History of the New Left in West Germany, special issue of Work - Movement - History , Issue II / 2018, p 88-104.

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Frank Bachner: 40 years of the "Tunix" Congress - a memory. Tagesspiegel , January 26, 2018, accessed on March 31, 2018 .
  2. ↑ "According to Glotz, 4800 people came to the Tunix meeting on the weekend via the transit routes, of whom 3000 to 4000 would have participated in the demonstration. A minority of the 6000 demonstrators threw stones. […] At times there were up to 7,000 participants in the rooms [of the TU]. ”( Der Tagesspiegel , January 31, 1978) The total number is given here, as in the Berlin vote of February 4, 1978, as 15,000.
  3. ↑ Jana König: "Wrong Paths and New Beginnings". The meaning of theory in times of left-wing crises - In the context of "German Autumn" 1977 and "Reunification" 1989 , in: Magic of Theory - History of the New Left in West Germany, special issue of Work - Movement - History , Issue II / 2018, p 88-104.
  4. ^ Edition ID archive (ed.): Geronimo: Fire and Flame - To the history of the autonomous . 1990, ISBN 3-89408-004-3 , chap. 1 ( nadir.org ).
  5. ↑ The list (including the spelling) corresponds to the "final" program, but there is no guarantee that it was carried out unchanged. For the announcements, see: TUNIX coordination committee: TUNIX and what will happen , pamphlet January 1978.
  6. ↑ Tunix Die phallokratik Linke did the honors, in: berliner Frauenzeitung Courage , issue 3 1978, p. 56f
  7. ↑ The Berliner Morgenpost reported 6,200 participants on January 29, 1978.
  8. ↑ Tagesspiegel , January 29, 1978.
  9. ↑ Tagesspiegel , January 29, 1978.
  10. ↑ Berliner Morgenpost , January 29, 1978.
  11. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Riots in Berlin . January 30, 1978.
  12. ↑ Tagesspiegel , January 29, 1978.
  13. ↑ Berlin Voice , February 4, 1978.
  14. ↑ Berliner Morgenpost: Senator Glotz discussed with "Spontis" . January 29, 1978.
  15. ↑ Tagesspiegel of January 31, 1978 and Berlin vote of February 4, 1978.
  16. ↑ Tagesspiegel: Glotz sticks to discussions . January 31, 1978.
  17. ↑ Anina Falasca: " Fun Spontaneous " and "Happy Freaks". On the theoretical reorientation of the New Left around 1978 , in: Magic of Theory - History of the New Left in West Germany, special issue of Work - Movement - History , Issue II / 2018, pp. 72–87.
  18. ↑ Berliner Morgenpost: Senator Glotz discussed with "Spontis" , January 29, 1978.
  19. ↑ Georg-Ludwig Radke: Spontis and Stadtindianer , in: Berlin Voice, February 4, 1978.
  20. ↑ BZ, January 30, 1978.
  21. ↑ Uwe Sonnenberg: M. March: Left protest after the German autumn. H-Soz-Kult , May 10, 2012, accessed March 31, 2018 .