Vagabond Congress 1929

The international vagabond congress in 1929 took place on Whitsun, 21-23 May 1929, in Stuttgart. Despite efforts by the city and the press to stop the congress, around 500 vagabonds took part.

prehistory

The number of unemployed on the road in the Weimar Republic rose from 70,000 (1929) to 450,000 (1943). During this time an attitude towards life developed which made the vagabond popular, which was symbolized by the mass editions of the books by Jack London and B. Traven and the movie character Charlie Chaplin .

The congress was preceded by the " Brotherhood of Vagabonds " founded by Gregor Gog in 1927 . Their patron saint was Till Eulenspiegel . Gog published the magazine “ Der Kunde ”. The customer was the vagabonds' own name. The first public vagabond evening took place in Stuttgart in April 1928. This is where the intensive collaboration with the painter's drift Hans Tombrock began . Together with the painters Hans Bönnighausen and Gerhart Bettermann , they founded the “Artists' Group of the Brotherhood of Vagabonds”. Here the idea of ​​a first international vagabond congress came up.

Course of the congress

The congress took place outdoors on the Stuttgart Killesberg with 500 participants. The speeches were:

• Gregor Gog : "What does the Brotherhood of Vagabonds want?"
• Heinrich Lersch : "The struggle for freedom"
• Alfons Paquet : "Greetings from poets and artists from all over the world"
• Hans Tombrock : "Landscape - Customers - Vagabonds"
• Willi Hammelrath : "Capitalist society and customer"
• Phillip Hainz : "Justice and Customer"
• Rudolf Geist : "The customer as a revolutionary agitator"
• Jakobus Weidenmann : "The home of the homeless"
• Karl Roltsch : “On the go. Socio-political experiences of an academic triple volunteer "

Knut Hamsun and Lewis Sinclair sent greetings. Gregor Gog issued the slogan “General strike for life”.

The Stuttgart “Stiftung Geißstraße 7” published a Gregor Gog memorial sheet in 2004 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the first vagabond congress at Whitsun 1929.

See also

• Precariat
• Homelessness discrimination
• Rover movement

literature

• Klaus Trappmann (Ed.): Landstrasse, customers, vagabonds. Gregor Gog's League of the Homeless , Gerhardt Verlag, Berlin 1980
• Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Hrsg.): Residence: Nirgendwo - About life and survival on the street , Verlag Frölich and Kaufmann, Berlin 1982
• Gabriele Stammberger and Michael Peschke: Arrived safely - Moscow. The exile of Gabriele Stammberger 1932–1954 , BasisDruck Verlag, Berlin 1999
• Harry Wilde : Theodor Plievier. Zero point of freedom. Kurt Desch publishing house, 1965.
• Walter Fähnders, Henning Zimpel (ed.): The era of the vagabonds. Texts and pictures 1900–1945 . Klartext Verlag , Essen 2009 (writings of the Fritz Hüser Institute 19). ISBN 978-3-89861-655-3

Web links

• Gregor Gog 1891–1945 General strike for life! - Memorandum of the Stuttgart "Stiftung Geißstraße 7"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Freedom after - the hunger, taken from the magazine Graswurzelrevolution No. 295 (2005). Retrieved September 25, 2010