Working group literature in the world of work

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The Werkkreis Literatur der Arbeitswelt is a German writers' association that has been based in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1970 and expressly addresses not only professional authors, but also people who, in poetry , prose , radio play or other literary forms, talk about the present, but above all Write about the world of work in the professions they have learned or practiced.

Emergence

The working group literature in the world of work is based on the main features of the Dortmunder Gruppe 61 , a Dortmund association of writers who deal with the literary representation of modern industrial society.

A fundamental criticism of the Dortmunder Gruppe 61 led to the formation of the working group literature in the world of work . The group 61 looked more a social base mismatch in the Federal Republic of Germany and wanted to develop it. An opposition within the literary circle, which included Günter Wallraff , Erika Runge , Angelika Mechtel , Max von der Grün , Erasmus Schöfer and Peter Schütt , wanted to create texts in which the working class was supported and in which the socio-political standpoint of the authors should become visible.

The aim of this opposition, which finally founded the working group, was to promote the establishment of workers as professional writers and to actively support the training and promotion of future worker writers. Josef Büscher founded the first workshop in the spring of 1968 with the help of the adult education center in Gelsenkirchen . At the Gegen-Universität in Hamburg, Peter Schütt, who had long been a member of the party executive committee of the DKP , initiated a workshop for writing workers together with the building fitter Rainer Hirsch in the spring of 1968.

After the critics of the group 61 with their amendments to program and statutes found no majority at its annual meeting on 10 January 1970 they founded on 7. March 1970 the film cycle literature of the working world with nine local workshops, which are each represented by two delegates. The following were elected as speakers:

Position in the literature business

The communist Erasmus Schöfer , a long-time DKP member, became the first speaker and presented a draft statute for the establishment of a non-profit association based in Cologne to the 2nd assembly of delegates. In January 1981 the non-party Harry Böseke took over the management. Günter Wallraff soon came under fire in the founding group: he wrote the way spontaneousists wrote in the political field. That was not acceptable to the representatives of resolute partisanship among the founders, such as Runge, Schöfer and Schütt. Even at the first working conference in Gelsenkirchen on June 27, 1970, the "narrow view of literature" was criticized in the lectures by speakers Wallraff and Friedrich G. Kürbisch.

By January 1988, Fischer Verlag published 60 titles from the work group as part of a paperback series with a total circulation of over 1 million books; later they appeared partly self-published, partly in the union-affiliated Bund-Verlag and ASSO .

In the mid- 1970s , the organization had around 450 members in western Germany, Austria and Switzerland. “At its best, the Werkkreis counted 500 'writing workers'”, remembers Schütt: “There is no real proletarian among them. The only one, Gerd Sowka, was expelled as early as 1972 because of a lack of adherence to the line. ”Horst Hensel, on the other hand, criticized in the Werkkreis circular from March 1981 that“ groups of German studies students and VHS mothers who made humanity happy [...] obstruct the actual work ”and demanded in vain the conversion into an association of authors. In Circular No. 144 of December 1983, Heinrich Peuckmann stated : “Making literature is dangerous. Especially in the work group. "

Political orientation

The leading role of members of the German Communist Party (DKP) in the working group literature in the world of work was long-term. In 1971 the Mannheim author Reinhard Welz succumbed to the attempt to forbid the members by changing the statutes to speak out in favor of political organizations in the work group ; A majority agreed on a self-image as a "non-party organization based on a union program, in which social democratic, communist and non-party colleagues work together". In the same year a boycott of the Springer and Bertelsmann publishers was decided. At the speakers' council meeting on 10./11. June 1972 Welz was excluded. The Hamburg workshop co-founder Rainer Hirsch, who held a part-time position as full-time managing director of the Werkkreis from October 1973 to summer 1977 , was also excluded from a spokesman's council meeting (June 3rd / 4th, 1978) for “behavior that was harmful to the workgroup”.

In a small question on February 10, 1978 , the CDU / CSU parliamentary group described the group of authors as "communist infiltrations", which the speakers' council denied, referring to the union orientation. His initial support of the 3rd International Russell Tribunal on the situation of human rights in the Federal Republic of Germany who moved factory district in April 1978. back because the tribunal also discusses the incompatibility decisions of the IG Metall dealt and other unions. In the following years the offered factory district training seminars in the training center of union pressure and paper in location-Hörste and cooperated, sometimes in personal union of functionaries, with the Association of German Writers (VS, today ver.di ).

In May 1978, the working group literature in the world of work appeared as No. 236 on a secret list entitled Left-Wing Extremistly Influenced Printed Works and Organizations , which was used for spying on border crossings. Protests against this list contributed to the resignation of the then Interior Minister Werner Maihofer .

Controversy in the spokesman's council was caused by the signature of Werkkreis spokesman Jürgen Alberts on a protest telegram against Wolf Biermann's expatriation from the GDR at the end of 1976 .

Newer development

At the 10th Assembly of Delegates in Kamp-Lintfort in 1981 , the peace activist Klaus D. Bufe was elected First Speaker. At the 11th meeting from June 16 to 19, 1983 in Duisburg , he was replaced by Harry Böseke, who was succeeded by Heinrich Droege in 1985. This resigned in December 1986 after S. Fischer-Verlag had terminated the contracts with the work group due to poor sales figures. The BUND-Verlag also ended the collaboration in January 1991. A financial and management crisis that lasted for years followed.

After the end of the GDR, efforts were made to integrate the circles of writing workers . However, this project failed despite a joint publication. In 2008 the Werkkreis had workshops in the cities of Augsburg , Berlin , Darmstadt , Hamburg, Kassel , Cologne, Leipzig , Munich , Nuremberg and Vienna .

In 2020, two funded artistic performances will take place at the Fritz Hüser Institute as part of the “Works & Circles / Werke & Kreise” project on the occasion of “50 Years of the Working Group on Literature in the Working World ”. 2,500 work group books are to be distributed and remind of the work of the work group.

The historical tradition of the work group is in the archive of the Fritz-Hüser-Institut and is continuously updated.

First speaker

  • Erasmus Schöfer (January to November 1970)
  • Karl-Dietrich Bredthauser (November 1970)
  • Erasmus Schöfer (1972–1973)
  • Jürgen Alberts (1973–1977)
  • Horst Hensel (1977–1979)
  • Peter Fischbach (1979–1981)
  • Klaus D. Bufe (1981-1983)
  • Harry Böseke (1983–1985)
  • Heinrich Droege (1985–1986)
  • Michael Tonfeld (1987)
  • Günter Heiden (1987–1988)
  • Jochen Grünwaldt (1988–1989)
  • Hermann Heister (1989–1990)
  • Fritz Märkl (1991–1995)
  • Gabi Anders-Hanfstingl (1995–)
  • Fritz Märkl (2010)

Publications (selection)

  • But you bear the risk of reports from the world of work, Rowohlt-Verlag, Reinbek June 1971, 380- ISBN 3 499 11447 X
  • Make yourself bigger! Stories that encourage courage, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / May February 1986, 880-ISBN-3-596-25289-X
  • We don't allow ourselves to be fooled Citizens' initiatives: short novels and reports, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main April 1978, 580-ISBN-3-596-21988-4
  • Jochen Zillig: Opportunity Makes Love Farmer's novel, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main March 1979, 580-ISBN-3-596-22152-8
  • We claim the opposite. Texts from the world of work from 1970–1986, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / May November 1986, 980-ISBN-3-596-25292-X
  • Martin Johnscher: The short exchange . Frankfurt / Main December 1979. 680-ISBN-3-596-22201-X
  • Workers' reading book - not only for workers, Frankfurt / May August 1981, 780-ISBN-3-596-25026-9
  • This company is on strike, reports on the labor disputes in the FRG, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main December 1974, ISBN 3-436-02034-6
  • On site , company reports, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main February 1987, ISBN 3-596-25293-8
  • Ed. Erasmus Schöfer: The children of the red grandfather tell - reports on the prehistory and early history of the Federal Republic of Germany, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1976, ISBN 978-3596216819
  • Der Prolet laughs , Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main March 1978, ISBN 9783596220175
  • At 15 you still have dreams of working-class youth in the FRG, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1975, ISBN 9783436020088
  • Shop stewards report , Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main September 1979, ISBN 978-3596221790

literature

  • 25 years of resistance truth criticism. Edited by Working group literature in the world of work, Munich 1995
  • Peter Fischbach, Horst Hensel, Uwe Naumann (eds.): Ten years of work group literature in the world of work, documents, analyzes, backgrounds. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1979 (Fischer Taschenbuch 2195), ISBN 3-596-22195-1
  • Horst Hensel: Werkkreis or the organization of political literature work. The emergence of the work group literature in the world of work as a model for the cultural emancipation of workers , Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1980 (amounts to workers' literature 3), ISBN 3-7609-0536-6
  • Wilhelm Mensing: Moles in the cultivation bed. DKP influence in the press. Literature and art , edition interfrom, Zurich 1983 (texts + theses. Subject area culture and education, vol. 156), ISBN 3-7201-5156-5
  • Volker Zaib, Werner Jung , Erasmus Schöfer: writers in a collective . Texts and letters on the work group literature in the world of work. Essen 2014, ISBN 9783837511314

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Schütt: "Beat the blue flower to death" . In: Die Welt v. May 13, 2000.
  2. ↑ 25 years of resistance, truth, criticism. Edited by Werkkreis Literatur der Arbeitswelt, Munich 1995, p. 7 f.
  3. ↑ Ibid., P. 9.
  4. ↑ Ibid., P. 14.
  5. ↑ Ibid, p. 13.
  6. ^ Announcements from the Fritz Hüser Society, Dortmund, 2019/2
  7. ^ Announcements from the Fritz Hüser Society, Dortmund, 2020/1

Web links