Welfare Committee (1990s)

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Since the beginning of the 1990s, some left-wing initiatives in large German cities (including Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Düsseldorf) have called themselves the welfare committee.

The initiatives were founded in 1992 as part of the Popkomm in Cologne, with an unusually strong participation of well-known artists, musicians and theorists, which subsequently ensured intensive journalistic reporting on the welfare committees. As the reason for the establishment, the participants stated that what they perceived to be a “grand coalition of parliament, neo-Nazi terror , ordinary citizens, police and media was engaged in a cynical interplay together with the 'solution of the asylum seeker question'."

One of the largest and first welfare committees was based in Hamburg , where it presented itself to the public in December 1992. Numerous people from the Hamburg music scene took part in it at times, for example bands such as Absolute Beginner , Blumfeld , Die Goldenen Zitronen , Die Sterne or Cpt. Kirk &. He saw himself as an "ad hoc group of musicians, DJs, artists, authors and journalists to counter the fascist attacks on migrants, gays, the disabled, the left and on subcultural contexts". The Hamburg Welfare Committee also undertook a discussion and lecture tour through East Germany (Rostock, Leipzig, Dresden) under the title “Something Better Than the Nation”, which was sometimes heavily criticized by the East German left.

The Cologne Welfare Committee ate partially from people from the environment of the Spex or Texts-to-Art editors at the time, and from June 25 to 27, 1993 it organized the “First Congress to Fend Against Counter-Revolutionary Evil”.

In 1995, a Tübingen welfare committee broke the traditional “ May singing ” of the local student associations by means of the communication guerrilla : when the associations began to sing, images of male associations such as gymnastics clubs but also Nazi war criminals and the like were projected onto the collegiate church , accompanied by loud piano music. A new approach was interrupted by a loud “Conquest of Paradise” by Vangelis , shortly afterwards naked dancers appeared in front of the pen stairs, carried “Jesus loves you” posters and distributed Christian tracts. The confusion caused by the performance led to the gradual dissolution of the event.

further reading

  • Jörg Heiser: The welfare committees. In: Marius Babias (Ed.): In the center of the periphery. Art education and mediation art in the 90s. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden / Basel 1995, ISBN 978-3-364-00315-3 , pp. 251-266.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Grothe, Nicole: InnenStadtAktion, Kunst oder Politik ?, p. 124 (Google books, accessed on July 18, 2009)
  2. ↑ a b Hamburg Welfare Committee: Something Better Than the Nation - To justify the tour In: Welfare Committees (ed.): Something Besser than the Nation - Texts and materials to ward off counter-revolutionary evil , Edition ID-Archiv, 1994, ISBN 3894080388 , p 45-51
  3. ↑ Hamburg Welfare Committee: Our Minimal Goal ... In: Welfare Committees (ed.): Something Better Than the Nation - Texts and Materials to Defend Against the Counter-Revolutionary Evil , Edition ID-Archiv, 1994, ISBN 3894080388 , pp. 17-21
  4. ↑ Marily Stroux: Plate 1, In: Welfare Committees (ed.): Something Better Than the Nation - Texts and Materials to Defend Against the Counter-Revolutionary Evil , Edition ID Archive, 1994, ISBN 3894080388
  5. ↑ Andreas Fanizadeh : Foreword , In: Welfare Committees (Ed.): Something Better Than the Nation - Texts and Materials for Defense against Counter-Revolutionary Evil , Edition ID Archive, 1994, ISBN 3894080388 , pp. 7–4
  6. ↑ Anonymus: Poster, In: Wohlfahrtsausschüsse (Ed.): Something Better Than the Nation - Texts and Materials for Defense against Counter-Revolutionary Evil , Edition ID-Archiv, 1994, ISBN 3894080388 , p. 74
  7. ↑ "Radio Blissett wins Maisingen"
  8. ↑ autonome afrika-gruppe, Luther Blissett , Sonja Brünzels: Manual of communication guerrillas - as I help myself , 4th Edition. Association A, Hamburg and Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-935936-04-4 , pp. 128-135