Exberliner Issue 171 May 2018

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DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY have kids, they end up isolated in the home – no matter what they did until that point. We had to do something against that. Public behaviour back in the Adenauer era was defined by cold prudery. Women didn’t even go to cafés by themselves and they were under strict moral control. All of this was swept away by a wave of liberality. The 1968ers started moving into WGs (shared flats), which would have been inconceivable before 1968. The women in the movement weren’t all students. Many were from around the university, like secretaries and booksellers. We organised educational groups of 12 women each. The idea was for them to study for a year and become politicised until they knew enough to intervene in society. These groups were to found more new groups, until the whole city would be full of women’s education groups and form a full movement. The meetings of the women's movement were cultural events. We spent many hours reading, discussing, doing theatre, but also cooking or skiing together. We began a completely different way of life than that of an isolated housewife. One of my groups focused on helping girls from the Hauptschule get their diplomas, instead of just becoming hairdressers or marrying. This education group, the S9, still meets up almost 60 years later. We didn't just go to May 1 (International Worker’s Day). We also demonstrated on March 8 (International Women's Day) with slogans like: “Nursery, home and stove – that's not worth a whole life!” and “My belly belongs to me!” We were fighting against a law that made abortion a crime. That was the beginning of the women’s movement in Germany. It’s hard to imagine the desperation girls experienced when they got pregnant out of wedlock back then – tragedies that we now only know from literature. The Berlin unrest West Berlin became a centre of massive demonstrations, and young people from many countries joined in. The thing that had really politicised all of us, both genders, and led to a break with the normality of bourgeois life, was the murder of Benno Ohnesorg [on June 2, 1967]. It was a time of intense student protests against the American war in Vietnam. This shocked the people of Berlin, who until then had seen the Americans as their defenders against communism. Berlin was a fenced-in city, and the West Berlin middle class used to hate long haired students. “Go over to the other side!” they Ludwig Binder/Stiftung Haus der Geschichte would yell. Ohnesorg was at the anti-Shah protest – it was his first – and he was shot by the police. He was from the protestant student group and he didn’t have long hair. He didn’t conform to the cliché of a dangerous rebel. And the shock woke a lot of people up. That was an incisive experience for many people: the state just shot a student. In November 1967, we founded the “Critical University”. Thousands of FU students went on strike because we didn’t want to study under former fascists, and we organised our studies ourselves. On Easter Sunday, 1968, we marched to the Springer skyscraper, the home of newspaper king Axel Cäsar Springer, to protest against the lying and manipulative reporting. Newspapers were burned and the situation became more radical and violent. The highpoint was the battle at Tegeler Weg, a street fight with the police in November 1968. So what did 1968 leave behind? It got rid of the suits and the formal collars and all the old manners and conventions. Now you can go to university in the clothes you want. After 1968, women could take a microphone and speak in a public square. Until then we never thought a news presenter could be a woman – because news is “objective” and therefore the domain of men. So many rules of bourgeois life were toppled by this enormous protest. Possibilities and freedoms for women expanded enormously. Recently on the train I heard some women my age talking about their relief that we have so many more freedoms now. “That was a gift of the 1968ers”, they said, which surprised me, because I am used to 1968ers being hated and feared. — WF From revolution to insurance Michael Prütz Born 1952, Prütz has been selling insurance from his office in Graefestraße in Kreuzberg for more than 30 years. He’s also a life-long revolutionary. He was an organiser of the Revolutionary May Day demonstration in Kreuzberg for four years running (2013-16), and collected funds for Kurdish militia YPG. For Prütz it all started in February 1968 when he went to his first demonstration at age 15. At my protestant school in Zehlendorf, boys were expelled for having long hair. That’s what West Berlin used to be like, but the protests started around 1966. A few of the older boys at my high school had contact to progressive students. We gathered all our courage and went to watch them hand out flyers on Ku’damm. The West Berliners didn’t like them. “You should be gassed!” was a common saying. But I was impressed by the students’ courage and decided I wanted to join. Although my parents forbade it, I went to the demonstration against the Vietnam War after the “Vietnam Congress” in February 1968. I was present at the “Easter Riots” after the assassination attempt on Rudi Dutschke. And I was particularly excited about May 1. That was the first independent leftist demonstration in West Berlin since the construction of the Wall [in 1961]. We didn’t know what to expect as we headed to Karl-Marx-Platz in Neukölln. It was absolutely packed with people – even the bourgeois press talked about 30,000 or 40,000 people. I even saw my grandfather, who 10 EXBERLINER 171
DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY “Remaining radical for all these years is not easy. But I'm not alone, there are more Genossen out there.” had been a communist in the 1930s. He had a twinkle in his eye when he waved at me. There hadn’t been a demonstration like that in Neukölln for decades. After 1968 we had so much optimism. We were totally convinced that we would topple capitalism. Around 1970, we of the Fourth International wrote a document about European perspectives for the next five years. We were absolutely certain that socialist revolution would be achieved by 1975. So what happened? Most of the 1968ers have moved into the left-bourgeois camp. They joined the Social Democrats or the Greens and did their “long march” through the political establishment. Like my old friend Harald Wolf (Berlin’s economics minister from 2002 to 2011, Die Linke). We’ve known each other since 1977 and lived together in a revolutionary WG in Gneisenaustraße – it used to be a real salon for socialists from all over! I had convinced Harald to join the PDS [now: Die Linke], and I guess I didn’t notice how he turned into a neoliberal moderniser. I really could never have imagined that. I guess it’s pretty symbolic of a whole generation of people who have made a career working in state positions. Now the left is so cowardly, always trying to ride the coattails of some bureaucrats. But I’m not interested in capitulating and parroting neoliberal bullshit. I’m too old to benefit from that. I was in the Green Party briefly, 1986-87, but I soon got the feeling that there was no room there for class politics. I joined the PDS in 1990. I left again in 2001 when they formed the “red-red” Berlin government together with the SPD and implemented the biggest cuts in the history of the city: privatising public housing, cutting wages in the public sector, etc. They completely ruined the city – that was done by Die Linke, not the CDU. I prefer selling insurance. From the beginning our customers were autonomists, so we never wore suits and ties. As an organiser of the Revolutionary May Day demonstration from 2013 to 2016, I had to go to the planning meetings with the police – that means three or four meetings, two hours each, with 15 high-level Berlin police, but they were okay, decent people. That’s the closest I got to stepping over to the other side of the frontline! Remaining radical for all these years is not easy. But I’m not alone, there are more Genossen out there. The weird thing is that there are more reasons to rebel today than back in 1968. Back then, there was a functioning social welfare system, and there was almost no unemployment. I used to work the night shift as an unskilled labourer at a Springer printing plant, making the equivalent of €40 an hour. Now, under neoliberalism, young people suffer from constant precariousness. Back in 1968, when you met someone on the street, the very first thing you would ask is: “What are you doing politically? Where are you organised?” It seems like young people aren't as interested in organising long term. They do show a lot of solidarity though. —WF TIP The 1968ers An exhibition of photography by Ludwig Binder und Jim Rakete From the June 1967 mass protest against the Iranian Shah to the Rudi Dutschke assassination attempt the following year, from student meetings on the FU campus to the Tegeler Weg street battle, this exhibition at the Kulturbraurei chronicles the 1968 student unrest in West Berlin as captured through the lenses of Ludwig Binder and Jim Rakete. The 60 black-and-white photographs that have the great poignancy of showing 'revolution' in action, aka strange, brave, bygone times when the fight for a better future, for equality, or against war, wasn't fought in the anonymity of social media, but on the streets and in auditoriums and in the face of ruthless societal and police repression. Museum in der Kulturbrauerei, Prenzlauer Berg, through October 7 Il barbiere di Siviglia Gioachino Rossini Buy your tickets now! mai 4./21. all performances with english surtitles! 0049 030 47 99 74 00 11
Page 1 and 2: 1968-2018 Berliners look back POLIT
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS EXBERLINER 171 - MAY 2018
Page 5 and 6: COLUMN— Political Notebook Why ar
Page 7 and 8: BEST OF BERLIN— May 2018 VOLKSBÜ
Page 9 and 10: DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY point I go
Page 11: DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY with our d
Page 15 and 16: DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY Tacheles i
Page 17 and 18: DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY took over:
Page 19 and 20: DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY QR code. I
Page 21 and 22: CONFESSION The sugar babes Being a
Page 23 and 24: DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY Worldwide,
Page 25 and 26: @waltercrasshole ”best franco-ger
Page 27 and 28: WHAT’S ON — Exhibitions were co
Page 29 and 30: WHAT’S ON — Film Starts May 3 7
Page 31 and 32: Festival previews WHAT’S ON — F
Page 33 and 34: WHAT’S ON — Music Quote Tobias
Page 35 and 36: WHAT’S ON — Music Tips Classica
Page 37 and 38: WHAT’S ON — Stage THEATER- TREF
Page 39 and 40: WHAT’S ON — Stage PALMYRA by be
Page 41 and 42: WHAT’S ON — Art Marc Chagall: C
Page 43 and 44: WHAT’S ON— Art Georgina Steytle
Page 45 and 46: WHAT’S ON — Calendar FRI 18 Kar
Page 47 and 48: ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide G
Page 49 and 50: ADVERTISING — The Language School
Page 51 and 52: BERLIN BITES BREAD Le Brot Real bag
Page 53 and 54: COLUMN— The Gay Berliner Xpose yo
Page 55 and 56: 7,50 € © »the editor« pierrotl

Exberliner Issue 171 May 2018

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