1. the Alternative Movement in Germany Alternative Movement in Germany

1. The Alternative Movement in Germany Alternative Movement in Germany 1. The Striking Scene at the Beginning of the 1970s 16 1. .1 Getting behind the Scene 17 1. .1.1 The Adenauer Era 18 1. .1.2 Integration into the West 19 1. .1.3 The Economic Miracle 20 1. .1.4 The Socialist Party of Germany - SPD 22 1. .1.5 The Grand Coalition 1966 - 1969 23 1. .2 The 1968 Generation - Children of Affluence 24 1. 1.2.1 Students' Revolts and the Extra Parliamentary Opposition - APO 26 1.1.2.2 Failure of the APO 27 1.2 The Alternative Scene 29 1.2.1 New Values, New Goals 29 1.2.2 The Breakthrough - Netzwerk Selbsthilfe 31 1.2.3 The Motivating Factors 33 1.2.4 The Alternative Milieu 36 1.2.3 The Intermediate Culture 43 1.2.6 The 'Megamachine' 45 1.2.7 An Excursus - Berlin 49 1.3 The Lived Movement 51 1.3.1 The Alternative Projects 51 1.3.2 Community Living 55 1.3.3 The Alternative Press 58 1.3.4 The Political Arm - The Greens 62 1.4 New Attitudes 65 1.4.1 The Body 65 1.4.2 The Identity 69 1.5 The End of the Alternative Movement? 70 1.5.1 Mathias Horx 70 1.5.2 Communes Today 72 1.5.3 Passai>en 75 1.6 The Forerunners 76 1.6.1 The Bohemians 76 1.6.2 The Life Reformers 78 1.6.3 Wcmdervogel 80 1.7 The Green-Alternative Aesthetic 82 1.8 Summing Up 84 Bibliography 85 14 1 Alternative Movement in Germany This chapter details the Alternative Movement in Germany in 1970s and 1980s that countered the 'modernist' ethos of capitalistic industrial production and created alternative forms of life. To start with, it tracks down the course of socio-political history of post World War II Germany and shows how this history led the students and the young to revolt against the parent generation, against the constricting state and the economic system. Further it establishes that as the revolt was dealt with ruthlessly, they went into a sort of hibernation and came out with a different strategy of countering the societal strictures with less showy, more mature methods in the form of the Alternative Movement. It probes into the lasting external features of the movement that evolved after the tumultuous 1970s: the production projects, communes, press and politics. The lasting socio-cultural changes in the attitudes and conventions regarding body, interpersonal relations and subjectivity not only of the revolting generation but on the whole scale of the German society are recorded as internal features. The movement of 1970s and 80s is but the latest of the links of a longer, more than hundred years old German tradition of resolutely rejecting the bourgeois society and trying out alternative lifestyles. The chapter has taken a note of these forerunners of the Alternative Movement. Being aware of the constraints of 'Auslandsgermanistik', that is, of a research in German Studies conducted from without the field, depending to a large extent on library sources, we would abstain from passing very conclusive remarks on the present condition of the Alternative economy and Alternative communes. However, we are positive that the movement has not died out. Its priorities, form and tools may have changed but it exists in the diffused and mutated form. At present one cannot say, that the movement has the same vigour or force as in the 1970s and 1980s, but the spirit continues. The chapter ends up with a working definition of 'Alterity" distilled from the exposition in this chapter. 1.1 The Striking Scene at the Beginning of the 1970s Their friends and family members cannot comprehend this: A high profile manager leaves his highly remunerative jet-setting job and starts breeding sheep. A twenty years old youth isn't anymore interested in discos and other metropolitan fun. He goes to live with a farmer and toils ten to twelve hours on the farm. A passing out engineering graduate throws his bright career to the winds and works in a small co-operative project. A teacher with good qualifications of the state authorized examination doesn't care for the secure government job and tends children of immigrant workers. ^ This is how Claudia Fischer describes the scene amongst a considerably large section of professionals and highly educated intellectuals in the early 1970s in Germany at the outset of her book Alternatives Leben (1981) with the subtitle: Auf der Suche nach der Welt von morgen Eine Chance, nicht nurfur 'Aussteiger' (In search for a world of tomorrow, a chance not only for the Disembarkers). All of such people as mentioned in the opening paragraph above are described with one single concept: 'Disembarkers' (German Aussteiger). The concept implies the metaphor of a fast moving vehicle, which they wanted to abandon. To disembark means to denounce a high paying fast track career and settle for an occupation that gives one immense inner satisfaction, that is of one's own choice and that does not bring any stress. In English the phrase 'drop-out' is used to denote this bunch of people. But English drop-out is more negative whereas the German Aussteiger has acquired socio-cultural overtones and "applies to anyone who has taken some conscious decision to 'get out' of conventional society". (Ardagh 1987: 443) The disembarkers thus defy the bourgeois ideal of high paying career and social prestige of high consumption. They refuse to be dragged by societal norms and political forces. Thus they were anti-establishment and a part of the movement known as the 'Alternative Movement'. The Alternative Movement was not restricted to Germany. In most of the industrialized societies, i.e. in Europe, USA and also in Japan, certain groups of young people questioned their 'modern' industrial society (Glaser 1991": 305f, All the translations from German into English are by the researcher unless specified otherwise. Miiller 1990: 416). They complained that the life conditions had acquired such mammoth proportions under capitalism that the totality of life was becoming increasingly imperceptible. Gigantic bureaucracy, giant multinational corporations, large trade unions and large associations were the order of the day, which intimidated the ordinary citizen. There was a growing sense of alienation. The predominant mode of production was destroying the very basis of life, making humans the slaves of production. Capitalism had acquired a stronghold over instruments of manipulation with which it kept up the facade of being democratic and tolerant. Everyone could express his point but could not implement it. The human agency was drastically undermined. The Alternative Movement is usually conflated with the Green Movement, but it is far wider and versatile. The Alternative Movement did include the Green thought in its basic tenets; also there were personalities from Green movement active here, but basically they were the people wanting to be away from the rat race of career, wealth and social status. Apart from the highly educated intellectuals and middle range professionals there were zero work freaks, drug addicts, psychopaths, homosexuals, lesbians, queers, even old Nazis on the fringe. What brought them together was a concern for rapidly depleting Nature, and also an urge to free themselves from the rigid German mainstream society that was bourgeois and driven by the motives of career and wealth alone. The main stream was also Eurocentric, male dominated and militaristic. The Alternative Movement was born of 1968 students' revolt, or rather it was a reaction against the failure of 1968. 1.1.1 Getting behind the Scene Why were hoards of people attracted to the idea of disembarking and settling for a simple life for an answer? For an answer to this question the development of the German society from the end of the Second World War. a period in which this generation grew up. must be traced. 17 1.1.1.1 The Adenauer Era From the end of the World War II in 1945 to 1949 the Germans lived under military rule in four zones of the respective allied powers. While they were slogging for sheer survival under conflicting interests of the four victorious powers, efforts were on by the zonal governments to bring back the public life and economy to normalcy. They permitted and encouraged attempts of party formations. Apart from the traditional workers' parties KPD and SPD, the communist and socialist party respectively, a new party namely CDU, Christian Democratic Union, came into being bringing together the catholic and protestant Germans. The party was not actually so very new. Its affinity with the political Catholicism of the Zentrum party of the Bismarck era is evident. This party had a very heterogeneous social base that is reflected in the post-1945 formation under the leadership of Konrad Adenauer. As it became quite clear to the USA, Britain and France that the four zones could not remain together, they started the process of uniting their three zones into a single economic unit for which the preliminary step was taken with the currency reforms in June 1949. Drawing of the constitution was completed in May 1949. The new party CDU had opposed the SPD and contributed considerably in the deliberations for the constitution known as 'Basic Law' (Gnindgesetz). And when in August 1949 there were general elections for the first parliament of the FRG the new party CDU won clear majority and its 73 years old leader Konrad Adenauer became ' the first chancellor. A conservative catholic from Rhineland, he led Germany through an unparalleled era of tranquil prosperity.

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