Downloaded from the Humanities Digital Library http://www.humanities-digital-library.org Open Access books made available by the School of Advanced Study, University of London ***** Publication details: Writing and the West German Protest Movements: The Textual Revolution by Mererid Puw Davies https://humanities-digital-library.org/index.php/hdl/catalog/book/writing- west-german-protest-movements DOI: 10.14296/0420.9780854572762 ***** This edition published 2020 by UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE OF MODERN LANGUAGE RESEARCH Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, United Kingdom ISBN 978-0-85457-276-2 (PDF edition) This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses Writing and the West German Protest Movements The Textual Revolution imlr books Established by the Institute of Modern Languages Research, this series (fomerly known as igrs books) aims to bring to the public monographs and collections of essays in the field of modern foreign languages. Proposals for publication are selected by the Institute’s editorial board, which is advised by a peer review committee of 36 senior academics in the field. To make titles as accessible as possible to an English-speaking and multi-lingual readership, volumes are written in English and quotations given in English translation. For further details on the annual competition, visit: http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/publications/igrs-books/ Editorial Board Professor Catherine Davies (Hispanic) Dr Dominic Glynn (French) Dr Katia Pizzi (Italian) Dr Godela Weiss-Sussex (Germanic) imlr books Volume 11 Volume Editor Dr Joanne Leal Writing and the West German Protest Movements The Textual Revolution by Mererid Puw Davies SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Institute of Modern Languages Research 2016 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/. Available to download free at www.humanities-digital-library.org or to purchase at www.sas.ac.uk/publications/writing-and-west-german- protest-movements-textual-revolution Published by the Institute of Modern Languages Research School of Advanced Study, University of London Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk © Mererid Puw Davies, 2016 The author has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author and the publisher. Cover image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALudwig_Binder_Haus_der_ Geschichte_Studentenrevolte_1968_2001_03_0275.0257_(16878521507).jpg First published 2016 ISBN 978-0-85457-276-2 (PDF edition) ISBN 978-0-85457-251-9 (paperback edition) Contents Acknowledgements 7 Abbreviations 9 An Introduction 11 1. Of Mice and Mao: Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s Revolutionary Poetics, 1968 47 2. Poetry, War and Women, 1966–70 75 3. Playing with Fire: Kommune I, 1967–68 105 4. ‘Eiffe for President’: Graffiti, May 1968 139 5. Bodily Issues: Dirt, Text and Protest, 1968 167 6. Uncanny Journeys: Bernward Vesper and W.G. Sebald, 1969–90 195 7. On Contemporary Writing, 1307–1990: A Conclusion 223 Bibliography 253 Index 277 Acknowledgements Various organisations and many individuals have given me valuable help with this project, and I wish to thank them all warmly here. An earlier version of Chapter Two of this study appeared in Warlike Women and Death: Women Warriors in the German Imagination since 1500, ed. by Sarah Colvin and Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly. An important part of Chapter Four appeared in 1968. Ein Handbuch zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Studentenbewegung, ed. by Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth. Chapter Five is drawn from a chapter first published in Un-civilising Processes? Excess and Transgression in German Society and Culture. Perspectives Debating with Norbert Elias, ed. by Mary Fulbrook. Finally, an earlier version of Chapter Six appeared in Journal of European Studies, 41. In all cases, the publishers gave kind permission to include this work here; and the editors and readers of all these volumes gave perceptive advice. In most cases, these publications emerged from research events, projects or contexts from which I drew great benefit. Early stages of the research undertaken for this monograph were generously supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust. The Department of German, the Graduate School, the School of European Languages, Cultures and Society and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UCL also offered financial support. My colleagues, past and present, at the Department of German, and latterly the School of European Languages, Cultures and Society, at UCL have provided me with important advice and encouragement. In particular, Stephanie Bird has offered time and constructive help of many kinds. Students, too, in many of my classes at UCL have engaged with some of the ideas which follow, as have organizers, colleagues and discussants at the many events, inside and outside UCL, where, over the years, I have had the opportunity to discuss this work. I have benefitted greatly from all these conversations. 7 Mererid Puw Davies In this project’s early stages, Belinda Davis, Dörte Giebel, Peter Hein, Andrea Lassalle, Petra Schilling and Ulrike Winkelmann were valued interlocutors. At different times too, Elizabeth Boa, Mary Fulbrook and Martin Swales offered great support with this research. Christine Achinger and Beth Linklater gave me important readings and advice. Likewise, Richard Sheppard was, as ever, a generous and helpful reader. Helke Sander and Ingo Cesaro were responsive correspondents who gave kind permission to cite their work. Colleagues at the IMLR, and Jane Lewin in particular, made the final phases of my work on this book a pleasure. Joanne Leal’s and Anne Simon’s readings were, in their different ways, as meticulous as they were constructive. My late parents, Catrin Puw Davies and Roger Davies, were unfailing supporters of this work from the very start. Cofiaf amdanynt hwy yma fel bob amser. Diolch i Osian Llewelyn am ddifyrrwch a chefnogaeth, a’r cywaith creadigol. Most especially, I am indebted to Dan Gibson: this book is dedicated to him in gratitude. 8 Abbreviations APO Außerparlamentarische Opposition [extra- parliamentary opposition] APO-Archiv Extra-Parliamentary Opposition Archive ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) CDU Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands (Christian Democratic Union) CSU Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian Social Union) DKP Deutsche Kommunistische Partei (German Communist Party) DRV Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) FU Freie Universität Berlin GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany) HIS Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung KI Kommune I (Commune I) KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany) NLF National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) NS National Socialist (Nazi) RAF Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction) RVN Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (German Socialist Federation of Students) SÖS Sozialistischer Österreichischer Studentenverband (Austrian Socialist Federation of Students) SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany) SI Situationist International 9 For Dan An Introduction An Emblematic Protest, 1967 In October 1967, West Germany’s pre-eminent literary forum, Gruppe 47, met in rural Franconia for one of its celebrated literary conclaves.1 The traditional privacy of this meeting was interrupted by protesters from the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS) [German Socialist Federation of Students], the organization most closely linked with the West German protest movements of the mid- to late 1960s. These young men and women carried with them the flag of the anti-US Vietnamese rebels, the National Liberation Front (NLF, often better known as the Viet Cong), balloons, a megaphone, an accordion and many large, hand-painted placards. These bore slogans like ‘Gruppe 47 adieu’ [Farewell Gruppe 47] and condemned the political stance of Gruppe 47.2 Chants of ‘Dichter, Dichter’ [Poets, poets] rang out, a term used pejoratively here, for these demonstrators were challenging what they saw as Gruppe 47’s outmoded, dangerous preference for art over active politics. The protest targeted, too, the influence of the conservative, anti-protest and pro-US Springer media group, which owned many West German newspapers and hence became the object of an animated ‘Anti-Springer-Kampagne’ 1 Toni Richter, ‘Oktober 1967 im Gasthof “Pulvermühle” bei Waischenfeld’ and Guntram Vesper, ‘Eingeladen, meiner Hinrichtung beizuwohnen’, in Toni Richter, Die Gruppe 47 in Bildern und Texten (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1997), 138 and 139–41 respectively. Compare Klaus Briegleb, 1968 – Literatur in der antiautoritären Bewegung (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1993), 123–30; Die Gruppe 47: Ein kritischer Grundriß. Sonderband text + kritik, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: