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Risky Allyship: Germans in Support of Palestine

Interview with Julia Schreiber about people in Germany who are fighting for Palestinian rights


09/10/2023

Thanks for talking to us. Could you start by briefly introducing yourself?

I’m Julia. I’m originally from Germany, but I moved to the UK a year ago to do a PhD on risky allyship – why people advocate the rights of another group although it might be risky for them and they don’t gain any direct benefits from their activism – indeed, it may even harm them.

Within this project, I’m looking at different groups. And because I’m German, I’m interested in why Germans actively support Palestinians although this can be really hard in Germany and you can be accused of antisemitism as soon as you criticize Israel or say something pro-Palestinian.

In Germany, it’s really hard to find a perspective other than a really pro-Israel narrative.

Why are you specifically interested in Israel and Palestine?

When you grow up in Germany, you hear about the Holocaust a lot in school. You hear much less about the Israel-Palestine conflict apart from media reports about escalations between Israelis and Palestinians without further knowledge of the background of this conflict, and Israel defending themselves against Palestinians.

This meant that when I was a kid I didn’t think much about the conflict. If I thought about it at all, it was as a conflict between two religions. Then I got to know an American Jewish person who had recently moved to Israel. I visited him there, and I heard a lot of the Israeli narrative. I saw soldiers everywhere and how the tension and fear affected people’s daily life. I only heard about this from the Israeli side, but I now felt a personal connection.

Over the years, I became more and more interested in being active for peacebuilding efforts. I did a training to become a peace worker. And the more I learned about the conflict, the more I heard also about the “other” side, the Palestinian side. I also saw how little I knew about how the conflict actually evolved because there is not much discourse about this in German society. I realized that in conflicts such as in Israel and Palestine, it is not enough to just foster positive relations between the groups – the power inequalities and injustices also have to be addressed for sustainable peace efforts.

You’ve lived in Germany and in Britain. What differences have you noticed about how Palestine is discussed?

While I was still in Germany, I saw a lot on social media about Palestinians‘ experiences. I found these emotionally touching. But I didn’t really have people to talk to about it.

Then I moved to the UK. In my project I originally wanted to look at Israelis who support Palestinian rights – people who are part of the conflict, and then step in for the other group and try to empower them, because I imagine it to be very challenging in these contexts to support an oppressed group and as soon as the risk is higher to be an ally, not many people engage in allyship actions. But at some point, I realized how hard it is in Germany to step in for Palestinians – and that it can also be risky there.

When I moved to the UK, I realized how much easier it was to talk openly about the subject. I learned much more about topics like settler colonialism, which were new to me, as they aren’t really addressed in Germany. For me, the German context meant that you always had the fear of saying something wrong about the conflict and not having open discussions about the injustices that are happening there, because of being seen as being antisemitic.

As I’ve been working in academia, I’ve been in a bit of a bubble. In German academia, this is almost a topic that is not covered or talked about, even among more liberal people who are used to talking about inequalities. I would say most research on this conflict focusses on how to create harmony between the groups. I remember one researcher who looked into the differences between criticizing Israel and antisemitism facing a lot of accusations of being antisemitic. This is not the same in the UK, at least for the people I talk to.

Why do you think Germans should feel particularly bad about antisemitism?

From my memory, we spent at least four years at school just talking about World War II and the awful things that we did. I think this is very important to make sure that what has happened will never happen again. My friends and I grew up being taught this guilt towards Jewish people, and feeling bad about our history and what our ancestors did. Overall, I think this makes us feel that we have a higher responsibility compared to other countries to protect Jewish life.

At the same time, there are not that many Jewish people in Germany anymore. Many German people I know say that they’ve never met a Jewish person personally, or at least no-one that they knew was Jewish. So it makes it harder for people to know how to interact with Jewish people appropriately since many hold this guilt and fear to do something wrong in an interaction.

Also, in Germany, Israel is perceived as the representation of all Jewish people and the only way to provide them with a safe environment. It is perceived that we cannot say anything against Israel, because this would be antisemitic, would deny Israelis the right of existence and would be against our responsibility to protect Jewish people. The easiest way for people to show that we‘ve learned from the past and that we are not antisemitic is to openly support Israel. This is much easier than to really look at the still existing problem of antisemitism in Germany. Also, many people do not understand that standing for rights of Palestinians or criticising Israel does not automatically mean that Israelis do not have a right to exist in this area.

I believe that all these things lead Germans to not knowing how to behave or talk about Israel-Palestine because they do not want to say or do anything wrong or inappropriate considering their past, and feel responsible to provide a safe space for Jewish people. However, this is also one of the questions that I am exploring in my interviews and I am happy to hear other opinions about this!

Let’s move onto your project. You have explicitly said that, at least for now, you are not interviewing Israelis and Palestinians. What’s the reasoning behind this?

My project has several parts. The first part is about so-called third parties: people who are not directly part of a conflict. There is a lot of research on collective action: why people fight for their own rights although its risky, e.g., because they have nothing to lose. However, we only know to some extent why people become active allies, and usually research showed that as soon as allyship is risky, people do not engage in allyship actions anymore. So, I am very interested to learn more about what motivates people who become active although they might face risks or barriers, and how they might overcome these barriers. I’m less interested in finding a solution or saying how things should be. I’m more interested in seeing why people fight against human rights violations and injustices; specifically, if its not common in their surroundings.

You’re looking for people who are supporting Palestinians. What does this mean to you? What counts as support?

I tried to have a really low threshold, because I know that it can be difficult in Germany to be vocal. Supporting Palestinians can be being active on social media and posting about injustices that are happening there. It can be giving Palestinians a voice or demonstrating, It can be publicly criticizing Israel.

You’ve done two interviews so far, but do you have any expectations?

First, I want to explore whether the motivations differ between allies who are active in relatively riskless contexts compared to higher-risk contexts. That is the core aim of the project.

Second, because people who are pro-Palestinian don’t really get a voice, we don’t always hear about their motivation. I want to hear about their motivations and about the bigger picture like the difference in power. So, one of the side outcomes of this project will also be to show a more nuanced view of why people get motivated. I also want to show the barriers which prevent people getting involved.

A lot of people are not aware that pro-Palestinian activism can cost you your job, or make you a victim of police violence. Germany is often seen as this really democratic country, and as a role model, but for me it is shocking that for some topics related to human rights people get silenced. This should not happen in a democracy.

Some people will argue that academia should be neutral but what you’re doing seems more like an intervention. How would you answer people who say you’ve made up your mind before you started?

I agree that science should be neutral. At the same time, I think that as a scientist you can never be completely neutral because you’re also a human being with subjective beliefs. Even if you’re creating a questionnaire, it’s you who decides which questions you ask. So, science is never completely objective.

The main question in my research is why people would risk put themselves at risk to support another group. But in Germany, there is virtually no talk about Palestine or Palestinian rights, which creates real barriers which people must overcome before they can become active. This is an objective barrier.

How easy has it been to find people to talk to you? And how are they reacting?

I reached out to a lot of organizations and Facebook groups. But to most people, I’m just an anonymous person and they don’t really know, what the aim of the project is. This can generate scepticism. Some people also say, “Why should we engage with these people from academia?”

But some people I have talked to have said that they’re grateful because no one is looking into this, particularly in German academia. I expected more negative feedback than I’ve actually received.

Suppose I’m a Palestine activist in Germany. I don’t have a lot of time, because Palestine activism is hard work. What would be my motivation to talk to you?

I can completely understand that when you’re active for an important cause, you will spend most of your energy there. I also understand that I’m more interested in the academic question of producing knowledge. This is not necessarily the same thing as activism, but it can be useful for activists. It is important to know who is motivated by what and what are the barriers preventing this. What holds people back from activism?

I’m now at an English university. But my aim is to also somehow publish my results in German. There is not a lot of information about this conflict in the German language. This is one of the barriers which prevents a nuanced debate and any deep discourse. People just don’t have access to different viewpoints.

I don’t want to just use my results and present them as an abstract paper. I also want people to get to know the different reasons why people might be active for Palestinians.

You are trying to talk to people who are supporting Palestinians. Do you think you are personally doing anything to support Palestinians?

This has been a process for me. I wouldn’t say I’m an activist. I started to see the injustices that are happening. And for a long time, I had problem addressing this because of this inner fear of being seen as antisemitic.

Over time, after I read more about the topic, I’ve become more comfortable posting things that address the injustices on social media platforms. What I’m doing now is posting a lot more and talking about the side which isn’t being shown.

What happens next with your project? How long are you interviewing people? When can you expect to publish anything – in English and in German?

I just started with the interviews, and I hope I’ll be done by the end of this year. I need to talk to 15 to 20 more people. After that, the analysis will take some time because the interviews are really long. There’s a lot of rich data. I hope I should have all the results by the middle of next year.

Publishing is a completely different story which takes a really long time. I’m thinking of making my results public in another way outside of academic journals. I’m also involved in a few other projects looking at the motivations of the general German population. It’s different talking about the motivations of people who are active vs. the general public.

If someone does want to talk to you, what sort of person are you looking for?

You have to be over 18. I’m currently searching for third-party, so no Israelis or Palestinians, but also no one from an Israeli or Palestinian family. You should be active in some way, however, already lower levels of engagement/allyship are fine (e.g., social media posts). You must have been born in Germany or lived in Germany for five years. You must understand the German context, and the difficulties of being active in Germany.

If you are interested, you can contact me via email J.Schreiber@sussex.ac.uk or reach out to me on Twitter @schreiber_jul, where you can see more about who I am as a person. At the moment, you cannot really read that much in detail about our project but I’m always happy to talk in more detail if you contact me.

One final question. Do you know what you want to do once you finish your doctorate?

I don’t know exactly. I was never sure whether I wanted to do the PhD in the first place. I came from a place where I really wanted to be more of a peace worker. But I really liked creating knowledge.

I also want to make a difference in the world. I know that academia might not always make a difference because you create knowledge, but often this knowledge stays in academia. So, I can imagine actually going more into peace building in some form, or and building a bridge between this work and academia.

For a long time, I thought that you have to go somewhere where there’s conflict, although I see it slightly different now. There’s also so much conflict happening in Germany. Every injustice is a conflict. Germany is also the context that I’m most familiar with, because I grew up here.

I can see myself working here. But I am aware that what I’m publishing might have negative consequences for me in Germany. But possible negative consequences are not a reason for me to refrain from looking into topics that are related to the injustices in Israel/Palestine and the fight for human rights.

A Lesson in Liberation from Gaza

Statement by the Feminist Bloc | Palestine Speaks and others on Gaza


08/10/2023

If you saw footage this morning from occupied Palestine of resistance fighters storming Israeli settlements built on indigenous Palestinian lands and taking Israelis hostage, then you prayed for God to save the people of Gaza from Israel’s brutal retaliation, then you are not alone.
If you went on social media to post lengthy explanations to your Western friends to make them understand what led to Saturday’s events, sharing numerous posts about Israel’s decades-long colonialism and oppression of the Palestinian people, then you are also not alone.
Both responses are symptomatic of Palestinians and their allies. Whenever something happens in Gaza, where people live in the largest open air prison, we immediately fear for the lives of the people there who pay the price every time they raise their heads to defy the occupation. We also feel we’re constantly on the spot, having to justify and explain our right to fight for dignity and write our own history through resistance.

As feminists and activists for justice in Palestine and everywhere, we urge ourselves, and you as well, to overcome this mode of thinking, imposed on us by the colonial structures we are living in. If we do not fight, then neither our words, nor the truth of our narratives, will lead to any change in our condition. According to International Humanitarian Law, every people under military occupation or siege has the right to resist their occupiers. The latest Palestinian resistance has to be seen in this light. Our struggle for freedom, justice and liberation will be exemplary to other oppressed indigenous people around the world. Today, we unequivocally insist that we do not have to explain or justify the unprecedented – and as of yet, unpredictable – developments in Gaza to those who do not understand the current power dynamics in Palestine. We will not be dragged into a pointless analysis or illustration of the military gains or capabilities of the occupiers. We choose to uphold our people’s right to fight for their dignity and life in freedom.

We stand today in awe of all Palestinians who resist. We stand today in awe of all Palestinians who as colonized people rewrite their own history. We stand today in solidarity with every Palestinian who decides to overcome settler colonialism, military occupation and oppression. We condemn international powers who are not acknowledging the right to resist for Palestinians living under occupation and siege for decades.

This statement was issued by the following organisations:

  • Feminist Bloc | Palestine Speaks
  • Alliance of International Feminists
  • International women* space
  • India Justice Project
  • Palestine Speaks
  • Jewish Bund
  • DarSudan
  • DKB

It was first published on the Palestine Speaks Instagram page. Reproduced with permission.

The Red Flag Over Berlin

Interview with columnist Nathaniel Flakin


07/10/2023

For three years, Nathaniel Flakin has been publishing a weekly column on Berlin politics called “Red Flag.” It just moved to a new home at the newspaper ND. theleftberlin has just agreed with ND that we will also be publishing the column. In preparation for this, we interviewed Nathaniel.

Can you tell us about your column “Red Flag”?

Berlin’s English-speaking community is growing constantly. But a lot of the city’s left-wing politics, as well as its radical history, are still only available in German. Just like this website is doing, I’m trying to offer local communist content so that people can better understand campaigns and struggles.

I think when people hear about a red flag in Berlin, they will picture the Soviet flag waving over the Reichstag in 1945. And for sure, that was a spectacular moment in Berlin history. Spasiba! But I was actually thinking of a different red flag…

A bit more than a century ago, on November 9, 1918, there was a an insurrection in Berlin. That evening, friends of Rosa Luxemburg — who called themselves Spartacists — went to the biggest, most right-wing tabloid in the city. After occupying the building, they informed the journalists that this would now be a communist paper. “There has just been a successful revolution, gentlemen,” Hermann Duncker said, “and you will understand that it cannot tolerate a counterrevolutionary press.” Thus, Die Rote Fahne or The Red Flag was born.

The first issue was titled: “Berlin Under the Red Flag.” Rosa Luxemburg is usually credited as the founder. But she only arrived the next day to edit the second issue. She had been in prison and it wasn’t easy to get back to Berlin.

With the name “Red Flag,” I was trying to connect to this history of anti-capitalist journalism in Berlin.

What do you write about in your column?

In recent columns, I have discussed the second referendum to expropriate big landlords or about the orange paint on the Brandenburg Gate. In general, I write about racist police violence, car culture’s poisonous effects, and the ecocidal hypocrisy of the so-called Green Party. I also like reporting about strikes and workers’ struggles, even if those don’t get as many hits. I believe my most popular column was about the racist moral panic whipped up after the Silvester Riots.

I never believed that journalists should be neutral. In fact, on my very first day working as a journalist, at a left-wing paper, my boss told me: “Objectivity is a bourgeois myth!” Wise words. Every journalist has convictions — most of them support capitalism — so it’s a question of respect for our readers to be open about our views.

When did you start publishing the column?

I started writing the column for the Exberliner website back in 2020. They were never big fans of socialism, but I think they loved the controversies and the clicks that “Red Flag” generated. More recently, they decided that my endless stream of communist propaganda didn’t fit their brand. And I get it: I also mostly want Exberliner to tell me about fun things going on in the city, not calling on the proletariat to take up arms. Exberliner still publishes my history column in the print edition, and I have been able to do some deep dives about Clara Zetkin’s former home or about Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science. Exberliner is an institution that keeps a lot of Berlin’s English-speaking community together.

Where did you find a new home for the column?

ND! Have you heard of ND? It’s probably not very well known to English speakers. Back in 1946, Neues Deutschland was created as the central organ of the Socialist Unity Party (SED). The idea was that they wanted a “New Germany” free of Nazis, aristocrats, and militarists. It eventually became the main paper of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), selling a million copies a day. This was before my time, but Neues Deutschland had a reputation for the forced optimism typical of Stalinist regimes. Victor Grossman recalls a joke: If Australia were to sink into the Indian Ocean, the headline in ND would read that the plan for steel had been fulfilled, while the disappearance of a continent would get a short mention on page 5.

After reunification, Neues Deutschland was owned by the PDS and then DIE LINKE, while trying to maintain an independent socialist profile. Back in 2021, it was converted into a Genossenschaft, a cooperative, where many journalists and readers    now own shares, and decisions are made democratically. ND is the the only left-wing paper that manages to report in detail from inside Berlin’s parliament and district councils.

ND still works out of the Neues Deutschland building at Franz-Mehring-Platz, now an event space known as FMP1. They also have a spectacular archive — I consulted with them, for example, looking for unpublished photos of Angela Davis’s visits to East Berlin in the early 1970s.

What is the status of ND now?

Their first year as a cooperative was very difficult — they ended up €600,000 in the red. But a solidarity campaign has collected over €150,000 to keep this important left-wing institution running.

Today, ND is a broad left paper. I certainly don’t agree with everything they publish — and I know some of their journalists don’t agree with me either. There is plenty of debate. Some of ND journalists started working there back in the 1980s, while others are young lefties from different organizations.

I’m really happy they are taking a chance with this column — their first content in English. They’ve been translating all my columns to German as well, so now “Red Flag” is bilingual.

Another Referendum to Expropriate Berlin’s Biggest Landlords

Two years ago, 59.1% of Berliners voted to socialize real estate companies. But nothing has happened. Will a second referendum do the trick?


06/10/2023

theleftberlin has just agreed with Neues Deutschland (ND) that we will be publishing Nathaniel Flakin’s Red Flag column, which also appears in ND. This is the first of these columns published here.

In Germany, trust in democracy is eroding. A study this summer showed that only every second person had faith in the current system. Pundits are debating what has gone wrong.

I have a theory: Two years ago, a huge majority of Berliners voted to expropriate big landlords. 59.1 percent called for the »socialization« of gargantuan realty companies like Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia. Yet Berlin’s next two governments, who had each gotten far less votes than the referendum, have done everything they could to sabotage the people’s choice. Both Franziska Giffey of the SPD and Kai Wegener of the CDU oppose expropriation on principle, so they’ve come up with one delaying tactic after another.

Does this feel like a democracy? Or some kind of third-rate autocracy, where votes are only respected if the people in power agree?

Now, yellow and purple posters have reappeared all over the city. On the second anniversary of the vote, on September 26, the campaign »Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen« (DWE) announced that they will be launching a second referendum. We will need to collect 20,000 and then 170,000 signatures once again. (It was fun!) Last time, we voted on a proposal that the government formulate a law for expropriation. Now, the campaign is going to write such a law themselves. Alles muss man selber machen! (You have to do everything yourself.)

Why didn’t they just write their own law to begin with? Because a few years ago, no one knew what expropriation according to Article 15 of Germany’s Basic Law would look like. Now, lawyers and activists have been studying the problem, and DWE is collecting 100,000 Euros to hire a law firm to draft the text.

Wegner’s government claims it is working on an Expropriation Framework Law, which would set the parameters for a future law on expropriation – the Constitutional Court could then check if this passed muster. The obvious problem, as a legal expert explained to ND, is that such a law would not actually do anything. No one would have standing to sue until a real estate company’s property is moved into public ownership. As a German idiom puts it: “No plaintiff, no judge.”

This is just another cynical move against democracy. We have already been through the farce of Giffey’s “Expert Commission,” which took a year to report that yes, Article 15 of Germany’s Basic Law really does allow for property to “be transferred into public ownership” if it’s “for the public good.” I could have told them that with a quick Google search. Berlin expropriates buildings all the time – but so far, it’s only to build the Autobahns that the CDU and the SPD love so much. Why should expropriation be unthinkable to lower rents?

More than two years ago, I wrote about a long-abandoned building on my block that was finally getting renovated. The project is controlled by Henning Conle, a billionaire heir who takes his profits from reality speculation to make massive illegal contributions to the AfD. Construction work is ongoing, but tenants have started moving in. I have been living on this block for a decade, and my rent is about 8.50 Euros per square meter. These new apartments are going for almost 22 Euros – an increase of two-and-a-half times in ten years.

No wonder people are open for radical solutions. Berlin’s housing market is controlled by the vampire squids of financial speculators, and more than a few actual gangsters. Just look how the owners of Habersaathstraße 40-48 hired violent thugs to trash the apartments of renters they wanted out – despite a court order.

Expropriation would be a step towards real democracy – the vast majority of Berliners are renters, and we would gain some control over our housing. Ultimately, though, signatures will not be enough. We will need occupations of empty apartments as well as rent strikes to shift the balance of power. Direct action is what democracy looks like. It’s time to get active with DWE and their English-speaking group, Right to the City.

This article was first published by Neues Deutschland.

Radical Berlin in 12 Cemeteries. Part 1 – Historical Events

We can a lot about Berlin’s radical history by looking at who’s buried in its graveyards


04/10/2023

Berlin has a long and radical history. In the past 200 years, it has experienced 3 revolutions, 2 World Wars, fascism, “state socialism” (which had little to do with actual socialism), and a flourish of ground-breaking art (most notably during the Weimar period in the 1920s). Berlin’s graveyards are, therefore, full of radicals who left their mark on the city.

This is the first of 2 articles aiming to give you a brief introduction to some of the people and events which shaped Berlin. This article concentrates on historic events, while the second will introduce some radical artists who are buried in the City.

The 1848 Revolution (Friedhof der Märzgefallenen)

Photo: unknown, German Federal Archives

1848 saw the first Europe-wide movement for freedom, democracy and social justice. A wave of revolutions demanded civil and political rights for the growing middle class. Towards the end of February, demonstrations in France led to the abdication of King Louis-Philippe. The next month, Austrian chief minister Prince von Metternich was forced to resign.

On March 13th – the same day as the demonstrations which brought down Metternich – the army in Berlin killed one person coming home from a meeting. Five days later, thousands of people took to the streets and put up barricades. 270 people were killed in the fighting. Most of the dead were young and poor. They included 11 women and 10 children.

On 22nd March, a “state funeral from below” was held at Gendarmenmarkt. 100,000 people attended – a quarter of the population of Berlin. 183 coffins were taken to the “Friedhof der Märzgefallenen” in the Volkspark Friedrichshain. In 1919, an extra 33 Berliners who were killed in the November Revolution were also buried here.

At first, it seemed that the March revolution had achieved its aims. Prussian king Frederick William IV – who had watched the “state funeral” from his balcony – agreed to the demonstrators’ demands, including parliamentary elections, a constitution, and freedom of the press. He also approved arming the citizens and releasing Polish prisoners.

But by late 1848, the army had regained power. The king dissolved the Prussian National assembly in November, and introduced his own constitution. An assembly was set up, but voting rights were very much dependent on how much money you had. 20% of the male-only electorate voted for two-thirds of the representatives.

Propertied Middle class men had shown that they were prepared to fight for their liberties, but not for those of their “underlings”. German workers had to wait another 70 years until they were able to take part in a revolution of their own.

The Matrosen Uprising of 1918 (Parkfriedhof Marzahn)

Photo: Phil Butland

In 1918, Germany was war-weary. The First World War had been dragging on for four years, and the original enthusiasm was waning, particularly among those on the front. In August 1917, 350 sailors on the Prinzregent Luitpold demonstrated in Wilhelmshaven. Their leaders were jailed or killed by firing squad. The response of the other sailors was to build secret workers’ councils.

On 24th October 1918, Admiral von Hipper ordered the fleet into the English Channel. The war was already lost, but he thought that this suicidal act could improve Germany’s position at the post-war bargaining table. This caused a mutiny – first in Wilhelmshaven, later in other ports. The mutiny was put down and more people were imprisoned, but resentments continued to grow.

On 1st November, 250 sailors and stokers met in the Union House in Kiel, demanding the mutineers’ release. The police closed the building. Thousands attended a meeting the following day. More demands were added, including better food. As the demonstrators moved towards the prison, soldiers shot at them, killing seven. Protestors retaliated. The German Revolution had begun.

On 4th November, sailors’ and workers’ representatives met once more in the Union House. They formed a soldiers’ and workers’ council, which issued 14 demands known as the Kiel Fourteen Points. These included the release of all political prisoners, no launching of the fleet, and the removal of all officers who did not support the newly formed soldiers’ council.

The Parkfriedhof Marzahn contains a memorial to the revolutionary sailors, and the graves of the brothers Fritz and Albert Gast. After a failed general strike, the Gast brothers – mutinying sailors who had also taken part in the Spartacus Uprising – were murdered, along with 9 other workers, by right wing Freikorps troops.

The 1919 German Revolution (Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde)

Photo: Phil Butland

The uprising of the Kiel sailors provoked similar demonstrations across Germany. Workers and soldiers took control of several cities, including Bremen, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Leipzig, and Dresden. On 9th November, as soldiers and armed workers marched through Berlin and the Kaiser fled the country, Karl Liebknecht – who had only recently been released from prison – proclaimed a new socialist republic.

Almost simultaneously, SPD minister Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a much more bourgeois republic from the balcony of parliament. Newly appointed Chancellor Friedrich Ebert contacted the army generals, who agreed to work with the new social democratic government to restore order and put down the revolution.

SPD leaders provoked the premature Spartacus uprising, and then sent in right wing troops from the Freikorps, who would later develop into Hitler’s storm troopers. Liebknecht was arrested and shot in the back of the head while “attempting to escape.” His fellow revolutionary leader Rosa Luxemburg had her face smashed in by a rifle butt and her body was thrown into the Landwehrkanal. The social democratic press falsely claimed that she’d been killed by an angry mob.

Events in 1918 and 1919 concluded an apparently abstract debate which Luxemburg had been having with SPD theoreticians like Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky. Whereas Bernstein and Kautsky had advocated piecemeal reform, Luxemburg insisted that “people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place… of social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal.”

History proved that Luxemburg won the theoretical argument, but she paid for it with her life- Ebert’s counter-revolution arguably paved the way towards Hitler being offered the Chancellorship in 1933. Luxemburg is buried in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, alongside Liebknecht and many other revolutionaries including artist Käthe Kollwitz, DDR leader Walther Ulbricht, and leading Communist Ernst Thälmann who was murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp.

1953 Berlin Workers Uprising (Urnenfriedhof Seestraße)

Honorary grave for the victims of 17th June, 1953. Photo: Queryzo, CC4,0

In March 1953, the state run East German trade unions agreed to a “voluntary” increase in work quotas. Work was increased, and real wages fell by as much as a third. On 16th June, building workers held a sit-down strike opposing these attacks on their living and working conditions. As they marched towards the party headquarters, workers from other building sites started to join them.

What started as a purely economic strike started to develop political demands. The protestors chanted the slogans: “Workers Join Us! Unity is Strength! We Want Free Elections!” On 17th June, strikes broke out throughout East Germany, in at least 700 cities and villages. The strikes involved an estimated 1 million workers, or 10% of the population. School students struck and prisons were stormed.

25,000 Russian troops were sent into Berlin to put down the uprising. Martial law was declared, and all gatherings of more than 3 people were banned. Strike leaders were imprisoned, and some were executed.

The causes of the 1953 uprising have been disputed on the Left. In particular, people who saw the Eastern Bloc as not quite as bad as the capitalist West insist that the insurrection was organised by the CIA to destabilise the new Eastern Bloc. I don’t agree. I’ve written more in an article about Berthold Brecht’s reaction. I believe that workers are capable of organising themselves whether or not their bosses claim to be socialists.

Remembering the insurrectionists has become akin to a game of political football. The street which runs from the West was almost immediately renamed the Straße des 17. Juni. This had nothing to do with supporting workers fighting exploitation and everything to do with Cold War politics. The Urnenfriedhod Seestraße is a little more nuanced. Workers who died in 1953 are buried close to those who resisted the Nazis. We should reject the propaganda and celebrate their struggle.

Rudi Dütschke, 1968 and the SDS (St-Annen Kirchhof)

Rudi Dutschke’s grave in St Annen Kirchhof. Photo: Mutter Erde. CC4.0

1966 saw the election of a Grand Coalition between the SPD and CDU, led by former Nazi-Party member Kurt Georg Kiesenger. The following year, on 2nd June, the Shah of Iran visited West Berlin, provoking a huge counter-demonstration. Police shot at demonstrators, killing Benno Ohnesorg who was attending his first ever protest. Karl-Heinz Kurras, the policeman who shot Ohnesorg in the head, was later acquitted of any crime.

10,000 people attended Ohnesorg’s funeral, led by student leader Rudi Dutschke. A radical youth movement started in Berlin – partly because West Berliners were exempt from military service. This movement quickly spread throughout Germany. In February 1968, the SDS – the student organisation of which Dutschke was a prominent member – organised an international Vietnam conference in West Berlin which attracted activists from across Europe.

The right wing Springer press made Dutschke public enemy #1, with Bild Zeitung running headlines like “Stop Dutschke Now”. On 11 April, Dutschke was shot and nearly killed by a right winger. The student movement responded with mass demonstrations, including 40,000 in Berlin on 1st May Just over a week later, student protests in France were accompanied by a mass strike of 10 million workers.

For a short period, the movement started to generalise. In summer 1968, West German trade unions called demonstrations protesting against the new Emergency Powers Act. In 1969, an SPD government was elected which put pressure on unions to dampen down militancy. While strike days in 1967-71 were 161 per 100 workers in Italy and 350 in France, in West Germany the figure was only eight.

The SDS collapsed in late 1968. Dutschke rebranded himself a “patriotic socialist” and – like many of his contemporaries – joined the Green party. He died in 1979 of complications from his shooting. He is buried in St Annen churchyard, not far from the Free University where he studied.

Ulrike Meinhof and the Red Army Faction (Friedhof Berlin Freifaltigsfriedhof III)

Grave of Ulrike Meinhof. Photo: Mondrian Graf Lüttichau. CC2.0

What do you do when a massive social movement dies down? This was the question confronting many German Leftists in the early 1970s. In 1970, the Red Army Faction was formed, quickly dubbed by the press as the Baader-Meinhof group after two of its leading members: petty criminal Andreas Baader and radical journalist Ulrike Meinhof. They started by setting fire to two department stores in Frankfurt-Main before going on to assassinations and bank robberies.

Meinhof articulated the RAF’s strategy: “If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action.” This sounded radical, but was quite different to the attempts of the French student left to unite with striking workers. In Germany, the number of people on the street was already receding, and in the absence of a mass movement, the RAF tried to substitute themselves.

The German state started to win back the upper hand, passing the Radikalerenerlass in 1972 – a law banning left wingers from public sector jobs. In the same year, the main leaders of the RAF, including Meinhof, were arrested, and later sent to Stammheim Prison near Stuttgart. The RAF prisoners went on hunger strike, but were no longer able to appeal for the support of a mass movement.

On 9th May 1976, Meinhof was found hanged in her prison cell while she was awaiting trial. Her death was reported by the authorities as a suicide, but not everyone was convinced. On 17th October, all other imprisoned RAF leaders met a similar fate. Baader was reported to have shot himself in the back of the head – prompting Martin Rowson’s cartoon captioned: “Andreas Baader adds being double-jointed to his other crimes against the West German state”.

At the entrance of many Berlin cemeteries. you see a list of the famous (and less famous) buried in their grounds. You’ll see no such list in the Freifaltigsfriedhof. Ulrike Meinhof lies there almost unnoticed among the other bodies. You may disagree with her strategy but she represents Germany’s post-1968 idealism and a desire to change the world. She deserves better than this.