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40/68 – “We Are Not Going to Defend Ourselves Before Such a Justice System!” – 1968 and the Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Martin Klimke

Extract

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On November 29, 1967, Commune I member Fritz Teufel had to face his second day in a West Berlin courtroom. Teufel was charged with breaching the public peace for allegedly hurling stones at policemen during a demonstration against the visit of the Shah of Persia on June 2, 1967– the same event during which West German police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras killed twenty-six-year-old student Benno Ohnesorg with a shot to the head. When the judge entered the courtroom that day in late November, Teufel sat in the same spot in which only one week before Kurras had been acquitted of involuntary manslaughter for his actions on June 2. As everybody stood up, Teufel alone remained in his seat, leisurely browsing through the day's newspaper. Only after the judge repeatedly urged him to stand up, stop his defiant behavior, and pay his respects to the court did Teufel slowly rise to his feet and utter a seemingly spontaneous and sardonic remark, which became a rallying cry for the mocking and disrespectful attitude of the student movement against West German authorities: “Well, if it's gonna help establish the truth…” (Naja, wenn's der Wahrheitsfindung dient).

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 3: Special issue - Germany's 1968 and the Law , 01 March 2009 , pp. 261 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 I would like to thank Alexander Holmig, Casey Sutcliffe, Philipp Gassert and Maria Höhn for their comments on the ideas and arguments expressed in this article as well as many helpful suggestions.Google Scholar

2 Teufel was not released until August 10, more than two months later, on the condition that he check in at the local police station twice a week. He refused to do so, and, a week later, even appeared in front of the courthouse in a penitent's gown demanding to be readmitted to pre-trial confinement while locked up in a rolling cart secured with chains. When the police denied his request, Teufel violated his court order and was arrested again during a sit-in at West Berlin City Hall in mid-September.Google Scholar

3 On the trial against Kurras from the perspective of Otto Schily, the lawyer for the brother and father of Benno Ohnesorg in 1967, see Stefan Reinicke, Otto Schily: Vom RAF-Anwalt zum Innenminister, 82–86 (2003).Google Scholar

4 For an introduction, bibliography, and review of recent literature, see Martin Klimke, The Struggles Continues: Revisiting the German Sixties, in The Sixties, 247–252 (2d ed., 2008); Klimke, Martin, West Germany, in 1968 in Europe: A History of Protest and Activism, 1965–77, 97–110 (Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth eds., 2008).Google Scholar

5 The very few studies that incorporate the legal dimension into their analysis of “1968” in a significant way are: Rechtsanwälte - Linksanwälte: 1971 bis 1981 - das Rote Jahrzehnt vor Gericht (Brunn, Hellmut & Kirn, Thomas eds., 2004); Nagel, Katja, Die Provinz in Bewegung. Studentenunruhen in Heidelberg 1964 bis 1974, PhD. Dissertation, University of Heidelberg (2008); Kraft, Sandra, Vom Autoritätskonflikt zur Machtprobe: Die Studentenproteste der 60er Jahre als Herausforderung für das Establishment in Deutschland und den USA, PhD dissertation, University of Heidelberg (2008). See also autobiographical literature such as Heinrich Hannover, Die Republik vor Gericht 1954 – 1995 (2005). Scholarship in Germany has, in general, only very gradually included the establishment's perspective in the historiography of “1968.” See, e.g., Klaus Weinhauer, Schutzpolizei in der Bundesrepublik: zwischen Bürgerkrieg und innerer Sicherheit: die turbulenten sechziger Jahre (2003); Suri, Jeremi, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (2003); Hodenberg, Christina von, Der Kampf um die Redaktionen: 1968 und die westdeutschen Massenmedien, in Christina von Hodenberg and Detlef Siegfried, Wo 1968 liegt. Reform und Revolte in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik, 139–163 (2006); Klimke, Martin, The Other Alliance: Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties (2009); The ‘Establishment’ Responds: Power and Protest During and After the Cold War (Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Martin Klimke, & Scharloth, Joachim, eds., forthcoming).Google Scholar

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9 The literature on the Kommune I is still dominated by the biographical accounts of former participants, see e.g., Marco Carini, Fritz Teufel: wenn's der Wahrheitsfindung dient (2003); Enzensberger, Ulrich, Die Jahre der Kommune I: Berlin 1967 – 1969 (2004); K 1: das Bilderbuch der Kommune (Rainer Langhans, Christa Ritter, & Weidner, Alex, eds., 2008); Langhans, Rainer, Ich bin's: die ersten 68 Jahre (2008). The only comprehensive, excellent scholarly examination of the commune and the counterculture that surrounded it is Alexander Holmig, Wenn's der Wahrheits(er)findung dient Wirken und Wirkung der Kommune I (1967-1969), M.A. Thesis, Humboldt University Berlin, 2004.Google Scholar

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12 Kommune, I, Flyer 8 (May 24, 1967). The term “ware-house” was Dieter Kunzelmann's translation of the German word for department store (Warenhaus). See Langhans, supra, note 9, at 50.Google Scholar

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14 Compare the individual reports in: APO-Archive, Free University Berlin: Ordner K I, Auszüge aus gutachtlichen Äußerungen; Kommune I – Zerschmettert den Moabiter Pleitegeier!, Eigendruck-Broschüre, September 1967, 41 ff.; APO-Archiv, blaue Mappe, Frohner-Unterlagen (Excerpts). See also Rainer Langhans and Fritz Teufel, Klau mich (1968); Kunzelmann, supra, note 6, 81.Google Scholar

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16 For a more detailed examination, see Joachim Scharloth, Ritualkritik und Rituale des Protest. Die Entdeckung des Performativen in der Studentenbewegung der 1960er Jahre, in 1968. Handbuch zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Studentenbewegung, 75–87 (Klimke, Martin & Scharloth, Joachim eds., 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Rainer Langhans and Fritz Teufel, Klau mich, passim (1968).Google Scholar

18 Zehn Monate für Kommunarden: ‘Gerichtssäale dürfen keine Bedürfnisanstalten werden', in Frankfurter Rundschau, September 7, 1968; see also Davies, Mererid P., Bodily Issues: The West German Anti-Authoritarian Movement and the Semiotics of Dirt, in Un-civilising Processes: Excess and Transgression in German Society and Culture, 225–53 (Fulbrook, Mary ed., 2007).Google Scholar

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21 Resolution verabschiedet von der versammelten Studentenschaft der FU Berlin auf dem Sit-in am 22./23. Juni 1966, in 4 Freie Universität Berlin, 1948–1973, Hochschule im Umbruch, 333 (Lönnendonker, Siegward & Fichter, Tilman eds., 1978).Google Scholar

22 Sit-In, Teach-In, Go-In: Die transnationale Zirkulation kultureller Praktiken in den 1960er Jahren, in 1968. Handbuch zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte, 119–135 (Klimke, Martin & Scharloth, Joachim eds., 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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26 Quoted after Uwe Nettelbeck, Die Frankfurter Brandstifter, Die Zeit, November 8, 1968.Google Scholar

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30 See Michels, Reinhold, Otto Schily: Eine Biographie (2001); Reinicke, supra, note 3, passim. Other equally revealing political biographies of legal actors are those by Christian Ströbele (Green Party) or Horst Mahler (who has now adopted right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic positions). For the latter, see Martin Jandel, Horst Mahler, in Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus, 372–397 (Kraushaar, Wolfgang, ed., 2006).Google Scholar

31 In terms of the interaction between activists, the courts and public opinion the case of Beate Klarsfeld is particularly interesting. On November 7, 1968, Beate Klarsfeld, who had initiated a comprehensive public campaign against the National Socialist past of Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, interrupted his speech at the CDU party convention in Berlin. Walking up to Kiesinger and denouncing him as a “Nazi,” Klarsfeld slapped him in the face before she was dragged away. In a matter of two hours, a Berlin court found her guilty of assault and sentenced her to a year in prison. This fast and draconic ruling provoked a public outcry from observers of different political backgrounds, especially since Klarsfeld's defense lawyer Horst Mahler had only been able to speak to her for half an hour before the sentencing without any time to prepare the case. For an examination of the event and the subsequent trial see Philipp Gassert, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, 1904–1988: Kanzler zwischen den Zeiten, 651–659 (2006).Google Scholar