Re: <nettime> HORST MAHLER: THE ROLE OF A SAD SACK

[Florian Cramer <paragram@gmx.net>]

Am Mon, 09.Oct.2000 um 23:19:00 +0200 schrieb Nico Myowna:

> > <http://www.trend.partisan.net/trd1099/t321099.html>"). Today, he is

> This is not quite correct. 

Okay. So the information contained in, among others,
<http://www.trend.partisan.net/trd1099/t321099.html>") was not correct.

> > The German Green Party, for example,
> > is the official successor of the party "Aktion Unabhaengiger Deutscher (AUD)"
> > ("Initiative of Independent Germans") whose historical roots were in a block
> > of extreme right parties ("Block der Heimatlosen und Entrechteten").
> Without being too fond of political parties including the Greens as an  
> anarchist, but this is simply not true. The Green Party is in *no* way the  
> official successor of AUD! 

The best-known member of the AUD was Joseph Beuys, and yes, he co-founded
the Greens, and the AUD officially founded and dissolved into the Greens.[1]
To quote the mainstream knowledge portal "wissen.de": 

"The 'old men's league' of the founding years consists of Herbert Gruhl,
August Haußleiter [founder and president of the AUD, note], Baldur
Springmann and Joseph Beuys. None of them embodied in any way the
alternative and left-wing image of the Greens. [...] [Gruhl and
Haußleiter] had a joint interest in national-patriotic and ecologist issues.
The contact to the left-wing community, which soon should dominate the
scene, was established through the contacts of the AUD to the Bundesverband
Bürgerinitiativen Umweltschutz (BBU, 'Federation of Civil Rights Initiatives
for Environment Protection') [whose president was Petra Kelly]."

> In fact the main part of the party members came from left authoritarian
> organisations like KB and KBW (Communist Alliance resp Communist Alliance
> West-Germany).

True, but the first generation Greens were different. The Green Party was
founded by the AUD and two Anthroposophic organizations, one of them called
"Aktion Dritter Weg" ("Action Third Way"/"Third Position"). Most of the
ex-KB and -KBW people were not in the Green Party initially, but in more
left-wing, locally successful green parties like "GAL" in Hamburg and "AL"
in Berlin, which didn't join the official Green Party before the late 1980s.
In Berlin, the Green Party (as opposed to the AL), was taken over by
outright Neo-Nazis before it was replaced with the former AL.

> It is true that the Green Party did have right-wing members, but many of
> them were kicked out in the early/mid- 80ies already.

Mechtersheimer being a prominent exception.

> Both persons have been members of the Green Party for a more or less short  
> period. Gruhl, however, was a former member of the Christian Democratic  
> Union, Mechtersheimer came from its Bavarian sister party Christian Social  
> Union, and they did not have to perform a turn to the extreme right after  
> they were made to leave the Greens, they were pretty much right wing all  
> the time.

True, but also telling. I am not implying that the Greens are a
crypto-fascist party, but I find ecologism as not a pragmatic goal, but an
ideological foundation highly problematic, and it seems to me that the
Greens have done very little to reflect the nasty spots in their (rather
brief) history.

Florian

[1] "August Haußleiter, der später mit Schenke die 'Aktionsgemeinschaft
   Unabhängiger Deutscher' (AUD) gründete und diese 1980 in die Partei Die
   Grünen einbrachte. [...] Schenke persönlich fragte nach der Gründung von
   NPD und AUD in der "Neuen Politik": "Warum eigentlich nicht gemeinsam?"
   Die Frage war berechtigt, denn beide Parteien beerbten das Potential der
   "Deutschen Reichspartei" und Schenke hatte zu allen Verbindungen. In den
   70er Jahren versuchte er ein Zeitlang, seinem Blatt einen seriösen
   Anstrich zu geben. Neben seinen Freunden aus dem Neofaschismus schrieben
   hier jetzt auch z. B. die späteren Grünen-Politiker Petra Kelly und Jakob
   von Uexküll, auch Günter Verheugen, damals noch FDP."
   <http://home.snafu.de/bifff/SPD4.htm>

-- 
Florian Cramer, PGP public key ID 6440BA05
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/
http://www.complit.fu-berlin.de/institut/lehrpersonal/cramer.html

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