“A people’s history is a powerful weapon. In the hands of the oppressors, history is twisted and caricatured. In the arsenal of the revolution, it helps us draw the difficult lessons from past struggles and identify the resistance which has always opposed the enemy” -The Weather Underground
Today’s demonstration in solidarity with Daniela Klette and all those persecuted by the state and those in hiding is an opportunity for us to connect with radical history in Berlin. The opening quote from the Weather Underground, a revolutionary armed group active in the so-called “USA” from 1969 to 1977, clarifies how centrally historical consciousness and revolutionary mentality are linked. In Berlin, time and again, the state and its organs of repression unfortunately manage to disconnect us from the revolutionary historical struggles of this city. Then we move in isolation, sometimes arrogantly towards those who were here before us. We then might think we are the first to think about smashing the conditions. Then we overlook the traces and presence of rebellious stories. The city of Berlin is filled with stories of revolutionary struggles, rebellions against colonial oppression, queer uprisings. The dominant narrative tries to make all these people and struggles invisible. This makes it all the more important that we tell them and connect with them.
With regard to Palestine solidarity, we rightly deal a lot with the repression against it, with zionist entanglements of the German state, but also from parts of the so-called “left”, and the consequences for Palestinian life in Germany, for anti-colonial struggles in this city, the anti-Muslim racism that is fed in it. We are then often forced to tell the story of the oppressors, the German state and its relations with “Israel”, the anti-deutsche in the institutions, the cops who break up demos. Unfortunately, however, we sometimes forget to tell our stories of resistance and thus to tie in with the anti-colonial struggles that have always existed in this city and thus to continue writing our own history.
The 1970s in Berlin were characterized by rebellion against the state and capital. As the mass movement against the US war in Vietnam gained momentum, students and other radical groups in Berlin increasingly drew parallels with the fate of the Palestinians and declared their solidarity with their struggle for liberation. From this point on, solidarity with the Palestinian struggle was firmly established on the left of the West German political spectrum, from the armed guerrillas of the Red Army Faction, the 2 June Movement and the Revolutionary Cells (trained and supported by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) to the Jusos, who were affiliated with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The connection between the GDR and Palestine was one of support and exchange, of course in a state interest. On July 22, 1982, around 600 student members of the Free German Youth protested against the Israeli military operation in Lebanon at a solidarity rally in East Berlin’s Plänterwald. They expressed their solidarity with the “trampled peoples” of Palestine and Lebanon and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Palestinians themselves played a central role in the struggle for a free Palestine in Germany. Students from Palestine disseminated information about the struggle in their homeland and formed numerous solidarity committees at local level. In doing so, they contributed to the general radicalization of the student movement of the late 1960s, which was inspired by the struggles in the Global South. After the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, hundreds of Palestinians were deported from Germany as a form of collective punishment. Palestinians in Germany formed civil society alliances with left-wing groups, churches, and other actors.
Magazines published in Lebanon at that time reported extensively on the growing support for the Palestinian cause in West Germany. Readers in Beirut could study pictures of demonstrations in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and West Berlin or read about organizations such as the League Against Imperialism, the Marxist Student League Spartakus or the Socialist German Student League (SDS).
These are just a few examples of the history of the struggles for a free Palestine in the history of Berlin. The invisibilization of these struggles, as well as many other anti-colonial struggles in this city, not only whitewashes the radical history of the city but also plays into the hands of the oppressors. Migrant groups such as “Antifa Genclik” have written central anti-fascist history of this city. Turkish-Kurdish women have created meeting places for women in squats in Kreuzberg. The so-called “Gay International” formed in 1991 as a migrant queer response to the racist propaganda in reunified Germany. And there are hundreds, thousands of these stories. As the Weather Underground said, we should know the histories of resistance in order to learn from them and look militantly to the future. Many courageous comrades have always led the struggles for a liberated life on this piece of earth we live on. Many have risked everything and even lost their lives in the process. Many are still in prison or underground. We want to draw connections to the revolutionaries before an<d after us, which not only gives us strength, but is fundamental to a revolutionary perspective for the liberation of all.
Free all prisoners, here and worldwide!
Up the international solidarity! Hoch die Internationale Solidarität!
