Rudi Dutschke in public space

When part of Kreuzberg's Kochstraße was renamed Rudi-Dutschke-Straße in April 2008, a long dispute came to an end. In particular, the adjacent Axel Springer publishing house had tried to prevent the renaming with lawsuits. The publishing house did not like an address named after the unpopular student leader, nor had the management forgotten the serious protests that had taken place for days in front of the building against the Bild newspaper and its alleged co-responsibility for the assassination attempt on Rudi Dutschke. Rudi Dutschke was undoubtedly the face and symbol of the student revolt of "68" and the renaming was decided in a referendum.

When it comes to Rudi Dutschke, his critique of capitalism is usually in the foreground, but there are good reasons to mention him in a book about colonial traces in the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, because the second decisive thrust of the struggles at that time was resistance against imperialism. The politicization of the student body in West Berlin was triggered by solidarity with the freedom movements in the former colonized countries and the revolutionary forces of the new "Third World". The anti-colonial resistance had already received considerable attention in the 1950s through Algeria's struggle against the French colonial power, among other things. After all, in 1960 a total of 17 African states had declared their independence from the European colonial powers, supported by the United Nations with a "decolonization resolution". [1]

In divided Germany, the immediate effect of the bloc confrontation of the Cold War manifested itself at the latest with the "Berlin Crisis" in 1958 and the construction of the Berlin Wall from 1961 onwards. The USA in particular seemed to follow in the footsteps of the old European colonial powers in various places in the world, especially in Vietnam, of course, and to establish a new imperialism. In doing so, the politically interested students also took a strong interest in the fate of the civilian population.

The leading role of the USA seemed increasingly doubtful, both in the world and in the Federal Republic of Germany.

"The oppressed must finally be able to become free." [2]

In the 1960s, the Socialist German Student League (SDS) distinguished itself as a particularly important part of the internationalist and New Left movements. The association saw itself as anti-authoritarian and strongly supported the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO); its influence on the student movement in West Germany was central. Rudi Dutschke, a sociology student at the Free University of Berlin, became the "head and inner engine" of the leading faction in the SDS from the beginning of 1965, which was not least due to his ascetic-looking appearance, his charisma and his charisma. [4]

In order to come closer to the idealized, almost vague "goal of a world without hunger and war," solidarity with the independence movements in the non-aligned countries of the so-called "Third World" was necessary, which thus became the decisive condition for the system-revolutionary struggle of the SDS. [5] Dutschke saw capitalism under the aegis of the United States replacing colonialism, social revolutions were systematically prevented and new dependencies were created through resource control and development programs. The "disintegration of the capitalist system" thus lay in the "dissolution of the connection between the imperialist states and their numerous colonies." [6]

"There is a very definite connection between national capitalisms and imperialism as a totality, from which a revolutionary strategy must be derived, within which the workers' movements in the countries of highly developed capitalism have a precise role alongside the revolutionary movements of the "Third World."

In the sense of the neo-colonialism concept of the first Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, economic inequalities and political dependencies led to the continuation of the exploitation of developing countries. This injustice was covered up by the Western media, and criticism was also frowned upon in Germany. [8] In his work of solidarity, Dutschke relied on "systematically" educating people "about what is happening, what is withheld from us every day in the newspapers, in the radio organs, also on television". For he saw the revolutionary movement in a world-historical context in which a world market prevailed that "impoverished one half of the world more and more". [9] The topic of unequal reporting and targeted media and opinion control between North and South also became relevant at the global level and was even intensively discussed in UNESCO from the early 1970s onwards. [10]

From 1967 onwards, Dutschke headed the project group "3rd World / Metropolis", whose members dealt analytically with the imperialist relationship. Due to Dutschke's enthusiasm for the film "Viva Maria!", the group was also named after the film. In the comedy by Louis Malle from 1965, the violent revolution in the Mexican context is romanticized; the European film stars Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau shoot at government soldiers in the service of the anti-imperialist revolutionaries. What was intended by the filmmakers as a farce of violent revolution then stood as a "Viva Maria Group" in the context of real revolutionary ambitions. [11] Leaflets and lectures given by students from the respective countries were intended to shed light on the real situation on the ground. [12] And the work of the project group went beyond that: "Revolutionaries multiply." [13] An "international work brigade" was to travel to Cuba and help out with infrastructure as well as receive military training to create an international guerrilla network – following Ernesto "Che" Guevara's plans in Latin America and Africa. [14]

However, the foreign students from Asia, Africa and Latin America, such as Neville Alexander and Gastón Salvatore, belonged to the privileged and politicized class of their countries of origin, although they were "celebrated by the student body as representatives of the 3rd World in their ranks". [15] They were undoubtedly a determined core of the movement. Protest actions such as e.g. the demonstrations in February 1961 against the closure of the University of Tehran or against the murder of Patrice Lumumba, which were organized by Iranian and African students respectively, can even be seen as the initial spark of the following German student movement. [16]

"We are not hopeless idiots of history, incapable of taking our fate into our own hands." [17]

In December 1964, Congolese Prime Minister Moïse Tschombé traveled to West Berlin, whom Dutschke described in his diary as an "imperialist agent and murderer of [Patrice] Lumumba." [18] The "Subversive Action," to which Dutschke belonged – a small but influential Cultural Revolutionary group – joined forces with the African and Latin American Student Federations and the SDS to organize a protest demonstration of 400 people. [19] While the SDS seemed too harmless to him at the time, he praised the students from abroad: "Our friends from the Third World jumped in immediately, the Germans had to follow." [20] This successful action was widely received in the media and, for the inspired Dutschke, represented the "beginning of our cultural revolution". [21] On this day, "the Third World came to life for the first time in West Berlin". [22]

Like his foreign fellow students, Dutschke was convinced of the liberation struggles in the Third World countries. He saw the writings of the "most important theoreticians of the colonial revolution", namely Che Guevara and Frantz Fanon, as key works for understanding the revolutions in the Third World.[23] In their sense, he recognized the "new man of the 21st century" who would come and enforce emancipation from foreign rule – in case of doubt by force against the state. In particular, Fanon's psychologized analysis of political consciousness and his idealization of the colonial activist as a liberator from oppression left a formative impression on Dutschke's work. [25] He called for the FRG to withdraw from NATO, which he saw as an instrument of oppression for the social revolutionary movement in Europe and the Third World. For West Berlin and even for reunified Germany, he wished for a movement based on the Cuban model and the establishment of a council democracy. [26]

Rudi Dutschke's influence on the student movement, even his role as a deputy, is undisputed. An honorary grave in Dahlem and the street named after him in Kreuzberg publicly honor his work. Dutschke's postcolonial legacy can be read in two directions. Without a doubt, he was a white man for whom the "Third World" and his alleged distant or even near actors served as a projection screen for his own visions. [27] Thus, the protests sometimes changed thematically: Dutschke also took part in the rallies against the racist Italian documentary "Africa Addio", but the subsequent legal reappraisal was no longer about anti-racist justice, but only about his own German past. On the other hand, Dutschke made just as great achievements – he helped to put imperialism, global dependencies, imbalances and also racism on the public agenda. His theoretical and activist exchanges with Latin American, African and Asian students testify to genuine interest, the ability to engage in dialogue and also self-criticism. At the final demonstration of the Vietnam Congress in February 1968 in West Berlin, Dutschke walked through the streets of Berlin with the Pakistani Tariq Ali, the American Dale Smith and the Chilean Gastón Salvatore, among others, which can be classified as a lasting symbol of a serious international protest alliance. [28] Without the decolonization and anti-imperialist struggles of the "Third World", which functioned as reality, point of contact and inspiration, "68" would not have existed in this form in Germany.