In 1977–78 the West German Left was in a state of reorientation. Grand revolutionary strategies appeared to be discredited by the terrorism of the mid-seventies and succumbed to state suppression. Especially activists from the growing left-alternative milieu experienced this as a deadlock situation.777 In light of these impressions, discussions on alternative ways towards social transformation gained momentum. Replacing the revolutionary strategies which had been conceived in the aftermath of »1968«, alternative transformative strategies increasingly gained attention. These alternative strategies were based on the notion that change had to start with the activists’ subjective needs, their own everyday practices and alternative ways of living. »The politics of the self« became the catchword that marked the controversies that were nothing short of a struggle over the hegemony within the West German Left. In this process of reorientation, the city once again became a central object of contention and urban protest was reinvigorated. After 1977–78 urban issues became more important than ever before. In fact, many of the ideas and strategies that came to characterize the urban social movements of the eighties were conceived or sharpened in 1977–78.778
In this article, I argue that the perception of the Italian protest movements in 1977–78 contributed significantly to the reinvigoration of urban protest in West Germany. In 1977–78 activists from the left-alternative milieu looked for inspiration in Italy more than anywhere else. To them, the massive protest movement unfolding in Italy, known as »Movimento del ‘77«, seemed to point to a way out of the deadlock situation in which the West German Left had maneuvered itself. The events in Rome, Bologna, Milan and other Italian cities highlighted the possibility of social transformation starting from the activists’ subjective needs and desires instead of the objective reasoning along Marxist theories. The vigor of the »Movimento del ‘77« seemed to confirm that change was possible through establishing alternative ways of living within the present society instead of working towards a distant revolution. But also the particular forms of action that characterized the new Italian movement appealed to West German observers who preferred immediate social change starting with their subjective needs and desires: the »Movimento del ‘77« appeared to be creative in the means of protesting and how critique was formulated. It was undogmatic and hedonistic, yet relentless, uncompromising and militant in a way that clearly distinguished it from the terrorist groups prevalent in the mid-seventies. In all of this, activism and protest in Italy was clearly urban, profiling the city as a decisive object of social struggle.779
Beginning in February 1977, Italian cities had seen a wave of protest. It was first sparked by the conditions students faced at the University of Rome and elsewhere. The mushrooming number of students was matched neither by courses offered nor by job opportunities: a growing number of students were confronted with the prospect of unemployment. At the same time, the strategic shift of the Italian communist party (PCI) reinforced the disillusionment of the young protesters with party politics and long-term strategies for social transformation grounded in Marxist theory. The year before, the PCI had received almost 35 percent of the votes in the national elections but had entered into the so-called »historic compromise« with Christian Democracy. Thus, the »Movimento del ‘77« was directed against both bourgeois society and the Communists‹ party politics. To be sure, the »Movimento del ‘77« was heterogeneous. It encompassed a wide array of groups differing in self-conception, aims and practice. But its common thrust was to start social transformation according to the activists’ own needs and desires, to pursue the transformation of the activists’ own lives, and the immediate realization of an alternative society next to the existing bourgeois society. It was this line of attack that set the »Movimento del ‘77« apart from the ideas and revolutionary strategies of the established Left. And it was this thrust that made it an appealing model for activists from the West German left-alternative milieu.780
When the liberal news-magazine Der Spiegel first reported on the uprisings at the universities of Rome and Bologna in March 1977, it hinted at a new and unprecedented element contrasting starkly with the usual Marxist reasoning that had characterized protest movements for more than a decade: »The urban indians thought of the collapse of the universities as something positive. Confusion, as chief Beccofino claims, is the only way to make the existing society livable.«781 The uprisings in Italy did not only baffle the liberal press, they also immediately drew the interest of activists from the West German left-alternative milieu. A West Berlin group, having visited Bologna in March 1977, reported their impressions which contrasted with what they were used to back home. They found the »Movimento del ‘77« to be less formal, less fragmented, more spontaneous and creative than its German counterparts.782 From the perspective of these West German activists unnerved by dogmatic discussions over theories and strategies, the allegedly simple »way to make the existing society livable« proclaimed by Beccofino and other leading figures of the »Movimento del ‘77« had a strong appeal.
The transnational diffusion of ideas, protest issues, strategies and practices has been widely discussed in historical research, especially for the movements of »1968« and to a lesser degree for those of the seventies. Much has been written about the mode of transfer and the actors who carried ideas and practices from one country to another.783 In comparison, less attention has been paid to the actual processes of recontextualization. Interpretations and particularly misinterpretations of movements abroad have not yet been systematically analyzed, neither have the adoption of ideas and practices and their integration into existing discourses and protest practices been extensively scrutinized.784 However, analyzing processes of recontextualization is possibly more important than investigating transnational transfer as such. As a matter of fact, most West German observers did not really understand what was going on in Italy in 1977. As one visitor to Bologna admitted in the Leftist journal info-BUG: »[Our] Impressions, that without proficiency in Italian and only fragmented translations by Italian comrades remained superficial, […] were nonetheless lasting and fascinating.«785
In this contribution, I will trace what West German observers made of the Italian »Movimento del ‘77«. How did activists perceive what was going on in Italy? How did they connect their perceptions to West German debates and protest issues and incorporate them into their own argumentation and eventually into their practices? I will also consider, how these processes of recontextualization were judged from the point of view of activists holding on to Marxist assumptions, Social Democratic politicians and the liberal press. As this article is primarily interested in how the recontextualization of the Italian model helped distinctively reinvigorate urban protest in West Germany, I will narrow down the many aspects of the perception of the »Movimento del ‘77« to urban issues and take the phenomenon of the »indiani metropolitani« as a starting point.
The pronounced attention to ideas and protest strategies originating in Italy that surfaced in the spring of 1977 actually dated back to the early seventies. Italian inspirations had already played a role when West German activists discovered the so-called »sphere of reproduction« as an important site of struggle around 1970.786 This approach extended the scope of protest beyond the »sphere of production«, namely the factory, where class struggle was to take place in orthodox Marxist reasoning, and drew attention to housing conditions, education and consumption. The living conditions of migrants in the Westend of Frankfurt were a case in point.787 Squats and rent strikes in 1970 and 1971 in the Westend did not only gain prominence in the media, they also involved a number of migrants living in the Westend who had already been connected to Lotta Continua back in Italy. These activists introduced their ideas into the struggles in Frankfurt and with them a specific type of Italian Leftist thought that called for the extension of class struggle into everyday life. Even though the subsequent squats and rent strikes in Frankfurt eventually collapsed, ideas and protest strategies coming from Italy remained an important reference.788 Above all, the migrants who had been associated with Lotta Continua in Italy transferred the notion that the city was an object of contention.789
Out of these beginnings in Frankfurt, West Berlin and other West German cities, emerged the left-alternative milieu. From the start this was an essentially urban milieu. Except for some experiments to retreat to the countryside, it was centered around an increasingly dense network of communes, alternative businesses, bars and bookshops. As the origins of the left-alternative milieu lay in the controversies around urban redevelopment, city politics and local economy as in Frankfurt, these issues remained a component of activism throughout the seventies. The city was one of the focal points of the emerging left-alternative milieu. The controversies over urban issues shaped these activists’ worldview just as much as struggles over squatted houses or autonomous youth centers shaped their practices.790
However, this orientation towards urban issues was by no means unanimously shared among the West German Left before 1977–78. Marxist critics attacked the urban inclination within the left-alternative milieu for diverting attention from the key social antagonism between the »working class« and the bourgeoisie and its main locus, the factory. As late as 1977, the Marxist journal Beiträge zum wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus denounced activists whose »consciousness of the social conditions is not shaped by the immediate experience of the central opposition within society, the exploitation through wage labor, […] but predominantly by school, family and in free-time. Therefore, they are manipulated by the myths of bourgeois political and social prejudices, more so than the working class.«791 Such statements were not only scornful, they also revealed a deeply rooted disagreement about the role of the city as an object of contention.
It was only the impression of the deadlock situation in 1977–78 that caused debates about »the right to the city« to flourish again. This was, to a large extent, due to the disposition within the left-alternative milieu of connecting urban issues to Italian models which were being revived as the activists looked to the »Movimento del ‘77« for inspiration. The adoption of the phenomenon of the »indiani metropolitani« by the West German left-alternative milieu in 1977–78 epitomizes the connection activists made between urban issues and the Italian model.
The subtle yet far-reaching dissemination of the image of the »Indian« throughout the entire Federal Republic highlights how common this particular understanding of Italian protest movements was. Especially the discussions around the influential »TUNIX«-meeting in West Berlin in January 1978 highlight this point. The organizers of the meeting, a group of »Spontis« who were dissatisfied with the situation that culminated during the terrorist assaults of 1977, harked back to information coming in from Italy and Bologna in particular. The diversity and creativity of the Italian protests seemed to point a way out of the perils of orthodox revolutionary ossification, on the one hand, and state suppression, on the other hand. The organizers announced the meeting as an imaginary voyage to »TUNIX« envisaged as a faraway place where the left-alternative milieu could fulfill its desires and escape from the repressive West German society.792 Even though »TUNIX« did only partially relate to the »indiani metropolitani«, it was clear that the idea of a faraway land to which the left-alternative milieu could retreat was very close to imaginations about the world of the »Indians«.
By the end of 1978 the »Indian« motif had disseminated beyond the left-alternative milieu of West Berlin and other hotspots. On the evening of 28 October 1978 about 300 young people gathered in Hilden, a medium-sized city southeast of Düsseldorf, in front of the newly erected convention center and concert hall, the Stadthalle. They had painted faces and a number of them wore Indian-style accessories and clothes. Most of them just sat around, drank alcoholic beverages and some played their instruments. Their gathering interfered with people trying to enter the Stadthalle to see a play that was being put on that night. Police said that the purpose of the gathering was to prevent the audience from attending the show. They also claimed that later on a group tried to raid the Stadthalle to disrupt the play. This attempt was accompanied by loud »Indian howls« but was not successful. Around nine o’clock the group dispersed only to return half an hour later. By that time the police were present to seal off the area. This time some demonstrators were arrested and there were a number of clashes, injuring some.793
The Hilden protesters recontextualized the Italian model in a distinctive way that connected the »Indian« motif to the issues they had been concerned with since the early seventies. These issues were not only urban in scope, but also reflected the urban character of the local left-alternative milieu. First, the specific objects of contention, like the Stadthalle, were central civic institutions and the conflicts were deeply rooted in diverging ideas about urban culture. Second, the image conveyed by the »indiani metropolitani« was highly relevant to the self-identification of protesters, fusing a fundamentally oppositional stance with the city as the locus of acting out fundamental opposition. Third, the protests taking up the Italian inspirations were closely intertwined with the struggles for an alternative culture and the emerging urban lifestyles that came to characterize West German cities in the eighties.
It was no coincidence that the protests in Hilden centered around the Stadthalle. In making the Stadthalle the object of contention, the local left-alternative milieu followed up on both the Italian model as well as older controversies over the character of urban culture. The staging of the »Indian« gathering in October 1978 referred to events in Italy, particularly the raid of the Milan Scala, and connected them to the local struggle for spaces for alternative cultural activity. In this, the Hilden activists recontextualized one of the most spectacular incidences that had sparked off the »Movimento del ‘77« and fitted it into their own campaign for an autonomous youth center.
In an anthology, in which documents of the »Movimento del ‘77« were presented to a German audience, the raid on the Milan Scala in December 1976 was presented as a pivotal point of the Italian struggle: »The Circoli Giovanili Proletari took the opening night of Othello at the Scala (cheapest seat 100,000 Lire = about 250 Marks) as an occasion for the great showdown. Milan will not be the place where the bourgeoisie can attend their gala performance without being interrupted.«794 The announcement of the Hilden protesters in October 1978 resembled this account almost word for word. They also explicitly spoke of the play being presented at the Stadthalle as a »gala performance« and asked: »For who is the ›Stadthalle‹? For the Hilden bourgeoisie gathering there in bow ties and creaking corsets, to savor the presented culture. […] We will show these fossilized philistines how we celebrate!«795
Stadthalle and Scala both were symbols and anchors of a kind of civic urban culture that the young protesters opposed. From the activists’ point of view, these institutions showcased bourgeois high culture. The representative buildings stood at prominent locations within the city and were intended to highlight the value of the kind of culture offered there. In Hilden this impression was underlined by the fact that the construction of the Stadthalle between 1975 and 1978 had cost considerable public funds. The buildings and their sites seemed to indicate that bourgeois ideals of culture should be imposed on the entire city. In this vein, high culture, associated with the operas at the Scala and the events held at the Stadthalle, was also perceived as a normative guideline for practices central to Western civic culture. Such events were seen as processes of assurance of certain bourgeois forms of conduct and behavior, caricatured in the protesters’ statement claiming attendees were wearing »bow ties and creaking corsets«. Such dress styles and, by implication, rules of conduct were not only anathema to the young protesters but also denounced as mechanisms of suppression.
However, the Hilden Stadthalle and the Milan Scala as objects of contention were more than symbolic anchors of bourgeois urban civic culture. The conflict had in both cases been sparked specifically by the price of admission: in Milan it was claimed that the cheapest seat cost 100,000 Lire. Admission to events held at Hilden’s Stadthalle was of course less costly, but still too expensive for many local youths. The pricing of performances was used as an indicator—in reality neither Milanese nor Hilden protesters probably wanted to see Othello. But, from the protesters’ point of view, the price marked the difference between bourgeois high culture and alternative culture: participation in high culture was restricted through pricing.796 In this regard, West German activists saw the Italian practice of »autoriduzione« as a powerful reaction to such processes of exclusion. »Autoriduzione« referred to the refusal to pay in pubs, discotheques, cinemas or at concerts that was reported from Italian cities.797 Even though the actual practices of »autoriduzione« never reached West Germany, their existence in Italy showed that protest forms directed at pricing, especially that of cultural services, was a relevant issue and a potential lever to mobilize opposition.
Often such incidents like the raids on the Scala and the Stadthalle were the culminating points of longer struggles for autonomous youth centers. In Milan the raid of the Scala was interpreted as an escalation of an ongoing conflict over establishing spaces for divergent forms of youth culture.798 This aspect was easily transferable to the situation in Hilden and many other cities in West Germany where a widespread youth center movement had emerged in the early seventies and had since campaigned for autonomous centers with mixed results. Youth center initiatives demanded spaces for the purpose of spending their spare time but also as a nucleus for a development towards a different society. The activists lamented a lack of spaces for their own cultural activities. They criticized the fact that places to meet outside commercial offerings and strict regulations were scarce: one either had to spend money to visit pubs and discotheques or subordinate oneself under organizations like the church or sport clubs that ran youth centers.799 In Hilden an initiative for an autonomous youth center had formed in 1974. After promising first negotiations with city officials, the initiative had got stuck by 1975. In the meantime, the construction of the Stadthalle moved ahead. Those activists campaigning for a youth center were increasingly appalled: while millions of Marks were spent on the new Stadthalle, their project was put off. This signaled to the young protesters that civic high culture was fostered and even subsidized, while the kind of urban culture they were hoping to establish was marginalized.800
It was in this context of the struggle for an autonomous youth center that the inspirations radiating from the »Movimento del ‘77« were inserted. The Hilden case was unique only insofar as the Stadthalle provided a strong focal point for criticism of the dominance of a bourgeois urban culture. In more general terms, the conflict in Hilden was hardly unique. Similar youth center initiatives existed in over 1,000 West German cities and struggles over urban culture more broadly defined were commonplace.801 Everywhere in West Germany activists from the left-alternative milieu had begun to construct a strong opposition between their own cultural activities and bourgeois high culture. The West German activists’ reception of the »Movimento del ‘77« and the »indiani metropolitani« in particular was fitted into ongoing struggles for youth centers and spaces for an alternative culture. In this process of recontextualization, the controversies over urban culture did not only gain a new aspect but were considerably reinvigorated.
Much of the reinvigoration of urban protest originated in the phase of reorientation of the West German Left in 1977–78, and the Italian-inspired self-identification of activists as »Indians« played a particular role in this process. Among activists from the West German left-alternative milieu the image of the »indiani metropolitani« was widely used for identification. Yet, it mostly remained below the surface of published discourse with few sources explicitly elaborating on the phenomenon. »Stadtindianer«, as the West German counterpart of the »indiani« came to be called, popped up in many cities between 1977 and 1979. In West Berlin a group of »FU-Indianer« haunted the Free University of Berlin in April 1977.802 A few months later the notorious Göttingen »Mescalero«, the name of a Native American tribe, gained national prominence when an open letter was published sympathizing with the terrorist murder of Attorney General Siegfried Buback. But also in more remote locations the image of the »Indian« surfaced. The Hilden case has already been presented. In Biblis, the site of a controversial nuclear power plant, protesters appeared late in 1978 as »indians on the warpath«.803 Even though it was rarely spelled out what exactly »Stadtindianer« in West Germany were to be, it served as a strong point of reference in the process of self-identification within the left-alternative milieu in 1977–78.
The archetypical Native American was an ideal image to represent the self-perception of the left-alternative milieu. It was widely understood as the authentic and untamed »other« of Western society, especially among the generation that had grown up with the writings of Karl May and the movies based on his stories. It was a means of distancing oneself from Western society. With this topos, the »Indians« invoked a stereotype of the Native American that had emerged in European society during the nineteenth century and which had been updated in popular Western novels and movies. Interestingly, neither the Italian »indiani metropolitani« nor the German »Stadtindianer« actively questioned the origin of the image. In fact, the irony of their reasoning was completely lost on most activists. A critical article in the Leftist Info-BUG, which claimed to reflect on the situation of Native Americans in the United States, concluded with the awkward call: »Americans get out of the USA—Winnetou is back again!«804 Using the widely understood image of the »Indian« as the »other« appeared to be more important to most activists than the actual connection to the Native Americans’ struggles in the USA, even though warning voices occasionally urged the »Indians« to seriously reflect on their use of the image.805
On the surface the distancing started with the language used by the »Stadtindianer«: it was loaded with metaphors inspired by the way »Indians« spoke in contemporary Western movies; it was playful and full of irony.806 In their statements the »Stadtindianer« called cars »steel horses on four wheels«.807 Judges were addressed as »pale-faces with a forked tongue« and the Criminal Court of West Berlin became a »dark stone box […] where our brothers and sisters are being chained«.808 The intention behind this use of language was to ridicule central institutions of Western society and mark them as not sensibly understandable. It was also used to signal that the social ambitions of the »Stadtindianer« themselves lay even beyond traditional Leftist reasoning, transcending the conventional Western understanding of the political altogether. With the Italian »indiani metropolitani« in view, one commentator highlighted this point: »It has to be made absolutely clear: this movement has developed much further than our ability to grasp it.«809
Besides the rather diffuse notion of expressing a fundamental »otherness«, the »Indian« image also conveyed a number of concrete ideals that were widely shared within the left-alternative milieu. It stood for an alternative way of life to which a close affiliation to nature was central. An »Indian« from the »tribe of the Charlottenburger« quoted an »old medicine man« saying that it was essential to »reintroduce the natural way of life once and for all […] and I beg my father, the sun, and my mother, the earth, to give me the necessary life and strength«.810 The image also evoked the idea that family structures should be replaced by communes organized like »tribes«, an idea which the »Indianerkommune« in Heidelberg took to an extreme. In 1977 the group launched a campaign for absolute sexual equality, including the legalization of sexual relations between adults and children.811
Behind all of these aspects that hinted at alternative ways of life stood the reference to the image of the »Indian« as a means to legitimize spontaneous militant action. The reception of the Italian model of the »indiani metropolitani« was not only about creativity and the admiration of the Italian »playfulness«, it also tapped into a hot discussion on the legitimacy and usefulness of violence. The escalation of the confrontation between the terrorists of the Red Army Faction (RAF) and the state had raised the sensitivity for the issue since violence had been tolerated and even accepted by large parts of the West German Left prior to 1977. At this point a process of rethinking set in that culminated in the controversial »Buback-Nachruf«, an obituary reflecting on the murder of Siegfried Buback by RAF-terrorists. It was written by a »Mescalero from Göttingen« who claimed to first have felt »clandestine joy« at the news of Buback’s death, but then went on to condemn the terrorists’ strategy. While the media and the wider public were furious about the »Mescalero’s« statement, it also reflected how deeply the West German Left was unsettled when it came to discussing militancy and violence.812
The fact that the author of the Buback obituary called himself a »Mescalero« points to the importance the image of the »Indian« had for the deliberations on violence in 1977–78. The Native Americans, as they were commonly understood even far beyond the left-alternative milieu, were victims: victims of the US expansion of the nineteenth century and Western civilization in general. Yet, they were also able to forcefully strike back when challenged and mobilize militant action if necessary. In a »declaration of war« the Berlin »Mescaleros« spelled out this reasoning: »you have drowned our dreams in a blood-red stream of violence, terror and inhumanity. You have forced us onto reservations […] from then on we knew that the time will come when we will rise again […] to reconquer our stolen land like torrents of water and furious hurricanes.«813 However bloodthirsty and uncompromising such threats were, they highlighted the supposedly defensive character of the protesters’ militancy. »Indians« were thought to be peace loving in principle while Westerners were aggressive intruders. This corresponded with the strong feelings of victimization throughout the left-alternative milieu.814 In 1977–78 these feelings reached a peak in the face of terrorism and state repression. As the Hilden protesters claimed, it was state repression that was about to turn »peace loving boys and girls into terrorists«.815 Militancy, presented in this way, had a defensive character.
In one regard, however, the young European protesters embracing the image of the »Indian« deviated from the self-proclaimed analogy with the perceived Native Americans. Unlike the widespread imagination of Native American culture, »indiani metropolitani« and »Stadtindianer« essentially thought of themselves as an urban movement—hence the combination of the term »Indian« with the term »metropolitani« or »Stadt«. For the young protesters retreat from the society of the majority was the retreat into the cities! Cities were complex and quite literally offered neglected spaces that could be used rather freely. This was especially so in the seventies before the wave of gentrification restructured West German inner-city neighborhoods once again. Run-down nineteenth-century housing stock, abandoned industrial sites and urban streets became the sites where the »Stadtindianer« staged their »otherness« and to which they retreated to fulfill their dreams of an alternative society.816 In their very understanding of militancy the »Stadtindianer« chose the city as their battleground. In this, the »Indians« anticipated a kind of urban ›warfare‹, which forcefully surfaced in a wave of squats in 1980 and the rise of the militant »Autonome«.817
All this conflict about autonomous youth culture and its opposition to Western capitalist culture linked up with the emergence of new urban lifestyles based on forms of communal living, cultural projects and self-help initiatives that became characteristic of certain parts of West German cities in the eighties.818 The left-alternative milieu and its institutions were the basis of a new sort of urbanity that emerged in neighborhoods such as Berlin-Kreuzberg, the Schanzenviertel in Hamburg or Cologne’s Südstadt. By the nineties alternative culture had significantly fostered processes of gentrification in these areas. Eventually, these neighborhoods and the alternative culture that characterized them were even absorbed into the official representations of their respective cities. On the whole, one can speak of the integration of the once unruly alternative culture into the mainstream understanding of urbanity.819 However, this outcome was hardly predictable in 1977–78.
Taking up the »Indian« image indicated a desire for a complete dissolution of the affiliation with Western society. Significantly, in Italy this kind of distancing that the »Movimento del ‘77« engaged in was described as the advent of »le due società«. The term was coined by the intellectual Alberto Asor Rosa to describe the potential danger of social fragmentation that emanated from the »Movimento del ‘77«.820 Asor Rosa’s warning was widely received in West Germany. Liberal and Social Democratic commentators debated the causes and reassured the public that the conditions that had led to the conflicts in Italy were fundamentally different from the West German situation. Conservatives were alarmed by the alleged connections between the left-alternative milieu and terrorism that surfaced in the »Movimento del ‘77« and anticipated the formation of a parallel society and the breakdown of civil order. Asor Rosa’s interpretation, discussed widely in West German publications on the »Movimento del ‘77« and at the »TUNIX« meeting, also prompted massive controversies within the left-alternative milieu.821
From a Marxist point of view, the idea that two separate societies, a bourgeois one and an alternative one, could exist side by side was problematic to say the least. Concepts like those epitomized in the image of the »Indian« were denounced as illusionary and superficial. At the height of the »Movimento del ‘77« the West Berlin Leftist journal Radikal published a cartoon of a crazy looking activist dressed up as an »Indian«. The caption read: »I am an indiani [note the incorrect use of the Italian term, S.H.] […] and nothing else!!!«822 The pun was intended to reveal that the self-identification as »Indian« distracted from the real challenges of social revolution. Instead of focusing on one’s own identity and the formation of a second, alternative society, activists should continue to promote the transformation of society as a whole. Accordingly, Marxists criticized the proponents of an alternative society for drawing away revolutionary potential by channeling activism into a self-sufficient alternative social sphere. This argument culminated in the verdict that the realization of a second society would only lead to the »Ghettoization« of the left-alternative milieu and retard any revolutionary impetus.823
Massive criticism from within the West German Left also arose from what was denounced as superficial copying of the Italian model. Italian phenomena such as the »indiani metropolitani« were stripped of their context, critics claimed. One commentator from the left-alternative milieu warned: »Because of the many parallels [between Italy and West Germany] the examination of the Italian movement is both necessary and fruitful. However, this does not mean that just by wearing feathers in our hair and color in our faces we will create a new kind of politics.«824 Namely, observers repeatedly pointed to the fact that the socio-economic conditions that had led to the uprisings in Italy were fundamentally different. The high unemployment among Italian youth, the overcrowding of universities and the marginalization of an entire generation were recurring themes in reports on Italy. This situation was strikingly different from the socio-economic conditions in West Germany.825
Peter Glotz, a leading Social Democrat, took this cue and offered an influential translation of the term »due società«: he talked about »Zwei Kulturen«. The difference is evident in the translation: whereas in Italy it seemed appropriate to talk about two separate societies, in West Germany the difference appeared to exist only on a cultural level.826 In this translation Glotz was seconded by a rather unlikely ally. The Italian-born professor of politics at the Free University of Berlin and sympathizer with the activists from the left-alternative milieu, Johannes Agnoli, conceded: »I think Glotz’s terminology—›Zwei Kulturen‹—is correct, related to the West German situation. […] Even the TUNIX meeting revealed that opposition in West Germany is more of a cultural phenomenon than the result of social processes.«827
Speaking of two distinct cultures or even societies was nonetheless more of a rhetoric stance than a reflection of an actual separation of the left-alternative milieu from the society of the majority. In fact, communes, initiatives and alternative projects of all sorts that had sprung up since the mid-seventies remained thoroughly enmeshed in the society they criticized—in West Germany even more so than in Italy.828 At the time when the concepts of »le due società« or »Zwei Kulturen« were discussed, however, this was very much obscured by the ongoing confrontations. The backdrop of Glotz’s intervention was of course the terrorist attacks of 1977. Glotz reasoned that the gap between the values of the society of the majority and the values of an alternative culture was the seedbed of terrorism. He claimed that information on current events and interpretations of society did not only differ completely between the »two cultures«, but that it was possible to live exclusively in the sphere of this second, alternative culture. To Glotz, this was the deeper reason for the widespread acceptance of terrorism within the West German Left. His solution was to intensify communication.829 Nonetheless, three years on, the lack of communication was reaffirmed when a wave of squats and street violence hit West German cities once again. In 1980–81 observers lamented that the so called »youth revolt« resulted from the inability of the society of the majority and the rebelling youths to find a common language. Still, the division into »two cultures« seemed as urgent as in 1977–78.830
However, much of the agitation that characterized the debate about »two cultures« at the turn of the eighties waned quickly and the clusters of alternative culture became an integral part of West German urbanity. Considering the heated debates some years earlier, it is surprising to see for example that in Berlin-Kreuzberg 105 of some 200 squatted houses had been »legalized« by 1984, meaning that squatters were made renters and even received subsidies for renovating the once squatted buildings.831 Even the violent clashes that continued to haunt the neighborhood on the first of May, were increasingly viewed as a yearly ritual and part of Kreuzberg’s unique identity.832 In Cologne’s Südstadt, the squatters who had occupied the abandoned Stollwerck factory in 1980 were allowed to continue to use the premises as a cultural center. By the mid-eighties the center’s activities were nationally renowned and the city administration started to use the Stollwerck’s success to promote Cologne as a cosmopolitan and creative city.833 In fact, many of the neighborhoods that had been the battleground between the alleged »two cultures« eventually became popular tourist destinations. Attracted by the vibrancy of these urban areas and their unique atmosphere, an increasing number of visitors flocked to neighborhoods such as Kreuzberg, the Südstadt or the other prominent hotspots of the left-alternative milieu.834
In the Cologne case there was also a very close connection between the integration of the left-alternative milieu and the process of gentrification. The vitality of the Südstadt neighborhood attracted visitors and new residents alike. During the early eighties the number of bars, clubs and other cultural offerings rose significantly. At the same time an influx of new dwellers set in. Most of these newcomers were young with an academic background and were specifically labeled as »lifestyle migrants«.835 They moved to the Südstadt precisely because of the unique mark that the activities of the left-alternative milieu had left on the area and the exciting development in and around the once squatted Stollwerck.836
Out of the left-alternative milieu a new urban lifestyle that appealed to young Germans far beyond the milieu itself gradually emerged. By and large, the impetus of the discussion about »two cultures« in 1977–78 was absorbed into the creation of a new kind of urbanity that proved extremely attractive—so attractive that even city administrations made use of it for promotional purposes. To be sure, conflicts between Leftist activists and the authorities over urban issues still persist today. But, what is more remarkable is how the debate about »two cultures«, imported from Italy in 1977–78 to highlight either the potentials or dangers of social disintegration, fed into the eventual creation of widely shared urban lifestyles and entered the mainstream understanding of urbanity.837
One of the results of the debates within the West German Left in 1977–78 was that the city once again became an important object of contention. This was largely due to the reception of the Italian »Movimento del ‘77«. This is not to say that the reception of the Italian uprisings was the only driver behind the shift of protest movements towards urban issues in West Germany, nor that the reception of the »Movimento del ‘77« was confined to the kind of urban questions presented in this article. However, the reinvigoration of urban protest movements in West Germany drew heavily on the Italian model. The Italian model became influential as it was recontextualized. In the process of recontextualization the perception of the »Movimento del ‘77« was fitted into an increasing appreciation of urbanity and urban issues within the West German left-alternative milieu.838
While this effect picked up on an existing understanding in order to connect Italian protests with urban issues, the recontextualization of what was observed as »Movimento del ‘77« strengthened the activists’ focus on the city once more. Activists selectively received certain elements of the »Movimento del ‘77«, which in itself was extremely heterogeneous and ambiguous, and adopted them into those contexts that were relevant in the ongoing West German debates. Specifically, the inspirations from Italy brought a new impetus to conflicts over urban culture and the ongoing struggles for autonomous youth centers in particular. In this context, issues and forms of protest observed in Rome, Bologna or Milan were taken up even in smaller cities such as Hilden. This particular recontextualization was one of the roots of the massive wave of urban protests that surfaced in 1980–81. Even though the direct reference to Italian inspirations had waned by that time, the wave of squats and militant clashes on city streets of the early eighties followed up on the debates of 1977–78. Similarly, the development of clusters of alternative culture and the emergence of urban lifestyles that embraced the vibrancy of the conflicts around urban issues can to some extent be traced back to 1977–78 when they were significantly reinvigorated through the perception of the »Movimento del ‘77«.
The phenomenon of the »indiani metropolitani« was central to this process, even though it largely remained below the surface of published discourse. It was the ambiguity of the image of the »Indian« circulating in Europe that left room for many different interpretations and possibilities for recontextualization. One could refer to the »Indian« image in order to denounce bourgeois society and capitalism, but also more generally Western rationality, including Marxist thought, altogether. It also served as a means to legitimize and represent militancy and violence. All of these different interpretations were contained in the image of the »Indian« as the »indiani metropolitani« had first made use of it.839 However, the appeal of the Italian model was strong precisely because it fused the »Indian« image with references to urbanity: the image and identity purported by the »indiani metropolitani«, the struggles over highly visible institutions of urban civic society like the Milan Scala, and the valorization of alternative urban culture as a means of revolutionizing society. In this, the perception of the »Movimento del ‘77« in West Germany contributed to the reinvigoration of the city as an object of contention.