The Black Bloc In Berlin, '77-'88 – A Thumbnail Chronicle

THE BLACK BLOC IN BERLIN, '77-'82 – A THUMBNAIL CHRONICLE:
(OR, HOW A GOOD THING BECAME A FRANKENSTEIN)

 
In parts of the City, taking as example a neighborhood in the working class district of Kreuzberg, during the year 1977, speculators were coming in and using every chicanery to force longstanding residents – retirees, elderly, families of modest means who needed what bit of stability they had – out of their flats. By raising the rent, by leaving the places in serious disrepair, by turning off the heating in winter, letting roofs get or stay damaged so that rain came in – just to mention a few pressure points. The houses were intended to be ripped down by developers.

In those days there was a Left which meant entirely something else than what we have today – a Left I would have identified with, a Left with which my own dear partner Ramona, my source behind this chronicle, had deeply and actively identified with and participated in, where it specifically concerns the core issue of my writing. A “conservative thinking Left“ (as opposed to a radically authoritarian, ideological one) as my dear friend and Facebook correspondent Christian would call it and wishes to remind me of – and, with all respect to him, needn't.

 

(Naunynstr., Berlin-Kreuzberg, ca. 1970)

First, as a citizens' initiative, to put it plainly – NOT Antifa but, in the pure sense of the word, autonomous; NOT anarchists or communists or revolutionary-wannabes or immature adventurers; NOT sympathizers with the Regime just on the other side of the Wall it had built 16 years prior; and NOT even a radical Left (which would have meant they were RAF-sympathizers as well) – none of these. The latter, the radical Left, would have nothing to do with the likes of the House Occupiers, the idea of taking a hammer in the hand and drivng a nail was foreign and odious to them – all they were good for was spouting political bullshit from their respective college classrooms and grass-sessions. That is not to say that some of the likes of those did not try to “get in on the action“ but these were effectively vetted out or smoked out – as Dresden's or Nürnberg's Pegida today have effectively done conerning infiltration by the (real) Right.

These were mature men and mature women in their 20s or 30s for the most part, who knew what citizen meant, what initiative meant, what conscious civil responsibility meant, what risk-taking entailed – and what being German and Berliner meant in these years: it meant having confronted one's parents' generation oneself over their part if any, or their issues at all, with the Hitler Regime – and having either distanced oneself from, or even broken off with them, or come to terms with them, AND NOT taking out a projected self-righteous rage and terror against the general population or even the then-current administration of Federal Republic of a Germany under (lest we forget) total Allied Occupation. And these men and women of quite another Occupation I wish to address, were non-violent by conviction, in their endeavor – determined and grounded through thick and thin, not militant but conscientious and violence played no role, rather an act of civil disobedience by forcing the Senate's hand. These were not pussies – they learned to defend themselves when forced into the inevitable position.

Never – EVER – would you have found them raising so much as a hand or a slogan against fellow citizens, fellow Berliners, fellow Germans. Construction and constuctive argument was their entire purpose and example, not destruction and ideology. They did not hate Germany, or themselves for being German. Because they were self-responsible and socially responsible, they were democratic among themselves and in their vision. The concept of Social-Democrat, for that matter, still meant something then. They'd have nothing to do with extremism, much less imagine sympathizing with the terrorist gangsters in the RAF of that day.

These were the House Occupiers, and the initiative gathered steam. Houses which had been already emptied – or even just flats in houses which had already been emptied – for tearing down and renewal by speculators who would then “gentrify“ them and raise the rents, having cast the original renters out into the streets, these blocks became taken over before anything further could be started, taken over and occupied by these courageous and very, very human young people. The underhandedness and inconsiderate dealing by speculators goes on today as well, but is not confronted and fought by anyone, as the integrity of what was seen in '77 no longer exists, in fact it continues as ever under all the Red/Green extreme Left now in power since years (and now vastly dominating the Senate) – but I'll come to that later.

The House Occupiers began with stabilizing good relations with the renters still living there and with the neighborhood, as they went about the business of single-handedy doing what the landlords or the City had obstinately neglected or refused to do: they repaired and repaired and repaired, renewed entire bathrooms and tile-work, rooves and floors, pipes and electrical lines, so that the developers would have no basis for tearing down; they renovated on what meager means they had themselves or could collect as the initiative-turned-movement gathered steam and won support and respect – from other citizens, not from the Senate.

The arch-conservative Senate of that time, the profiteers and the market-hungry developers, AND the mainstream media – chiefly the boulevard tabloid rags sucked up by the population then as ever (BILD, BZ, Kurier) publicly demonized these House Occupiers as “terrorists“ and as “radical anti-social“ (or even “asocial“) elements, to ensure a negative public regard toward them when the police were sent in.

Now, to the police at that time. THOSE of that time fit the description of heavy police presence and brute force, no discussion – just riot-helmets where no riot was, shields where nothing had been thrown at them, and batons for whacking where someone just didn't drop to knees and surrender to the State pressure. The House Occupiers had developed a good system. Those who could had moved into said flats for the required time of their repair and renovation – either to later buy or rent themselves or to give back to the previous renters, being just one of the glaring and decisive differences between those then and the so-called “occupiers“ now (the difference here being like that between farmers and havesters as opposed to locusts – just to make that clear; those today want the entire buldings for themselves to continue their rotter-culture).

They used walkie-talkies or CB (including making only coded phone calls and passing off messages inside cigarette packages inside Underground stations, “Cold War-style“) which kept them below the radar of police listening devices and enabled them to maneuver out of the police raids by way of watchers alerting, grapevine communications, giving themselves necessarily over to a cat-and-mouse routine which the Senate and the police directorate wanted, not they. They just wanted to get the job done and were hindered in this with really draconian measures.

These weren't the police of today. The brutality then had so escalated, the Black Bloc having to match it 1:1, that the Berlin Interior Minister saw himself compelled to act to finally de-escalate the entire matter. By the end of the years long confrontation, and the final reception to talks with the Senate which itself had hertofore rejected all overtures by the Occupiers to come to the table, the Interior Minister publicly apologized to the House Occupiers for the massive brutality on the part of the police forces. This also resulted in a significant overhaul of the police training and methods in the direction of de-escalation rather than brute force.

(Through this was also achieved a change in the public attitude, which led to actual companies and firms sending their engineers and material to assist in the House Occupiers' project, neighbors brought refreshment and light and warmth. Doctors and nursing personnel brought their support, against the directives of their own respective facilities. Certain of the alternative press outlets came to the fore and generated good press, wherewih West-Germans were able to learn more of what was happening and came to offer their shoulders to the wheel.)

The „Anti“fa and Black Bloc which later developed independently of all ethical standards of the original, took complete advantage of the police de-escalation, and now we have the result – which first required that The Greens achieve more seats and more power, and we may add to that (already starting with the year of Reunification) the East-German SED-remnant, namely The Left, so that we have the Socialist Wonder that you see today in Merkel's Germany. The Fed and the City both have not merely weened and weeded out the component of any police brutality long since, they have gone in the other extreme to largely castrate them and bind their hands to the extent that they are in many respects...a disrespected joke. And the „Anti“fa today exploits that to the hilt.

In confrontations which were unavoidable, whether evading the chasing troops down alleys or being caught in the stairwells, the House Occupiers took their knocks and blows, their bleeding lacerations and fractures to their own supporting troops whose spaces were available for doctoring as well as they could, bandaging material etc. would be organized through the grapevine. HOSPITALS AND CLINICS HAD BEEN ON ALERT not to give them care, so they were literally left to fend for themselves, to lick their own wounds.

Out of this developed the concept in that year, 1977, of a Black Bloc. The Occupation scene was combed for trustworthy volunteers who were fit, were clear about the matter being about a solid and serious defense against a veritable army of police – and not a meshugene attack on them – much less on anyone else or the least destruction of property, any property. These had to take into account blows to the head, to every limb, bleedings and fractures to one's own person – and to put up a fearless and tactical front in defense of person and of mission, this being to force the City's hand on the matter of these apartment buildings and their outcome. No further “doctrine“ or “utopia“ was behind any motivation here – no revolution or communist takeover, they were not anarchist-wannabes, they would have been shocked speechless at the idea of NoBorders-NoNation àla Merkel, much less “Never Again Germany!“ They were liberal Germans and felt German, they were West-Berliners and felt so. They never covered or concealed their faces once. They had balls.

This Black Bloc indeed put up a good defense against the marching police troops, who saw in this beginning Bloc of some 30 or so sturdy men-with-a-clue, a small but – when push came to shove – formidable opponent. It turned out to be a game-changer, even in the face of intensified media libel and slander whenever a City or Senate figure took to the mike, the propaganda against the Occupiers and this new Black Bloc was severe and unrelenting – as was the ever present threat of denunciation, arrest, police beatings and sometimes sexual harrassment, or of inflitration by State or by other scenes which had no business there.

The main game-changer however, was that the House Occupiers took care of the business at hand, took care of themselves, they produced what they had set out to do. And they outlasted the State over a long decade of this decisive struggle. It is not to say they were ever hailed as the heroes they indeed were, as “heroism“ or recognition is always a booby prize. The intention broke through the resistant web, the public became aware of what they had actually been about, the Senate gave in, the police were withdrawn. The plan worked.

There are so many details and twists and turns to this as with any real-world story, but my purpose in sharing this – closely according to my eye-witness osurce sitting next to me here, who had lived most of it and certainly saw it to the end – is to give a contrast to what passes (and pisses) for „Anti“fa-Black Bloc today.

Then came the parallel development you have now, in the progression of the '80s and its escalation into the present. These were the locusts whom The Greens vastly supported, as part of their tactic to undermine every semblance of a democratic infrastructure. And by the time I arrived in 1988, to report on these matters over the next three years in my capacity as a military analyst, there remained only these locusts which we since have and still do. The annual May 1st rioters and whatever kids they later had, took up houses to “occupy“ and maintain as the run-down fortresses of bandits and hyperactive “activists“ we see now, largely to avoid paying rent on anything at all. (They are also schooled in terror by actual former RAF-retirees and by actual former Stasi-retirees). The Red/Green Berlin Senate we have today, has granted them the Free Ticket they demanded via – believe this or not – foundations which they've justified as in accordance with their communist agenda. Should anyone happen to rent on a property which the „Anti“fa had at some point so designated as “their own“ - this unsuspecting soul will be terrorized and chased out of the deal. Much like the way hijra and Islamization also work, come to think of it.

They also “occupy“ – the most infamous example in Berlin being the Rigaerstrasse. They produce nothing, they renovate nothing, they repair nothing, they let everything stay in a shambles as they decorate with more graffitti and Che posters. These are the locusts, not the farmers, not the builders of anything. They are the destroyers, the arsonists, the vandals and plunderers, the anarchist-wannabes or neo-communists, themselves severely authoritarian anti-authoritarians, the severely intolerant “Toleristen“, democracy haters and shrill zombie-like screamers of slogans void of substance. They are street pugilists, coercers of hoteliers and café-owners and AfD politicians or supporters, via attacks on person or property and death threats, and attempted murderers. They are narcissistically self-loathing, despising their national or ethnic identity rather than living it in a model way as they could have chosen, over-pampered by their '68er-generation parents (to a large extent), frankly disturbed – and: THEY ARE ENTIRELY SUBSIDIZED by the Senate, by the State, permissively dismissed as rabble-a-bit-out-o-hand which one “still has to live with“ year in and year out. In the very houses they have been granted and subsidized, they plan their tactics for the next day – against police, against the population, against peaceful demonstrations or any person or party which does not conform bow to their “concept“ of a “free and open society“. Here they plan their denunciations, their house-visits to targeted persons like roving death squads.

The police don't have a chance. This dark ideology-morphed “Black Bloc“ is the antithesis of what had come into being in '77 and then disappeared on its own when the Occupation had made its point and settled the score, the war being over – in fact, won. The Senate of that time had planned the actual, illegal and profitable, ripping down of entire streets of housing blocks – in the working-class districts of Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Wedding. Alone by occupying the houses which they did strategically here and there, the House Occupation of which I write accomplished the unbelievable: these streets and these houses stand today, were buyable, rentable – and the public got the full measure of what the House Occupiers had given the city – it had given them back their neighborhoods. Let me underscore, that what made the plans illegal, was that the houses were still according to standard and could not legally be torn down – this, aside from the fact that senators in office stood to profit personally from the plan, financially speaking.

Take Rigaerstrasse: THESE are the scum you may see today terrorizing anyone who is not Left or “not Left enough“, shouting-and-shutting down any opinion or stance in opposition to their primitive ideology of domination-at-all-cost, any debate culture at all, any viewpoint contrary to theirs – whether in print, in a TV or radio studio or a lecture room, on college campuses, or at an info stand, or in legally registered peaceful (i.e., nonviolent) demonstrations on the open street. With the maturity of a two or three year old child never shown limits, they exercise their demands for attention through a flatulently grotesque travesty of protest, practicing terror with the most extraordinary impunity. Once taken down by the cops, if that, they are released within an hour or even a few minutes.

These are the alleged “opposition“ to the very Merkel State and the very EU-criminals for whom they frankly and obviously work, and are there as stormtroopers to function as chaos-makers and mayhem-slime. They do this FOR Islamization, FOR gender-mainstreaming, FOR pedophilia, FOR “international“ communization, FOR a borderless and defenseless EUrope and Germany, FOR sheer tearing down of all culture, all order, all State infrastructure – while existing off the latter entirely. THAT is Socialism, the real face of it – and always was.

You have politicians of The Left and of The Greens, the SPD itself, not merely abetting and going to bat for them – but actually supporting and sponsoring them openly – even in street riots, financially seeing to their subsidies, covering their asses every time some heat does finally come their way. The police forces have been cut down and will be cut down further, their directives from above work against their own personnel, every man and woman of it, as they are sent out day after day, week after week, month after month, off to Rigaerstrasse when it burns – or some other “Rigaerstrasse“, in Berlin or some other major city.

To demonstrate at all contra to their agenda or to Merkel's, as Pegida or as Identitarian – even as a Christian-oriented, open-to-all, demonstration Walk like Right-to-Life – is to require the heaviest possible police protective escort from starting point through the entire route, on account of none other than „Anti“fa and in some cases with Black Bloc. THAT is what it has come to, that is the never-imagined Frankenstein which no one had imagined, that is what began in the later '80s with a whole new and other generation of „Anti“fa. May 1st remains unchanged, for them the high point of the year, in destruction.

THAT pretty much covers my point, contrasting the real origins of a Black Bloc as such, against what you see operating today – the contrast is stark in every single respect. Where the original in 1977 frankly commands my respect (in retrospect), the mob of hyenas you see today, command my deepest contempt – and recieves it in full.