Sedlmaier - Consumption and Violence: Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany

Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany

Geoff Eley, Series Editor

Series Editorial Board

Kathleen Canning, University of Michigan

David F. Crew, University of Texas, Austin

Atina Grossmann, The Cooper Union

Alf Ldtke, University of Erfurt, Germany / Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea

Andrei S. Markovits, University of Michigan

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ALEXANDER SEDLMAIER

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
Ann Arbor

Copyright by the University of Michigan 2014
All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
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2017 2016 2015 2014 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-472-11941-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-472-03605-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-472-12054-3 (e-book)

This book addresses the political dimension of consumption and violence in postwar West Germany and historically pinpoints criticism of regimes of provision, a key analytical term that will be defined subsequently. The focus is on political articulations among the Left between the late 1950s and the unification of Germany in 1990, and these articulations are related to social practices of radical and militant protest. The analysis draws on sources by people who, in theory and practice, criticised their contemporary regimes of provision and sought to develop alternative semantics of consumption. This includes philosophers working on a critical theory of affluent society, inhabitants of communes or squats, and political activists involved in protest campaigns on a wide array of issues from public transport fare increases to the institutions of global governance as well as prominent militants commonly labelled as terrorists. The book is thus not about the average consumer or about those who chose the label of consumer to organise themselves but about discourses, ideas, and practices of consumption, about their impact and implementation in left-wing political protest, and about the ensuing confrontations with the state authorities seeking to uphold not only law and order but also the realities and ideals of existing regimes of provision, especially in the context of the Cold War system confrontation. The following chapters provide ample evidence of how those involved in discourses over regimes of provision and militant protest transferred their perceptions of complex economic developments into emotive and confrontational acts of political communication. It makes sense to ask where narratives were constituted that not only made political violence possible but also made it appear advisable. Drawing on extensive archival material on new social movements and militant groupsso far never analysed with respect to issues of consumptionit will become clear that postWorld War II debates about consumption were historically interlinked with discourse on the states monopoly on violence, terrorism, war, revolution, and genocide.

It is therefore necessary to ask more fundamental questions about the connections Page 2 between consumption, on the one hand, and conflict, destruction, and violence, on the other. The etymology of the word to consume suggests an intrinsic connection. The transitive verb combines senses relating to physical destruction (such as to burn with fire or to kill or destroy) and senses relating to the use or exploitation of resources (such as to eat or drink, to use up a commodity or resource; to purchase or use goods or services; to spend money or to squander goods). it is easy to see that this semantic field can turn into a battlefield when social and political meanings of the concept are contested.

The construction of a modern consumer economy is commonly seen as an integral part of the Bonn Republics successful modernisation process. A recent study of the consumer in postwar West German history offers a four-phase periodisation of this process characterised by specific images of the consumer. For the present enquiry, the latter two periods are of special interest. Between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, consumption was no longer predominantly regarded as an agent of social levelling, as had been the case in the previous period, but emerged as a means of constructing new social distinctions. Critics spread the idea of the strong manipulative powers of advertisement. This was followed by a period of postmodern consumers between the mid-1970s and 1989 when older models, including the manipulation thesis, were qualified and responsibility for the consequences of consumption was shifted onto the consumers, who were increasingly characterised as self-determined, critical, and free.

The late 1960s, and especially the early 1970s were a period when the immense economic optimism of the postwar boom period began to show cracks. Strong social contrasts reappeared, and they ultimately proved the beginning of what Eric Hobsbawm called the crisis decades.