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Rudi Dutschke Demands the Expropriation of the Springer Press Empire (July 10, 1967)

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SPIEGEL: So far, society, especially in Berlin, has – to put it euphemistically – shown little willingness to be politicized by you.

DUTSCHKE: That’s true. But that can change, especially under the conditions in Berlin. Mobilization of the antiauthoritarian camp among students has occurred irrespective of economic difficulties. The tight labor situation in Berlin, the antiquated industrial structure, the aging of the population, the city’s dependence on subsidies: all of these are departure points for the possibility of politicizing certain segments of the population outside of the university.

SPIEGEL: The workforce?

DUTSCHKE: The dispute we started could be brought into the factories …

SPIEGEL: Do you want to organize strikes?

DUTSCHKE: That’s something that cannot be brought in from outside. We can’t go to the workers in the factories and say, come on, go out on strike. The strike option emerges only on the basis of the existing contradictions in the economy and politics of West Berlin.

SPIEGEL: But you just said that you want to bring the dispute into the factories.

DUTSCHKE: By that I mean that by working together with mid- and lower-level union representatives – the leadership, that is, Sikkert, chairman of the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) and president of the Berlin parliament, is a social fascist – we can show that workers and students have the same interests.

SPIEGEL: We’d like to repeat the question, what do you regard as direct actions?

DUTSCHKE: If the workers were to start a spontaneous defensive action against management interference, a huge wave of solidarity among the politically conscious students would emerge.

SPIEGEL: Could you please clarify what that is: spontaneous defensive action, wave of solidarity?

DUTSCHKE: Defensive action is a strike, and solidarity is participation in the strike.

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