The Pleasure and Pain of Passing as (Dis)abled: Rudi Dutschke’s Exile in the United Kingdom (1968–1971) and the Ableism of the West German Student Movement
2021; Duke University Press; Volume: 48; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/0094033x-9305540
ISSN1558-1462
Autores Tópico(s)German History and Society
ResumoQuestions of (dis)ability have played a marginal role in the scholarly literature on contemporary German history and culture and the movements associated with the West German “1968.”1 But this is changing. The emerging field of disability history has emphasized the critical importance of disability as a category of historical analysis and a tool for emancipatory change. In this context, disability is understood as socially constructed and susceptible to change. In her excellent account of disability policy in Germany, Elsbeth Bösl highlights that “disability was ultimate otherness and was primarily understood as a functional deficit in relation to someone’s productivity and ability to work.”2 While consciously rejecting the aims and aspirations associated with the conventional “petty bourgeois” lifestyle, student activists in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and West Berlin had high expectations for themselves when it came to their intellectual productivity and commitment to a global revolution. As members of the Action Council for the Liberation of Women made plain with a spectacular protest at a national student gathering in September 1968, this revolutionary lifestyle was incompatible with caring responsibilities—they demanded a joint effort to tackle the oppression of women and to provide childcare for activists with children.3 As this article shows, the prevailing ideas of revolutionary activism in the West German student movement were not only sexist but also ableist.While trying to challenge capitalist notions of productivity and performance, the West German student movement cultivated the idea that true revolutionaries could and had to do it all: they were expected to be excellent political strategists, courageous street fighters, and sophisticated thinkers. Even some of the most prominent activists who dedicated their lives to the movement struggled to live up to these expectations. Hans-Jürgen Krahl, for example, was known as the most sophisticated thinker in the West German student movement.4 He worked on his doctorate in Frankfurt am Main under the supervision of Theodor W. Adorno but fell out with his mentor over student occupations and political differences in the late 1960s. Krahl was often described as a “pale and fragile young man with a glass eye,” but it is not known how he related to his impairment.5 It is clear, however, that Krahl did not have the street credibility of his friend and close political ally Rudi Dutschke.6 Killed in a car accident in 1970, Krahl “has fallen into oblivion.”7Today the West German ’68 movement is “associated first and foremost with one man”: Rudi Dutschke.8 Nevertheless, there are still significant gaps in the research literature on his life and work. Previous scholarship has focused on a brief period in the 1960s when Dutschke played a leading role in the West Berlin branch of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS) and its relevance to the West German ’68 and armed leftist movements in the 1970s.9 Although Dutschke did not want to establish himself as a leader of the West German student movement, he came to be seen as one in Germany and abroad, because he “embodied that curious mixture of ideological zeal and antiauthoritarian practice, romantic idealism and fashionable jargon that distinguished the German student movement.”10 Photographs from this time typically show him giving fiery speeches at political rallies or protest marches in West Berlin. However, on April 11, 1968, this period of activism came to an abrupt end when a right-wing extremist, Josef Bachmann, shot Dutschke in West Berlin. He survived the assassination attempt but sustained serious injuries. He lost his memory and had to relearn how to speak and write. He also had a range of other health problems, including epilepsy, vision disorder, and panic attacks, and never fully recovered.According to social legislation in the FRG at the time, Dutschke’s physical injuries and psychological trauma can be understood as a form of disability. In the Sozialgesetzbuch disability is defined as follows: “People with disabilities are people who have physical, psychological, mental, or sensory impairments, which interact with social attitudes and environmental barriers in such a way that they are very likely to prevent these people from participating equally in society. A disability is deemed to occur if the state of health and body condition deviate from that which is typical for a certain age.”11 Even measured by SDS standards, Dutschke’s expectations of himself were extreme. In part, they can be explained by his biography. Born in 1940 in a rural part of Brandenburg, Dutschke competed in sports as a youngster in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). His attitudes about performance and productivity reflect his family’s Protestant work ethic and official GDR policy. As Carol Poor highlights, GDR policy makers held the view that increased performance would raise the standard of living and create a more humane society.12 Although Dutschke left the GDR in 1961, his relationship to his attitude toward his body and perceived pressure to prove himself as an activist were clearly shaped by the “performance principle” propagated in the GDR and by being a political refugee in West Berlin. In SDS circles he was known for his ability to cope with little sleep, and he spent every spare moment studying (which is why he always carried a heavy briefcase with books and notes).13 As the diary entries and private notes examined below illustrate, the 1968 assassination attempt marked a dramatic change in Dutschke’s life: he needed a lot of rest, suffered from social anxiety, and had to redevelop his speech and writing skills with the help of children’s books. For the rest of his life, he suffered from aphasia, epileptic fits, and vision problems. Yet Dutschke did not want to be seen as “disabled.” After the attack he did everything in his power to hide his poor health, fearing that journalists would draw “the picture of a defeated, finished SDS wreck of a man.”14Ingo Cornils has shown that the West German student movement had a tense relationship with the press. Student activists “needed the Massenmedien (mass media), which they viewed as part of the manipulative system they aimed to overthrow, to gain visibility beyond the campus, while the media, which generally regarded the radical students with deep suspicion, needed the students to fill their pages and position themselves in the market.”15 Dutschke’s interactions with journalists illustrate just how symbiotic and contradictory this relationship was. On the one hand, Dutschke gave interviews on TV and in leading newspapers to spread his political ideas beyond student circles in West Berlin.16 On the other hand, he was a vocal critic of the existing media landscape.17 In 1967 he called for the expropriation of the publisher Axel Springer, who held a quasi monopoly in the West Berlin print media market.18 The Springer press responded with aggressive headlines and anti-Dutschke articles. Not least because of this news coverage, some began to see Dutschke as persona non grata. In the months before the attempt on his life, Dutschke and his family had to move frequently because they received daily death threats and hate mail. As soon as he was released from the hospital after the April 1968 attack, the Dutschkes left the country for a secret location to avoid media coverage. Dutschke feared that journalists wanted to use images of his serious injuries as a deterrent for everyone in the Left.That Dutschke and many other people in history did not identify as disabled although they may have been seen as such by others poses an interesting challenge for scholars engaging with their life and work. In an analysis of disability passing among polio survivors in the United States, Daniel J. Wilson concludes that the self-perception as nondisabled gave many of them “the confidence to perform as if they were not disabled and thus ‘pass’ in both their own estimation and in the minds of others.”19 As the Dutschke case illustrates, the self-perception as nondisabled can be experienced as tremendously empowering but can come at a high price for the individual. After a brief discussion of five dominant narratives of disability, I explore how Dutschke embraced a “narrative of overcoming,” while his friends used a “sentimental narrative” of disability to mobilize support. Then I analyze the limitations of both narratives based on archival materials and verbatim transcripts of Dutschke’s appeal against the home secretary’s decision to expel him from the United Kingdom. I introduce passing as a theoretical tool to analyze how Dutschke tried to avoid the stigma and narcissistic pity associated with disability. By passing as abled in the courtroom, he proved to himself and the world that he was both an ambitious academic and a serious political opponent. The ableism of the West German student movement, however, remained unchallenged.While some forms of disability are the result of a long process (e.g., a slowly progressing illness), Dutschke’s health condition changed suddenly. After the assassination attempt he was rushed to the hospital. Initially, even his wife and closest friends did not know whether he was still alive, and there was much speculation about his fate in the press. Although doctors at the Westend hospital saved Dutschke’s life with complex and risky brain surgery, he was left with severe health problems. As a result of his injuries, he lost the ability to speak and found it difficult to answer, by other means, even simple questions. Other health problems included impaired vision and motor coordination, anxiety attacks, concentration difficulties, and epileptic fits. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson emphasizes that “adjusting to the stigmatization and lowered social status that comes from moving into the community of the disabled” can be more difficult than “adjusting to an acquired impairment.”20 Desperate to avoid this stigmatization, Dutschke concluded that he had two options: give up on himself or make every effort to redevelop his skills. He chose the latter and acquired a sense of agency by embracing two interlinked narratives of disability: the “narrative of catastrophe” and the “narrative of overcoming.”According to Garland-Thomson, there are five dominant narratives of disability in the Western world. The “biomedical narrative” frames disabilities as physiological deviations from a “normal” physical condition that need to be rectified through allopathic measures. The “sentimental narrative” portrays people with disabilities as occasions for narcissistic pity or lessons in suffering for those who imagine themselves as nondisabled. The “narrative of abjection” sees “disability as that which one can and must avoid at all costs.”21 The “narrative of catastrophe,” which has clearly shaped Dutschke’s thinking, depicts disability as a dramatic life event to which some individuals respond with fighting spirit while others give up. The “narrative of overcoming” frames disability as a “personal defect” to be tackled by the individual. Dutschke firmly believed that he could overcome his disability with hard work and dedication. A few days after his brain surgery, he signaled his desire to redevelop his vocabulary and political knowledge.22While Garland-Thomson’s model can be used as a critical tool to analyze common stereotypes of disability in Western culture, the Dutschke case shows that different narratives can overlap and in ways that make it difficult if not impossible to disentangle them. Moreover, where there is power, there is resistance. Garland-Thomson argues that the prevailing narratives of disability are problematic, because they “restrict the lives and govern the bodies of people we think of as disabled [and] limit the imaginations of those who think of themselves as nondisabled.”23 To be perceived as authentic, these narratives require certain forms of passing. The sentimental narrative relies on the image of a helpless disabled person—if disabled people challenge this by refusing to embody this image or by passing as abled, they often face moral outrage and aggression. The narrative of overcoming, by contrast, requires that individuals with disabilities pass as able-bodied and that they convince others and/or themselves that these abilities are the result of a recovery process. However, despite these constraints, dominant narratives of disability can be used in subversive ways. As this article shows, the narrative of overcoming can strengthen an individual’s sense of agency in legal disputes with political authorities, and the sentimental narrative of disability can be used to mobilize against the unfair treatment of disabled people.As the mother of a young son who feared for her family’s safety, Gretchen Dutschke was less hesitant than her husband to embrace the sentimental narrative of disability. While her husband was still in the hospital, she received threatening and insulting letters, such as this one: “You wretched dog it is a pity that it [the bullet] didn’t hit better but next time it will work better even your whore and kids have to be destroyed root and branch. . . . i repeat a pity that [the shooter] didn’t target too well but the next time will be better. Including your dirty whore and bastard.”24 After the assassination attempt, Gretchen Dutschke had no sustainable income and was the primary caregiver for her baby and her husband. In this situation, she gratefully accepted help and financial support.25 After a short stay in Switzerland organized by the Protestant theologian Helmut Gollwitzer, the Dutschkes moved to Italy at the invitation of the German composer Hans Werner Henze. Aided by his wife and the psychologist Thomas Ehleiter, Dutschke spent several hours every day developing his vocabulary, historical and political knowledge, and writing skills. He made significant progress and felt optimistic about the future. The family had no regular income, but they managed thanks to donations from sympathetic groups and individuals. However, after a few months journalists tracked them down, and the Dutschkes no longer felt safe in Italy.Friends in the United Kingdom proposed to Gretchen Dutschke that the family come to England. The Jewish poet and political activist Erich Fried, who had lived in London after escaping from Austria during World War II, approached the Labour MP Michael Foot for help. Foot sent a letter to Home Secretary James Callaghan, making effective use of the sentimental narrative of disability. He wrote: “Those assisting him [Dutschke] think that it would be advisable for him to come to London to see a brain specialist and also to avoid some of the publicity he is getting in Rome. . . . There is no question of his engaging in any political activity since he is in no condition to do so.”26 Against the background of Dutschke’s poor health, Callaghan granted him a one-month visa to receive medical treatment in the United Kingdom. Yet Callaghan made clear that Dutschke’s admission “would be on the clear understanding that he would not engage in political activities, . . . carry out literary commitments, or . . . engage in a course of postgraduate study at a British university.”27 The visa was renewed several times on the same terms and conditions.Diary entries from his time in exile in the United Kingdom reveal how fragile Dutschke’s health was in the first years after the assassination attempt. He struggled with the physical and psychological consequences of the attack and found it difficult to communicate in English. A diary entry from April 29, 1969, illustrates this: Die letzten Tage, bis heute, waren selten positive, fast immer negative, voller Depressionen, völlige “Angst,” vor Lern- und Arbeits[un]fähigkeiten. Die angeschossene Seite reagierte immer sensibler, die Gefahr von [epileptischen] Anfällen damit “für mich” andeutend. [The last few days, until today, were rarely positive, almost always negative, full of depression, sheer “fear” of learning and working incapacities. The injured side has always been more sensitive, the danger of [epileptic] fits appears to be present “to me.”] . . . But I think that I’m really not able to learn English if my German is not real developed. For this reason I’m thinking very often to go back to a country, in which my learning process in relation to “my country” language more “easier.” Gretka [Gretchen] is against a come-back to Germany, we shall see. . . . The other side of my thinking is the question of “an official” “Dr.”-Thesis. . . . In the last years it was for me only a secondary problem, that’s now not possible, because we must find a real new beginning of my life. . . . It is too much destroyed in my head. My nervosity (?) is real big, especially in relation to the cars or busses, airplanes a.s.o. in the streets. . . . Until now we have no answer.28This and other diary entries from the late 1960s and early 1970s document a remarkable recovery. In April 1968 Dutschke could not form simple sentences, but, rather than accept the status quo, he did everything in his power to regain the lost skills and abilities. By April 1969 he had made such progress that he considered applying for a PhD place in the United Kingdom. However, diary entries from this period also show that he had not overcome his disabilities. He suffered from severe anxiety, concentration problems, agoraphobia, vision problems, and epileptic fits and had to take heavy medication. As a result, he found it difficult, at times impossible, to pass as abled. As the passage above illustrates, he tried to practice his English, but in 1969 his language skills were far too weak for him to write a thesis in English. Yet a doctorate soon became Dutschke’s main objective. While the desire to pursue a PhD was first and foremost an expression of his intellectual curiosity and passion for politics, it also marked an important milestone in his narrative of overcoming: Dutschke wanted to prove to himself and the world that he could produce research at the highest academic level.Prior to the assassination attempt, Dutschke had started a research project about the work of Georg Lukács and his period. In the United Kingdom Dutschke returned to his studies and wanted to use them as the foundation for a PhD proposal. Friends advised him to apply to Oxford and Cambridge, which he did. Although the planned PhD was a major source of motivation for Dutschke, it also caused him stress and anxiety. Since he had left West Berlin without any formal degree and found it difficult to put together a PhD proposal in English, he found the application process frustrating. After a rejection from Oxford and a request for a three-page project description and other documents from Cambridge, Dutschke felt enormous anger and despair. On May 30, 1970, he noted in his diary: “Particularly because I am physically unable to work in a complete way, a ‘blow’ by the paper tigers has a negative psychological impact on me; although I was able to get through the day, I ‘felt’ bloody ‘conned.’”29 The next day Dutschke suffered from what he described as a “half-attack.”30 He noted: Who knows, maybe this shit will “never” stop, but this won’t hold back my ideas! Factors leading to the attack: a) in the last few weeks only two pills per day,b) Uni- shock: rejection from Oxford, new demands from Cambridge,c) the situation yesterday was already difficult, I couldn’t run etcd) not enough sleepe) no pill or food in the early morning, waited too long.Although Dutschke was painfully aware that stress aggravated his health problems and increased the risk of epileptic fits, he was determined to persist. With the help of Gretchen, whose native tongue was English, he put together a research proposal for Cambridge. He also obtained two references from academics at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he had studied before going into exile. His former teacher Helmut Fleischer claimed: I have always been convinced that the strong intensity of the empathic experience that characterizes Dutschke’s relationship to history and social theory will be the basis for important intellectual achievements as soon as he has undergone equally intense practical learning processes (which he has always understood as such) and will finally find the opportunity to have a period of undisturbed academic work, an opportunity that he has been longing for even before the unfortunate attack.31Echoing Dutschke’s narrative of overcoming, Fleischer portrayed a PhD in the United Kingdom as a logical continuation of his studies in West Berlin. The reference mentions “the unfortunate attack” only in passing and does not comment on its lasting physical and psychological impact. Instead, Fleischer emphasized Dutschke’s continuous willingness to learn and perform.At Cambridge, Dutschke’s application landed on the desk of the admissions tutor at King’s College, Bob Young. He concluded that Dutschke’s proposed study of the development of the Comintern 1920–24 was original and intellectually sound. In an interview Young insisted that he made this decision purely on academic grounds.32 Dutschke’s application was also assessed by the Board of Graduate Studies at the University of Cambridge. In a letter of July 31, 1970, the secretary of the board told Dutschke that his subject of research had been accepted and that he could start his PhD on October 1 if he could produce documentary evidence of financial support. Initially, the offer was for one year and was subject to renewal through a progress assessment. After the board had received a letter confirming that the Swiss Heinrich Heine Foundation would pay for his degree, Dutschke’s application was formally accepted.33 All he needed now was a study visa.While Dutschke considered the PhD a milestone in his recovery, the doctorate did not fit into the sentimental narrative that had been the basis of his admission to the United Kingdom and that his supporters had employed to obtain visa renewals. After the general election in June 1970, the Labour government was replaced by a Conservative one. On August 11, 1970, Michael Foot approached the new home secretary, Reginald Maudling, on Dutschke’s behalf to request a study visa. On August 25, 1970, Maudling made clear that he was not prepared to grant it: The situation has completely changed from the time when he [Dutschke] was here for medical treatment and convalescence. As he is now fit enough to undertake full time study I think it is reasonable to conclude that his period of convalescence is complete and that we should put a term to his stay in this country for that purpose. I am therefore arranging for the passports to be returned to him with an extension of stay until 30th September, which should give him ample opportunity to make his necessary arrangements.34Although his diary entries reveal that Dutschke was still struggling with the consequences of the assassination attempt, he managed to pass as “fit enough to undertake full time study.” This in turn was used by the Home Office as a justification to expel Dutschke from the country. The Dutschkes had already moved to Cambridge, however, and on September 14, 1970, Gretchen Dutschke appealed to Maudling. Her letter underscores how the sentimental narrative of disability can be used to campaign for someone with disabilities. In the letter she emphasized that her husband was still very ill: Two years ago my husband could only speak a few words and not read at all. What can that mean for someone who wanted to enter a university career? The damage my husband received to his brain has not disappeared. He has greatly impaired vision which makes it difficult for him to read. He must remain under medical supervision. We do not know what long-term damage may have been made to his survival, not only in a physical sense.For my husband convalescence can only mean not only the healing of wounds but the regaining of the chance to pursue the university career which he wanted. His convalescence is thus now really only beginning with the chance he has to study.Although she does not use the word disabled in her letter to the home secretary, Gretchen Dutschke emphasized her husband’s lasting physical and psychological impairment from the assassination attempt. One of the most remarkable aspects of the letter is how the author (consciously or unconsciously) uses her femininity and role as caregiver for two young children and a disabled husband to maximize the emotional impact of her appeal. Despite these and other appeals, Maudling insisted that the Dutschkes leave. When it had become clear that he would not relent, Dutschke and his supporters made use of an appeals process introduced by the Wilson government in the late 1960s.Since the early twentieth century the Home Office has had the power to deny foreigners entry into the United Kingdom and to expel them if their presence in the country is seen as “undesirable.” In an attempt to improve administrative practice in immigration cases and to make the Home Office accountable for decisions, the Wilson government introduced the Immigration Appeals Act 1969 and the Alien (Appeals) Order 1970. Although the new legislation came with significant restrictions, it enabled individuals to challenge decisions by the Home Office. Dutschke was one of the first aliens to make use of this appeals process. His case was heard by an Immigration Appeals Tribunal from December 17 to 22, 1970. The panel members were chosen by James Callaghan and Gerald Austin Gardiner. Although the tribunal acted in a purely advisory capacity and the witnesses were not sworn in, the order of events was similar to that of a normal court case. Dutschke’s legal team (led by Basil Wigoder, Queen’s Counsel) invited ten witnesses. Among these witnesses were medical experts, academics, politicians, and supporters from the United Kingdom. They were cross-examined by the attorney general, Sir Peter Rawlinson, who represented the Home Office. Since Maudling had justified his decision to expel Dutschke from the country on the grounds of national security, critical evidence in the case remained undisclosed, and one entire day of hearings took place in camera. On that day, the tribunal discussed evidence presented by Callaghan and by the National Security Service. The tribunal presented a major challenge to Dutschke. He and his legal team had to create and perform a consistent and convincing narrative of disability. In other words, to win his case Dutschke had to pass as disabled before the tribunal.Generally speaking, passing denotes the process of being seen as part of a group from which one would otherwise be excluded. The concept gained prominence in African American literature in the second half of the nineteenth century and has been used since to describe and analyze how Black people and people of mixed race have tried to avoid slavery, racial hatred, and stigmatization by appearing to be white.35 Passing is also used in gender and sexuality studies, where it refers to how people choose to be (and/or have been) perceived as a gender other than the one that is expected. In this context, it can also be used to describe how people perform sexuality, for instance, bisexual women passing as gay and straight.36 In recent years scholars in disability studies have adopted and adapted the concept of passing. For Jeffrey A. Brune and Daniel J. Wilson, disability passing occurs in different contexts and for a range of reasons: “Most often, the term refers to the way people conceal social markers of impairment to avoid the stigma of disability and pass as ‘normal.’ However, it also applies to other ways people manage their identities, which can include exaggerating a condition to get some type of benefit or care.”37 Because it is never about perceived markers of disability alone, disability passing needs to be analyzed through an intersectional lens. The implications of being seen as disabled depend on a host of other factors, including race, gender, sexuality, age, and class, and can be far-reaching. Dutschke was a heterosexual white cisgender man with academic ambitions, who wanted (and was expected) to provide for his young family. But his desire to pass as abled was not merely an expression of his masculinity. It was also an expression of his political beliefs: taking inspiration from the political philosophy of Ernst Bloch, Dutschke cleaved to hope as a central category in his thinking.38 Moreover, by passing as abled, he wanted to send a message to his political allies and opponents: I will not give in to public pressure and attacks by the Far Right, and I will continue to fight for political change.39As Brune and Wilson highlight, passing as (dis)abled “blurs the lines between disability and normality, but those lines are not always sharp to begin with.”40 In everyday life, Dutschke frequently passed as “normal,” but sometimes this led to misunderstandings. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some fellows at Clare Hall considered him rude, because he joined them for lunch in college without taking his hat off; they did not know that he wore hats to hide the sensitive scar tissue on his head. Although Dutschke was almost thirty years old when he moved to the United Kingdom, it frightened him at first to leave the house without his wife. He had anxiety attacks when taking the children to kindergarten, buying groceries, or performing other everyday activities without her help. If someone moved toward him quickly and/or carried an object that could be mistaken for a gun, Dutschke feared for his life. He suffered from concentration problems, language difficulties, and other health problems and had to take strong medication, but he did not want to think of himself as disabled. However, his case against the Home Offi
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