Who was Klaus Mollenhauer?

I’ve been working on the introduction for the translation of Klaus Mollenhauer’s Forgotten Connections (more info about the book here). Through the generous of Alex Aβmann, I’ve gotten a hold of some interviews and a photo (right). Some of the most interesting info is posted here:

We had a grand 8-room apartment… [and this] family household was at times overrun by escaped youth from [their imprisonment in] state “homes.” [While] my wife addressed some of their deeper insecurities, and answered their ongoing calls for breakfast, I would speak with student leaders about pedagogy and politics. [At other times, a young] Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin would carelessly burn holes in our upholstery with their cigarettes…[or] other young guests on LSD or hashish, lying around and listening to my music, would catch sight of me and ask: “What’s he doing here?”

Through this openness and activism, Mollenhauer would develop a favourable reputation among 1960’s activists as an engaged supporter of their sometimes radical attempts to throw off the shackles of previous generations. Indeed, the two troubled houseguests mentioned by Mollenhauer by name –Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin—were later to join Ulrike Meinhof (who Mollenhauer also knew) to form the militant Baader-Meinhof group or the Red Army Faction (RAF), which was later responsible for killings, bombings and a prominent political assassination in West Germany.

Mollenhauer’s thought and career is marked by a deep concern for social justice, and also by a profound tension between the inheritance from the past and the needs of the present..

.For more, see the introduction thus far (pdf).

This entry was posted in Klaus Mollenhauer. Bookmark the permalink.