Deutsche Übersetzung - Claim of Responsibility:
Today, December 5th 2013, we overpowered and kidnapped a Nazi in the main building of the Humboldt University Berlin. We did this to call attention to the fact that the HU honors Nazi Nobel laureates in its buildings in the style of a patriarchal ancestral portrait gallery. The abducted Adolf Butenandt became director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for Biological Chemistry in 1934. He replaced Carl Neuberg, who lost the job due to the antisemitic "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service". That way Butenandt directly profited from the National Socialist system. He already joined the NSDAP in 1936.
Butenandt participated in dubios medical and military research projects (for example in the air force trial station in Rechlin) and worked together closely with Günther Hillmann and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer. Verschuer was so called "racial hygienist" and between 1942 and 1945 the director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for Anthropology - this shows in particular the continuity of colonial racism in the Nazi Era. Verschuer and Hillman also worked together on a research project for which the concentration camp doctor Joseph Mengele provided them with blood samples and body parts from Auschwitz, where he conducted experiments with detainees. It is assumed that Adolf Butenandt knew about this reasearch project. That he was involved in Nazi crimes also becomes clear through the fact that he destroyed all documents with the title "Secret Reich Business".
After the war, Butenandt propagandized an idea of neutral and objective Science operating independently from political systems. In denazification processes Butenandt spoke for his Nazi colleagues and argued that they were not to blame for crimes against humanity because they had just practised objective reasearch, as he said. Doing so, Butenandt took part in blocking the postwar efforts to investigate and prosecute the accompliceship of Science in the crimes of the Nazi era. One of those, who escaped denazification with the help of Butenandt is the "racial hygienist" Eugen Fischer, who did experiments on Herero ad Nama people in Namibia in 1908, was Director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for Anthropology from 1927-1942 and was Director of the Berlin University (todays Humboldt University) from 1933 to 1934.
The fact that many National Socialists and colonial racists are honored in the Humboldt University with portraits, shows how much the colonial attitude is part of todays white_German science. Another example is that the colonial expeditions of Alexander von Humboldt are frequently referred to and glorified as embodiment of curiosity and science. Structural, institutionalized and individual racism is taking place on all levels of the university and society and drastically limits the access for People of Color to colleges and universities. The portraits in the Main Building reproduce these power relations, too - they make certain people invisible and have an excluding effect. Most people who are honored there, fit into binary binary gender expectations, are constructed as abled, did profit from racism - the list of privileges could go on and on. Other people are almost never represented.
Remembrance of crimes in the past means to recognize where the direct involvement lies in the present. Remembrance means to change social conditions. Remembrance means to become active within society.
To the presidium of the HU Berlin: If you want to see Adolf Butenandt again, respond to our ransom demands until January 20th:
- No Nazis and racists at any place in the university!
- No Honoring of Nazis and colonial criminals!
- The HU must quit the membership in the racist association UniAssist! (Everybody who wants to study at the HU with a non-german certificate has to apply via UniAssist and pay application fees)
- The HU must quit the collaboration with the Preußischer Kulturbesitz Foundation regarding the future Stadtschloss and everywhere else, as long as the foundation has not processed the ownership history of their holdings extensively and given back all colonial loots!
- The HU must provide ressources for permanent and thorough historical reappraisal of the Nazi- and colonial past of the HU!
- The HU must change its name in order to no longer honor the Humboldt Brothers!
- The HU must pay people who expierience racist discrimination to elaborate an extensive concept to combat racism in the HU!
- The HU must exercise its influence on the Berlin Senate, especially Henkel, to prevent the eviction of the school and the protest camp at Oranienplatz which are squatted by Refugees!
furthermore:
- The HU must be open for everybody: no admission restrictions! Everybody should have the chance to study including people who are denied a permanent residence permit by the state!
- Student self-determination must be possible: We demand the presidium to be abolished - instead, decisions should be made in open gatherings! - No prescribed course schemes - it should be possible to organize the studies by oneself!
- No examination and no marks!
On the spot where we kidnapped Adolf Butenandt, resistance has now been made visible: a portrait of Napuli Paul Langa. (see picture in attachment)
Napuli Paul Langa is an activist from the Refugee Strike against racist laws in Germany. In Autumn 2012 she took part in the refugee protest tour through Germany and since then organizes the protest at the squatted Oranienplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Langa is fighting for the abolishment of Lager and Residenzpflicht, against deportations, for permanent residence permit, the right to work, self determined living and freedom of movement.
Colonial racist conditions like the aggressive foreign policy of Germany and German corporations force people to flee worldwide. Exploitation, repression, militarisation and wars are brought to the world through German imperialism. This is why the motto of the Refugee Tribunal against Germany 2013 was: "We are here because you destroy our countries!"
Why should a portrait be in the main building, if the person has no specific connection to the HU?
Counterquestion: Are the portraits there to honor the persons, or are they there for the HU to praise itself? To disturb the continuity of the racist honoring we rather want to dedicade this symbolic space to a person who fights against established power relations. We think the space in the main building should not only be reserved for those who for example have the privilege to have a residence permit and thus have access to German colleges_universities. Against structural exclusion in universities and everywhere else!
Group knowledge in resistance