Not Leaving the Writing of History to the Rulers

Letters exchanged between Christa Eckes and Hüseyin Çelebi

Interview with Gisela Dutzi

In August, the correspondence between Christa Eckes and Hüseyin Çelebi was published as a book. The correspondence between the two former prisoners took place from April 1988 to December 1989 and reflects important events of the time. "The end of the 1980s was marked worldwide by economic and political upheavals that fundamentally changed the conditions of revolutionary politics. Against this backdrop, dozens of Kurdish activists were put on trial. Hüseyin Çelebi was one of them. After two years in prison, he was released in 1990 and then went to Kurdistan to join the guerrilla. Christa Eckes had been in jail longer at that time. She had joined the RAF [Red Army Faction] in 1973 and had been arrested for the second time in 1984," reads the introduction to the book, published by edition cimarron. The correspondence between Christa and Hüseyin spans the time of the 10th and last hunger strike of prisoners from the RAF and the anti-imperialist resistance in 1989, with the demand for their unification and the "Düsseldorf trial" that went down in history, which began in October 1989 and was to sentence the defendants as "terrorists" under §129a.

The book is introduced with a foreword by PKK co-founder and former defendant in the Düsseldorf 129a trial Duran Kalkan and by Gisela Dutzi, Sieglinde Hofmann and Brigitte Mohnhaupt, who met Christa Eckes at different times in prison and in illegality and experienced intense years together with her.

When Christa Eckes died in May 2012, she left her correspondence with Hüseyin Çelebi to her comrades. "We knew from conversations that it was always important to her and that she also intended to sort through everything and bring copies to Hüseyin's father. Only later did we start to get an overview of the package of letters - what belongs together, what are the content areas. A lot of it was hard to read, 30-year-old copies, missing corners, bad copies, etc. - so everything had to be typed up first," they explain in the introduction.

The letters are not only a document "that records a certain historical moment, or an exchange of information and discussion," emphasize Gisela, Sieglinde and Brigitte. "They are also a touching testimony of how two who do not know each other develop a closeness to each other despite all obstacles - a certain wire develops, how they tick each other off better and better. Also in their often same ironic tone and quiet humor."

The 200-page book also includes many photos and a detailed chronology. Editor Gisela Dutzi answered some questions about the book project for Kurdistan Report.

How did this book come about? Can you say something about the book project? Who worked on it?

We were all in the RAF, that's how we met. We did the hunger strikes together in prison and were always close even in the years after. After Christa's death, we found the letters. She had often told us about the correspondence with Hüseyin. At some point we started reading and working through them, and we describe this process in our introduction to the book.

What I would also like to say is that while working on the letters, it was a nice feeling to get close to Christa again. Reading them, you can feel how she really was, hands-on, clear-eyed, tireless, warm. I'm sure many people who knew and appreciated her will feel the same way.

And we worked on the book project in coordination and cooperation with the Kurdish Movement from the very beginning. It was not meant to be an isolated story, which is how it corresponds to Hüseyin and Christa.

What period does the correspondence between Hüseyin and Christa cover? In what historical context did the discussion take place?

They wrote to each other from April 1988 to December 1989. After that, Hüseyin was released. Christa was still in prison until 1992. So at the end of the 1980s the correspondence took place. That is, during the period of worldwide economic and political upheaval that fundamentally changed the conditions of revolutionary politics. In the book, we tried to capture what was going on around the world in that period through a chronology of the 1980s.

The balance of power was tense, was tipping. The repressive expression of that here in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was that the Federal Prosecutor's Office was on the verge of establishing a kind of world policeman role for itself. It brought charges against international movements that were politically active in the FRG, such as the IRA, the Palestinian, Tamil and Kurdish movements. These were constructed accusations for which the legal basis did not yet exist. It was not until 1993, five years after the arrests, that the PKK was banned.

Why did you think it was important to make the discussions between the two of them accessible to the public?

What's important to me is that the correspondence is a document of contemporary history. There is still very little that is authentic from that time, the 1980s, compared to the movement that took place at that time. In that sense, the book is a small building block in the effort not to leave the writing of history to the rulers.

In contrast to the Kurdish Movement, there is little culture of historical transmission in the German left. This was different during the uprising at the end of the 1960s. Back then, a lot was published, there was a huge need for international discussion and political theory. Today, there is not even a left-wing bookstore in many cities. There is a lack of tradition and thus little dialectical consciousness can develop: Where do we come from, how do processes work, what can we draw from the past for today?

During our work on the book, we were sometimes told: Who is interested in that today, who should read that? This ahistorical attitude weakens the movements today, cuts them off from their roots. What is today has developed from past struggles - from all experiences, with all defeats and mistakes. So what? Being aware of this is necessary because it is the ground on which we stand. It strengthens us today.

How did the exchange of letters between the two come about?

Some of us have written to prisoners from other organizations and countries, in Ireland, USA, Spain, Italy, France - which was not possible in the earlier years in prison. For us, internationalism is the basis of our understanding of politics, it was clear that we wanted to get to know the prisoners, to know what conditions they have, how we can help each other.

It was the same for Christa. She had dealt with the Kurdish liberation struggle. I remember well a text by Öcalan in the Kurdistan Report, which she also writes about, in which he speaks of the "universality" of the Kurdish liberation struggle. That was a new idea. We interpreted it as thinking beyond the boundaries of a national liberation struggle, in terms of content, not necessarily geography. Christa had heard about the arrests of the Kurdish activists and wrote to Hüseyin because she had heard that he knew German.

What were their discussions about? Can you give some examples?

First of all, it's a lot about the conditions of imprisonment, about court decisions on isolation, the sterile bureaucratic language of the courts, which is always followed by harsh real conditions. This is the beginning of the correspondence, and the two exchange views on this for quite a while, because this was a completely foreign situation for the Kurdish prisoners. Duran Kalkan also describes this in his memory of Hüseyin in the book.

At first, it's quite a dry spell while reading. Basically, the reader goes through a bit of this prison reality. But it is also broken up again and again by absurdities that also exist in prison and that sound rather crazy and funny today.

Example: Christa writes to Hüseyin that in a trial in Stammheim, two visitors who had fallen asleep during the trial were sentenced to administrative penalties for "provocatively falling asleep". After tumults in the courtroom as a reaction to this matter, four others were given administrative detention.

Later, the letters become more and more lively, reading them becomes easier. There are pieces of political discussions in it, it is about the world political situation, a lot about Kurdistan, the struggles in the Turkish prisons. And also about the murder of Olof Palme in Sweden, which the PKK was blamed for. The newspapers were full of it at the time.

Of course, all of this is written under the conditions of censorship and control, which means that much remains unspoken, because otherwise it would not get through the censors. Much is only hinted at, kept general, because it is none of the business of the State Security, which is reading along.

`Briefwechsel - Christa Eckes, Hüseyin Çelebi, April 1988 - December 1989`; 200 pages; 12,00 Euro; ISBN 978-2-931138-01-4

This article was first published in the September/October 2021 edition of the Kurdistan Report.