Germany de.indymedia
When the Sky Burns [Review]
from: anonymous on: November 9th, 2026 - 2:52 p.m. Topics: Education Freedom Culture Media Print Review of a book about the autonomous movement 1979-1989 Danyluk, born in 1961, writes in this very extensive one
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Danyluk, born in 1961, writes in this very extensive book a good 40 years later about the years 1979 to 1989. For this decade he posits the existence of an “autonomous movement” as a social-revolutionary fundamental opposition. It emerged from a criticism of and rejection of outdated forms of left-wing late 1968 politics on the one hand and from the subcultural forms of punk (and everything that followed from it) on the other.
The publication offers a lot, especially in its new look at the connection between music and autonomous movement and also in its first consideration of the newspaper “radikal”, which was published monthly until 1983 and irregularly thereafter, as a source. The very detailed publication, like many comparable ones from the last few decades, suffers from the fact that the common campaigns and events are taken from the same sources, which mostly come from metropolises such as Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt/Main, and above all reflect the debates there. In many medium-sized cities like, if you only stayed in West Germany, Braunschweig, Krefeld, Rosenheim or Konstanz, the peak of the autonomous movement may have been later, i.e. at a point in time when, according to the clever writers from Berlin, the movement was supposedly long over. A history of the left-wing radical movements in the western German provinces would be newsworthy, it would be exciting - and would still have to be written.
In addition, here too the story is written parallel to one's own political biography. Danyluk cannot adequately explain why people are now becoming left-wing radicals and, ideally, staying for a while - most of them leave the movement after a few years. By 1988, according to Danyluk, the autonomous people were already “at their end.” His book is the best justification that the so-called "post-autonomists" were correct in their criticisms and that their "foundation" in 1992/93, which in retrospect was late, was overdue. Among other things, they criticized the autonomists' fixation on campaign politics, their confusion between militancy and politics, their lack of theory and denial of internal, informal hierarchies, as well as their lack of anchoring in the world of work.
Danyluk indirectly shows that, according to Rolf Schwendter, the two fundamental approaches within dissident movements, the “rationalist” and the “emotionalist” subculture, were often united among the autonomists. He wants to collectivize knowledge, and his book is an important contribution to this. If the author had gone beyond 1989 with his book, it would have been really wild and confusing and therefore challenging: After 1989, a lot of things changed, globally, nationally, and on the left as a whole.
Roman Danyluk: When the sky burns. A decade of autonomous movement in West Germany and West Berlin from 1979 to 1989; Edition AV, Bodenburg 2026, 516 pages, 48 euros.
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Flat review of the book, in the “young world”:https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/530148. Movementsgeschichte-verlorene-dynamics.html
Further literature on the topic:
“Geronimo”: fire and flame. Publisher ID Archive, Berlin
1. - On the history of the Autonomous, first 1990 (!!) 2002, ISBN 3-89408-004-3 (With extensive literature list) completely as a PDF here:http://www.nadir.org/nadir/archiv/Diverses/pdfs/geronimo_flamme.pdf
Volume 2. - Criticisms, reflections and comments on the situation of the autonomous people, 2002, ISBN 3-89408-015-9 complete as a PDF here:http://www.nadir.org/nadir/archiv/Diverses/pdfs/geronimo_flamme2.pdf
Almut Gross, Thomas Schultze: The Autonomous. Origins, development and profile of the autonomous. Konkret-Literatur-Verlag, Hamburg 1997.
AG Grauwacke: Autonomous people on the move. In the first 23 years. Association A Publishing House, Berlin 2003.
Ulrich Peters: Indomitable and resistant. The radical left in Germany since 1989/90. Unrast, Münster 2014https://unrast-verlag.de/produkt/unbiegsam-und-widerstaendig
Klaus Farin: The Autonomous, (January 2015),https://www.klausfarin.de/publikationen-3/buecher/alle-publikationen/die-autonomen
Cooperative bibliography on critical history
Further literature on “history from below” and the history of the (radical) left can be found in the literature database, among otherswww.kobib.de, the cooperativeBibliography on critical history.