About konkret

konkret

konkret (own spelling lowercase) is a German monthly Zeitschrift für Politik und Kultur (magazine for politics and culture) published in Hamburg since 1957 — with an interruption from November 1973 to October 1974 that divides its history into two eras. It represents far-left positions and describes itself as "the only left-wing general-interest magazine in Germany"; in 2003 the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution assigned it to "undogmatic left-wing extremism". Its history runs from a DDR-financed student paper through the 1968 student movement — its editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1964 was Ulrike Meinhof — to its 1974 relaunch under Hermann Gremliza and its present form under publisher Friederike Gremliza. Its digital home is konkret-magazin.de.

Overview

konkret appears monthly in Hamburg, published by the KVV "konkret" Vertriebsgesellschaft für Druck- und andere Medien GmbH & Co. KG — the publishing company that has carried the title through its second life since 1974. The publisher is Friederike Gremliza; the responsible editor-in-chief is Wolfgang Schneider (politics). With a sold circulation of 20,802 copies (Q3 2023), it is a small but institutionally significant title: the continuous thread of the undogmatic German left in print, now in its seventh decade — older than the Federal Republic's 1968 generation and still publishing monthly. Its ISSN is 0023-3528.

History

konkret's predecessor, the Studentenkurier, was founded in Hamburg in 1955 by Klaus Rainer Röhl — innovative in style and pugnacity, the first publication to reach West Germany's academic youth beyond the local student papers as a readership. It appeared until 1957 with contributors including Werner Riegel, Peter Rühmkorf, Arno Schmidt, Kurt Hiller, and the graphic artist Verner Witting. Through the former FDJ functionary Klaus Hübotter, the founding was financed essentially by the DDR — a fact that would shadow the magazine's early years and later become the subject of Bettina Röhl's 2006 book So macht Kommunismus Spaß! ("This Is How Communism Is Fun!"), subtitled on Ulrike Meinhof, Klaus Rainer Röhl, and the konkret files.

From 1957 the title became konkret, aimed at students and innovative in design and style, with striking illustrations that adorned student lodgings and private student rooms. The magazine was a pioneer of modern magazine design in West Germany; its visual language influenced a generation of publications. In its early years it wielded great influence on critical students and the student movement, particularly the originally social-democratic but increasingly radicalised Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund. At the height of the 1968 student revolt the magazine appeared twice a week, then weekly from 1972 until its bankruptcy in November 1973 — the collapse of the Röhl era, financially and politically. The relaunch in October 1974 under Hermann Gremliza was a new beginning under an old name: Gremliza, who had been an editor at konkret and at Der Spiegel, rebuilt the title as a monthly Zeitschrift für Politik und Kultur, keeping the name and the left-wing claim while breaking with the Röhl-Meinhof past. The eleven-month interruption from November 1973 to October 1974 marks the boundary between konkret's two lives: the student-movement weekly of the 1960s and the undogmatic left monthly of the decades since. Its most famous pen was Ulrike Meinhof — Röhl's wife — editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1964, whose columns made konkret the intellectual voice of the extra-parliamentary opposition. On 7 May 1969 the Hamburg offices were invaded and destroyed by some 60 activists; Meinhof publicly distanced herself from the magazine the same year, declaring it had become "an instrument of the counterrevolution". Her participation in Andreas Baader's escape in 1970 ended her journalistic career and began her clandestine life in the Red Army Faction — the most dramatic rupture in German journalism's post-war history, and one that has defined konkret's legend ever since. Other editors of the era included Stefan Aust, later the founding editor of the Spiegel's television operations and a defining figure of German investigative journalism. In its early phase konkret also rode the sexual revolution, printing nude photographs — a significant contribution to the magazine's popularity.

In October 1974 konkret relaunched under Hermann Gremliza, who had previously been an editor at konkret and at Der Spiegel. Gremliza — who published the magazine until his death and shaped it as Germany's undogmatic left-wing monthly — built the title's second life: a Zeitschrift für Politik und Kultur that carried authors including Günter Grass, Heinrich Böll, Rudi Dutschke, and Daniel Cohn-Bendit. The Gremliza era also produced the magazine's book publishing: the Konkret Literatur Verlag issued Gremliza's own collections — Krautland einig Vaterland (1990), Ein Volk gibt Gas (1992), Ganghofer im Wunderland (1994), Gegen Deutschland (2000) — as well as anniversary volumes 30 Jahre Konkret (1987) and Vorwärts. Nieder. Hoch. Nie wieder. Vierzig Jahre Konkret (1997), subtitled "a left German history 1957–1997". The publishing house is now led by Friederike Gremliza as publisher, with Wolfgang Schneider as responsible editor-in-chief — the second generation of the Gremliza stewardship that began with the October 1974 relaunch — and a guarantee of the title's continued independence — the family ownership that keeps konkret free of group interests.

Content and Profile

konkret covers politics and culture from a far-left perspective: analyses of German and international politics, cultural criticism, and polemics against the prevailing opinion. Its self-understanding as "the only left-wing general-interest magazine in Germany" defines its niche — the undogmatic left's monthly, distinct from both party papers and academic journals, from the broadsheets of the centre-left and from the theoretical organs of the far left. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution's 2003 classification as "undogmatic left-wing extremism" is worn by the magazine as a badge of its oppositional identity; the North Rhine-Westphalia domestic intelligence service additionally assigns parts of its authorship to the "anti-German" spectrum — the current within the German left that takes a critical stance toward German nationalism. The magazine's polemical style, inherited from the Gremliza era's war on the "prevailing opinion" (herrschende Meinung), remains its trademark: sharp, literary, and unforgiving — the style that made konkret, in its second life, the home of the undogmatic left's essayists and polemicists.

Circulation and Audience

konkret's sold circulation was 20,802 copies (Q3 2023); earlier figures include 42,398 (Q3 2012) and over 40,000 (2010). The long decline from the 1960s mass influence to a 20,000-copy specialist monthly mirrors the trajectory of the print left as a whole — but the title's persistence is itself the story: no other German left-wing general-interest magazine has published continuously across seven decades. The audience is the German left's reading public — activists, intellectuals, and students — the milieu that has sustained the title through seven decades, two German states, and the transformation of the left itself.

Ownership

konkret is published by the KVV "konkret" Vertriebsgesellschaft für Druck- und andere Medien GmbH & Co. KG of Hamburg. The publisher is Friederike Gremliza, continuing the Gremliza family's stewardship since the 1974 relaunch under Hermann L. Gremliza.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is konkret-magazin.de, carrying the monthly magazine's content and the title's presentation of itself. From the DDR-financed Studentenkurier of 1955 through the Meinhof years and the Gremliza era to the present, konkret has remained what it has always claimed to be: Germany's undogmatic left-wing monthly — konkret, concrete, for politics and culture. The Hamburg-based KVV publishing company and the Gremliza family stewardship carry the title through its seventh decade — the undogmatic left's monthly, still concrete after all these years.