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A (Trans)National Emotional Community? Greek Political Songs and the Politicisation of Greek Migrants in West Germany in the 1960s and early 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2014

NIKOLAOS PAPADOGIANNIS
NIKOLAOS PAPADOGIANNIS*
Affiliation:
Centre for Transnational History, School of History, St Katharine's Lodge, The Scores, St Andrews, KY16 9AR; np39@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines the emotional standards and experiences connected with the entehno laiko music composed by Mikis Theodorakis that was immensely popular among left-wing Greek migrants, workers and students, living in West Germany in the 1960s and the early 1970s. Expanding on a body of literature that explores the transnational dimensions of protest movements in the 1960s and the 1970s, the article demonstrates that these transnational dimensions were not mutually exclusive with the fact that at least some of those protestors felt that they belonged to a particular nation. Drawing on the conceptual framework put forth by Barbara Rosenwein, it argues that the performance of these songs was conducive to the making of a (trans)national emotional community. On the one hand, for Greek left-wingers residing in West Germany and, after 1967, for Greek centrists too, the collective singing of music composed by Theodorakis initially served as a means of ‘overcoming fear’ and of forging committed militants who struggled for the social and political transformation of their country of origin. On the other, from the late 1960s onwards those migrants increasingly enacted this emotional community with local activists from West Germany as well.

Une communauté émotionnelle (trans)nationale? les chants politiques grecs et la politisation des migrants grecs en allemagne de l’ouest pendant les années 60 et au début des années 70

Cet article examine les normes et les expériences émotionnelles liées à la musique ‘entehno laïko’ (art folklorique) composée par Mikis Theodorakis, extrêmement populaire parmi les immigrants, les travailleurs et les étudiants grecs de gauche vivant en Allemagne de l’Ouest pendant les années 60 et au début des années 70. Allant au-delà des nombreuses études qui explorent les dimensions transnationales des mouvements de contestation des années 60 et 70, cet article montre que ces dimensions transnationales n’étaient pas incompatibles avec le fait que certains au moins des contestataires avaient le sentiment d’appartenir à une nation précise. Sur la base du cadre conceptuel proposé par Barbara Rosenwein, l’auteur est d’avis qu’en chantant ces chants en public, on contribuait à créer une communauté émotionnelle transnationale. Pour les gauchistes grecs et, après 1967, pour tous les centristes grecs vivant en Allemagne de l’Ouest, le fait de chanter ensemble la musique composée par Theodorakis a d’abord servi à ‘surmonter la peur’ et à forger des militants engagés qui se sont battus pour la transformation sociale et politique de leur pays d’origine. Ces migrants ont cependant dès la fin des années 60 également de plus en plus constitué cette communauté émotionnelle avec les activistes locaux d’Allemagne de l’Ouest.

Eine (trans)nationale emotionale gemeinschaft? politisches liedgut und die politisierung griechischer migranten in westdeutschland in den sechziger und frühen siebziger jahren des 20. jahrhunderts

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die emotionalen Standards und Erfahrungen, die mit der von Mikis Theodorakis komponierten Entechno Laiko-Musik verbunden waren. Die Werke des griechischen Komponisten erfreuten sich bei in Westdeutschland lebenden griechischen Migranten, Arbeitern und Studenten, die sich mit der Linken identifizierten, in den sechziger und frühen siebziger Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts großer Beliebtheit. Aufbauend auf der vorhandenen Forschungsliteratur über transnationale Dimensionen von Protestbewegungen in den beiden Jahrzehnten veranschaulicht der Beitrag, dass diese transnationalen Dimensionen und das Zugehörigkeitsgefühl einiger Protestierender zu einer bestimmten Nation sich keineswegs gegenseitig ausschlossen. Unter Berufung auf das Konzept der „Emotional Communities“ von Barbara Rosenwein wird die Hypothese aufgestellt, dass diese Musikvorträge die Entstehung einer (trans)nationalen Gemeinschaft begünstigten. Das gemeinsame Singen der von Theodorakis komponierten Lieder diente den griechischen Linken – und nach 1967 auch Anhängern der Mitte – anfänglich als Mittel zur „Überwindung der Angst“ und zur Einstimmung überzeugter Mitstreiter auf den Kampf für den sozialen und politischen Wandel ihres Herkunftslandes. Doch seit dem Ende der sechziger Jahre wuchsen diese Migranten zunehmend auch mit heimischen westdeutschen Aktivisten zu ähnlichen emotionalen Gemeinschaften zusammen.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 23 , Issue 4: Emotions in Protest Movements in Europe since 1917 , November 2014 , pp. 589 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

1 ‘Sänger im Exil’, elan, Feb. 1968, 23, Bibliothek, Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung.

2 Numerous scholars employ this term to show that the so-called ‘1968’ protests started before and, in some cases, were perpetuated after that year. See, for instance, the network entitled ‘Around 1968: Activists, Networks and Trajectories’, http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/research/project/around-1968-activism-networks-trajectories.html (last accessed, 12 Nov. 2013).

3 Radical left-wing actors that emerged in the 1960s have been labelled the ‘new left’ in scholarly debates: some of its main characteristics were the critique of bureaucratic structures, scepticism towards the ‘working class’ as a revolutionary subject and the endorsement of provocative action which the left had previously avoided. About the so-called ‘new left’, see, for instance, Horn, Gerd-Rainer, The Spirit of ’68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 131–77Google Scholar.

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8 Perhaps the only relatively well-researched issue concerning Greek migrants in the Federal Republic of Germany is that of their education, see Hopf, Dieter, Herkunft und Schulbesuch ausländischer Kinder (Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, 1987)Google Scholar. One of the very few analyses of the performance(s) of music by Greeks residing in Germany is Alexatos, Gerasimos, ‘Xairete: Ein griechisches Armeekorps in Görlitz’, in Schultheiß, Wolfgang and Chrysos, Evangelos, eds, Meilensteine deutsch-griechischer Beziehungen (Athens: Stiftung für Parlamentarismus und Demokratie des Hellenischen Parlaments, 2010), 185–99Google Scholar. Manuel Gogos provides a brief overview of the history of Greek migrants in West Germany in the second half of the 20th c. in general, which, however, contains little information on their musical taste, see Gogos, Manuel, ‘Big Fat Greek: Versuch über die griechische Diaspora in Deutschland’, in Institut für Kulturpolitik, ed., Beheimatung durch Kultur: Kulturorte als Lernorte interkultureller Kompetenz (Essen, 2007) 180–8Google Scholar.

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10 On the concept of the ‘condition of simultaneity’, see Levitt, Peggy and Glick-Schiller, Nina, ‘Conceptualising Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society’, International Migration Review 38, 145 (2004), 1003Google Scholar.

11 On ‘emotional communities’, see: Rosenwein, Barbara, ‘Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions’, Passions in Context: Journal of the History and Philosophy of the Emotions, 1, 1 (2010)Google Scholar, online at: http://www.passionsincontext.de/index.php?id=557 (last visited, 27 July 2014), 11. See also: Rosenwein, Barbara, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Rosenwein, Barbara, Eustace, Nicole, Lean, Eugenia, Livingston, Julie, Plamper, Jan, and Reddy, William M., AHR Conversation, ‘The Historical Study of Emotions’, American Historical Review, 117, 4 (2012), 1467–511Google Scholar. On interpreting music in its social context, see Hatcher, Evelyn Payne, Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1999), 1–20Google Scholar.

12 See, for instance: Gammerl, Benno, ‘Emotional styles – concepts and practices’, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 16, 2 (2012), 163–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Chin, Rita, The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 24–9Google Scholar.

14 Ibid. 3.

15 Data reproduced in: Möhring, Maren, Fremdes Essen: Die Geschichte der ausländischen Gastronomie in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2012), 392–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Voulgaris, Yannis, I Ellada tis Metapolitefsis 1974–1990: Statheri dimokratia simademeni apo ti metapolemiki Istoria (Athens: Themelio, 2002), 124–5Google Scholar; Katsoulis, Ilias, ‘Demokraten gegen Obristen, Griechen in Deutschland’, in Schultheiß, Wolfgang and Chrysos, Evangelos, eds, Meilensteine deutsch-griechischer Beziehungen (Athens: Stiftung für Parlamentarismus und Demokratie des Hellenischen Parlaments, 2010), 291Google Scholar. In the oral testimonies that I have gathered, numerous Greeks who studied at German universities in the period under examination defined themselves as ‘migrants’. Still, some of them found the term only appropriate for describing the condition of the so-called ‘guest workers’. In this article, I employ a broad conceptualisation of the term ‘migration’, but the extent to which this was used by all Greeks who moved from their natal areas to West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s certainly awaits further examination.

17 Kazakos, Panos, Anamesa se Kratos kai Agora: Oikonomia kai oikonomiki politiki sti metapolemiki Ellada, 1944–2000 (Athens: Patakis, 2001), 320–4Google Scholar.

18 Interview with Aspasia Frangou, 27 Mar. 2013. She was an EKKE member and a student in West Berlin in the early 1970s; interview with Dimitris Katsantonis, 17 Feb. 2013. Most of the names of the interviewees are pseudonyms. Arnakis’ short biographical note is also available in his book: Arnakis, Andreas, Ta agoura verikoka (Athens: Istoriko Fotografiko Archeio Neoteris Elladas, 2012)Google Scholar.

19 Interview with Dimitris Katsantonis, 17 Feb. 2013.

20 Interview with Elpida Domokou-Tsakiri, 20 May 2012.

21 Interview with Dimitris Katsantonis, 17 Feb. 2013.

22 Interview with Nikitas Apostolidis, 15 Oct. 2012, who has lived in West Germany since the early 1970s.

23 For instance, interview with Stathis Gortynos, 28 Mar. 2013. He lived in West Germany from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s.

24 Interview with Dimitris Katsantonis, 17 Feb. 2013.

25 Announcement of the creation of the Greek community in West Berlin, 17 Aug. 1964, Archive of the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (hereafter FZH), Gemeinde der Griechen in Hamburg e.V. 1961–4. For the history of the Greek communities in Cologne and Frankfurt, see the information posted on their webpages: http://www.griechische-gemeinde-koeln.de/?page_id=1086 and http://www.ggfu-frankfurt.de/index.php/geschichte.html (last visited, 17 Jun. 2013).

26 For instance: Elliniki Koinotis Ergazomenon Kolonias kai Periochis, Katastatiko, 1962, Archive of the Greek Community in Cologne.

27 Cowan, Jane, Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Ibid. See also Papataxiarchis, Evthymios, ‘O kosmos tou kafeneiou: Tavtotita kai antallagi ston andriko symposiasmo’, in Papataxiarchis, Evthymios, Paradellis, Theodoros, eds, Tavtotites kai Fylo sti Synchroni Ellada (Athens: Alexandreia, 1998), 237Google Scholar.

29 Interview with Elpida Domokou-Tsakiri, 20 May 2012.

30 About the cultural associations and networks of the Pontioi in Munich, see the oral testimonies collected in: Delidimitriou-Tsakmaki, Eleni, Lebenswege: Zeugnisse griechischer Einwanderer in Deutschland (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2005), 204Google Scholar.

31 See for instance Enosi Pontion Amvourgou, ‘Prosklisi’, FZH, Gemeinde der Griechen in Hamburg e.V., 1979. Interview with Grigoris Asimatos, 30 Jul. 2013. He studied in West Berlin from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. In general, however, there is no research on the question of whether participation in the communities and regional associations was a factor that differentiated the ways in which Greek migrants emotionally invested in the experience of migration.

32 Interview with Nikitas Apostolidis, 15 Oct. 2012.

33 Interview with Grigoris Parakampos, 11 Nov. 2012.

34 Interview with Nikitas Apostolidis, 15 Oct. 2012.

35 Portelli, Alessandro, The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 88Google Scholar.

36 Both anthropologist Manuela Bojadžijev and historian Simon Goeke mention this lacuna in research. See Bojadžijev, Manuela, Die windige Internationale: Rassismus und Kämpfe der Migration (Munster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2008), 12Google Scholar; Goeke, Simon, ‘The Multinational Working Class? Political Activism and Labour Migration in West Germany during the 1960s and 1970s’, 49, 1, Journal of Contemporary History (2014), 160–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Panourgia, Neni, Dangerous Citizens: The Greek Left and the Terror of the State (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 117–23Google Scholar.

38 See, for instance, Alivizatos, Nikos, Oi Politikoi Thesmoi se Krisi, 1922–1974. Opseis tis ellinikis empeirias (Athens: Themelio, 1995)Google Scholar.

39 Papathanasiou, Ioanna et al., I Neolaia Lambraki ti dekaetia tou 1960 (Athens: Geniki Grammateia Neas Genias, 2009), 120Google Scholar.

40 See, for instance, Report of the activity of DNL in Hanover, 25 Feb. 1967. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11. Invitation, DKNGL Munich, 1965, ASKI, Archeio EDA, 08/00001.

41 ‘Paschalinos choros tis D. N. Lambraki tou Annoverou kai diagonismos ergocheirou’, report, 30 Apr. 1965. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11.

42 See, for example, Mahaira, Anna, ‘Metanasteysi kai oikonomiki anaptyxi sti metapolemiki Ellada’, Mnimon 25 (2003), 79–110Google Scholar.

43 Note, DKNGL Hanover, Jan. 1965, ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11. In some West German cities, DKNGL continued to exist until 1965.

44 ‘Paschalinos choros tis D. N. Lambraki tou Annoverou kai diagonismos ergocheirou’, report, 30 Apr. 1965. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11.

45 Interview with Stathis Gortynos, 28 Mar. 2013.

46 Papanikolaou, Dimitris, Singing Poets: Popular Music and Literature in France and Greece (Oxford: Legenda, 2007), 88Google Scholar.

47 Many texts published by EDA and its youth groups in West Germany mention events centring on Theodorakis’ music. For instance: Resolution, DKNGL Hamburg, 5 Dec. 1964. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11.

48 See the biographical note in his personal page: http://www.kostas-papanastasiou.de/ (last visited 15 Jun. 2013).

49 Interview with Stathis Gortynos, 28 Mar. 2013.

50 About the approach of left-wingers in Greece towards the use of the bouzouki in the album Epitaphios, see: Papanikolaou, Singing Poets, 81–2.

51 The first compilation of songs, whose music was composed by Theodorakis and which explicitly addressed migration, appeared later on, in 1975 and was entitled ‘Grammata ap’ ti Germania’ (Letters from Germany).

52 Bulletin, DNL Munich and DNL Stuttgart, 21 May 1965. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11.

53 Invitation, DKNGL Munich, 1965. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 08/00001.

54 Announcement, DKNGL Hamburg, 10 May 1965. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11.

55 Until the 1960s, men in Greece were expected to act violently, especially when the reputation of their female relatives was supposed to be under threat. From that point onwards, however, aggression in interpersonal relationships came under fire in public debates. Still, this rhetoric did not necessarily lead to the elimination of such violence. See, for instance: Avdela, Efi, Dia Logous timis: Via, Synaisthimata kai Axies sti metemfyliaki Ellada (Athens: Nefeli, 2002), 214–24Google Scholar. In any case, some left-wing Greek migrants in West Germany in the era under study still wished to avoid behaviour patterns that would make them seem ‘weak’.

56 Lutz, Catherine, ‘Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotion as a Cultural Category’, Cultural Anthropology 1, 3 (1986), 287–9, 299–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 ‘Das Ausländergesetz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland vom 28. Apr. 1965’, available online at the website of the Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, www.zaoerv.de (last visited, 17 Jun. 2013). About relevant debates among the strongest political parties in West Germany in the 1960s, see: Schönwälder, Karen, Einwanderung und ethnische Pluralität: Politische Entscheidungen und öffentliche Debatten in Großbritannien und der Bundesrepublik von den 1950er bis zu den 1970er Jahren (Essen: Klartext, 2001), 360–1Google Scholar.

58 About the surveillance of politicised migrants by the West German authorities in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, see Clarkson, Alexander, Fragmented Fatherland: Immigration and Cold War Conflict in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1980 (New York, Oxford: Berghahn 2010), 122Google Scholar.

59 About the persecution of left-wingers in Greece by the dictatorship, see, for instance: Panourgia, Dangerous Citizens, 124–49.

60 The cancellation of the passports of left-wingers by the dictatorship was also lambasted, see Syllogos Ellinon Foititon kai Epistimonon, Deltio Kataggelias, West Berlin 1975 (source kept by Yannis Kallipolitis). About the aforementioned intimidation as well as the stance that West German political parties and trade unions kept, see Clarkson, Fragmented Fatherland, 120–50.

61 The ‘German Autumn’ refers to the number of terrorist activities, such as the abduction and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the confederation of German employers’ associations (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, BDA), by the left-wing terrorist Red Army Fraction (Rote Armee Fraktion, RAF), as well as the suicide of the most prominent members of the RAF at the Stammheim prison.

62 Slobodian, Quinn, ‘The Borders of the Rechtsstaat in the Arab Autumn: Deportation and Law in West Germany, 1972–73’, German History, 31, 2 (2013), 223–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Andresen, Knud, ‘The West German Lehrlingsbewegung, 1969–1972: Why there is no “68er generation” of young workers’, in von der Goltz, Anna, ed., ‘Talkin’ ‘bout my generation’: Conflicts of generation building and Europe's ‘1968’ (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), 216–20, 226–9Google Scholar.

64 Ibid. 226–8.

65 Interview with Kostas Papanastasiou, 13 Jan. 2013. The historian Belinda Davis also offers one of the few analyses that outline the activity of non-German students on several occasions ‘around 1968’. See Davis, Belinda, ‘A Whole World Opening Up: Transcultural Contact, Difference, and the Politicization of “New Left” Activists’, in Davis, Belinda, Mausbach, Wilfried, Klimke, Martin and MacDougall, Carla, eds, Changing the World, Changing Oneself: Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the US in the 1960s and 1970s (New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2010), 255–73Google Scholar.

66 Interview of one of the protagonists of the strike, Anestis Kellidis: ‘Gastarbeiter: Mia istoriki apergia’, TVXS, 23 Aug. 2011: http://goo.gl/wO543p (last accessed, 7 Dec. 2013). Similarly, Turkish migrant workers figured prominently in the strike that erupted at that point in the factory of Ford in Cologne. See Huwer, Jörg, ‘Gastarbeiter’ im Streik: Die Arbeitsniederlegung bei Ford Köln im August 1973 (Cologne: DOMiD, 2013)Google Scholar.

67 See, for instance: Press Release, Second Congress of the Anti-Dictatorial Committees in West Germany, Frankfurt am Main, Dec. 1968. ASKI, Archive of Giorgos Tsiakalos, K2.

68 Decisions of the First Congress of OEK, 12–13 Feb. 1966. Archive of the OEK; Minutes of the discussion of the Administrative Council of OEK on 31 August–1 September 1968. Archive of the Greek Community in Cologne.

69 Verfassungschutz 1974, Federal Ministry of Interior, Jul. 1975, 132–3. Author's collection.

70 Ibid, 134.

71 Kostis Kornetis, ‘Student Resistance to the Greek Military Dictatorship: Subjectivity, Memory, and Cultural Politics, 1967–1974’, PhD thesis, European University Institute, Florence, 2006, 84.

72 Verfassungschutz 1974, 134.

73 In contrast with the anti-dictatorial committees, the operation of Greek communist organisations was illegal in West Germany at that point.

74 However, the collaboration between local and migrant left-wingers was not at all a given: quite notably, Turks and Germans initially stood shoulder to shoulder during the Ford strike in Cologne in summer 1973, but such solidarity came soon to an end. See Huwer, ‘Gastarbeiter’ im Streik, 98. The extent to which local activists co-operated at that point with diverse groups of migrant protestors, including Greeks, Turks, Spaniards and Italians, certainly requires further examination.

75 Report, DKNGL Hamburg, 23 Jan. 1966. ASKI, Archeio EDA, 04/11.

76 For a detailed list of such protest actions, please see the databank of the Material for the Analysis of the Opposition Project (Materialien zur Analyse von Opposition Project, MAO) and, particularly, the information accessible online in the following link: http://www.mao-projekt.de/INT/EU/GR/Griechenland.shtml (last visited, 19 Jun. 2013). The MAO Project is run by Dietmar Kesten and Jürgen Schröder. This source includes material produced by radical left-wing groups in West Germany in the 1970s.

77 See, for instance, interview with Kostas Papanastasiou, 13 Jan. 2013.

78 Interview with Stathis Gortynos, 28 Mar. 2013.

79 By expansion I mean that this emotional community included a broader spectrum of political activists. However, it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion in terms of figures on whether more migrants participated in it in comparison to the pre-1967 era.

80 Report on the activities of the Administrative Council of the (left-leaning) Greek Community of Hamburg, 1972. FZH, Gemeinde der Griechen in Hamburg e.V, 1970–6.

81 Soon after the imposition of the dictatorial regime in 1967, he was rounded up. International solidarity initiatives developed subsequently. The dictatorship bowed to pressure, released him and permitted him to move to Paris, where he lived until the restoration of democracy in Greece. For the international initiatives, see, for instance, ‘Geier von Lothringen’, Der Spiegel, 15 Jun. 1970, 106.

82 ‘Ellines patriotes, antifasistes-dimokrates’, Proclamation, Leschi Filon tis EDA, Dusseldorf, 23 Apr. 1967. ASKI, Archeio Giorgou Tsiakalou. ‘History’ and ‘Land’ were capitalised in the original text. When EDA was banned in Greece, its members formed the Clubs of the Friends of EDA (Lesches Filon tis EDA) in West Germany.

83 Interview with Theodosia Karamanopoulou-Thielmann, 4 Feb. 2013.

84 The term is often used in relevant scholarship in contradistinction to the ‘new left’. I believe that the term ‘old left’ is mostly a value judgment that does not help scholars understand the ideas and the emotions of the members of such groups and, thus, I avoid using it.

85 Caute, David, The Year of the Barricades (New York: HarperCollins, 1988), 22Google Scholar.

86 Interview with Myrodis Athanassiou, 24 Oct. 2013.

87 Interview with Stathis Gortynos, 28 Mar. 2013.

88 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London, New York: Verso 2006), 6–7Google Scholar.

89 Interview with Myrodis Athanassiou, 24 Oct. 2013.

90 Announcement, without date. Archive of the Greek Community in Cologne.

91 Kornetis, ‘Student Resistance’, 250, 254.

92 Möhring, Ausländische Gastronomie, 391.

93 Greek taverns attracting politicised patrons were not a peculiarity of West Berlin. For instance, tavern Z-Sorbas in Göttingen labelled itself as a piece of ‘Free Greece’ during the dictatorship years. See, for instance: Göttinger Nachrichten, 5 Jun. 1972, 6, Mao Project, http://www.mao-projekt.de/BRD/NS/BRS/Goettingen_Auslaendergesetz.shtml (last visited, 10 Jul. 2013).

94 Interview with Kostas Papanastasiou, 13 Jan. 2013.

95 Ibid.

96 Interview with Grigoris Asimatos, 30 Jul. 2013.

97 Interview with Aspasia Frangou, 27 Mar. 2013.

98 Interview with Nikitas Apostolidis, 15 Oct. 2012.

99 Veremis, Thanos, The Military in Greek Politics From Independence to Democracy (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1997), 153Google Scholar.

100 Iakovos Papadopoulos, correspondence, without date. FZH, Gemeinde der Griechen in Hamburg e.V 1965–9.

101 ‘“Wir haben unser Ziel erreicht!” Demokratische Griechen sprengten reigierungstreue Veranstaltung in Sandbach’, Darmstädter Tagblatt, 24 Feb. 1969, 7. Archive of the Documentation Centre and Museum about Migration in Germany (Dokumentationszentrum und Museum über die Migration in Deutschland, DOMiD), Cologne.

102 Interview with Kostas Papanastasiou, 13 Jan. 2013.

103 A poster of the event is available in: http://www.mao-projekt.de/INT/EU/GR/Griechenland.shtml (last visited, 4 Jul. 2013).

104 ‘Auf in den Kampf’, Der Spiegel, 6 May 1968, 179.

105 Relevant information can be found in ‘Diese Woche im Fernsehen’, Der Spiegel, 9 Apr. 1973, 191–2.

106 For example, he performed at the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg on 17, 19 and 22 Dec., shortly after the collapse of the dictatorship. See Adamantidou, Maria, Mikis Theodorakis: My posters (Athens: Kerkyra Publications, 2007), 160Google Scholar.

107 See, for instance: Interview with Yannis Kastritis, 11 Nov. 2013. Kastritis was aligned with EKKE and was a student in West Berlin in the early 1970s.

108 ‘Dortmund: 15000 demonstrierten’, Proletarischer Kurs, Oct. 1972, 13, Mao-Projekt, http://www.mao-projekt.de/BRD/NS/BRS/Goettingen_Auslaendergesetz.shtml (last visited, 4 Jul. 2013); Interview with Yannis Kastritis, 11 Nov. 2013.

109 See, for instance, Werner Winter, ‘Freiheit für Mikis’, Elan, Oct. 1968, 11. Moreover, Eckard Holler mentioned that he approached Theodorakis’ music as a core component of a transnational ‘alternative’ and ‘democratic’ culture, whose forging was the particular aim of cultural events he helped organise in the 1970s and the 1980s, such as the 12th Tübingen Festival in 1986. Interview with Eckard Holler, 12 Dec. 2013. Holler was affiliated with the SDAJ in the early 1970s. However, the question of whether members of other West German left-wing groups conceptualised and performed Theodorakis’ music in the same way during the late 1960s and early 1970s requires further examination.

110 Interview with Grigoris Asimatos, 30 Jul. 2013.

111 Interview with Dimitris Katsantonis, 17 Feb. 2013.

112 Interview with Kostas Papadopoulos, 17 Dec. 2012.

113 Wittner, Lawrence S., Towards Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2003)Google Scholar.

114 Interview with Kostas Papadopoulos, 17 Dec. 2012.

115 Such a perception was widespread in Greece and was not specific to left-wingers: according to anthropologist Regina Römhild, in encounters between local people and tourists from northern Europe in tourist resorts in Greece – at least in Crete. The Greeks, ‘especially men, would often stress their different, authentic and free way of life’. See Regina Römhild, ‘Practised Imagination: Tracing Transnational Networks in Crete and Beyond’, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures, 11: Shifting Grounds: Experiments in Doing Fieldwork (2002), 170–1.

116 The issue whether the so-called ‘second-generation migrants’ regarded themselves as migrants needs to be scrutinised.

117 Regina Römhild, ‘Practised Imagination’, 163; Sauter, Sven, Wir sind ‘Frankfurter Türken’: Adoleszente Ablösungsprozesse in der deutschen Einwanderungsgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Brandes und Apsel, 2000)Google Scholar.

118 Chin, The Guest Worker Question, 10–11.

119 Voulgaris, I Ellada tis Metapolitefsis, 25–141.

120 ‘I PASP proti dynami sto exoteriko’, Agonistis, 5 Jan. 1979, 2.

121 Interview with Stathis Gortynos, 28 Mar. 2013.

122 Interview with Nikitas Apostolidis, 15 Oct. 2012; interview with Kyriakos Georgarakos, 11 Feb. 2013.

123 Interview with Theodosia Karamanopoulou-Thielmann, 4 Feb. 2013.