Dada in the Underground: Linkeck and West Berlin’s Anti-Authoritarian Newspapers, 1968–69

Abstract This article explores the importance of periodicals for the 1960s protest movements in West Germany. It opens with the significance of both mainstream news media and New Left journals. Attention then turns to a different class of periodical, the anti-authoritarian underground newspaper, examined here through one emblematic example, linkeck [leftangle], which was produced in a centre of revolt, West Berlin, in 1968–69. While linkeck had limited circulation and was short-lived, it achieved notoriety and gave rise to a series of successors. To understand linkeck’s impact and meanings, this article comments on its origins in an anti-authoritarian commune and its philosophy on work, politics and relationships; its ephemerality; its influences and interests; its distinctive style and its conflicts with the law. In conclusion, the essay argues that linkeck epitomizes anti-authoritarian themes and form, and that periodicals were the movements’ most characteristic genre. Throughout, the essay also considers key resonances between linkeck and earlier twentieth-century (anti-)artistic avant-gardes, notably Dada.