Horst Stowasser (*7 January 1951 - 30 August 2009) was a prominent german anarchist and author. He was the founder of the german anarchist archive, "anArchiv", the author of the book, "Projekt A", and co-founder of the Projekt A/WESPE in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. At his death, he was living in the new community of Eilhardshof.
Youth[]
Born in Wilhelmshaven, he grew up in Argentina, where he went to school. It was here that, at the age of sixteen, he came into contact with the ideas of anarchism and with old members of the anarchist movement. He became active, and was imprisoned a number of times before returning to Germany to study Agriculture and Romance studies. He undertook a number of journeys abroad and made contacts all round the globe. In 1971, he founded the anarchist “anArchiv” documentation centre.
Projekt A and “Project Anarchism”[]
At the start of the 1980s, he was imprisoned for saying that “Soldiers are murderers”, a quotation from Kurt Tucholsky. In this period he began to develop the idea of project anarchism and the Projekt A. This was to be an anarchist network of self-managed communal housing groups, self-managed collective businesses and anti-authoritarian political initiatives. Projekt A was presented in a 100 page book of the same name in 1985. The book was self-produced by Horst and about 1,500 copies were distributed from person to person rather than through official channels of bookshops. Project anarchism was to be a libertarian network of individuals, groups, initiatives and projects, and would unite the three sectors of living, working and politics. It would be decentralised, federative and autonomous. The various “component” projects would support each other, following the principle of Mutual Aid. Furthermore, the idea was that the project was o be situated in a small town, and that people and groups who were interested should move there. This would create an ever growing anarchist culture in the location which would show people that alternatives to patriarchal nuclear families, to hierarchical capitalist businesses and to commercial culture were possible. In 1989, Horst was co-founder of the Projekt A / WESPE e.V. in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, where he lived.
Works about Anarchism[]
In 1993, he published “Leben ohne Chef und Staat” (Life without a boss and state). This was a book about the history of anarchism and dealt with a number of movement and people, including the Machno movement in the Ukraine, the argentinian anarchist movement in the 1920s, the anarchists in the Spanish Republic 1936 – 1939 and the experiences of an anarchist commune in Uruguay. In 1995, he published the book, “Freiheit pur” (Freedom pure), a three section book about the ideas, history and perspectives of anarchism. This had begun as a pamphlet written in 1971 and grew to be one of the standard works of modern german anarchism. It was reissued in 2007 as “Anarchie! Idee, Geschichte, Perspektiven“, (Edition Nautilus). A further book was published in 2006. This was “Anti-Aging für die Anarchie? Das libertäre Barcelona und seine anarchistischen Gewerkschaften 70 Jahre nach der Spanischen Revolution (Anti-aging for anarchy, Libertarian Barcelona and its anarchist unions 70 years after the Spanish Revolution).
Later life[]
From the 1980s he lived and worked in Neustadt. The anArchiv was based there, but after 1992, he partially withdrew from the Projekt A. In 2003, he had problems with the continued financing of the anArchiv which were combined with a decline in his health.Out of an attempt to save the anArchiv a new communal living project was started, the Eilhardshof. He lived there until his death. He was also a member of the Neustadt local branch of the anarchosyndicalist Freie ArbeiterInnen Union (Free Workers Union).
Works - in german[]
· Horst Stowasser: "ANARCHIE Idee - Geschichte - Perspektiven". 512 Seiten, ca. 100 Fotos. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2007. ISBN 978-3-89401-537-4 (Ein Standardwerk zum Anarchismus!)
· Horst Stowasser: "Anti-Aging für die Anarchie. Das libertäre Barcelona und seine anarchistischen Gewerkschaften 70 Jahre nach der Spanischen Revolution. Eine Reportage", Verlag Edition AV, (Auszüge in GWR Nr. 311/312:[1], [2] Lich 2006, ISBN 978-3-936049-72-5. Rezension in der Graswurzelrevolution (Zeitschrift) Nr. 318:[3]
· Horst Stowasser: "Leben ohne Chef und Staat. Träume und Wirklichkeit der Anarchisten". Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin 2003. ISBN 3-87956-120-6.
· Horst Stowasser: "Freiheit pur. Die Idee der Anarchie, Geschichte und Zukunft." Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1995. ISBN 3821804483 (s.u.)
External Links[]
· Horst Stowasser in german Anarchopedia · Eihardshof homepage