Hans-Jürgen Krahl

Hans-Jürgen Krahl came from a lower-middle class ("kleinbürgerlich" / "petit bourgeois") background in what he later termed "the darkest recesses of Lower Saxony" (aus "den finstersten Teilen Niedersachsens"). He was born in January 1943 at a time when suspicions were stirring among the German people that the Second World War might not end in the promised German victory. Rudolf Krahl, his father, and his mother, born Erna Schulze, were both employed in private sector business. Rudolf Krahl was no fan of the National Socialists during the Hitler years, but nor is there any indication that he engaged actively in political resistance. Where it came to upbringing, Krahl's parents appear to have provided their child with an upbringing marginally more liberal than would have been deemed conventional at the time. Hans-Jürgen was still very small when, probably early in 1944, he lost his right eye during the course of an aerial bomb attack. For the rest of his life he wore an artificial eye. By the time the European war ended in May 1945 the little family had moved to Stettin, but early in 1945 they had joined the flood of refugees desperate to escape from the advancing Soviet army, and ended up back in Sarstedt, the little town a short distance up-river of Hannover. It was in Sarstedt that he spent most of his childhood. When he was 15 the family relocated to Alsfeld, some 100 kilometers further to the south. After he grew up he would look back on both the towns in which he spent his childhood as archetypal examples of conservative "small-town Germany".

According to his own later reports, as a boy Krahl became involved with the "Ludendorffbund", a right-wing extremist political organisation under the leadership (at least till it was outlawed in 1961) of Mathilde Ludendorff, widow of the infamous General Ludendorff 1865-1937. The "Ludendorffbund" was a populist movement dedicated to ethniocationalism and racism and other mystical extremist notions which had fallen out of fashion in western Europe in the aftermath of the twelve year Hitler nightmare, and was in its day regarded as somewhat "niche".{{cite book |author=Susanne Kailitz |title=Die Studentenbewegung und die Gewaltfrage .... Hans-Jürgen Krahl |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=lxyO5fXr45AC&pg=PA118 |work=Von den Worten zu den Waffen?: Frankfurter Schule, Studentenbewegung, RAF und die Gewaltfrage |publisher=VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften |isbn=978-3531145600 |pages=118–129 |date=April 2007 |accessdate=13 February 2022}} By contrast, the CDU (political party), the centre-right party of Konrad Adenauer, of which Krahl became a member in 1961, was widely perceived as the heart of the political mainstream, particularly in the conservatively inclined small town German towns in which Krahl grew up. Nevertheless, as his political journey across the political spectrum continued through the 1960s, Krahl would come to view the CDU, with which he had engaged as an activist member between 1961 and 1963, with much the same level of contempt and distaste that he would epply to the "crypto-nazi" "Ludendorffbund".{{cite web |author=Marcel Kleufer |url=https://platypus1917.org/2022/01/06/krahl_rekonstruktion_revolutionaere_theorie/ |year=2022 |volume=Winter 2021/2022 |publisher=The Platypus Affiliated Society (Platypus Review) |title=Zur Rekonstruktion revolutionärer Theorie bei Hans-Jürgen Krahl |work=Ein Schlaglicht auf das Verhältnis von Marxismus und Revolutionstheorie |accessdate=13 February 2022}} Meanwhile, he was still living in Alsfeld with his family when he became a "passionate founding member" of an Alsfeld branch of the "Junge Union", the youth wing of the CDU.{{cite news |title=Der Robespierre von 68 kehrt zurück |work=Theoretiker, Aktivist und vergessener Wunderknabe der APO: Am Mittwoch wird das erste Denkmal für Hans-Jürgen Krahl enthüllt, neben Rudi Dutschke der bedeutendste Antreiber der 68er. |url=https://taz.de/Hans-Jrgen-Krahl/!5198777/ |author=Kai Schönberg |date=26 June 2007 |publisher=taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH., Berlin |accessdate=13 February 2022}}{{efn| Krahl would later describe his two years as an activist member of the CDU as "an enormous step towards enlightenment" ("... ein enormer Schritt an Aufklärung"). It enabled him to embark on "a sort of odyssey through the organisational structures of the ruling classes ("... gewissermaßen eine Odyssee durch die Organisationsformen der herrschenden Klasse hindurch"), and "I would like personally to commend myself for having taken part continuously for two years, with an enormous degree of mental consistency, in the CDU meetings of small town worthies in this dark province" ("... und es gehört, das möchte ich mir ganz persönlich zugute halten, ein enormes Ausmaß auch an psychischer Konsistenz dazu, in dieser finsteren Provinz zwei Jahre kontinuierlich an CDU-Versammlungen von Kleinstadt-Honoratioren teilzunehmen ...").}}

In 1963 Krahl enrolled at the University of Göttingen to study Philosophy, Germanistics, Mathematics and History.{{cite web |author=Hanning Voigts |title=Vom revolutionären Willen, "ohne den die Kritische Theorie nichts mehr ist"|pages=70–78 |work=Zum politischen Denken des Adorno-Schülers und SDS-Mitglieds Hans-Jürgen Krahl |url=https://www.humanistische-union.de/publikationen/vorgaenge/181-vorgaenge/publikation/vom-revolutionaeren-willen-ohne-den-die-kritische-theorie-nichts-mehr-ist/ |volume=181: Achtundsechzig |date=March 2008 |publisher=Humanistische Union e.V. (Vorgänge), Berlin |accessdate=13 February 2022}} At the same time he joined the Coburger Convent Verdensia student fraternity.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDa0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT236 |title=Hans-Jürgen Krahl, der vagabundiernde Revolutionar |pages=227–237 |publisher=Brill Deutschland GmbH |date=7 October 2019 |isbn=978-3525352144 |work=Göttinger Köpfe: und ihr Wirken in die Welt |author1=Matthias Micus |author2=Stine Marg |author3=Franz Walter |accessdate=13 February 2022}}Matthias Micus: Hans-Jürgen Krahl. Der vagabundierende Revolutionär. In: Stine Marg, Franz Walter (Hg.): Göttinger Köpfe und ihr Wirken in die Welt. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-30036-7, pp. 227–237, here p. 230.

By 1964 Krahl had left the CDU Alsfeld party branch. According to Krahl himself,{{efn |"...I was thrown out of this ghastly organisation after I had taken an anti-authoritarian stand against an old gentleman" ("Aus dieser schlagenden Verbindung wurde ich allerdings rausgeworfen, nachdem ich einen antiautoritären Aufstand gegen einen Alten Herrn vorgenommen hatte.") .... "After the ruling classes had expelled me [from the Alsfeld CDU ], I determined to betray them completely, and became a member of the SDS" (""Nachdem mich die herrschende Klasse rausgeworfen hatte, entschloß ich mich dann auch, sie gründlich zu verraten, und wurde Mitglied im SDS").}} he was expelled from it during an angry disagreement. In 1964 he joined the "Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund" ("Socialist German Students' League" / SDS), an increasinggly radical political organisation, members of which had been expelled from West Germany's centre-left Social Democratic Party (of which it had originally been a part) in 1961, due to disagreements over German re-armament. Rudi Dutschke would join the SDS in 1965, after which the two men successfully led the organisation further away from the traditional political mainstream. By the later 1960s Krahl was widely recognised as one of the SDS's leading exponents of anti-authoritatian socialism.{{cite web |url=https://viewpointmag.com/2018/04/14/hans-jurgen-krahl-new-emancipative-desires-1943-1970/ |work=Anti-authoritarian Movements in Late Capitalist Society |title=Hans-Jürgen Krahl: New Emancipative Desires (1943-1970) |author=Massimiliano Tomba |date=14 April 2018 |publisher= Viewpoint Magazine, England |accessdate= 13 February 2022}}{{cite web |title=Hans-Jürgen Krahl interprete della trasformazione "cognitiva" del lavoro |work=Scaffale. La raccolta di saggi «L’intelligenza in lotta. Sapere e produzione nel tardo capitalismo», a cura di Nicolas Martino e Francesco Raparelli per Ombre Corte. Sponda per alcune riflessioni del marxismo post-operaista durante e dopo il movimento del 77 in Italia, l'autore è stato recepito come un interprete della trasformazione del lavoro intellettuale e scientifico |publisher=il manifesto, quotidiano italiano, Roma |url=https://ilmanifesto.it/hans-jurgen-krahl-interprete-della-trasformazione-cognitiva-del-lavoro/ |author= Roberto Ciccarelli |date=18 May 2021 |accessdate=14 February 2022}}

In 1964 or 1965 (sources differ) Krahl switched to the so-called Frankfurt School of the "Institut für Sozialforschung" (IfS / "Institute for Social Research") which at that time was still a stand-alone institution (though it has subsequently been reincorporated into the Goethe University in Frankfurt). The lure was the opportunity to study with Theodor W. Adorno, who would have a decisive and lasting influence on him.{{cite journal |title=Antiautoritärer Charakter |journal=Zum 50. Todestag des Theoretikers der 68er-Bewegung, Hans-Jürgen Krahl |author1=Emanuel Kapfinger |author2=Julian Volz |date= February 2020 |page=60 |url= https://www.academia.edu/48918624 |publisher=KVV "konkret" Vertriebsgesellschaft für Druck- und andere Medien GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg |accessdate=13 February 2022}}

In 1965 he began work on his doctoral dissertation on the "Natural Law of the Capitalist Movement applying the definitions derived by Karl Marx" ("Naturgesetz der kapitalistischen Bewegung bei Marx").{{efn | "Naturgesetz" ("Natural law") is a term defined by Karl Marx in his own terms for his own purposes. Readers familiar with Marxism in some depth will probably be equipped to define it appropriately.{{cite web |title=Der Begriff des "gesellschaftlichen Naturgesetzes" bei Marx |url=https://plot-point.org/2020/01/19/der-begriff-des-gesellschaftlichen-naturgesetzes-bei-marx/ |date=19 January 2020 |publisher=Plot Point |work=Den Knoten der Geschichte lösen |accessdate=14 February 2022}}}} The doctorate was supervised by Adorno himself.{{cite web |url=https://krahl-seiten.de/ein-ehrengrab-fuer-1968 |title=Ein Ehrengrab für 1968 |work=Ex-Studentenführer Krahl |author=Peter Mlodoch |date=12 February 2020 |publisher=Für die Krahl-Seiten verantwortlich: Norbert Saßmannshausen, Frankfurt am Main |accessdate=14 February 2022}} Sources identify Krahl as "Adorno's favourite student", recalling that Krahl was the only one of Adorno's students or staff members at the IFS whom Adorno was prepared to debate on a basis of intellectual equality. Krahl was blessed with a formidable memory and power of recall. He was exceptionally lucid. He was massively well-educated and eloquent. In terms of socialist political philosophy, he had found the time and opportunity to become phenomenally well-read in terms both of depth and of breadth.{{cite web |title=Der satte Fisch |work=Der Spiegel|quote=Die geistigen Väter der Revolte von 1968, Adorno und Marcuse, waren tief zerstritten - das zeigt eine neue Studie, die mit bisher unveröffentlichten Dokumenten die Dramatik jener Ereignisse nachzeichnet. Von Reinhard Mohr |author=Reinhard Mohr |date=10 May 1998 |url=https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/der-satte-fisch-a-c6db629b-0002-0001-0000-000007892302 |accessdate=14 February 2022}} He was also hugely respectful of his doctoral mentor-supervisor, from whom he drew numerous key concepts of the "Frankfurt School critical theory", which he applied in a number of important philosophical-political writings of his own.{{cite book|date=17 January 2022|url=https://quieora.ink/?tag=autonomia |title= Lenin in Inghilterra, Krahl in Italia|author=Marcello Tarì |work=book review |isbn=978385476-910-1 |publisher=Mandelbaum Verlag eG, Wien |accessdate=14 February 2022}}

Krahl's break with his philosophical father figure came after four years. A student occupation took place at the IFS on 7 January 1969 which Adorno and his senior colleagues at the institute invited police to evict. In Frankfurt the public mood in respect of student protests had been somewhat heated for more than half a year, and the police unhesitatingly complied with the request of the Institute authorities.{{cite web |title=Ein fast vergessener 68er |work=Der Hannoveraner Hans-Jürgen Krahl gehörte zu den führenden Köpfen der 68er-Bewegung – 1970 verunglückte er bei einem Autounfall. Heute wird ihm auf dem Ricklinger Friedhof ein Gedenkstein errichtet |year=2012 |publisher=Langeleine media, Hannover |author=Barbara Mürdter |url=http://www.langeleine.de/?p=2590 |accessdate=14 February 2022}}{{cite web |url=https://www.zhh.ch/sites/zhh.online.ias/files/files/news/adorno_cvm_2019_02067.pdf |title=Herztod in den Bergen ‒ zum 50. Todestag von Theodor W. Adorno .... Die Vorgeschichte |author=Lüscher Thomas F. |work=Cardiovascular Medicine |year=2019 |publisher=Foundation for Cardiovascular Research / Stiftung für Herz- und Kreislaufforschung, Zurich |accessdate=14 February 2022}} Following the eviction, police arrested 76 of the students involved, including Krahl, the favourite pupil whom by many criteria Adorno had at this point vehemently disowned.{{cite web |pages=15–17 |author=Maroje Višić |date=22 October 2019 |url=https://www.bib.irb.hr/1078334/download/1078334.IVORY_TOWER_AND_BARRICADES.pdf |title=Ivory tower and barricades: Marcuse and Adorno on the separation of theory and praxis |publisher=Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju Univerziteta u Beogradu (Philosophy and Society journal), Belgrade |accessdate=14 February 2022}}

Adorno was painfully conscious of the brutal irony whereby "a piece of political theater" had left him identified by many of his students as a defender of conservative repression. He attempted to resume lecturing in June 1969, but active hostility from students who favoured “extra-parliamentary opposition” and who might previously idolised him prevented it.{{cite web |url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/08/05/the-utopian-promise-of-adornos-open-thinking-fifty-years-on/ |title=The Utopian Promise of Adorno's 'Open Thinking,' Fifty Years On |author=Peter E. Gordon |work=Too often, the various heroes of Continental philosophy are invoked as talismans for some undifferentiated thing called “Theory,” alongside other avatars such as Nietzsche and Foucault, Derrida and Heidegger, as if they were all authorities belonging to a catechism beyond criticism or questioning. Can Adorno be redeemed from this fate? |date=5 August 2019 |publisher=The New York Review of Books |accessdate=14 February 2022}}{{cite web |url=https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/keine-angst-vor-dem-elfenbeinturm-a-1263973f-0002-0001-0000-000045741579 |title=Keine Angst vor dem Elgenbeinturm |date=4 May 1969 |volume= 19/1969 |publisher=Der Spiegel (online) |accessdate=14 February 2022}} A few weeks later, on 18 July 1969, he found himself invited to testify at Krahl's trial on a charge of breaching the peace.{{cite web |title=Thankmar, der junge Krahl |work=Der SDS-Theoretiker Hans-Jürgen Krahl – ein Wanderer von der extremen Rechten bis zur radikalen Linken |url=http://gerd-koenen.eu/media/filer_public/c9/12/c9120f2c-dbb5-400c-b85f-39aac8706450/thankmar_der_junge_krahl.pdf |author=Gerd Koenen |pages=28–29 |date=3 February 2005 |publisher=Frankfurter Rundschau |accessdate=14 February 2022}}{{cite book |pages=4–6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SD23DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA6 |work=Demokratische Wege. Deutsche Lebensläufe aus fünf Jahrhunderten: Ein Lexikon

|publisher=J.B. Metzler Verlg, Stuttgart |date=16 December 1996 |isbn=978-3476012449|author1=Gerhard Schweppenhäuser |author2=Manfred Asendorf |author3=Rolf von Bocke |title=Adorno, Theodor W. |accessdate=14 February 2022}} If, as some commentators seem to have anticipated, Krahl was hoping to be able to recreate the Athenian Agora in a Frankfurt court room in order to engage in a very public debate on the fundamentals of critical theory with its most important theoretician, he was disappointed. It is hard to be confident that Adorno was unaffected by the months of ad hominem attacks from IFS radical students who identified a polarised battle between himself and his (formerly) favourite pupil, however. The trial that followed may have been the last straw. A few weeks later, he took a break with his wife, visiting Zermatt where, in defiance of medical advice, he took a hike into the mountains and suffered a heart attack. He died in a Swiss hospital on 6 August 1969.{{cite web |url=https://www.knerger.de/html/sonstige_3.html |title=Hans-Jürgen Krahl |work=Omnibus salutem! |publisher=Klaus Nerger, Wiesbaden |accessdate=14 February 2022}} Krahl's own death followed only six months later.

On 13 September 1968, Krahl was involved, unintentionally, in an incident at the 23rd delegates' conference of the SDS which some have characterised as the launching pad for second-wave feminism in West Germany.{{cite web|title=Antiautoritärer Anspruch und Frauenemanzipation - Die Revolte in der Revolte |url=http://www.infopartisan.net/archive/1968/29708.html|author2=Sylvia Bovenschen, Sigrid Damm-Rüger & Sybille Plogstedt (participants)|author1=Halina Bendkowski (discussion leader) |publisher=Infopartisan|accessdate=14 February 2022}} The conference was held at Frankfurt am Main, which was Krahl's home city and, importantly, home to a number of nationally distributed West German and international newspapers along with many of their journalists. As a leading member of the SDS, Krahl was one of those seated in a single row along the front of the stage, facing the main body of the hall. In the main hall, on one side of the room, was grouped a small party of women from the Action Council for women's liberation. Unbeknownst to the conference organisers, the women were on a mission of their own. Not all of them were SDS members. One who was a relatively prominent member within the SDS was Sigrid Rüger, heavily pregnant and highly visible, in addition, on account of her very red hair. Something these women shared was a belief that among the SDS (male) student leaders, there was a singular absence of empathy with feminist viewpoints and issues.{{cite news |url=https://taz.de/!3208213/|author=Ute Scheub|title=Die Frau, die die Tomate warf|date=12 January 1996|work=Sigrid Damm-Rüger ist tot. Ihr Tomatenwurf auf einen Führer der Studentenbewegung war der Auftakt für die autonome Frauenbewegung|page=4|publisher=taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH, Berlin|accessdate=14 February 2022|author-link=:de:Ute Scheub}}Vorwort zur Neuauflage von Ute Kätzel. In: Ute Kätzel (Hrsg.): Die 68erinnen. Porträt einer rebellischen Frauengeneration. Ulrike Helmer Verlag, Königstein/Taunus 2008, {{ISBN|978-3-89741-274-3}}. p. I.

Another of the women in the group was Helke Sander an activist film-maker originally from Berlin who had recently returned to Germany after several years living and working in Helsinki. Sander stood up and, taking the organisers by surprise, delivered a speech.{{cite web |url=https://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/helke-sander/ |title=Helke Sabnder .... Biografie |work=deutsche Filmregisseurin, Schriftstellerin, Schauspielerin und feministische Theoretikerin und Aktivistin |author=Joey Horsley |publisher=Prof. Dr. Luise F. Pusch i.A. Institut für Frauen-Biographieforschung Hannover/Boston (Pionierinnen der Frauenbewegung) |accessdate=15 February 2022}} There seems to have been some frantic sotto-voce discussion among the SDS leaders seated on the stage over how to shut this woman up; but in the event most delegates listened in relative silence. It was quite a short speech, but nevertheless managed to tackle in some depth several of the priorities of the feminists' Action Council. It concluded with a rousing plea:

{{Blockquote |text="Comrades, if you are not yet ready for this discussion, which needs to be conducted on the basis of substantive issues, then we will have established that the SDS is nothing more than an over-inflated bubble of counter-revolutionary uncooked dough. The women comrades will then know what conclusions to draw."{{cite web|url=http://www.gruene-berlin.de/positionen/frauenrundbrief/ausgaben/983/sdsrede.html|title=Befreiung der Frauen: Rede des Aktionrates zur Befreung der Frauen|work=Auszüge aus der Rede des Aktionsrates zur Befreiung der Frauen bei der 23. Delegiertenkonferenz des "Sozialistischen Deutschen Studentenbundes" (SDS) im September 1968 in Frankfurt|author2=(gekürzt von Katrin Schwahlen)|author1=Helke Sander|date=13 February 1968|publisher=Frauenpolitischer Rundbrief 3/98|accessdate=15 February 2022|archive-date=21 April 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050421210718/http://www.gruene-berlin.de/positionen/frauenrundbrief/ausgaben/983/sdsrede.html|url-status=dead}}}}

There seems to have been some irritation from the conference organisers that their carefully devised schedule had been disrupted, and there was a firm refusal to allow still more time to be taken up with any discussion of Sander's speech. On the part of the Action Council women there was clearly a concern that the speech might simply be ignored by the conference and thereafter quickly forgotten. Sigrid Rüger, for one, was determined that this should not happen. Afflicted, in the context of her pregnancy, by a powerful dietary craving, Rüger had arrived at the conference clutching a large box of tomatoes, which she had placed on the table in front of her. She now threw several (according to some sources, three) tomatoes in the direction of the row of male SDS leaders on the stage, uttering an exclamation addressed, according to some sources, to Hans-Jürgen Krahl as she did it. One of them hit Hans-Jürgen Krahl, who was deep in discussion with a neighbour.{{cite web |title= Ein Tomatenwurf als "Funke im Pulverfass" |work=In die Geschichte der 68er-Bewegung sind Tomaten als Wurfgeschosse eingegangen. Auf der Delegiertenkonferenz des Sozialistischen Studentenbundes flogen sie in Richtung des Vorstandes. Damit wollte die Studentin Sigrid Rüger eine Diskussion über die Frauenfrage erzwingen. |author=Kirsten Heckmann-Janz |date=13 September 2018 |url= https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/vor-50-jahren-ein-tomatenwurf-als-funke-im-pulverfass.871.de.html?dram:article_id=427706 |accessdate= 28 November 2019}}{{efn |"Comrade Krahl, you are a genuine counter-revolutionary and a representative of the class enemy [when it comes to rights for women]" ("Genosse Krahl, du bist objektiv ein Konterrevolutionär und ein Agent des Klassenfeindes dazu").{{cite news

|title=Genosse Krahl, du bist objektiv...|url=https://taz.de/!1838291/|author=Ulrike Helwerth|newspaper=Die Tageszeitung: Taz|date=13 September 1988|page=13|publisher=taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH., Berlin|accessdate=15 February 2022}}}} It was later reported by some that she had been aiming not at Krahl (who was gay and, in a number of ways, the complete opposite of a misogynist) but at the face of Helmut Schauer the SDS president at the time. Thrown vegetables or eggs were a much loved protest device during this period. Preferred targets in West Germany were politicians and other establishment figures perceived by the throwers as more than averagely reactionary. The attention grabbing difference on this occasion was that the thrown tomatoes came from a group of SDS women: their target was the (male) leadership circle of their own student socialist organisation.{{cite book |author=Ilse Lenz |title=Versuch die richtigen Fragen zu finden |work= Die Neue Frauenbewegung in Deutschland. Abschied vom kleinen Unterschied. Eine Quellensammlung |publisher= VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010 |date=14 October 2010 |isbn=978-3-531-17436-5 |pages= 45–68 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p80FohDetrQC&pg=PA49 |accessdate=1 December 2019|author-link=:de:Ilse Lenz }} Krahl was a sensitive man and by this time assumed by many comrades to be suffering from alcoholism. He was deeply upset. "That evening Krahl sat in the bath and cried", recalled a mutual friend, Tilman Fichter, speaking to a reporter: "Then Sigrid came round to comfort him. That's how she was".{{efn |"Der Krahl lag abends in der Badewanne und weinte ... Da kam die Sigrid und tröstete ihn. So war sie".}}

From the point of view of the women from the Action Council, the tomato throwing incident was a great success. The objectives of the feminist activists had recaptured a place high up on the mainstream media agenda, which, in Germany, they would retain for many years.

On 16 October 1969 Krahl was back before a court. This time he was charged with "participating in the leadership of a breach of the peace" ("Aufruhrs und des Landfriedensbruchs als Rädelsführer"). He was identified by the court, along with his co-accused, Günter Amendt and Karl Dietrich Wolff as one of three leading members of the SDS who had taken part in a demonstration against the awarding of the "Peace Prize of the German Book Trade" to Président Senghor of Senegal. The court was told that demonstration had taken place outside Frankfurt's (hugely symbolic for believers in democracy) "Paulskirche" on 22 September 1969 without the required authorisation.{{cite web |title= Angaben zur Person|work=Aussage im Senghor-Prozeß am 16. Okt. 1969 |author1=Hans-Jürgen Krahl - testimmony |author2= Wolfgang Kraushaar - transcription, a very brief contextualisation and publication of it |date=5 February 2020 |publisher=Norbert Saßmannshausen (Für die sog. Krahl-Seiten verantwortlich), Frankfurt am Main |url=https://krahl-seiten.de/angaben-zur-person |accessdate=15 February 2022}} By this time a number of other pending trials against each of the defendants were building up in the pipeline of the criminal justice system. In respect of the case of the Senaglaese president and his peace prize, the verdict came through on 24 December 1969. The three defendants were all found guilty, and each was sentenced to a 21-month prison term. Krahl's application to appeal the verdict was granted however. In the end he never served any part of the prison sentence.

{{Quote box|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|width=46%|

:"Krahl?: there are wolves living inside him"

:"In Krahl, da hausen die Wölfe" {{cite web |url=http://www.krahl-seiten.de/aufruftext.htm |title=Initiative zum Gedächtnis an Hans-Jürgen Krahl |work=Das Grab von Hans-Jürgen Krahl, gestorben am 13. Februar 1970 im Alter von gerade 27 Jahren, ist eingeebnet und drohte endgültig aufgelöst zu werden. |publisher=Hans-Jürgen Krahl Archiv |accessdate=15 February 2022 |archive-date=27 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927223239/http://www.krahl-seiten.de/aufruftext.htm |url-status=dead }}

::Theodor W. Adorno

}}

{{Quote box|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|width=46%|

:"He was the cleverest of us all"

:"Er war der Klügste von uns allen"{{cite book |author1=Mathias Mertens |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bO6WB1ETdDYC&pg=PA33 |pages=33, 31–45 |isbn=978-3835300859 |publisher= Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen |year=2006 |title=Der Niedersäschische Hahn oder Phänomenologie des Unterschieds .... Wanderungsbewegungen |work=Peine, Paris, Pattensen: literarische Erhebungen im flachen Land |author2=Jochen Schimmang |accessdate=16 February 2022}}

::Rudi Dutschke

}}

{{Quote box|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|width=46%|

:"... the most intelligent, resolute and intellectually robust mind among the student leaders"

:"... der intelligenteste und konsequenteste Kopf der Studentenführer"Die Ungeheuerlichkeit des täglichen Erlebens. Karl Heinz Bohrer über seine intellektuelle Biographie. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 March 2017, pp. 9–11, here p.

::Karl Heinz Bohrer

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Late at night on 13 February 1970 Hans-Jürgen Krahl was a passenger in the front seat of a car travelling from Paderborn towards Marburg the B252 (main road). Conditions were icy and the car was involved in a collision with an oncoming truck near Wrexen (Diemelstadt). Krahl was killed instantly. Franz-Josef Bevermeier from Paderborn who had been driving the car at the time of the collision was taken to a hospital where he died three hours later. Three other passengers in the car were badly injured.{{cite web|title=Krahls Tod, Beerdigung und Grab |date=14 February 1970 |url=https://krahl-seiten.de/krahls-tod-beerdigung-und-grab |work=dpa 145 js/schm |publisher=Für die Krahl-Seiten verantwortlich: Norbert Saßmannshausen, Frankfurt am Main |accessdate=15 February 2022}}

As the star doctoral student of the much admired Theodor Adorno, Krahl took as his point of departure Adorno's "Frankfurt School Critical theory" social critique and built on ideas inferred from it in his doctoral dissertation and subsequent written work. He derived and evolved from it a "thesis of the technical-scientific intelligentsia", which provides definition and impulse for the centrality of "thought labour" and "mass intellectual output" in late-stage capitalist societies.{{cite web|title=.... L'intellighenzia tecno-scientifica |work= Lotte di classe nel capitalismo avanzato: Avventure della dialettica nel lavoro di Hans-Jürgen Krahl|author=Andrea Cavazzini |url=https://operavivamagazine.org/lotte-di-classe-nel-capitalismo-avanzato/|date=22 April 2021|publisher=OperaViva Magazine, Roma |accessdate=15 February 2022}}

With these analyses, Krahl pursues a line of reasoning already resonating at the Frankfurt School, while foreshadowing analyses which, in the years ahead, would lead many militants and thinkers of the left to dismiss the revolutionary role of the factory worker class as being of diminished relevance.

After Rudi Dutschke was shot in West-Berlin "by a protnazi attacker" and seriously incapacitated on 11 April 1968, Krahl found himself expected by SDS comrades to fill the void that had opened up in respect of on some of the charismatic and intellectual leadership roles that Dutsche had hitherto occupied. Krahl's leadership within the SDS differed from that of Dutschke. He tended, some believed, to treat the SDS as "a production facility for theories of the proletariat" rather than as an organisation of direct political militancy.{{cite web |title=Nuovi bisogni emancipativi ... Note di metodo su Krahl e Negri |author=Massimiliano Tomba |date=22 April 2021 |work=OperaViva Magazine, Roma |url=https://operavivamagazine.org/nuovi-bisogni-emancipativi/ |accessdate=15 February 2022}}

The so-called Prague Spring and the ensuing Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 represented a series of events on which Krahl expressed himself with robust clarity. Like Dutschke, he was powerfully positive about attempts by the Dubček government to re-normalise Socialism outside the authoritarian constraints of Stalinism's enduring legacy. On the other hand, he was openly disappointed by the Prague reformers' vision of and alternative socialist model which was, he asserted, less than radical.{{cite journal |title=Czechoslovakia: The Dialectic of the 'Reforms' |url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/i53/articles/hans-jurgen-krahl-czechoslovakia-the-dialectic-of-the-reforms| author=Hans-Jürgen Krahl |journal=New Left Review |date=January 1969|issue=I/53 |pages=3–12 |publisher=New Left Review, England |accessdate=16 February 2022}}{{cite news|title="Das 20. Jahrhundert ist vorüber" .... Gab es denn überhaupt keine Sympathie für den sogenannten "Sozialismus mit menschlichem Antlitz"? |work=Der Historiker und Doyen der Rebellionsgeschichte Wolfgang Kraushaar sagt, dass vom Sozialismus und Kommunismus nur noch Worthülsen übrig seien.|publisher=taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH., Berlin |url=https://taz.de/Wolfgang-Kraushaar-ueber-den-Prager-Fruehling/!5178440/ |date=25 July 2008|author3=Wolfgang Kraushaar |author1=Jan Feddersen |author2=Wolfgang Gast|accessdate=16 February 2022}} After the Soviet tanks had rolled into Prague, Krahl shared his opinion that the "Soviet counter-revolution [had] prematurely and violently closed down the possibility – not without its own contradictions – of pursuing the revolutionary liberation struggle on the home turf of European socialism".

• The year following his death a volume was compiled and published comprising the collected writings of Hans-Jürgen Krahl. It had been re-published a number of times. The 2005 (fourth German-language) re-issue runs to 440 pages.{{cite book |title=Konstitution und Klassenkampf: zur historischen Dialektik von bürgerlichen [i.e. bürgerlicher] Emanzipation und proletarischer Revolution; Schriften und Reden 1966-1970 |author1=Hans-Jürgen Krahl |author2=Detlev Claussen, Bernd Leineweber, Ronny Loewy, Oskar Negt & Udo Riechmann |year=2008 |publisher=Neue Kritik, Verlag |url=https://cominsitu.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/hans-jucc88rgen-krahl-konstitution-und-klassenkampf_-zur-historischen-dialektik-von-bucc88rgerlicher-emanzipation-und-proletarischer-revolution.-schriften-und-reden-1955-1970-neue-kritik.pdf |isbn=978-3801503802 |accessdate=16 February 2022}}
• SDS membership had peaked at around 2,500 in 1968. Immediately after Krahl's death the organisation seemed to lose not merely its voice, but its entire sense of direction and purpose. It fell into a rapid succession of crises culminating, formally on 21 March 1970, in its dissolution. It was not forgotten, however, notably in Italy, where the published work of Hans-Jürgen Krahl and actions undertaken by the SDS during its time under his influence and leadership created a defining point of reference for the "Movimento del '77" (an anti-parliamentary leftwing student uprising largely confined to university students in Bologna, Milan, Turin and Rome).{{cite web |title=Prairie fire: violence and/or exile .... The critique of anti-authoritarian reason |pages=174–183 |url=https://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/id/eprint/49345/1/Carvalho-L-49345.pdf |work=A Laughter That Will Bury You All: The Antagonistic Gesture of Autonomia and Operaismo |author=Luhuna Carvalho |date=September 2020 |publisher=Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Kingston University, London |accessdate=16 February 2022}} Tellingly, many of the currently available sources for the life of Hans-Jürgen Krahl are published not in German but in Italian.
• Krahl's criticisms targeting ("from within") Frankfurt School thinking still resonate powerfully, especially those aimed at his sometime intellectual nemesis, Jürgen Habermas.{{cite web|publisher= Viewpoint Magazine, England |title=Hans-Jürgen Krahl, For and Against Critical Theory: Introduction |author=Dave Mesing |date=14 April 2018 |url=https://viewpointmag.com/2018/04/14/hans-jugen-krahl-for-and-against-critical-theory-introduction/ |accessdate=16 February 2022}}{{cite web |pages=359–367 |work=Jürgen Habermas nel Sessantotto |author=Gianfranco Bettin Lattes |url=https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/smp/article/download/10586/10582/ |title=Hans Jürgen Krahl: due risposte a Jürgen Habermas .... Molti anni dopo |publisher=SocietàMutamentoPolitica, Firenze |accessdate=6 February 2022}}{{cite web |url= https://krahl-seiten.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/claussen.pdf |year=1985 |publisher=Für die Krahl-Seiten verantwortlich: Norbert Saßmannshausen, Frankfurt am Main |title=Hans-Jürgen Krahl. Ein philosophisch-politisches Profil

|author= Detlev Claussen |accessdate=16 February 2022}}

• In August 2005, shortly after Krahl's grave had been leveled because there were no longer any living relatives willing and able to pay for its maintenance, Hannover's Mayor Schmalstieg intervened to secure the grave plot, contributing to the costs.{{cite news |title=Ex-Studentenführer Krahl. Ein Ehrengrab für 1968 |publisher=Frankfurter Rundschau |work=Hannover verzichtet auf Friedhofsgebühren von 3884 Euro. DenkArt übernimmt die Pflegekosten in diesem Zeitraum, laut Rathaus 2235 Euro. Das Denkmal selbst schlägt mit rund 4000 Euro zu Buche. Damit sind die nächsten 20 Jahre gesichert |date=27 June 2007}}
• A group of friends teamed up to collect money for grave maintenance and, on 27 June 2007, oversaw the placing of a modernist replacement gravestone, designed by Uwe Spiekermann, on Krahl's flattened grave plot.{{cite web |url=https://www.kh-spiekermann.de/krahl.html |publisher=K.H. Spiekermann, Langenhagen |title=Denkstein für Hans-Jürgen Krahl |work=Sprecher der Studentenbewegung von 1967 - 1970 |accessdate=16 February 2022}} The main speaker at the inauguration the new memorial stone was Adorno's biographer Detlev Claussen, and the man who 37 years earlier had already delivered the funeral oration at Krahl's funeral.
• During the first part of 2007 work, under the auspices of the "DenkArt Verein" began on the "Hans-Jürgen Krahl Archive". Start-up finance came from the Frankfurt city council.{{cite web |title=Hans-Jürgen Krahl |url=http://www.denkart.info/?page_id=152 |publisher=DenkArt e.V., Frankfurt am Main |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120208054339/http://www.denkart.info/?page_id=152|accessdate=16 February 2022|archive-date = 2012-02-08}}

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