”Squatting means to destroy the capitalist plan in the urban quarters”: Spontis, Autonomists and the struggles over public commodities (1970–1983)

This paper sketches out how the Spontis – groups of political activists that sought to continue the traditions of the 1968 movement by invoking the spontaneity of the masses – and their successors, the Autonomists, radicalised conflicts over urban space and public transport. As a result, both groups came to challenge the state monopoly on violence, triggering various responses on the part of the authorities. The analysis focuses on protest against public transport fare increases and on a comparison of squatting in Frankfurt (1970s) and West Berlin (early 1980s). It makes clear how perceptions of the Italian Autonomia, which grew into a veritable myth among German radicals, and the more concrete collaborations with Italian migrant activists (Lotta Continua, Unione Inquilini) formed a crucial part of such mobilisations. Finally, a diachronic comparison contrasts the resulting practice and spirit of militant resistance against the restructuring of the public sphere in the early 1980s with the protest campaigns of a decade earlier.