Freedom of thought – an existential question for the Akademie. Günter Grass and the “Rushdie case”

It caused quite a stir when Günter Grass, president of the Akademie der Künste in West Berlin from 1983 to 1986, declared his resignation from the institution on 9 March 1989. Efforts to get him to change his mind proved unsuccessful. The writer received many messages of support and understanding for his decision to step down, followed by Akademie members Günther Anders and Marcel Ophuls.

What had happened? Three weeks earlier, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini had issued a death sentence against British-Indian author Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses. The Muslim community was called upon to carry out the sentence and to take action against anyone involved in the translation and distribution of the book. Opinions around the world were divided. While some voices – not only in Islamic circles – criticised Rushdie for having offended the religious sentiments of Muslims, the reaction among secular intellectuals was sheer horror. Resistance built in response to the “attack on freedom of opinion” (Grass).

A telegram addressed to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, signed by 24 writers, called for economic sanctions to be imposed against Iran to force Khomeini to “withdraw the call to murder”. Together with colleagues, Günter Grass organised a solidarity event for Rushdie in West Berlin. However, Giselher Klebe, composer and then president of the Akademie der Künste, refused to allow the rally to take place in the Academy halls, fearing that the safety of staff and attendees could not be guaranteed. Police protection, it was felt, was “incompatible with the principles of the Akademie der Künste”. On 3 March 1989, with the support of the Academic Senate, the Academy (merely) published a protest note via the dpa. The event ultimately took place on 9 March at the Schultheiss brewery on Hasenheide in Berlin.

Heated controversy ensued within the Academy, revolving around the question of whether the president’s risk assessment was correct or represented a capitulation to pressure from terrorists and a betrayal of the “cause of the Akademie der Künste, namely to defend freedom of thought” (Julius Posener). Parallels were drawn with the opportunistic stance of the institution under the Nazi regime: Luise Rinser felt “reminded in a most embarrassing way of 1933 […] and wondered how the Academy would or will react if the neo-Nazis were to become more powerful.” As a result of the controversy, Klebe, who advocated for the Academy to steer clear of politics, decided in spring of 1989 not to run for the office of president; his successor was classical philologist Walter Jens. It would not be until autumn 1990 that the Academy – against the backdrop of a reunited Germany – organised an evening to benefit Amnesty International entitled “On the Situation of Persecuted Artists Around the World”, at which a text by Salman Rushdie was also read out. The author, still living under the threat of assassination, visited the Akademie der Künste in May 1998 to take part in a panel discussion “On the Persecution of Writers”. Grass and Ophuls were once again elected as members. The bounty that remains on Rushdie’s head to this day is some four million dollars.

Sabine Wolf