Censorship, Police and Juridical Persecutions
Guy Debord remarked that while between 1920-1933 "Germany incontestably had the highest rank in the elaboration of art and, more generally, the culture of our era", from the post-war era to 1960, "Germany has been characterized by a total cultural void and by the dullest conformism". The Spur journal was a flourishing exception to such void and conformism, as it was, for the first time in decades, an artistic group that manifested a certain freedom of investigation, and as an "extremely worrisome symptom", this group was almost immediately the object of police and juridical persecutions.
| “ | The Spur group was the first German group after the war to reappear on the international plane, to make itself recognized as an equal by the cultural avant-garde of several different countries, in the real artistic experiments of today; whereas the artists and intellectuals currently honored in Germany are only retarded and timid imitators of imported, old ideas. | ” |
Debord noted that Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries, had another level of intellectual tolerance, that such a trial was, at that moment, unthinkable in Paris or Copenhagen. That clumsy affair had already harmed the reputation of the Federal German Republic. Debord asserted that the pretext by which the Spur group was brought to trial, was "to make the Spur group, and all those who wish to pursue the same route, succumb to the ambient conformism." Debord ridiculed that trial to the prosecutions of Baudelaire and Flaubert for pornography and immorality in the 19th century France:
| “ | For a very long time, one could only refer to these judgments as evidence of the scandalous imbecility of the judges. It is necessary to think of them today. Before history, artistic liberty always wins its trials. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Gruppe SPUR
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