SPK Complex 2018
Distributed by Icarus Films, 32 Court St., 21st Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201; 800-876-1710
Produced by Gerd Kroske
DVD, color, 111 min.
College - General Adult
Alternative Medicine, Capitalism, Corrections, Counseling, Mental Health Services, Politics, Propaganda, Protest Movements, Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Social Movements, Social Psychology, Terrorism, Violence
Date Entered: 12/13/2018
Reviewed by Brad Eden, Ph.D., Independent Scholar and Librarian, Valparaiso, INThis film examines a highly contentious and politically violent event in 1970s West German history known as the German Autumn. The social climate in West Germany focusing on the psychiatric treatment of government prisoners, brought about a controversial experiment at the University of Heidelberg in 1970 called the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK), led by Dr. Wolfgang Huber based on individual agitation and readings of Hegel.
The group radicalized quickly and the government initiated criminal proceedings against Huber and the patients. This soon led to underground activities leading up to the violence and murders associated with the German Autumn, of kidnapped West German leaders and of SPK and Red Army Faction prisoners held in prison. SPK Complex considers interviews with Huber and former SPK and RAF members, trips to Stammheim Prison and Italy, and archival records from the interior ministry and the university. It will be of interest to higher education classes concentrating on recent German history, social and political movements, and violence in modern society.