In and around the AZ, many conflicts have taken place over the past few months. It was important to us to first work through internally the events in the course of which several groups withdrew from the AZ and ultimately left it.
In addition, we did not want to contribute more than necessary to a split within the
leftist scene (in Aachen), which has been taking place for months and continues to take place, by publicly expressing ourselves and criticising. Unfortunately, however, this also led to the entire discourse being sketched out in a
very one-sided way. Our visitors and political groups continue to be concerned with these conflicts, and accordingly we feel responsible for addressing them after all.
“Our” positions are not a fixed concept here. The AZ is, and always has been, a pluralistic space. This means that, apart from a few non-negotiable core values, we do not only want to accept different opinions and leftist political positions, but also to promote them.
We believe that a healthy political discourse lives from diverse attitudes, perspectives, and opinions.
From the outside, “the AZ plenum” is often regarded as a unified, homogeneous mass. In reality, however, we are a large, fluctuating group of people with different opinions, backgrounds, wishes, and dreams.
Self-conceptions and statements such as this are always the result of a long process of negotiation, carried by actors who are willing to approach their fellow human beings undogmatically and with empathy, understanding, and patience, while including as many positions as possible.
For decades, this attitude was the aspiration that made the AZ what it is for us.
Unfortunately, we had to realise that this was lost over the past few months through the dominance of a few voices.
Fuelled by political differences, conflicts and incidents repeatedly occurred in 2025
between people involved in shaping the AZ and users of the AZ.
These included calls for and glorification of violence, threats against certain political
currents, gossip and degrading attributions, fantasies of takeover and divisive
incitement, outings of people from other currents in political chat groups, disregard for plenum decisions and principles of the AZ, discriminatory statements and a lack of reflection and assumption of responsibility, authoritarian and elitist behaviour, and patriarchal ways of discussing and behaving.
The dramatic situation in Israel and Palestine provided a central catalyst for these
conflicts.
Actual substantive discussions in dialogue and on equal footing between the different groups were prevented or were not held.
Representatives of two political groups that used the AZ were involved in these conflicts in particular.
The groups involved, Diskursiv and the then Open Antifascist Meeting (OAT), were
confronted by representatives of the AZ plenum with the allegations concerning their members.
These groups then withdrew from the AZ, or were excluded.
Diskursiv withdrew by its own decision, since, according to its own statement, it could no longer guarantee the safety of its speakers (see statement by Diskursiv from 23 June 2025).
The OAT was confronted with allegations by the AZ, and it was prohibited from holding further public events at the AZ premises until it had responded to the criticisms.
This ultimatum happened especially against the background that the trust placed in
users of the AZ had repeatedly been abused through lies and disregard of agreements.
We recognize such a ban on use as a very drastic action, but after several preceding
failed admonitions and solution-oriented discussions, no other solution remained for us.
We find it difficult to express ourselves concretely while concentrating only on what is essential.
We are in the process of working through the conflict internally; however, the process is not completed, and we continue to actively seek dialogue as well as clarifying conversations which are not being held in public.
What we nevertheless can and want to publish is the current state of the discussions
on the misconduct and the violence in our space, as well as our positioning on the so-called Israel-Palestine conflict.
Rejection of Fantasies of Violence and Threats
Glorification of violence, as well as threats or implied threats of verbal, physical, or
psychological violence against all people who move within the AZ because of differing positionings and opinions, are incompatible with the values of the AZ.
Rejection of Left-Authoritarian Groups
Within our process of working through the situation, we decided on an incompatibility with (left) authoritarian groups.
We do not work with these groups, and they may not use our spaces.
By “authoritarian”, what is meant is a description of forms of organisation that lead to concentration of power, hierarchisation, and the exclusion of non-conforming people. Central to this is not the intention but the dynamics systematically encouraged by such organisations. Historical practice repeatedly shows that, in K-groups and communist parties, patronising education in connection with organisational centralisation has often led to these effects.
We also criticise the structural weighting of certain forms of oppression.
In leftist contexts, this has repeatedly led to concrete experiences of racism,
antisemitism, sexism, queer hostility and, in particular, trans hostility, or abuse of
power being relativised or instrumentalised.
Again and again, it was observable that groups with an authoritarian understanding of politics deliberately drive forward division, intensify conflicts, and replace open
confrontation with intimidation, constructions of enemy images, and political
disciplining. Among others, we see Young Struggle, Marx21, Zora, and Rote Jugend / Antifa Jugend Aachen as belonging to these currents.
Solidarity with Those Affected, Instead of Regimes and States
Our solidarity is anti-national and is directed at people, not at states, governments,
regressive or backward-looking militias, and pseudo-state militaries.
The AZ positions itself consistently against state militarism.
The AZ expresses solidarity with affected civilian populations, as well as with
emancipatory, antifascist and non-state, non-fundamentalist, secular forces, and
supports their struggles of self-defence.
The AZ does not weigh the suffering of the affected populations against one another and regards every destruction of life as reprehensible and to be mourned.
We position ourselves against selective empathy.
As the AZ, we support all progressive anti-national, anti-state positions and efforts.
For us, the division of the world into borders and nation-states first forms the basis for acts of war.
Rejection of Any Form of Antisemitism and Racism
The AZ commits itself to positioning itself and acting against antisemitism and racism, as well as fascism.
The AZ understands antisemitism to include at least all categorical forms of hatred and hostility, up to annihilation, towards Jews.
In doing so, the AZ accepts no antisemitism under the guise of the term anti-Zionism, and no trivialisation, relativisation, or denial of the Shoah / the Holocaust, including in the form of trivialising comparisons.
Criticism of the government of the State of Israel, rejection of right-wing endeavours as well as of fantasies through to practices of annihilation and expulsion, are not
antisemitism. The AZ accepts no generalisation or equation of “the” Jews with the State of Israel.
Due to historical persecution, we recognise the necessity of a protective space for
Jews. This does not necessarily have to be in the form of a state.
At the same time, we recognise the right of self-determination of the Palestinian
population. The AZ condemns generalisations of Palestinians, Muslim women and Muslims, as well as racist terms, connotations, and racisms.
The AZ defines racism as a complex of theories, attitudes, and behaviours that
systematically categorise, oppress, and exclude people on the basis of their origin,
external characteristics, or negative external ascriptions.
We understand the military, political, and social attempt to expand Israeli state
territory, as well as the settlements established in violation of international law, as acts of war and colonialist actions. Colonialism is understood as taking possession of foreign territories and the subjugation, expulsion, or murder of the resident population.
The AZ assesses Israel as militarily superior, as well as the government as right-
authoritarian, and condemns its political, violent, and military actions in Gaza as
genocide. Genocide is understood as practices that, in a direct or indirect way, destroy a national, ethnic, racialised, or religious group, in whole or in part.
We do not assess these findings as antisemitic.
The AZ clearly positions itself against Islamism and Islamist militias, such as Hamas,
and accepts no trivialisation of, solidarity with, or support for them.
The AZ clearly differentiates an emancipatory liberation struggle from such actors.
The AZ explicitly expresses solidarity with Israelis and Palestinians, as well as individual persons and groups in Israel and Palestine, who actively position themselves against the war, genocide, and mutual oppression, who do leftist and antimilitarist political work, suffer repression, are imprisoned, or are murdered.
The AZ does not understand the criticism and rejection of Israel’s military attacks as
antisemitism, but as criticism to be supported.
The AZ strives to look in a differentiated way at the events of the war and the genocide connected with them, as well as to encourage people and groups in the AZ toward differentiated criticism.
What differentiated criticism means in this context, and what it does not mean, is a
narrow line.
We are aware that the positions represented in the social debate contain ambiguities and contradictions in relation to one another.
At the same time, we accept that, from a predominantly European perspective, we are not entitled to resolve these contradictions definitively and to define what is right for the people affected by this war, genocide, and displacement.
We are aware that we express this from a perspective as predominantly white people who are not personally affected.
We claim no right to definitional authority. Nevertheless, it is important to us to express ourselves on the current discourse in Germany.
Emotions, affectedness, or personal connection, above all of non-white people, must have their place in the discourse, even when these are emotionally charged, as long as they conform with the described boundaries of emancipatory values.
Open Spaces for Discussions and Criticism
Everyone may express themselves, as long as it happens respectfully, constructively,
and as fact-based as possible. For us, emotional intensity does not stand in contradiction to this. All are also called upon to accept other opinions and positionings, as long as these are not discriminatory.
This includes practising self-reflection, group reflection, as well as constructive conflict management. This also means not formulating any absolute claim to truth.
People who consciously evade and boycott this, as well as actively driving forward
enemy images and division, will not be tolerated by the AZ.
In order to promote constructive discourse, we have created and anchored structural possibilities for intensive engagement with political topics and the substantive orientation of the AZ.
In conclusion, we would like to say the following:
Strength is often confused with hardness, courage with struggle, and identity with
demarcation. Yet what is needed is precisely the opposite: taking responsibility, being in solidarity, listening, acting undogmatically, allowing and showing feelings without framing them as weakness, dividing, and being irreconcilable.
We invite people who identify with the values and ideals described here to join us, and to help shape the AZ with heart, joy, and conscience.
Autonomes Zentrum Aachen
June 15 2026
