Notes on the Cologne anarcho-syndicalists and the Miners’ Strike
[These notes supplement ‘Cologne FAU hosted miners kids from Blyth’ by Ralph Aurand, published in KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 120, April 2026 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/31zfhf. Our questions are in square brackets]
[How big was the Cologne FAU group? What sort of connections did you have locally?]
The Cologne FAU group was about 10 to 15 people (10 being «hard core»). We’d meet every Thursday in a sort of pub (a sort of alternative place) and the meetings were public.
There we had lectures, discussed the actual situation and so on. First of May we used to celebrate with music and cabaret and such. We had some good stand up comedians in Cologne who’d perform for us free of charge, as well as musicians, choirs and such. I, myself, was playing in a band and on my own. So there were always quite a lot of people turning up. Our members were also active in their respective unions and we were part of a forum of local activists from different unions which used to meet regularly in the union house to discuss and coordinate activities. This group, for instance, was very important during the strikes for the 35 hour week. They were predominantly from the graphical union, metal union, chemical union and the white colour union. It was called „Gewerkschafterinitiative“ (unionist initiative). A bit ironically the forum was called the 16th union (at that time we had 15 unions). But it was well respected. I was a member of that forum and they all knew I was anarcho-syndicalist and a member of FAU. There were other informal activist groups in the graphical and the metal industry, which our members took part in.
In 1973 our group was very active in the big Ford strike. But at that time FAU did not exist yet and we were called Anarchosyndikat Köln. We had good personal and organisational contacts with two unorthodox Marxist groups called Arbeiterkampf and Arbeiterpolitik. Even with GIM (Gruppe Internationale Marxisten / International Marxist Group). Most of the leftist activists outside the Communist Party knew each other. Partly we’d grown up together, went to the same schools and such. Cologne has only a million inhabitants. And we always made sure, we were not just moving around in our own bubble. And not to forget, during many years there was an ordinary pub where lots of leftist militants and just ordinary people used to go. It was famous in Cologne for its marvellous Carnival celebrations! This is the one Albert Meltzer got his Idea from about „a political pub“, which he wrote about in Black Flag. The traditional DKP (Communist Party and some Marxist-Leninist parties) warned their members not to go there – forbade it. With little success.
Apart from that, after the FAU was founded [1977], we had some very active groups in other places and were fairly well coordinated.
So we got the support (predominantly financial) of other FAU groups as well. And the CNT in exile, particularly the Local Federation of Paris, helped and also came for a weekend to Cologne, when the kids were here. As far as I know they organized something similar later on.
[How did you get in touch with the NUM Branch from Bates Colliery?]
The contact with Blyth was made through DAM. When we had the idea of a kids’ camp we asked their advice and they told us, Yorkshire was already getting most of the support, but Northumberland was getting naught. So we followed their advice and they made the contact for us. And by the way – it was DAM who paid the travel expenses inside England.
Before that, Yorkshire miners had already visited Cologne a couple of times at the invitation of the Gewerkschafterinitiative and, of course, we were present at the meetings and contributed along with the others. Later on I also visited some mines in Yorkshire – Doncaster and another one.
[Did you just do one visit to Northumberland? Did you do others, or did other Cologne FAU members visit at other times?]
I went to Blyth 2 or 3 times, once with a friend of mine who had stayed with the kids during the 2 weeks in the countryside together with her son. I do not think any other member of our group went up. We were all doing ordinary jobs which made this a bit difficult. I myself, being a freelance interpreter, could handle my time more flexibly.
But Ronnie Campbell came over another time to attend a meeting we had organized.
[Ralph also told about a post-strike trip]
After the strike was lost, I was invited to the Miners’ picnic in Northumberland and I went there with my Polo full of clothes and a wallet full of money.
I came by ferry in the middle of the night and lost my way in Brixton where I wanted to sleep over at a squat in Railton Road. Unfortunately I lost my way and had to stop at a corner, get out of the car and walk up to a group of roughly a dozen black fellows to ask my way. They were fairly amazed but explained me the way and let me go.
My friends could not believe I could be so naive as at that time no whites would leave the house after dark.
[Ralph’s Cologne FAU solidarity with Northumberland NUM Album is at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/zkh3rw
The report from 1985 ‘British Miners’ Children in the Eifel [October-November 1984]’ is at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/m907z1]