1969: The Kurier Twen Shop Trade Show
A fair for young people leads to protests
In late autumn 1969, the Austrian Young Workers’ Movement, an affiliate of the ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party), organised a youth trade show with the daily newspaper Kurier at the Vienna Messepalast (exhibition palace), today’s Museum Quarter: “Everyone under 20 – and who isn’t – gets their money’s worth at this giant boutique”, reported the Austria Wochenschau on November 7, 1969.
This sales show marked the start of a consumer-oriented youth culture, but also made the forerunners of a future autonomous scene around the occupation of the Arena visible for a broader public: when the youth group Spartakusbund published a flyer titled “You still haven’t understood? Either you don’t come to the Twen-Shop anymore – or, you come armed!” and when they stormed the trade show as a protest against the commercialised showcasing of adolescent hobbies, music and fashion, their protagonist Michael Genner was arrested and charged with “incitement of an armed uprising”. After protests, these charges were dropped; yet, Genner was sentenced to one month in prison for “agitation” (“Aufwiegelung”).
External Resources (in German only):
“Messe für die Jugend”. Austria Wochenschau, 7. November 1969: https://www.mediathek.at/portaltreffer/atom/15745878-202-000B7-000013C4-1573BB37/pool/BWEB/
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