FORWARD INTO THE FUTURE
YouTube premiere "From Kreisky's living room"
WOLFGANG MADERTHANER IN CONVERSATION WITH KURT STOCKER
FORWARDS INTO THE FUTURE.
The revolutionary 70s
Kurt Stocker, Born in Leoben in 1954, grew up in Trieben in Upper Styria and partly in Ramsau am Dachstein and wanted to „make the world a better place“ from an early age. After completing his A-levels at the Federal Secondary School for Music and Education, he trained at the Pedagogical Academy in Graz and was actually supposed to become a teacher. In 1975, Stocker, who had a great longing for culture, urbanity and anonymity, went to Vienna and began a second degree in psychology and education at university. As at the PÄDAK in Graz, he also became involved in student representation in Vienna and co-founded the psychology department group. During its occupation, Stocker visited the ARENA every day and was involved in many art and cultural projects, including the occupation and establishment of the „Amerlinghaus“. He also focussed on social science studies and projects, with a passion for „social science in the spirit of the Enlightenment“. These activities ultimately led to the co-founding of the „Institute for Cultural Studies“, of which Stocker was one of the directors from 1984 to 1994, and from 1992 to 1994 Kurt Stocker worked for the Austrian federal government to plan activities to mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Republic and the Millennium. And from 1995 to 2019, he was managing director and multi-award-winning film producer at „Dor-Film“, one of Austria's largest film production companies. It produced films such as "Indien", "Hinterholz 8" and "Komm, süßer Tod". But also the production „Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin“ with Andre Heller and Traudl Junge, which was outstanding far beyond Austria's borders.
Kurt Stocker talks to the historian Wolfgang Maderthaner about the sleepy, conservative Austria of the early seventies and a young generation developing parallel to the modernisation policies of Bruno Kreisky's SPÖ all-party government and their new attitude to life, which was influenced by rock music as much as by the student revolts of the sixties.
Moderation Wolfgang Maderthaner, Historian, Association for the History of the Labour Movement