Surgical Penis Klinik – Industrial Records – 1980

Slogun

Mekano (Factory)

Debut UK released 7″ single by Surgical Penis Klinik released on Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial Records imprint in 1980. As you would expect, a fair amount of fun and joy is packed into the two sides of this 7″ single from Surgical Penis Klinik.

The debut S.P.K. LP and the band’s second LP can be listened to HERE and HERE

The text (that sits below the Industrial Records press release and the Slash Magazine review of this record) concerning the ‘real’ S.P.K (the organisation, not the band) is lifted from heathenworld.com. Thanks to that site in advance.

IR 0011 PRESS RELEASE: 1980

Subject:- SLOGUN / MEKANO by S.P.K.

Index Number: IR 0011 45rpm single

Side A:            Mekano (Factory)
Side B:            Slogun (Slogan)

Well, as promised, here we are again! Here is a single by Australian group S.P.K.
The cover and centre labels are somewhat confusing. On the cover, the  A side is “MEKANO”, but on the centre label it is called “FACTORY” and is numbered as the B side. Factory was its original title, then the words were changed. On the cover the B side is called “SLOGUN” but on the centre label the A side is called “SLOGAN”. This is the B side. Probably.

The group are called S.P.K. but for this single prefer to be known as Surgical Penis Klinik, for reasons best known to themselves. They have called the whole package “MEAT PROCESSING SECTION”!

If you review it we suggest you tell people to ask for S.P.K.-Surgical Penis Klinik and give index number IR 0011 if the shop seems confused! Well, what can you expect from people from down under…

Background:- S.P.K. was the name the group took from a group of mental patients in West Germany who, inspired by the Baader-Meinhof group set up their own terrorist cell with a “SLOGUN” Kill Kill Kill For Inner Peace and Mental Health. Unfortunately this group blew themselves up whilst trying to make and hide bombs in their Mental Hospital.

S.P.K. was originally 4 people in Sydney, Australia. They released two singles on their own S.P.K. label and pressed 200 copies of each. They sent copies to Industrial Records who liked them so much they offered to re-release their favourite two tracks again. By this time S.P.K. had only two members left, one a certified schizophrenic, a patient in mental hospitals; the other a certified mental nurse who works in mental hospitals!

This perhaps explains the complex inconsistency of their packaging.

Since this record was made the schizo-member has left the group. S.P.K. is now one person who is alive and cynical and living in Paris. The cover was designed by S.P.K. Most copies sold in shops will include the stick on front picture inside with the record.
A peely penis to stick on or up yourself. Other copies will have the penis already attached in the frame on the front, like yours…

SLASH FANZINE Vol.3 No.5

SURGICAL PENIS KLINIK (MEAT PROCESSING SECTION)

Industrial IR0011

Here’s a fun story: S.P.K. got their name and inspiration from a group of West German crackbrains who set up a “terrorist cell” in their hospital under the slogan “Kill Kill Kill – For Inner Peace and Mental Health” and then blew themselves to shredded hell with homemade explosives. Likewise, S.P.K. (the musical unit) also fractured down to two members – one, a nurse at a mental hospital; the other, a certified schizophrenic, after making the tapes from which this single was culled.

I don’t care whether this story actually is true or otherwise, it’s a great myth and adds just the right touch to Meat Processing Section, which is one of the most ghastly, genuinely disturbing singles made since 1959. This bastard is diseased from cover to core, a bad virus that only incidentally infects plastic, paper, or canvas. Maybe it’s the nearest soundtrack available for S.P.K.’s own home movie – the sickly yellow one that flickers incessantly in their raving noodle.

Sure, I’m laying it on thick. Don’t take my word for it, you can let it into your own living space and see: if the cover, showing a real live penis with a quarter-inch rod shoved through it, doesn’t grab ya, the sounds inside sure will.

“Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv” / “Patientenfront” / “Patients’ Front”

Members:

Dr. Wolgan Huber – founder of SPK

Ursula Huber – in charge of Working Circle of Explosives

Carmen Roll – member of SPK Working Circle of Explosives

Sigfried Hausner – member of SPK Working Circle of Explosives

Bernard Brown – involved with SPK and Movement June 2

Friederike Krobbe – SPK member involved in Schleyer kidnapping

Hanna Krabbe – member of IZRU, group formed after SPK’s demise

Alfred Mahriander – student member of SPK

Margit Schiller – student member of SPK

Christian Junshke – student member of SPK

Lutz Taufer – SPK member

Karl Dellwo – SPK member

Ulrich Wessel – SPK member

Ekerhard Becker – lawyer involved with SPK

Rolf Reinder – SPK associate

SPK was organized in Working Circles:

Working Circle of Dialectics

Working Circle of Education

Working Circle of Explosives

Working Circle of Judo and Karate

Working Circle of Marxism

Working Circle of Photography

Working Circle of Radio Transmission

Working Circle of Religion

Working Circle of Sexuality

“Bomb, Bomb, Bomb for mental health”

“Kill, Kill, Kill for inner peace”

“Turn Illness Into a Weapon”

“Therapy through violence”

SPK is a somewhat obscure “pro-illness” group founded by Dr. Wolfgang Huber at Heidelberg University in 1968. The group members were mental patients, and were considered by media to be a leftist / Marxist group. The group forwarded the view that the “capitalist performance of the Federal Republic was sick within itself and was thus producing mentally sick people which could only be changed by violent revolution.” They organized into the working circles listed above.

In 1970, Dr. Huber and 120 patients were kicked out of the clinics they were using. The patients revolted, occupied offices, went on a hunger strike, etc. until they are provided with a few rooms. The patients revolted again, demanding blank prescriptions pads, and released a communique the same year supporting the SDS. The university lost patience with the situation and kicked Dr. Huber out, and tried several times to evict SPK. The patients released a communique titled “Suicide equals murder / starvation equals murder” after one patient committed suicide. Dr. Huber and some patients were arrested in 1971, prompting the group to release another communique titled “Turn Illness into a Weapon”. The group’s workshops included crime, guerilla activities and sex magic. Interaction between SPK and Baader-Meinhof group was widely suspected. SPK denied any connection. The patients demanded 500 weapons and raised hell in other ways before dissolving in 1971 and reappering under the name InformationsZentrum Rote VolksUniversität (Information Center of the People’s Red University) ..IZRU Dr. Huber and several patients were in prison for the next few years.

There were numerous leftist terrorist groups active in West Germany at the time, but SKP was unique because of their mental therapy angle. Two of the best known were the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhoff Gang and the anarchist “Movement June 2”, which took its name from the date in 1967 when a student named Bennoi Ohnesorg, was killed in anti-Shah riots in West Berlin. A famous RAF saying is, “Society is corrupt; it must be destroyed; that which comes later will be better.”

A list of activites:

SPK set the State Psychiatric Clinic near Hiedleberg on fire.

The Working Circle of Explosives tried to blow up a train carrying the president of the Fexceral Republic, but the plans fell apart. Carmen Roil arrived with the bomb after the train left. Reinder Mahriand with two other members shot one of two policemen who tried to detain them.

Christian Junchke with other SPK members robbed a bank and were interrupted by a policeman. They tried to run him over and eventually shot him. Margit Schiller and two others were later approached by two policemen. they shot and killed both policemen.

In October of 1971, a woman from SPK and a member of the RAF were stopped by police in Hamburg. They were wanted for questioning related to the attempted murder of two policemen on the Freiburg Basle autobahn. The woman shot one policeman.

SPK members carried out their best known action under another name. On April 27, 1975, six people who called themselves the “Holger Meins Commando” seized the West German embassy in Stockholm. Four of the six people, Friederike Krobbe, Karl Dellwo, Lutz Taufer, Sigfried Hausner and Ulrich Wessel, were originally SPK members. By this time they were affiliated with the RAF, which is widely credited with this action. After entering the building, the six took twelve hostages: Ambassador Dietrich Stocker, several senior diplomats including military attaché Lieutenant Colonel Andreas Baron von Mirbach, embassy officials, secretaries and messengers. The “Holger Mains Commando” sent their demands to the Bonn government – within 6 hours, 26 prisoners including Esslin, Baader and Meinhoff were to be released, given $20,000 and be waiting safely in a plane at Frankfurt airport.

As these demands were considered, Swedish police inside the lower part of the embassy were fired on and warned by telephone to quit within fifteen minutes or Von Mirbach would be executed. When police refused to leave the embassy, the West German military attaché was marched to the window, shot several times, and thrown off a balcony on the third floor. He died shortly afterwards in the hospital. Then, minutes before the deadline expired, The Swedish Minster of Justice informed the terrorists that the Bonn government had rejected all demands. He then offered the gang safe conduct out of Sweden if they freed the remaining hostages unharmed. The economic attaché was shot and three secretaries released with a final ultimatum. Before this could be met, the explosives which Hausner had rigged up exploded, setting off live ammunition, scaring Wessel into dropping a grenade and blowing himself up. The explosives blew up the top floor of the embassy. The badly burned body of Heinz Hillegaart, the West German economic attaché, was found later in the wreckage. Hausner was injured in the explosion, and died in the hospital. The four surviving members of the “Holger Meins Commando” were deported to West Germany, tried, and found guilty.

In September of 1977, the RAF kidnapped top industrialist Dr. Hans-Martin Schleyer in Cologne, Italy. SPK member Fred Krobbe was involved. Five terrorists armed with sub-machine guns ambushed Schleyer’s Mercedes as he was driven home from work, escorted by a second car carrying three armed bodyguards. The gunmen murdered all three bodyguards and Schleyer’s chauffeur, then abducted the unharmed industrialist in a waiting van. They offered his life in exchange for the release of eleven imprisoned West German terrorists, payment of $43,000 each and safe transport to the country of their choice. A massive search was mounted for Schleyer. Five weeks later the kidnappers released a photograph of their drained, wretched captive, showing him holding a banner with the inscription “Commando Siegfried Hausner” and “Martyr Halimeh”. Hausner was the SPK member who died in the hospital after the Stockholm embassy siege of 1975. “Halimeh” was the Arab name given to an unidentified German woman who was shot by Israeli troops when she tried to hijack a plane. They eventually killed Schleyer, and released a statement excerpted below:

“After 43 days we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer’s pitiful and corrupt existence… His death is meaningless for our pain and our rage… The struggle has only begun. Freedom through armed, anti-imperialist struggle.”

Dr. Huber is still active. He was a few books in print. Notable titles are “SPK – Turn Illness into a Weapon” and “SPK Indeed – What the SPK Really Did and Said”. Huber denies some things that this article and historical sources have stated. This excerpt, for example, includes his explanation that he was not fired from the university and conventional history is wrong about the working circles. His writing is hard to follow, and an interesting window into how his mind works. You are encouraged to read it and decide for yourself. Huber’s official website for SPK is spkphf.de. He is a complex character who’s activities cannot be fully summarized in this short article.