The Professor Protests

Tourists sightseeing among the shops and cafes on West Berlin's festive Kurfurstendamm were startled last week at the spectacle of a distinguished, middle-aged man with yellow paint splattered over his head and onto the shoulders of his blue blazer. He was walking back and forth carrying a large hand-lettered sign that read: TU [Technical University] PROFESSOR-UNPOPULAR WITH THE COMMUNISTS

The fate of Folkmar Koenigs, 57, professor of economic law, was new proof of the disruptive power of radical university students in West Berlin (TIME, July 3, 1972). To combat the radicals' threats and demonstrations, Koenigs joined in forming a faculty group called the Emergency Association for a Free University, known as NOFU. Last spring the Communist Students League staged a public "trial" of the NOFU professors and condemned them as Denunzianten, the term that used to be applied to Gestapo informers. Koenigs went to court and obtained a judicial order banning the use of the epithet on student posters and leaflets.

Last week, when Koenigs went to have lunch in a student cafeteria, he saw a 5-ft. by 12-ft. banner in the entrance demanding the expulsion of "NOFU denouncers." He asked the cafeteria manager to have the banner taken down. The manager refused, so Koenigs took out his penknife and cut out the offending words.

As he was returning to the university, he heard footsteps behind him, then felt the slush of paint dripping down his face. "What is important," said Koenigs, "is not that a fellow had a bucket of paint dumped on his head but that the university is out of bounds to the authority of this democratic state. The radicals are exercising all power, and it is dangerous to all of us when they can trample on anyone they want and nothing happens."

So Professor Koenigs offered himself as a public warning. As he marched to and fro, several older people came up to congratulate him for his demonstration. But a crowd of students began gathering too, threatening to beat up the older people unless they kept quiet and went away. Koenigs needed the warnings, gave up his parade and went home and cleaned up.

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