Terrorist group founded in 1969 by Dr. Wolgan Huber at the Psychiatric Neurological clinic in Heidelberg, Germany, asserting that "capitalist performance was sick within itself and was thus producing mentally sick people which could only be changed by violent revolution." Organized and took part in various acts of terrorism from December of 1969 to June of 1971, when Dr. Huber was arrested.
Members of the group continued acts of terrorism for years afterwards, working with the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader Meinhof Gang and the anarchist "Movement June Second". Some of the group's mantras included: "Therapy through violence", "Bomb for mental health" and "Kill for inner peace."
Eventually carried out their most infamous 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 were
originally SPK members now working with the RAF; they took twelve hostages and sent their demands to Bonn. When
police refused to leave, a West German military attaché was shot and thrown off a balcony on the third floor. Then explosives which the group had rigged up exploded, setting off live ammunition. The explosives blew up the top floor of the embassy.
Also (not co-incidentally) SPK were an early industrial-experimental music outfit from Sydney, Australia c.1978. As the two founding members apparently met in a psychiatric hospital and had a shared interest in medical treatment, they took the initialized name from the Socialistisches Patienten Kollektiv. Influences included bands such as Neu! and Can, in addition to more traditional composers like John Cage. Often compared with the British industrial bands such as Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle. Their full-length releases before disbanding in the late 1980s include Information
Overload Unit, Internal Bleeding, Germanic and Slogun.