The West German student movement or sometimes called the 1968 movement in West Germany was a social movement that consisted of mass
student protests in
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
in 1968; participants in the movement would later come to be known as 68ers. The movement was characterized by the protesting students' rejection of traditionalism and of German political authority which included many
former Nazi officials. Student unrest had started in 1967 when student
Benno Ohnesorg was shot by a policeman during a protest against the visit of
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. The movement is considered to have formally started after the attempted assassination of student activist leader
Rudi Dutschke
Alfred Willi Rudolf "Rudi" Dutschke (; 7 March 1940 – 24 December 1979) was a German sociologist and political activist who, until severely injured by an assassin in 1968, was a leading charismatic figure within the West German Socialist Stu ...
, which sparked various protests across West Germany and gave rise to the
public opposition Public opposition describes a form of social activity that deliberately opposes establishment opinion in the public sphere in order to raise public awareness of topics, problems or social groups that appear to be neglected or oppressed. As with the ...
. The movement would create lasting changes in German culture.
Background
Political atmosphere
The
''Spiegel'' affair of 1962, in which journalists were arrested and detained for reporting on the strength of the West German military, worried some in West Germany that there was a return of authoritarian government. In the fallout of the affair, the suddenly-unpopular Christian Democratic Union formed a political coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), known as the
grand coalition.
Critics were disappointed with the parliament's appointment of
Kurt Georg Kiesinger as chancellor of West Germany, as he had participated in the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
during the Nazi regime.
New political movements
Social movements grew as younger people became disillusioned with the political establishment, worrying it was reminiscent of Germany's Nazi past. West Berlin became a center for these movements since many left leaning people would take residence in West Berlin to avoid the military draft that was in effect in the rest of West Germany.
These social movements were also becoming popular among the youth of West Germany. The movements included the opposition to the United States' involvement in the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
, opposition to
consumer culture,
liberation for the third world, and criticisms of
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...
moral values. Some were embracing communal lifestyles and
sexual liberation
The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the ...
.
All these various social movements and the non-parliamentary organizations that hoped to spearhead them, grouped together as the
Außerparlamentarische Opposition
The Außerparlamentarische Opposition (German for '' extra-parliamentary opposition'', commonly known as the APO), was a political protest movement in West Germany during the latter half of the 1960s and early 1970s, forming a central part of the ...
.
The more
leftist wing of the SDP in the
Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund
The Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund — the Socialist German Students' Union or Socialist German Students' League — was founded in 1946 in Hamburg, Germany, as the collegiate branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the ...
(Socialist German Students Union - SDS) split from the party line and joined the
Außerparlamentarische Opposition
The Außerparlamentarische Opposition (German for '' extra-parliamentary opposition'', commonly known as the APO), was a political protest movement in West Germany during the latter half of the 1960s and early 1970s, forming a central part of the ...
.
In 1965,
Rudi Dutschke
Alfred Willi Rudolf "Rudi" Dutschke (; 7 March 1940 – 24 December 1979) was a German sociologist and political activist who, until severely injured by an assassin in 1968, was a leading charismatic figure within the West German Socialist Stu ...
was elected to the political council of the West Berlin SDS.
With Michael Vester, SDS vice-president and international secretary, Dutschke imported ideas from the American SDS (
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
) and
New Left, such as
direct action and
civil disobedience. Drawing inspiration from
Herbert Marcuse, Dutschke sought to build a coalition of marginalized identity groups to be a vanguard for
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...
in Europe. Finding that Germany had no population group with revolutionary potential comparable to America's
Black Power movement, Dutschke sought to mold Germany's student movements into seeing themselves as an oppressed
minority. His plan for accomplishing this was to provoke violent confrontations with government authorities. He wrote in 1965, "Authorized demonstrations must be guided into illegality. Confrontation with state power is essential and must be sought out."
Protests 1966-1968
The West German parliament had proposed to expand government powers in the
Emergency Laws
An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...
, as well as to reform universities. On 22 June 1966, 3,000 students from the
Free University of Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
staged a sit-in to demand involvement in the reform process of universities, included democratic management of colleges.
Echoing Marcuse, Rudi Dutschke considered the politically complacent working classes to be a lost cause when it came to revolutionary agitation. Instead, he hoped to build a coalition between Western
intelligentsia and
third world
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
communist revolutionaries. To that end, Dutschke organized the event "Vietnam – Analysis of an Example" (German: ''Vietnam - Analyse eines Exempels'') at the
University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research
The Institute for Social Research (german: Institut für Sozialforschung, IfS) is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory. Currently a part ...
with Marcuse as the headline speaker. SDS president Walmot Falkenburg privately requested that Marcuse emphasize solidarity with the Vietnamese on the basis of traditional Marxist concerns with labor and material interests, which would have been a rebuke of Dutschke and his associates in the West Berlin SDS chapter. Unsurprisingly, Marcuse did the opposite in a speech emphasizing "solidarity of sentiment". The event was followed by street demonstrations which led to the arrests of Dutschke, his wife, and 84 others.
In June 1967, during a state visit by the Shah of Iran
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the SDS organized a protest of his visit, criticizing him as a brutal
dictator
A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in tim ...
that should not have been welcome in West Germany. The protest was repressed by police and Iranian agents who beat protesters and resulted in
the fatal shooting of Benno Ohnesorg. The police officer involved,
, was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Protests against
police brutality erupted across the country and led the mayor of Berlin and the police chief to resign. In the fall of 1967 students established "Critical Universities"; students occupied classrooms and gave critiques of university structure as well as educating other students in New Left thought.
It was revealed in 2009 that Kurras had been a
Stasi informant. Prosecutors revisiting the evidence concluded Ohnesorg had been murdered as a premeditated act, but not enough evidence survived to evaluate whether Kurras was acting under official orders.
On the occasion of Ohnesorg's
funeral, a conference was held which is most remembered for a debate between Rudi Dutschke and
Jürgen Habermas. Dutschke argued that the time was ripe for students to engage in direct action. Habermas, although generally sympathetic to the student movements, criticized Dutschke's plan as action for its own sake without regard for consequences. When Dutschke would not clarify his stance on employing violence, Habermas accused him of ''Linksfaschismus'' ("Left fascism").
Later, during the
German Autumn
The German Autumn (german: Deutscher Herbst) was a series of events in Germany in 1977, mostly late in the year, associated with the kidnapping and murder of industrialist, businessman, and former SS member Hanns Martin Schleyer, president of t ...
of 1977, Habermas said the charge of
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
had been an overreaction.
[
At a conference in September 1967, Dutschke and Hans-Jürgen Krahl called for the creation of "action centers" at universities to organize "urban ]guerrillas
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tacti ...
".[ The International Vietnam Congress (German: ''Internationaler Vietnamkongress'') was an event that took place in ]West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
on 17 and 18 February 1968 to oppose the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
. It was organized by Rudi Dutschke and Karl Dietrich Wolff, with an estimated 3,000-4,000 people attending the conference and a total of 12,000-15,000 people involved in the following demonstration.[Philipp Gassert: ''Antiamerikanismus und Antiimperialismus um 1968:Proteste gegen die US-Außenpolitik''. In: Gerrit Dworok und Christoph Weißmann (Hrsg.): ''1968 und die 68er. Ereignisse, Wirkungen und Kontroversen in der Bundesrepublik''. Böhlau, Wien/Köln/Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21016-8, S. 153–170, hier S. 166 (retrieved via ]De Gruyter
Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature.
History
The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...
Online). At the congress, Dutschke and his Chilean friend Gaston Salvatore
Gaston Salvatore (29 September 1941 – 11 December 2015) was a Chilean writer living in Germany and writing in the German language.
Salvatore was born in Valparaíso. Among other things, he is known for his collaborations with Hans Werner Henze, ...
presented their translation of 's letter to the Tricontinental Conference
The Tricontinental Conference was a gathering of countries that focused on anti-colonial and anti-imperial issues during the Cold War era, specifically those related to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The conference was held from 3rd to 16 Jan ...
, which called for bloody guerrilla warfare against the United States. Holger Meins
Holger Klaus Meins (26 October 1941 – 9 November 1974) was a German cinematography student who joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in the early 1970s and died on hunger strike in prison.
As a revolutionary
Meins became an important member of t ...
presented an instructional film on making Molotov cocktail
A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with fla ...
s.[
]
Attempted assassination of Rudi Dutschke
On April 11, 1968, Rudi Dutschke was shot by the far-right Josef Bachmann
Josef Erwin Bachmann (12 October 1944 – 24 February 1970) became widely known in Germany for his assassination attempt on the Marxist activist Rudi Dutschke, firing three bullets at him, on 11 April 1968. Bachmann was convicted of the attack ...
. Dutschke was injured but survived the shooting. The attempted assassination of Dutschke would be later regarded as the formal beginning of the West German student movement. Dutschke had previously been labeled an "enemy of the people
The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...
" in the Axel Springer
Axel Cäsar Springer (2 May 1912 – 22 September 1985) was a German publisher and founder of what is now Axel Springer SE, the largest media publishing firm in Europe. By the early 1960s his print titles dominated the West German daily press ma ...
-owned tabloid newspaper ''Bild-Zeitung
''Bild'' (or ''Bild-Zeitung'', ; ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper '' Bild am Sonntag'' ("''Bild on Sunday''") is published instead, which ...
''. Student activists believed the shooting was inspired by critics of the student movement such as Springer's tabloids. Demonstrations and clashes later occurred outside Springer offices in reaction to the shooting. In the aftermath of the shooting, student leaders became more willing to embrace violent tactics in their movements. With Dutschke incapacitated, many in the SDS looked to Hans-Jürgen Krahl for leadership. Krahl however favored theory to direct action.
Emergency Acts protests
In May the West German government considered using the Emergency Acts in response, allowing the Cabinet to suspend parliamentary
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
rule and enact laws in times of crisis. On May 11 protesters gathered in the West German capital Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
to demand that the laws not be used. The government agreed with protesting labor unions to only use limited concessions, passing the laws on May 30. This agreement dealt a blow to the growing student movement and signaled its demise. The SDS formally dissolved on March 21, 1970.[
File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.0011 (16910985309).jpg, Protest against the Vietnam War
File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.0009 (16889769787).jpg, Conference to protest the Vietnam War
File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.4261 (16898781670).jpg, Protest march in West Berlin
File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.4267 (16898782560).jpg, Demonstrators in West Berlin
File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.4252 (16466146463).jpg, Vandalized ''Bild-Zeitung'' delivery cars
File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.4264 (16900118449).jpg, Protesters with signs
]
Aftermath
Terrorism
In May, 1967, a fire at a department store in Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
killed hundreds of people. Kommune 1
Kommune 1 or K1 was a politically motivated commune in Germany. It was created on 12 January 1967, in West Berlin and finally dissolved in November 1969. Kommune 1 developed from the extraparliamentary opposition of the German student movement o ...
issued a leaflet celebrating the fire and calling for more such occurrences to bring parity between Western countries and Vietnam. The leaflet was widely condemened and caused a split between Kommune 1 and the SDS. On April 2, 1968, members of the Außerparlamentarische Opposition, Andreas Baader
Berndt Andreas Baader (6 May 1943 – 18 October 1977) was one of the first leaders of the West German left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction (RAF), also commonly known as ''the Baader-Meinhof Group''.
Life
Andreas Baader was born i ...
and Gudrun Ensslin
Gudrun Ensslin (; 15 August 1940 – 18 October 1977) was a German far-left terrorist and founder of the West German far-left militant group Red Army Faction (, or RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang).
After becoming involved with co-foun ...
committed arson at a department store in Frankfurt to protest the Vietnam war. Although convicted, they were released while pursuing an appeal and went underground when it was denied. They were joined by Ulrike Meinhof
Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a German left-wing journalist and founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, commonly referred to in the press as the "Baader-Meinhof gang". She is the reputed author ...
in forming the Red Army Faction
The Red Army Faction (RAF, ; , ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang (, , active 1970–1998), was a West German far-left Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group founded in 1970.
The ...
, which continued to engage in arson and other terrorist acts for more than a decade. Dutschke, Enzenberger, and Nirumand wrote an apologia for terrorism based on Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish ...
's ''Critique of Violence'' and Herbert Marcuse's ''Repressive Tolerance
''A Critique of Pure Tolerance'' is a 1965 book by the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, the sociologist Barrington Moore Jr., and the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, in which the authors discuss the political role of tolerance.
Summary
The book incl ...
''.[
]
Political consciousness
Despite the failure of the student movement a change in political consciousness lasted throughout the country. Criticisms of West German officials' ties to the old Nazi Party brought the concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung
''Vergangenheitsbewältigung'' (, "struggle of overcoming the past" or "work of coping with the past") is a German compound noun describing processes that since the later 20th century have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, s ...
(coming to terms with the past) to the forefront of political discussion. Other various left-wing causes also gained popularity and helped solidify a protest
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...
culture in Germany.
Those who were involved in the protests of 1968 in West Germany would come to be known as the "1968 generation". Some would develop unique political paths, with some finding roles in government, while others embraced terrorist activities of the Außerparlamentarische Opposition.
See also
* Anarchism
*Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit (; ; born 4 April 1945) is a French-German politician of Jewish descent. He was a student leader during the unrest of May 1968 in France and was also known during that time as ''Dany le Rouge'' (French for "Danny the Red" ...
* Elmar Altvater
*Ernest Mandel
Ernest Ezra Mandel (; also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter (5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He f ...
*Joschka Fischer
Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born 12 April 1948) is a German retired politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens. He served as the foreign minister and as the vice-chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Fi ...
* Marxist Group (Germany)
* Peter-Ernst Eiffe
*Peter Schneider (writer)
Peter Schneider (born 21 April 1940 in Lübeck) is a German writer.
Life
Schneider is the son of a conductor and composer. He spent his early childhood in Königsberg and Saxony; from 1945 to 1950 he lived in Grainau near Garmisch-Partenkirc ...
* Spaßguerilla
References
Sources
* Peter Dohms, Johann Paul. Die Studentenbewegung von 1968 in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Siegburg: Rheinlandia, 2008
* Martin Klimke, Joachim Scharloth (eds.). 2007. ''1968. Ein Handbuch zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Studentenbewegung.'' Stuttgart: Metzler.
* Tony Judt. 2005. ''Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945.'' New York: Penguin Group
External links
Sources on 1968 in West Germany
fro
1968 in Europe – Online Teaching and Research Guide.
by Goethe-Institut (Archive.org's WayBack Machine)
{{DEFAULTSORT:German Student Movement
Left-wing politics
Protests in Germany
New Left
Student protests in Germany
Far-left politics in Germany
Außerparlamentarische Opposition
Rebellions in Germany
1968 protests