| West German student movement | |
|---|---|
| Part of theprotests of 1968 | |
.jpg) Protest march in 1968 West Germany | |
| Date | 1968 |
| Location | |
| Caused by |
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| Resulted in | Quelling of protests |
TheWest German student movement (German:Westdeutsche Studentenbewegung), sometimes called the1968 movement in West Germany (German:1968 Bewegung in Westdeutschland), was aleft-wing social movement that consisted of massstudent protests inWest Germany in 1968. Participants in the movement later came to be known as68ers. The movement was characterized by the protesting students' rejection of traditionalism and of German political authority which included manyformer Nazi officials. Student unrest had started in 1967 when studentBenno Ohnesorg was fatally shot by a policeman during a protest against the visit ofMohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah ofIran. The movement is considered to have formally started after the attempted assassination of student activist leaderRudi Dutschke, which sparked various protests across West Germany and gave rise topublic opposition. The movement created lasting changes in German culture.[1]
TheSpiegel 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 (SPD), known as thegrand coalition.[2]
Critics were disappointed with the parliament's appointment ofKurt Georg Kiesinger as chancellor of West Germany, as he had participated in theNazi Party during the Nazi regime.[3]
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.[2]
These social movements were also becoming popular among the youth of West Germany. The movements included the opposition to the United States' involvement in theVietnam War, opposition toconsumer culture,liberation for the third world, and criticisms ofmiddle class moral values. Some were embracing communal lifestyles andsexual liberation.[4] All these various social movements and the non-parliamentary organizations that hoped to spearhead them, grouped together as theAußerparlamentarische Opposition.[5] The moreleftist wing of the SDP in theSozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS; Socialist German Students' Union) split from the party line and joined the Außerparlamentarische Opposition.
In 1965,Rudi Dutschke was elected to the political council of the West Berlin SDS.[6] With Michael Vester, SDS vice-president and international secretary, Dutschke imported ideas from the American SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) andNew Left, such asdirect action andcivil disobedience.[7] Drawing inspiration fromHerbert Marcuse, Dutschke sought to build a coalition of marginalized identity groups to be a vanguard forsocialism in Europe. Finding that Germany had no population group with revolutionary potential comparable to America'sBlack power movement, Dutschke sought to mold Germany's student movements into seeing themselves as an oppressedminority. 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."[8]
The West German parliament had proposed to expand government powers in theEmergency Laws, as well as to reform universities. On 22 June 1966, 3,000 students from theFree University of Berlin staged a sit-in to demand involvement in the reform process of universities, included democratic management of colleges.[3][9]
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 Westernintelligentsia andthird world communist revolutionaries. To that end, Dutschke organized the event "Vietnam – Analysis of an Example" (German:Vietnam – Analyse eines Exempels) at theUniversity of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research 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".[10] The event was followed by street demonstrations which led to the arrests of Dutschke, his wife, and 84 others.[11]
In June 1967, during a state visit by the Shah of IranMohammad Reza Pahlavi, the SDS organized a protest of his visit, criticizing him as a brutaldictator that should not have been welcome in West Germany. The protest was repressed by police and Iranian agents who beat protesters and resulted inthe fatal shooting of Benno Ohnesorg. The police officer involved,Karl-Heinz Kurras, was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Protests againstpolice 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.[3][1] It was revealed in 2009 that Kurras had been aStasi 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.[12]
On the occasion of Ohnesorg'sfuneral, a conference was held which is most remembered for a debate between Rudi Dutschke andJürgen 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 ofLinksfaschismus ("Left fascism").[13][14][15] Later, during theGerman Autumn of 1977, Habermas said the charge offascism had been an overreaction.[14]
At a conference in September 1967, Dutschke andHans-Jürgen Krahl called for the creation of "action centers" at universities to organize "urbanguerrillas".[13] TheInternational Vietnam Congress (German:Internationaler Vietnamkongress) was an event that took place inWest Berlin on 17 and 18 February 1968 to oppose theVietnam War. 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.[16] At the congress, Dutschke and his Chilean friendGaston Salvatore presented their translation ofChe Guevara's letter to theTricontinental Conference, which called for bloody guerrilla warfare against the United States.Holger Meins presented an instructional film on makingMolotov cocktails.[13]
On 11 April 1968, Rudi Dutschke was shot by thefar-rightJosef Bachmann. 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.[1] Dutschke had previously been labeled an "enemy of the people" in theAxel Springer–owned tabloid newspaperBild-Zeitung. Student activists believed the shooting was inspired by critics of the student movement such as Springer'stabloids. Demonstrations and clashes later occurred outside Springer offices in reaction to the shooting.[2] In the aftermath of the shooting, student leaders became more willing to embrace violent tactics in their movements.[5] With Dutschke incapacitated, many in the SDS looked to Hans-Jürgen Krahl for leadership. Krahl however favored theory to direct action.[17]
In May the West German government considered using the Emergency Acts in response, allowing the Cabinet to suspendparliamentary rule and enact laws in times of crisis. On May 11 protesters gathered in the West German capitalBonn 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.[3] The SDS formally dissolved on March 21, 1970.[17]
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On 22 May 1967,a fire at theL'Innovation department store inBrussels killed hundreds of people.Kommune 1 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 2 April 1968, members of theAußerparlamentarische Opposition,Andreas Baader andGudrun Ensslin committedarson 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 byUlrike Meinhof in forming theRed Army Faction, which continued to engage in arson and other terrorist acts for more than a decade. Dutschke,Enzensberger, andNirumand wrote an apologia for terrorism based onWalter Benjamin'sCritique of Violence and Herbert Marcuse'sRepressive Tolerance.[14]
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 ofVergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) to the forefront of political discussion. Other various left-wing causes also gained popularity and helped solidify aprotest culture in Germany.[18]
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 theAußerparlamentarische Opposition.[4]
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