HI136 The History of Germany Lecture 16 1968

Transcript:HI136 The History of Germany Lecture 16 1968:
HI136 The History of Germany Lecture 16 1968 Background of Social Change The protests of 1968 reflected an ongoing process of social change, not just in Germany but in the whole of the western world. Increased prosperity and living standards. Demographic change: “Baby Boom” generation comes of age. Expansion of Higher Education to serve the needs of a changing economy. Increased secularisation in the West after the war. Changing moral and social attitudes: More liberal attitudes towards sex and sexuality Changing attitudes towards marriage and the family Anti-Authoritarianism By the 1960s increasing resistance to the authoritarian social conservatism of the Adenauer era. Intellectual opposition – resisted ‘petit-bourgeois’ values of the Adenauer era. Marxism & ‘Critical Theory’ – Frankfurt School argued that society is not based on eternal laws, but is made by people and can be altered by them. The theorists is not merely an observer, but also a social actor. Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) Anti-Authoritarianism ‘Ohne Mich’ movement opposed military service & German military contribution to NATO. 1958: atomic artillery to be stationed in Federal Republic led to first small-scale public demonstrations. Material prosperity brought its own problems: growth in prosperity & youth culture, but also resistance to consumerism. Herbert Marcuse warned of late-industrial capitalism creating ‘one-dimensional man’, alienated by consumerism & ‘latent authoritarianism’ of liberal state. Fight Atomic ‘Death March’, 1958 Why 1968? Student unrest part of an international trend in the 1960s. Growing opposition to materialism & values of parents generation, US involvement in the Vietnam War & ongoing Cold War all factors. But also specifically German grievances: Expansion of Higher Education leads to overcrowding and calls for University reform. Increased frustration with older generations’ failure to face up to Nazi past. CDU/SPD ‘Grand Coalition’ (1965-69) leads to formation of Ausserparlamentarische Opposition (APO) in Dec. 1966 to a give a voice to libertarian left. Student Politics Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund (German Socialist Students Union, SDS) began as student section of the SPD in 1946, but increasingly became more radical. Growing influence of Situationism, which preached ‘enlightenment through action’. Calls for greater student democracy in running universities (‘Under the gowns the musty smell of a thousand years’). Boycotting of ‘Nazified’ teaching personnel. The Free University of Berlin a radical hotspot. Feb. 1966: SDS holds first large-scale anti-war demonstration. June 1966: First ‘teach-ins’ and ‘sit-ins’ in protest at university authorities ban on holding political discussions in university buildings. Left: SDS poster: