Traditions of Protest

Germany – West German Student Movement, 1966-69

In this course, Dr Hanno Balz (University of Cambridge) explores the West German student movement between 1966-69. In the first module, we think about the growth of protest movements in Germany in the 1960s, especially following the formation in 1966 of the 'grand coalition' between the SPD and CDU. In the second module, we think about the impact of Germany's Nazi past on the German stuent movement, before turning in the third module to consider the international context – the Cuban Revolution (1953-59), the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), the Vietnam War (1955-75), and so on. In the fourth module, we trace the escalation and radicalisation of the student movement through two shootings – that of Benno Ohnesorg in June 1967 and that of Rudi Dutschke in April 1968 – before turning in the fifth and final module to consider the growth of the women's liberation movement out of the German student movement, and the fragmentation of the movement from the late 1960s onwards

Traditions of Protest

In this module, we think about the growth of protest movements in Germany in the 1960s, focusing in particular on: (i) the transformation of the German economy and society in the decades following the Second World War; (ii) increasing importance of white-collar work and the (consequent) expansion of student numbers at German universities; (iii) the reasons that left-wing politics was underrepresented in West Germany at this time; (iv) the emergence of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS) as an independent political organisation in the early 1960s; (v) the shifting political sympathies of German students in this period; (vi) the creation of the first 'grand coalition' in Germany in 1966, the lack of a strong parliamentary opposition, and the emergence of the Außerparlamentarische Opposition (APO); and (vii) the figure of Rudi Dutschke and the idea of the 'long march through the institutions'.