Introduction

In 1993, Matthias Kopp's film essay “Erfolgreich gescheitert,” broadcast on Deutsche Welle-TV, cemented the dual view of the impact of the German student movement on the Federal Republic of Germany. The movement was seen to have succeeded because — in spite of opposition to American capitalism and global power politics — it secured West Germany's orientation toward the West. Thus it promoted sexual liberation, a tolerant multicultural society, equality, a sense of hope, and thriving subcultures. The student movement was seen to have failed because it was remarkably ineffective regarding any change in the political system, the economy, or the workplace. Moreover, it was, and still is, associated with allegedly disastrous antiauthoritarian education practices, terrorism, and drug abuse.

The term “successful failure” was introduced during the first of the increasingly ritualistic anniversary debates on the movement in 1988, but the matter-of-fact tone in which this paradoxical verdict was delivered by Kopp in 1993 suggested that the formula, which allowed former adversaries to save face, had now become widely accepted. Each side could claim victory: the 68ers for conquering the imagination, the conservatives for conquering reality.

In 1998, this uneasy co-existence was shattered by a plethora of new books, essays and editorials. The battle for cultural hegemony and the exclusive right to interpret the past in the Federal Republic erupted again in full force, with the added spice that whilst for the first time historians attempted to argue that 1968 had indeed become history, a new government had been elected whose ministers had their roots in the radical politics of that period.