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Mercer, Ben
2019.
Student Revolt in 1968.
Article contents
Other ’68ers in West Berlin: Christian Democratic Students and the Cold War City
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 March 2017
Abstract
Many of the most iconic moments of Germany's “1968” took place in the walled confines of West Berlin, the emblematic Cold War city often referred to as the “capital of the revolt.” Most accounts portray the events in West Berlin as having been characterized by confrontations between the leftist student movement, on the one hand, and a conservative press and generally hostile, older, urban population, on the other. This article rethinks and refines existing historiographical narratives of the 1968 student movement in West Berlin, as well as of West Berlin's place in the student movement. It examines the actions and experiences of student activists in West Berlin, who rarely feature in the familiar narrative—namely, Christian Democratic activists, particularly those from the Association of Christian Democratic Students (RCDS). Using oral history interviews, memoirs, and a wide array of archival sources from German and US archives, the article sheds light on the background of some of the most important conservative players and discusses the manifold ways in which they engaged with the goals of the revolutionary left in the city. The analysis pays special attention to the effects that German division and life in West Berlin had on Christian Democratic activists, to the sources of their anti-Communism, and to their views about the US-led war in Vietnam, a major Cold War conflict that carried special resonance in the divided city. The article concludes that there were important (yet shifting and often porous) dividing lines in West Berlin's “1968” other than those that separated politicized students from an older and more conservative city leadership and population, a conclusion that calls for a modification of the familiar storyline that simply pits Rudi Dutschke and others on the left against the city's “establishment.” The article suggests that this has repercussions for interpretations of the student movement that center on generation. It argues, in short, that Christian Democratic students—activists who were, in effect, other ’68ers—helped to shape and were, in turn, shaped by the events that took place in West Berlin in 1968.
Viele der zentralen Ereignisse der westdeutschen 68er-Bewegung spielten sich in West Berlin ab, einer Stadt, die wie kaum eine andere durch den Kalten Krieg geprägt wurde und die oft als “Hauptstadt der Revolte” bezeichnet wird. Die meisten Studien über “1968” in West-Berlin sehen die zentrale Konfliktlinie dieser Zeit zwischen der linken Studentenbewegung und einer älteren, konservativeren und anti-kommunistisch geprägten Stadtbevölkerung verlaufen, die den politisierten Studenten mehrheitlich feindlich gegenüberstand. Dieser Aufsatz hinterfragt dieses gängige historiographische Narrativ, indem er einerseits bisher wenig bekannte Aspekte der studentischen Mobilisierung in West Berlin um 1968 analysiert und andererseits den Ort West Berlins in der Geschichte der Studentenbewegung neu auslotet. Im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung stehen die Erfahrungen und Handlungen einer Gruppe studentischer Aktivisten, die in der Historiographie bislang kaum belichtet worden ist—Aktivisten aus dem West-Berliner Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten (RCDS). Basierend auf Oral History Interviews, autobiografischen Texten und einer Vielzahl zeitgenössischer Quellen aus deutschen und amerikanischen Archiven stellt der Aufsatz einige der Protagonisten dieser studentischen Hochschulgruppe vor und diskutiert ihr Verhältnis zur revolutionären linken Bewegung. Die Auswirkungen, die der Krieg in Vietnam, die deutsche Teilung, sowie die Existenz der Berliner Mauer auf die handelnden Akteure hatten, stehen im Fokus der Analyse. Es wird argumentiert, dass “1968” nicht nur eine bedeutende Trennlinie zwischen der politisierten Studentenschaft und der Berliner Bevölkerung verlief, sondern dass es ebenfalls signifikante politische Auseinandersetzungen innerhalb der Studentenschaft gab, die bisher nicht eingehend untersucht worden sind. Der Artikel zeigt auf, dass die Beteiligung christdemokratischer Akteure an den Schlüsselereignissen der Studentenbewegung darüber hinaus etablierte generationelle Deutungen von “1968” in Frage stellt. Christdemokratische Aktivisten werden hier als “andere ‘68er” interpretiert, die von dieser Zeit ebenso geprägt wurden-und sie wiederum prägten—wie ihre linken Kommilitonen.
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References
1 Throughout this article, “1968” is used as symbolic shorthand to denote a broader set of events associated with the protests of the student movement and the general social and cultural upheaval of the period around that pivotal year.
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30 Hermann Schreiber, “Wer nicht spurt, der wandert,” Der Spiegel, Nov. 17, 1969.
31 ACDP, I-700-007-1, Jürgen Wohlrabe, “Aufruf der Berliner Jugend an die Weltöffentlichkeit anlässlich des Protestmarsches der Berliner Jugend gegen Stacheldraht und Schandmauer am 20. November 1961.”
32 When Wohlrabe served as a provocative junior Bundestag delegate in the early 1970s, Herbert Wehner, the chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, famously referred to him as a “nasty crow” (Übelkrähe)—a label Wohlrabe would wear as a badge of honor; see Stenographische Berichte des Deutschen Bundestages, 72–94. Sitzung, 1970/71, 3980.
33 Schreiber, “Wer nicht spurt.”
34 Schreiber, “Wer nicht spurt”; Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (HIS), RUD, 240, 11, ‘Was geschah? Was waren die Folgen? Der Tod Benno Ohnesorgs—6 Monate danach’, Dec. 6, 1967; ACDP, 4-64-584, Wohlrabe's condolence letter to Gretchen Dutschke-Klotz, April 11, 1968.
35 Troche, “Berlin wird am Mekong verteidigt,” 433.
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38 Geppert, Dominik, “‘Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land’: Berlin and the Symbolism of the Cold War,” The Postwar Challenge: Cultural, Social, and Political Change in Western Europe, 1945–58, ed. Geppert, Dominik (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 339–63Google Scholar.
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47 Ibid.
48 On the complex interplay between the student movement and memories of the Nazi past, see Gassert, Philipp and Steinweis, Alan E., eds., Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955–1975 (New York: Berghahn, 2006)Google Scholar.
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53 Interview with Diepgen.
54 Interview with Diepgen.
55 Peter Radunski, in discussion with the author, Berlin, Oct. 26, 2009.
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59 Radunski, Aus der politischen Kulisse, 26–27.
60 Ibid., 37.
61 Ibid., 38.
62 Ibid., 47–49.
63 Interview with Radunski.
64 ACDP, 4-6-7-10, ‘Rechenschaftsbericht des Bundesvorsitzenden Gert Hammer’ [1966]; Davis, “Silent Minority?”
65 Interview with Radunski. After the construction of the Wall, the RCDS also decided to hold its annual delegate convention in West Berlin to demonstrate its commitment to the city. See Radunski, Aus der politischen Kulisse, 45.
66 Whereas 30 percent of its students had lived on the eastern side of inner-German border until 1961, the number of students originally from East Germany had sunk to 5 percent by 1965. See Tent, The Free University, 277, 301.
67 Horst Teltschik, in discussion with the author, Munich, June 3, 2013.
68 Others shared these observations. Interview with Härdtl.
69 See Wehrs, Protest der Professoren, 114–17, 130–31, 468–72.
70 Jürgen Bernd Runge Papers (in private hands), file “Politischer Beirat,” Horst Teltschik, “Rudi Dutschke: Zusammenfassung seiner politischen Theorien” (Sept. 1967); ACDP, 4-6-42-2, Horst Teltschik, “Die Argumentation der Außerparlamentarischen Opposition (APO) zur Entwicklung in der CSSR,” Rednerdienst no. 4 (Nov. 1968).
71 Center-right student papers often featured reports that accused the West German left of ignorance about the concerns of Eastern dissidents; see, e.g., HIS, A-ZC-96, “Verständigungsschwierigkeiten,” Colloquium 4 (1967); Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), German Subject Collection (GSC), box 87, “Prag liegt näher,” Colloqium 4 (1968), 2–3; Actio: Eine deutsche Studentenzeitschrift 4, no. 2/3 (1968).
72 Interview with Teltschik. After 1989, Teltschik was intimately involved in the negotiations of the Two-Plus-Four-Treaty on German unification.
73 On the childhoods and family backgrounds of SDS activists in this period, see Andrea Wienhaus, Bildungswege zu “1968”: Eine Kollektivbiographie des Sozialistischen Deutschen Studentenbundes (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2014), 127–31.
74 On family histories and autobiographical narratives of left-wing activism in the 1960s, see Piotr Oseka, Polymeris Voglis, and Anna von der Goltz, “Families,” in Gildea, Mark, and Warring, Europe's 1968, 46–71.
75 Interview with Teltschik; HIA, BFW, box 84, “RCDS-SDS,” in Akut: Nachrichtenblatt der Bonner Studentenschaft no. 40 (May/June 1968); ACDP, 4-6-8, “Nachtrag zu den Beschlüssen der 17. ord. Delegiertenversammlung vom 16.-20. März 1967 in Heidelberg”; c.f. von der Goltz, “A Vocal Minority.”
76 On the CDU/CSU's response to Ostpolitik, which only very slowly evolved from a fierce antagonism to any accommodation with Communist regimes in 1969 to a growing acceptance of the necessity for rapprochement in the 1980s, see Clay Clemens, Reluctant Realists: The CDU/CSU and West German Ostpolitik (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989).
77 ACDP, 4-6-1-2, Wulf Schönbohm, “Innerdeutsche Politik im Wandel”; Runge Papers, file “Politischer Beirat,” Martin Kempe, “Protokoll des Außenpolitischen Arbeitskreises des Bundesverbandes des RCDS, 19.-21. Januar 1968”; Karsten Plog, “Revolution in kleinen Dosen. Der Linksruck an den Universitäten schreckt auch den RCDS auf,” Die Welt, April 3, 1968; “Streit zwischen CDU und RCDS: Immer Ärger mit den Jungen,” Stuttgarter Zeitung, July 5, 1968; Annamarie Doherr, “Unzumutbar für die Partei: Berliner RCDS will CDU-Führung zu öffentlicher Diskussion zwingen,” Frankfurter Rundschau, May 9, 1968.
78 Bösch, Die Adenauer-CDU, 408–18.
79 See Krabbe, Parteijugend in Deutschland, 156–77.
80 “RCDS: Aufstand im Haus,” Der Spiegel, May 13, 1968.
81 Interview with Schönbohm; see also Schönbohm, Wulf, “Die 68er: politische Verirrungen und gesellschaftliche Veränderungen,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte nos. 14–15 (2008): 16–21 Google Scholar.
82 Schönbohm was one of the authors of the RCDS study of the student movement mentioned earlier; see Schönbohm, Radunski, Runge, Die herausgeforderte Demokratie. He also authored a manual on refuting the APO's arguments: Schönbohm, Wulf, Die Thesen der APO: Argumente gegen die radikale Linke (Mainz: v. Hase & Koehler, 1969)Google Scholar.
83 Like many activists on the left, Christian Democratic students still dressed conservatively in the late 1960s. Their hair grew noticeably longer in the 1970s, when they also sported more facial hair; see von der Goltz, “Von alten Kämpfern.”
84 Interview with Härdtl.
85 He made these comments at a meeting of the party's federal board on May 10, 1968. See Kiesinger: “Wir leben in einer veränderten Welt” (1965–1969). Die Protokolle des CDU-Bundesvorstandes, vol. 5, ed. Günter Buchstab (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2005), 914; c.f. Bösch, Die Adenauer-CDU, 406.
86 See Weitz, Eric D., “The Ever-Present Other: Communism in the Making of West Germany,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968, ed. Schissler, Hanna (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 219–32Google Scholar; Creuzberger, Stefan and Hoffmann, Dierk, eds., “Geistige Gefahr” und “Immunisierung der Gesellschaft”: Antikommunismus und politische Kultur in der frühen Bundesrepublik (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2014)Google Scholar.
87 For an analysis of a poll of over three thousand students conducted by Rudolf Wildenmann on April 26, 1968, see Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK), B138/10262.
88 “Erklärung des Geschäftsführenden Landesvorstandes der CDU vom 3. Juni 1967,” printed in Hochschule im Umbruch: Teil V: Gewalt und Gegengewalt (1967–1969), ed. Lönnendonker, Siegward, Fichter, Tilman, and Staadt, Jochen (Berlin: Pressestelle der FU Berlin, 1983), 180Google Scholar.
89 HIS, Studentenbewegung, studentische Verbände, RCDS, Ulrich Grasser, quoted in RCDS Notizen 2 (WS 67/68); “Gegen die Polizeimaßnahmen beim Schah-Besuch in der Bundesrepublik,” June 5, 1967, RCDS-Brief no. 4 (1967): 15Google Scholar; Colloquium no. 7 (1967): 24Google Scholar; Othmar Nikola Haberl (b. 1943), in discussion with the author, Essen, May 30, 2014.
90 ArchAPO, RCDS, file “18. Ord. Bundesdelegierten-Versammlung. Mappe 1968,” list of events attended by members of the RCDS federal leadership.
91 Menzel, Claus, “Das Maul stopfen,” Civis no. 7 (1967): 14–15 Google Scholar.
92 Martin Kempe, in discussion with the author, Hamburg, June 18, 2013.
93 There was a massive increase in police numbers and spending under governing mayor Albertz, including on armaments; in the late 1960s, West Berlin had more police officers per capita than any West German state. See Thomas, Protest Movements, 75.
94 Interview with Kempe.
95 Fichter and Lönnendonker, Kleine Geschichte des SDS, 126.
96 Interview with Kempe. This incident was reported widely at the time and captured by photographers. It soon entered the annals of the student movement; see, e.g., “Kundgebung der Berliner Bevölkerung,” Colloquium no. 4 (April 1968), 2Google Scholar; Ruetz, “Ihr müsst diesen Typen nur ins Gesicht sehen,” 116–17; Fichter and Lönnendonker, “Berlin: Hauptstadt der Revolte”; Brown, West Germany, 236.
97 Bachmann's right-wing extremist views were not an isolated phenomenon. The late 1960s—and the year 1968 in particular—witnessed a notable surge in support for the right-wing radical National Democratic Party (NPD): it gained nearly 10 percent in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in April 1968. The party did not play an important role in student politics at the time, however, and the RCDS organized a number of anti-NDP events. See Richards, Fred H., Die NPD: Alternative oder Wiederkehr (Munich: Olzog, 1967), 74–5Google Scholar; Nagle, David, The National Democratic Party: Right Radicalism in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970)Google Scholar; ACDP 4-6-44-3, “Aufruf zum Kampf gegen den Radikalismus,” RCDS Press Release, July 10, 1969.
98 Interview with Kempe.
99 Interview with Härdtl; Jürgen Klemann (b. 1944), in discussion with the author, Berlin, June 12, 2014.
100 “Zwei Stellungnahmen zum Austritt des linken RCDS-Flügels aus dem Verband am 15.5.1968,” FU Spiegel no. 65 (June/July 1968), copy in Runge Papers; also see the left-liberal strategy paper drafted by Benno Ennker in ArchAPO, RCDS, file “18. Ord. Bundesdelegierten-Versammlung. Mappe 1968,” “Zur Strategie und Taktik bei der BDV.” There is a handwritten note at the bottom of paper: “We should probably not leave this piece of paper lying around.” On these different factions and the split, see Seitenbecher, “Die Reform als Revolution.”
101 Interview with Kempe; on Christian Semler's political trajectory, see Mark, James, Goltz, Anna von der, and Warring, Anette, “Reflections,” in Europe's 1968: Voices of Revolt, ed. Mark, James, Gildea, Robert, and Warring, Anette (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 309–11Google Scholar.
102 See Seitenbecher, Manuel, Mahler, Maschke und Co: Rechtes Denken in der 68er-Bewegung? (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2013)Google Scholar.
103 Dutschke-Klotz, Wir hatten ein barbarisches, schönes Leben, 121. The debates between them were also covered in the national media, which often juxtaposed the student leaders’ different points of view. See, e.g., the statements by Runge and Dutschke featured in “Zwei Beiträge zur Diskussion,” Die Zeit, June 23, 1967, available at http://www.zeit.de/1967/25/zwei-beitraege-zur-diskussion (accessed June 27, 2015); also Schönbohm, Radunski, Runge, Die herausgeforderte Demokratie.
104 See, e.g., Runge Papers, photograph printed in the campaign brochure of the Aktion 20. Konvent (1968), and the photograph of Runge in Ruetz, “Ihr müsst diesen Typen nur ins Gesicht sehen,” 28.
105 Jürgen Bernd Runge, in discussion with the author, Bonn, June 6, 2013; also see Runge Papers, Jürgen Bernd Runge, “Irrungen und Wirrungen: Ein Leben nicht nach Maß. Zwischenbilanz zum 25. Abi-Jubiläum am 28.12.1990,” Dec. 27, 1990.
106 Horlemann, Jürgen and Gäng, Peter, Vietnam: Genesis eines Konflikts (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1966)Google Scholar.
107 Interview with Runge.
108 Ibid.
109 See ArchAPO, RCDS, file “Berlin Flugblätter Juni-Juli 1967,” RCDS leaflet about the decision of the university convention regarding Vietnam; ArchAPO, RCDS, file “18 Ord. Bundesdelegierten-Versammlung Mappe 1968,” the press release on Vietnam by select RCDS delegates (including Runge).
110 Interview with Runge. East Germany's secret police routinely targeted Western students who were toying with the idea of joining a Communist group. See Giesecke, Jens, The History of the Stasi: East Germany's Secret Police, 1945–1990, trans. Burnett, David (Oxford: Berghahn, 2014), 184–85Google Scholar.
111 Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, ed., Der Deutsche Bundestag 1949 bis 1989 in den Akten des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit (MfS) der DDR (Berlin: Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Abt. Bildung und Forschung, 2013), 72Google Scholar; see also the interview with Runge in the documentary by Ute Bönnen and Gerald Endres, Die Stasi in West-Berlin, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), Aug. 5, 2010. Anrehm had singled out Runge as a possible East German spy as early as 1968; see Kiesinger: “Wir leben in einer veränderten Welt,” 914.
112 See references in footnote 20.
113 Schönbohm, Wulf, Die CDU wird moderne Volkspartei (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1985)Google Scholar.
114 Former leading SDS members have since admitted that they had been largely oblivious to the postwar anxieties of the West Berlin population and had not concerned themselves much with what went on beyond the Iron Curtain. See Fichter and Lönnendonker, Kleine Geschichte des SDS, 88; Semler, Christian, “1968 im Westen - was ging uns die DDR an?,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B 45 (2003): 3–5 Google Scholar. On the importance of the North–South constellation from the late 1960s onwards, see Maier, Charles S., “1968, Did It Matter?,” in Promises of 1968: Crisis, Illusion, and Utopia, ed. Tismaneanu, Vladimir (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011), 403–23Google Scholar; see also Slobodian, Foreign Front.
115 See, e.g., Wierling, Dorothee, Geboren im Jahr Eins. Der Jahrgang 1949 in der DDR: Versuch einer Kollektivbiographie (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2002)Google Scholar; Herbert, Ulrich, “Drei politische Generationen im 20. Jahrhundert,” in Generationalität und Lebensgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Reulecke, Jürgen (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003), 95–115 Google Scholar; Fulbrook, Mary, Dissonant Lives: Generations and Violence through the German Dictatorships (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Kohut, Thomas A., A German Generation: An Experiental History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012)Google Scholar.
116 Heinz Bude, “Die 50er Jahre im Spiegel der Flakhelfer- und der 68er-Generation,” in Reulecke, Generationalität und Lebensgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert, 145.
117 C.f. Nehring, “‘Generation’ as a Political Argument.”
118 Gassert and Steinweis, Coping with the Nazi Past; Moses, A. Dirk, German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise; Wehrs, Der Protest der Professoren.
119 For treatments of the concept of generation that stress the process of narrative construction, see, e.g., Weisbrod, Bernd, “Generation und Generationalität in der Neueren Geschichte,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B8 (2005): 3–9 Google Scholar; Jureit, Ulrike, Generationenforschung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006)Google Scholar; Bohnenkamp, Björn, Manning, Till, and Silies, Eva-Maria, eds., Generation als Erzählung: Neue Perspektiven auf ein kulturelles Deutungsmuster (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009)Google Scholar; Bohnenkamp, Björn, Doing Generation: Zur Inszenierung von generationeller Gemeinschaft in deutschsprachigen Schriftmedien (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2011)Google Scholar; also see Moses, German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past, which pays close attention to intragenerational division but focuses on debates among leading intellectuals.
120 Mannheim, Karl, “Das Problem der Generationen,” Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie 8 (1928): 309–30Google Scholar; c.f. von der Goltz, “A Polarized Generation?”
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