Ulrike Meinhof
In 1968, Germany was a divided country, not only East versus West but even more so parents versus their offspring. The generation of ‘68 is famous world wide. Many young people in Germany, in the US, and elsewhere joined the hippy movement with their communal, nomadic lifestyle. They listened to The House of Rising Sun by the Animals, read The Catcher of the Rye by J.D. Salinger or Steppenwolf by H. Hesse, celebrated sexual freedom, and the complete liberation from the establishment. They expressed their desire for change by renouncing consumerism, the influence of big corporations, the inhumane Vietnam War from 1964 to 1975, and by criticizing Western middle class values.
Particularly at German universities, young students felt constricted
by a life of the bourgeoisie and became part of the German student
movement. They demanded
global justice and dreamed of world peace. The Third World should be freed
of its bonds that restricted it in a new imperialistic epoch, the standard
of living should rise worldwide, and many envisioned a socialist future of
equal distribution of property. This generation rejected decision making-processes
and the existing unequal balance of wealth and social justice. They felt that
the economic wealth of the nation following the German Wirtschaftswunder of
the 1950s led to an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor instead
of improving the standard of living of the working class.
The student movement confronted the older generation who had taken part in
WWII after which they resumed their respective positions too easily. It was
crucial for the young people to confront Germany's and their parents' ‘fascist’ past
as well as rebel and question authoritarianism and hypocrisy of family, society,
and government alike.
Other issues of concern were the increasingly controlled mass media (protest
in front of the Axel Springer Verlag). It was the student movement’s
main concern to change the working of society for more democracy, whereas the
media portrayed the movement as anti-democratic – a threat to the status
quo.
The German student movement followed more than a century of conservatism among
most German students and demonstrated a noteworthy shift towards the left and
the radicalization of student politics.
A wave of protests swept Germany. They were fueled by violent confrontations
of protesters versus police and were encouraged by contemporary protest movements
in the world. They protested against war, US imperialism, fascist tendencies
of West German politics, especially the police, and the rule of the capital.
Several key incidents that shaped the mutual experiences of the 1968
generation were:
• The traumatic death of Benno Ohnesorg, a student, who was shot dead by
the police during a 1967 demonstration against a visit by the Shah of Iran.
• The demonstrations against the Axel Springer publishing empire that was
targeted in the fight for the freedom of the press and to emphasize the role
of the newspaper in shaping the public opinion with a campaign of hate against
the students and minorities. The 1968 Springer demonstrations were the first
mass protests in the Federal Republic of Germany. These protests lost much public
sympathy after 17 Springer workers were injured in a series of bombings by the
Baader-Meinhof group in 1972.
For more information please read the BBC article Full circle for German revolutionaries that reflects on the generation of 1968 and comments on people such as Joschka Fischer who has transformed from a young left-wing radical to an extremely popular German Foreign Minister. It gives a broad overview about the events in Germany that influenced the extra-parliamentary leftist movement in Germany at the time and explains the climate that led to the formation of the Baader-Meinhof-Group. It also stresses that this generation understood itself as the first generation that promoted the values of free speech and free expression and thus, laid the foundations for a true German democracy.
In the German newspaper, Die Zeit, Fantasie,
die keine war, a very critical
reflection by Karl Heinz Bohrer, writes about the generation of ‘68,
their relationship with violence, the interrelations between the APO and
the RAF, and the position of revolutionaries of ‘68 within society
today.
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