The Social and Political Context

Forty years have passed since the heyday of the protest movement in 1968. Now it has achieved the status of a nationally commemorated event. The national identity of the Federal Republic of Germany has been greatly affected by the impulses generated by the anti-authoritarian movement. When we look back however our view is clouded by present-day needs to legitimise the motives of the movement – a development manifested all the time whenever the topic is discussed. By Marcus Hawel und Gregor KritidisMore ...

Wolfgang Abendroth was among the founders of West German political science. One of the few avowedly Marxist professors of his age, Abendroth became one of West Germany’s leading socialist intellectuals in the 1950s. By Gregor KritidisMore ...

The social philosopher Theodor W. Adorno is the main advocate of the Critical Theory alongside Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse. His critical stance on society was a decisive influence on the student protests of the late 1960s. He himself was very sympathetic to the protests, but also highly sceptical. By Marcus HawelMore ...

Toiling at the interface between anarchism and Marxism, Johannes Agnoli was one of the most undogmatic thinkers in the Socialist German Student Union (SDS) and Extraparliamentary Opposition (APO) in the 1960s. In 1967 he and Peter Brückner, in their analysis of Die Transformation der Demokratie (Berlin, Voltaire Verlag) set forth the most seminal critique of State and parliamentarianism to emerge out of the APO movement. By Gregor KritidisMore ...

The social philosopher Ernst Bloch exerted a great fascination only on some sections of the students’ movement of the late 1960s. But there where he was acclaimed he helped the rebellious students to find their orientation in the bipolar world and to disassociate themselves equally from both Soviet Marxism and capitalism. Rudi Dutschke, spokesman of the Berlin SDS (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund), conducted a friendly exchange of thoughts and ideas with Bloch, who was an ally and comrade in the political struggle. By Joachim PerelsMore ...

The socio-psychologist Peter Brückner taught and researched at Hanover University from 1967 until his death in 1982. Not least as a result of his clearly stated solidarity with the student protesters, he came to be regarded as being symbolic of the left-wing professor. This created difficulties for him with the powers of the state. His writings are still relevant today. by Theo BeckerMore ...

Max Horkheimer is one of the best-known German philosophers of the 20th century. Under his leadership, the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt am Main developed to become a centre for social philosophy in Germany. The concept of critical theory originated with Horkheimer, and together with Theodor W. Adorno his name stands for the Frankfurt School, which characterized the intellectual climate of the young Federal Republic of Germany. By Volker Maria NeumannMore ...

Unlike his teacher Theodor W. Adorno, Alexander Kluge, an artist working in the field of the aesthetics of reception, is optimistic about the possibility of socially transformative practice and places his hopes in societal participation in the tradition of Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin. But Kluge, in contrast to many ‘68ers, never subscribed to the illusion that lasting changes in societal structures can be brought about abruptly or in the short term. By Christian SchulteMore ...

Herbert Marcuse was regarded as the "guru of the student movement". In the heady atmosphere of change that prevailed at the end of the 1960s he was in the spotlight of the media. "Mao, Marx, Marcuse" – a headline from those years. By Peter-Erwin JansenMore ...

By taking up the cause of the student revolt back in the 60s Oskar Negt managed to establish an authority that enabled him to critically accompany the mood and activities of the emerging student movement and to maintain a certain distance that even today still allows him to acknowledge and defend the utopian ideas of 1968 without lowering his sights in any way. By Tatjana FreytagMore ...

"Read Wilhelm Reich and act accordingly!" – This was a slogan painted on the outside wall of the students' refectory at the University of Frankfurt. It was witness to the great significance that the student movement of 1968 attached to psychoanalysts and Marxists. By Christin SagerMore ...