UCSB Hist 133C, L 19:
Dissent in West Germany
by Prof. Marcuse, Feb. 20, 2004

What role did/does public protest play in the creation and character of a democratic society?

  1. West Germany: conformist & repressive
  2. West Germany: hotbed of dissent
  3. Q7 and discussion of Schneider
  4. midterm evaluation

What does Germany stand for? How did Germany go from the one image to the other (or: is it both at once)?

Germany: stereotypical country that falls into line
(cover of The Nation, April 2003)
West Germany: the country that falls out of line (the last 2 are Chirac and Schroeder)(Intl Herald Tribune, Feb. 2003)
See Foreign Minster Fischer's 3/19/03 statement against US military intervention in Iraq (link)

West Germany: Conformist

West Germany: Radical

1912 miner's strike in the Ruhr -- tradition of radical worker agitation
1912 miner's strike in the Ruhr: put down by police -- in the authoritarian tradition
1932 rent strike in Berlin:
The Nazis were as radical as the communists

Dissent in 1947


Demonstration demanding the socialization of factories in the Ruhr (above)

student demonstration in Munich (right)

Dissent in 1953 (East!): June uprising

Dissent in 1955: anti-remilitarization

swearing in of the first Bundeswehr recruits, 1955
1955 anti-remilitarization protest with Adenauer quote

Three images from 1955: swearing in of the first Bundeswehr recruits;
anti-remilitarization protest with Adenauer quote "I'm proud never to have been a soldier;"
Pankok's famous image of Christ breaking a rifle over his knee.
Pankok: Christus breaking rifle, 1955

Anti-nuclear movement: 1958, 1979 Gorleben/1981 Brokdorf, 1983

1958 protest in Frankfurt/M against atomic armaments protest against Gorleben nuclear reprocessing facility Josef Beuys with a poster for the Green party, 1980
These five images show examples of the long-standing German tradition of protest against nuclear power and armaments (clockwise):
Frankfurt, 1958
Gorleben, 1979
Beuys/Greens, 1980
Human chain, 1983
Brokdorf nuclear fortress
Brokdorf nuclear breeder reactor in Germany, built like a fortress
Human chain against cruise missiles, 1983 near Ulm

1962-63: Spiegel Affair

1962 Spiegel affair: Germans protest for freedom of the press Adenauer resigns after Spiegel affair

1968: Beginning of the "Long March through the Institutions"

Joschka Fischer slugging police, ca. 1968 Joschka Fischer: 1968, 2003 Joschka Fischer hit by paint, 1999
Joschka Fischer ca. 1968: caught on video slugging a policeman
Fischer in 1968 and 2003. He was a founding member of the Green Party in late 1970s, became part of the Hesse government in 1985, and became German foreign minister in 1998.
Fischer was hit by a demonstrator's paint balloon in 1999 because of his stance supporting armed intervention in Kosovo.

Schneider, Wall JumperSchneider, The Wall Jumper

Q7: What point (thesis) is Schneider trying to make? (What evidence does he muster?)
page by H. Marcuse, prepared for web Feb. 20-22, 2004, link added 2/26/04
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