Post-war German experienced untold political and economic upheaval. The effects of the war directly impacted the politics of the two German states long after the Third Reich had fallen. The majority of the older West German citizens were content with the economic boom of the fifties that allowed them to have jobs, own cars and live relatively comfortable lives. After the horrors of living in Nazi Germany, this group did not mind the inconveniences of the Federal Republic as long as the economy continued to grow. On the other hand, a section of the population felt that the government had fascist leanings that needed to be dealt away with to mitigate the risk of repeating history. The expansion and reopening of universities after the war provided space for intellectual discourse, organization and the rise of student movements that formed the majority of the latter group. This essay examines the impact of the student movement on democracy in West Germany by exploring the motivations of its activities and their outcomes.

The student movement in West Germany was a function of the excesses of the Federal Republic Government, the imperial tendencies of the state and its allies as well as the guilt about the crimes of Nazi Germany. In June 1967, a plainclothes detective shot and killed Benno Ohnesorg at a street protest against the visit by the Shah of Iran to West Germany (Poiger 652). Nobody was held accountable for the murder with the mayor blaming the brutalized protestors for his death. Subsequently, Ohnesorg died as a martyr of the rebellion. For the student movement, that killing backed up their argument that the government was willing to do anything to quell dissent; a hallmark of fascist regimes. The Grand Coalition government also caused further protests when it introduced the Emergency Acts to parliament. The acts made a provision for the declaration of a state of emergency in West Germany which solidified the fear of an impending fascist state among radicals. The SDS joined other civil rights activists to form the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO) (Barker 63). The formation of the APO was a testament to the increased radicalization of the government opposition and their growing suspicion of the goodwill of the system and its major players such as the media.

The radicals viewed the rearmament of West Germany and the relationship with the United States as support for the imperialist ventures of the latter. They rallied against the American invasion of Vietnam and decried the imperialist undertakings of other western nation in the Third World that was still under colonization. The anti-American sentiment in Germany is traceable to the student movement protests (Grosser 34). The opposition of American presence in Vietnam represented a break away from the unspoken taboo of criticizing the United States that gets credit for the liberation of Germany from the Nazis. The student movement made up of mainly young people who did not experience the Third Reich believed that the older generation should have done more to resist the rise of Nazism (Groot 142). By speaking up against imperial excesses, they refused to inherit the silence of their parents and become complicit in the crimes committed by the state.

The attempted murder of the SDS leader Rudi Dutschke and the passage of the emergency laws sparked protests across the state on a bigger scale than ever before. The death of Benno Ohnesorg and the assassination attempt on Rudi Dutschke represented the escalation of the tensions in the state between the radicals and the conservatives. The conservatives were okay with the belligerent democracy of the federal government whereas the rebels felt that the government wielded its power in a fascist manner that warranted the opposition. The inclusion of former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in the West German government was another cause for concern in the student movement. The students felt that accommodating Nazis in government and public offices meant that the state had not learned its lesson from the rise of the Third Reich. The passage of the emergency laws that further enabled the forceful suppression of protestors fueled the movement as the members felt justified in using force in their retaliation against the brutalization by the state.

The existence of the student movement as a pillar of West German democracy was a necessity of the merger between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats in an effort to counter the rise of the National Democratic Party. The formation of the Grand Coalition significantly weakened the opposition (Schmidt 82). Any democracy worth its system of government must have a thriving opposition party. Without a robust opposition, there is a real possibility that the government of the day will slip into authoritarian rule unopposed. The state was still in recovery from Adolf Hitler’s authoritarian rule and could not afford to slide back into the same form of government. When the Grand Coalition introduced the contingency for a state of emergency, it heightened the suspicion against its motives among the radicals and rightly so. The emergency laws authorized the government to use any means necessary to keep the order when it deemed it necessary which was a prerequisite for the use of force on the protestors (Dowell 57). Thus, the student movement did a significant service to West German democracy by providing opposition when the official political opposition crumbled and consolidated into the Grand Coalition.

The founders of the West German state preferred a belligerent democracy. For the conservatives in power, this allowed for the stifling of dissent, limitations of free speech and the prosecution of any opponents perceived as threats to public peace (Groot 141). This provision walked a thin line between state control and the violation of the fundamental rights of West German citizens at the whims of those in power. The 1962 Spiegel Affair is an excellent example of the state exercising its authority without regard for the rights of the citizens. The defense minister tried to intimidate a media outlet after it published unfavorable information about his ministry leading to protests about the freedom of the press. In a belligerent democracy, there are no guarantees that the central government will not overreach its powers in the alleged defense of the democratic space and public peace. The student movement opposed the foundations of West Germany’s belligerent democracy and agitated for socialist democracy.

Therefore, it is clear that the student movement made critical contributions to the preservation of the democratic space in West Germany. However, it is objective to consider the democratic cost of the student movement. The interactions between the student movement and the government eroded some of the democratic space that the leaders of the movement sought to achieve in the first place. The escalation to the violence was the biggest undoing on the democracy for which the radicals had fought. While radicals may choose to blame the escalation on the government, the student movement played an equal role in the deterioration of the civility in the interactions with the authorities. The founder of the Red Army Faction, Ulrike Meinhof, opined on the escalation to violence in an article in the leftist publication, the konkret. According to Meinhof, the radicals moved from protest to resistance after the attack on Rudi Dutschke (Meinhof 5). Before the attack, the protestors had used relatively non-violent means to agitate and get their message heard. However, the attack on Dutschke demonstrated that there were no boundaries that the conservatives and the government were not willing to cross. According to Meinhof, the attack highlighted the need to reevaluate the stand of the movement on counter violence

In his article, Ulrike Meinhof notes that counter violence easily turns into violence (Meinhof 5). Where the state believed it held the monopoly on the use of force, the protestors sought to counteract the state-sanctioned violence. The efforts by the state to quell the counter-violence increased its infringement on the democratic rights of the citizens. The emergency laws are an example of how far the government was willing to go to keep the protestors in check. Poiger notes that even the moderates who were initially opposed to the state of emergency contingency got pushed into supporting it by the radical demonstrators (Poiger 646). The emergency laws increased the powers of the government to crack down on the freedoms of the protestors whenever they posed a threat to the establishment. In democratic spaces, dissenting opinions and the freedom to protest are encouraged. The Radicals Decree was also a byproduct of the RAF as the bombings intensified in the early seventies. The decree criminalized any dissent that threatened the allegedly free democratic order and discriminated against those individuals who identified as radicals (Stuttgart 65). Such laws can easily get abused by the enforcers who operate without oversight. Thus, the existence of the student movement provided an environment that allowed for the passage of such draconian laws that eroded the democratic space in the country.

The development of factions within the student movement and the lack of the uniformity of purpose or strategy led to the development of terrorist elements within the group. The student movement wanted to bring about a revolution in the country, but different leaders had varying ideas on how to go about it. Dutschke advocated for sit-ins and similar disruptive protests whereas others like Gudrin Ensslin chose violence. Ensslin together with three others founded the Red Amery Faction that resorted to bombing business establishments to shake the indifference of the public to their cause (Poiger 653). Consequently, they were labeled leftist terrorists and brought the wrath of the government forces to the movement’s doorstep. While there is freedom of expression in a democracy, that freedom ends where the rights of another person begin. Thus, the RAF’s tactics violated the rights of the business owners to own property. In addition to this, they wholly ignored the agreed upon approach and went rogue in the bombings which showed a disregard for the democratic processes that their group was advocating. Acts of terrorism have no place in any modern democracy much less perpetrated by the same elements purporting to further the expansion of the democratic space.

A free press is one of the pillars of a functional democracy which paints the radical left’s consistent attacks on the media in a bad light. There is no denying that the Springer media had an agenda against the SDS and the APO. There was a lot of conservative propaganda aimed at portraying the radicals and protestors as the enemies of the public peace. However, openly blaming the media for the attack on Dutschke painted a target on press freedom and encouraged attacks on the media establishment. The Springer media stood accused of inciting attacks on the leaders of the movement by misrepresenting them as criminals to the public (Poiger 653). While the press does not have the monopoly on the truth or the narratives spun therein, targeted media attacks are a step down a slippery slope that grossly undermines the freedom of the press. Attacking media establishments sets a dangerous precedent that can lead to the intimidation of journalism and an overall compromise of the profession.

In conclusion, the impact of the student movement on the democracy of West Germany in the postwar period is evident. While the exuberance of youth and the lack of a common course of action got in the way of real revolution, the students left an indelible mark on the history of the Federal Republic. Furthermore, the protestors kept the fire of the opposition burning in a democracy that faced the threat of authoritarian control from the coalition of the major political parties. This is not to say that the movement was not without its flaws. The pivot to terrorist tactics exposed the general public to physical harm and increased the government oversight on the opposition through legislation such as the radical decree that sought to curtail dissent. Their failures notwithstanding, the existence of the student movement and protestors preserved the democratic space in West Germany while the country found its footing in the postwar period.

 
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