Classnotes and Study Guides:
Part 2.2: The Cold War - From Berlin Wall to the Early  Eighties
for Students in my First Year Seminar: From Holocaust to German Unification
at McDaniel College, compiled by Dr. Mohamed Esa
Sources: Craig, Gordon A. The Germans, New York: Putnam, 1982;
Hoffmeister & Tubach, Germany 2000 Years. Vol. III,  1992;
Internet resources and other materials

Top of Page 

Professors and Students in Germany

Professors

Middle Ages to the end of 17th Century

  • Smaller universities
  • Professors were often more innkeepers, supplying beds and meals to students, selling them wine and beer in addition to information about their field of expertise.
  • Professors were not very respected. They were more figures of public fun. They were portrayed as "vain, contentious and quarrelsome eccentrics, wearing dirty linen and uncombed wigs, unversed in the usage of polite society, and incapable of speaking coherently about anything except their own specialty, which was generally so esoteric as to be irrelevant to the practical concerns of life" (Craig, p. 172).
18th and 19th Centuries
  • Professors acquire a new nimbus of authority and a prestige due to the creation of modern universities in Halle, Göttingen, Strassburg. These new universities attracted members of noble and wealthy middle class families.
  • Students recognized these professors by making them the recipients of Fackelständchen (musical serenades).
  • In the middle of the 19th century, there was a big movement of students, professors and workers which demanded a national unification on the basis of constitutional liberty and parliamentary government. Many famous scholars and professors demanded a new Germany with principles similar to the those of the French constitution of 1830.
  • Revolution of 1848: many of the elected members of the first National Assembly in Frankfurt were professors. The failure of the revolution and the violence that followed, forced the professors to retreat from the political arena and withdraw into the world of scholarship.
  • It was Wilhelm von Humboldt, the founder of the University of Berlin in 1809 who demanded that the professors should dedicate themselves to Wissenschaft (scientific work) and Bildung (education). Many natural scientists became famous: Justus von Liebig (chemistry), Karl Friedrich Gauss (mathematics), Wilhelm Weber (physics), H.L. von Helmholz (biology and physics), Rudolf Virchow and Robert Koch (medicine) and many other philosophers (Edmund Husserl), historians (Theodor Mommsen), sociology (Max Weber), etc.
  • It was this period that the glorification of the German professor as such began. Professors were very powerful and gained a position of the untouchables and a huge monopoly in the university system.
20th century
  • After WW 1 and WW 2 there was a feeling among the people that the professors employed their knowledge and talents to create the most destructive forces in German society. There was a demand of bringing more democracy into the universities and more internal governance. To introduce democratic values into the system seemed to be very unpatriotic, due to the fact of humiliation through occupation. The professors retained their power within the university systems.
  • During the Weimar Republic, professors used their lecterns to speak against the weaknesses of the Republic and the inability of the democratic parties to govern. By doing this they contributed to the antidemocratic tendencies of their students. This on the other hand helped Hitler and the other antidemocratic forces gain influence and power.
  • During the "Nazi revolution" many professors applauded Hitler and rallied for his views. Martin Heidegger in his Inaugural address as Rektor (president) of the University of Freiburg "admonished his colleagues to recognize in Adolf Hitler the Leader whom destiny had called to save the nation." Professor Götz von Pölnitz (university of Regensburg) proclaimed the accession of Hitler as the "hour of victory" for his countrymen; in Tübingen, an old university town in southern Germany, a professor of Folklore Studies (Volkskunde) announced, "Now the great wonder has occurred. The German people has arisen."
  • During the Nazi time not many students and professors resisted Hitler and his regime. Many professors participated in the scientific experiments on prisoners of war, Jews or the handicapped, many others tried to find proof for the racial theories of the Nazis (for the Pure-Aryan-Race-Theory), many others developed weapons, gas for the chambers, chemicals for the battle, etc. Many professors lost their control of scholastic work and good scientific experiments. They did whatever was expected from them. They obeyed the Gauleiter of the "Führer of the University" and even sometimes had to do whatever their students in uniform told them to do. There was a big conformity of the professoriate. The universities were not these educational institution they were before, they became a place with a great deal of marching and "foot-stamping" and "Heil-Hitlering"
  • Julius Schleicher, the Gauleiter for Franconia gave a speech to a group of university teachers. He asked them "If someone put the brain of all of the professors in one pan of a scale and the brain of the Führer in the other, which pan, do you think, would sink?"
  • After WW2 4000 professors lost their positions. Unfortunately, not all of those who retained their jobs were free of prejudice of Nazi thinking. This is one of the reasons for the student movement of the 1960s.
Students                          Back to top of Page 
Joseph von Eichendorff described in an essay called "Halle and Heidelberg" a highly idealistic picture of student life at the end of the 18th century:
"Valor ever ready for battle was the cardinal virtue of the Student. ... When the apprentices let themselves be seen on the trottoirs or dared sing student songs, they were at once beaten till they fled. Were they, however, in an all too apparent majority, then sounded the battle cry Burschen heraus! Without asking for cause or occasion, half-clothed students with rapiers and clubs poured out from every doorway. ..."(quoted in Craig, Page 179)
Students were known for their Krawalle (rioting, rampaging). Universities were distinguished among each others not by academic achievements, but rather by the kind of student life they had, by the amount of beer drunk, the skulls broken, number of duels fought, student licentiousness (unmorality) or imprisonment (Student Karzer in HD). The students were a Bürgerschreck (a terror to the bourgeois). All you need to do is to read through the collections of 18th and 19th century Studentenlieder . You will find that the students considered themselves a "superior caste":
    And if we kick over the traces now and then,
    who is going to deny us that?
    That’s just our nature.
    So to the Devil with all your preaching!
    Keep quiet, Philistines!
The citizens of the university towns nevertheless put up with these abuses. They benefited from the students: The merchants who supplied the beer, the tailors, armorers, farriers, the Cafes owners, the bakeries, the restaurants, etc.

The Studentenverbindungen (fraternities) have an old tradition in Germany. They were "a kind of preparatory school for public life which develop a capacity for self-control and government." Despite the absurd rituals, the floods of beer, the fencing, and accompanied escapades, the fraternities "taught their members a respect for tradition and order and hierarchy and, through the perpetuation of the duel and the court of honor, inculcated a sense of honor that was indispensable to a future ruling caste." (Craig, p. 180)

1817: the height of the AllgemeineBurschenschaft Movement: the march of all national Burschenschaften to the Wartburg Castle near Eisenach, where student orators made patriotic speeches and attacked princes who were considered to be uninterested in national unification and constitutional reform.

The political powers in Germany and Austria disliked this movement and worked together with Russia to impose rigid controls on university teaching and student activities. They dissolved the AllgemeineBurschenschaft. This event marked the beginning of the so called Demagogenverfolgung (the persecution of the demagogues).

During the time of Bismarck and Emperor Wilhelm, the student body became more conservative, the political tone of the universities was set by the aristocratic student Corps loyal to the Crown. A French observer wrote in 1906 that one could not talk with German students without being touched with their ignorance and disturbed by their indifference.

From the 1880s onward, the student groups became more nationalistic and anti-Semitic. Many Burschenschaften stopped admitting Jews. One of the most famous people who was denied membership in an Austrian fraternity, was Theodor Herzel, founder of modern Zionism.

Many students during the Weimar Republic period, didn’t want to be committed to any political side. Their famous slogan was "Draussenbleiben" ("Remain uncommitted!"). They withdrew in what they called "the pleasant twilight of an idealized past."

Hitler and the Nazis misused and manipulated the student body: Hitler wrote:
"In the midst of this mighty struggle of our people, we see the young members of the German intelligentsia wandering about, completely bereft of goal or plan, or gathering together on a platform that once led to their fathers' desctruction. What we need today is not "beer-honorable" fortitude but political striking force . . . not the Studiosus of yesterday . . . but the man who is lithe as a greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel. A new type must arise whose value is not measured by his ability to hold beer, but by his sobriety, the way he witthstands hardship, and the fanaticism of his assault upon the enemies of life wherever they may be." (quoted in Craig, page 182-183)

The Nationalsozialistischer Studentenbund (NSDStB) was founded in 1926 by Baldur von Schirach, a student who failed to get his degree. This student organization became a real Bürgerschreck, they terrorized the Socialists, Communists, Jews and other groups. They carried terror into the lecture halls of liberal professors; thousands of students enrolled in the SA and the SS, they were very happy beating defenseless people on the street. The biggest group of jubilants that marched on Jan. 30, 1933, and hailed Hitler as the new Reichchancellor were the becaped fraternity members. Members of the German Burschenschaft announced:

"What we have for years longed and striven for, what we have, in the spirit of the
Burschenschaft of 1817, nurtured . . . year in and year out, has now become fact."

To celebrate the "Revolution of the German Spirit," they promptly formed a "Student Combat group ‘Against Un-German Influences’". They were the first to burn thousands of books during the famous bookburning, night in May 1933, and the first to smash and destroy Jewish businesses and synagogues in the Kristallnacht (Night of Shattered Glass) on November 8, 1938.

One of the saddest chapters in the history of German universities is the contribution of the students to the destruction of the demoralized democracy. "The naive acceptance of Nazism was the result of a century of systematic discouragement of student reform movements and the deliberate fostering of political indifference by regional governments." (Craig, p. 184)

The Student Rebellion of the 1960s                    Back to top of Page 

During the 1960s and 1970s many universities in Germany (France, USA, Spain, Italy, Japan, and other countries) were the scene of violence and disruptions.

What were the reasons for this rebellion?
  • Increase of the numbers of students from less than 300,000 to more than 900,000 by 1978. The number of professors, instructors and assistants was also increased. The burden of teaching fell increasingly on the group of the Assistants.
  • Members of the student body started to agitate for structural reform. There was the demand for to replace the large lectures with small reading-groups and tutorials, to establish interdisciplinary departments for the study and solution of current social problems, and introduce a tri-parity system (Drittelparitätsystem), with equal voting rights for professors, academic staff and students, on all university committees and organs of governance.
  •  Many students became affected by the cultural pessimism, they were concerned over the growing conformity and the lack of any organized opposition to prevailing tendencies in the country. They criticized the involvement of the country in imperialistic activities, militarism, support of Vietnam war, former Nazis were becoming socially acceptable. Many felt that university reform and social reform must go hand in hand. The university had a duty to study current social and political problems in order to enlighten the public about threats to democracy.
  • The frustration of the students came from a discrepancy between the materialistic German society and the humanistic values and political consciousness of many students.
What did the student protest against? Why?
The students protested in general against:
    • materialism
    • authoritarian structures (at the university, parliament, Society and at home)
    • institutionalized world
    • bureaucracy
    Their protest went specifically against:
    • The Vietnam War
    • The visit of the Shah of Iran to Berlin and his totalitarian regime
    • Chancellor Kiesinger (Ex-Nazi)
    • The traditional press: Axel Springer consortium which controlled 32.7% of the West German press and had been since the mid 60's spreading the view that the universities were being taken over by the left.
    • Educational system (influence of Ex-Nazis, authoritarian structure)
    • Lack of confrontatio with the past. Nolessons were learned from the past.
What did the students demand?
  • Retreat of US forces from Vietnam
  • Reduction in the defense budget of Germany
  • German reunification under a socialist regime
  • Restructuring of the educational system (more student involvement and participation in decision making)
What were the main events of the student rebellion?

1960 SDS (Socialist German Student Organization) was formed.

  • Leader of the SDS was Rudi Dutschke
  • Students appealed for an "extra-parliamentary opposition" (APO) as a reaction to the Grand Coalition (1966) of the big two political parties SPD and CDU
  • Student Parliament (ASTA) disrupted municipal council meetings, court trials, lectures and seminars at the universities, confronted police through out the 60s.

1962 Spiegel Affair: Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss was forced to resign over a freedom-of-the-press issue, having seized the offices of the influential Spiegel magazine on flimsy spy charges.

April, 1967 Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President of the USA visited Berlin. Many students protested his visit. 11 students were arrested after a short confrontation with police. They were accused that they were planning to throw bombs at the vice-president, and that they got these bombs from the Chinese embassy in East Berlin. The bombs were subsequently proved to be sacks filled with flour. This didn’t stop the yellow press from attacking the students. They were called "pubertäre Weltverbesserer" (half-backed world-improvers). They demanded that the "left-radicals" be cleared out of the Free University of Berlin.

June 2, 1967 A huge group of students was protesting the visit of the Shah of Iran. They wanted to prevent him from entering the Opera House to see The Magic Flute of Mozart. Even the police were able to get the Shah inside the house unharmed, the police president gave orders to charge the demonstrators. Forty-seven people were injured, some of them seriously, and one student, Benno Ohnesorg, a student in Berlin was killed by a bullet from a police revolver.

June 5, 1967 A meeting of the "writers guild" Gruppe 47 in Nuremberg, students and new "writers guild" Gruppe 61 demanded that the writers serve the political transformation of society with their works.

    • They also demanded solidarity with the working class.
    • Fiction was to be replaced by documentation.
    • Poetic diction was to be replaced by everyday speech. 

1968 Rebellion against the Emergency Laws of the same year. 
First bomb goes off in a department store in Frankfurt by Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensselin as a protest against the consumer society and a demonstration to the bourgeoisie of what the Vietnam War was like.

1970 Forcible Freeing of Andreas Baader from detention by Ulrike Meinhof and two accomplices during which they fatally wounded an onlooker.

1972 Extremists’ Decree (Radikalenerlass):

  • Right-or-left extremists hostile to the democratic order would be excluded from civil-service jobs, especially in the teaching profession.
  • Office of the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) conducted numerous hearings and cross-examinations, sometimes based on denunciations. The burden of proof was on the side of the accused. A McCarthy-like witch hunt got underway.

This reminded many people of the Nazi Berufsverbot (professional or career ban). Ironically, Willi Brandt, the Chancellor who signed the decree, was himself affected by the Nazis’ Berufsverbot and had to flee Germany to Sweden where he joined the resistance.

1976 Restrictive University Outline Law

1977 Baader-Meinhof gang, one of the major terrorist groups robs banks, kidnapped politicians, industrialists, kills police officers, bombed prisons, prosecutors’ offices, and publishing houses, terrorized the whole nation. Among the dead are two prominent officials of the government and industry:

  • Siegfried Buback, Federal Attorney General and
  • Hans Martin Schleyer, the president of the Employers’ Union.
The ringleaders are caught and put to trial. In the Stuttgart-Stammheim prison, built especially for them, the ringleaders (Baader, Meinhof and Ensselin) commit suicide. A new generation organizes the gang and a series of assassinations and acts of violence are carried out against government officials, military personnel, US soldiers and representatives of industry and the banks. These terrorist acts were meant to avenge the "state murders" at Stammheim.

The Problem of Violence                   Back to top of Page 

Many moderate students were abandoned by those with whom they might have worked for a viable reform of the university structure. They were powerless to prevent the capture of the reform movement by groups that had no interest in, or respect for, the true purposes of the university but wanted to use it as a base for their own ideological experiments and for attacks upon society.

Who were these radical groups? Where did they come from?
What were their aims and ideology? Who sympathized with them?

  • Stalinist GDR Sympathizer
  • Chaoten (Anarchists) who paid lip-service to Maoist principles
  • The Baader-Meinhof Gang, later renamed the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF = Red Army Faction)
  • Second of June Movement, named after the date on which Benno Ohnesorg was killed (after 1977 it was united with the RAF.)
  • The Revolutionary Cells, active since 1973. It was more like an urban guerrilla.

Many members of these radical groups (64% of the 209 convicted) were students who came from well-to-do traditional families. They all were born after WW2, at the time when their fathers either have fallen in the war or came back defeated, immoralized, broken and had to start a new life. They lived through the period of construction and the economic miracle.

"They wanted to compensate with violence for their parents’ failure to resist fascism." (Hoffmeister, p. 175)

They began with idealistic motives and ended in despair, violence, prison, or suicide. They became disillusioned and didn’t believe in peaceful solution and that a quick change in the West-German society was possible. They withdrew into their own private worlds and created small cells and communes, became radical and frustrated and saw the only way that the society will change is by the destruction and sabotage of state structures and murdering prominent state representatives.

In Frankfurt a small group of intellectuals, philosophers and professors formed the Frankfurt School of Thought. Their major representatives were: Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm and Max Horkheimer. They developed a theory on authoritarian regimes, and tried to explain how it was possible that in a country of poets and thinkers so many people followed one single man, Hitler. They established the Theory of the Authoritarian Pyramid of the Nazis. The pyramid consist of millions of small pyramids on top of each there is a Führer. Every person in the system was an authority: the son, the father, the teacher, the street sweeper, the police officer, the Gauleiter, the minister, and so on. On top of the pyramid was the Führer, absolute unimpeachable, infallible, indispensable, and so on. It was a web of authorities that no one could escape control and obedience.

The Frankfurt School also analyzed the strategies of the capitalist state (e.g., consumerism and the media). They criticized the system that it didn’t allow much room for critical thinking and political action of their citizens. Adorno believed that many social institutions in a capitalistic system were repressive and therefore "violent." Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer and the other representatives of the Frankfurter School, were leftist, representatives of a humane Marxism. They opposed every action of violence against the state. Many of the members of the radical groups either visited the lectures of these professors or read their books, misunderstood and misinterpreted them. They believed that "violent" institutions need to be met with violence.

What did the student movement achieve?

On one side, nothing. They were not able to change the system. The politicians are still the same, the parties are the same.

On the other side, they caused the young generation (who have now very influential position in the society: Mayors, Ministers, Professors, etc.) to go back to the moral and human values which were lost to materialistic values in the 50s and 60s. "The student rebellion managed to bring explicit ideological arguments into the center of political life for the first time since the founding of the FRG in 1949." (Hoffmeister, p. 178-179)

Shortly after the capture of the RAF ringleaders, three important movements emerged in German society:
  • The Women’s Movement (many sympathizers of the RAF were women. They objected to their violent means but supported their demands and ideas)
  • The Peace Movement (as a reaction to the violence in and outside of Germany, emerged mainly from the churches, pacifist and student groups opposed to violence)
  • The Environmental Movement (which culminated in the founding of the Grünen (the Green Environmental Party in 1978)
Many leftist and progressive poets, professors and philosophers participated in these movements, i.e. Heinrich Böll who wrote "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum", Günther Grass who wrote the "Thin Drum", Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Peter Handke, Martin Walser, Jens Reich, etc. Heinrich Böll, Petra Kelly, Joshka Fisher (a cab driver), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (a 1968 member of the student movement) and Ex-General Gerd Bastian were prominent members of the Green Party.
© Dr. Mohamed Esa, Dept. of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures at McDaniel College
Send comments and questions to mesa@mcdaniel.edu Thanks!