The Other Alliance

Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties

Martin Klimke

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780691152462
  9780691131276
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400832156
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia alemana

Using previously classified documents and original interviews, The Other Alliance examines the channels of cooperation between American and West German student movements throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, and the reactions these relationships provoked from the U.S. government. Revising the standard narratives of American and West German social mobilization, Martin Klimke demonstrates the strong transnational connections between New Left groups on both sides of the Atlantic.


Klimke shows that the cold war partnership of the American and German governments was mirrored by a coalition of rebelling counterelites, whose common political origins and opposition to the Vietnam War played a vital role in generating dissent in the United States and Europe. American protest techniques such as the "sit-in" or "teach-in" became crucial components of the main organization driving student activism in West Germany--the German Socialist Student League--and motivated American and German student activists to construct networks against global imperialism. Klimke traces the impact that Black Power and Germany's unresolved National Socialist past had on the German student movement; he investigates how U.S. government agencies, such as the State Department's Interagency Youth Committee, advised American policymakers on confrontations with student unrest abroad; and he highlights the challenges student protesters posed to cold war alliances.


Exploring the catalysts of cross-pollination between student protest movements on two continents, The Other Alliance is a pioneering work of transnational history.

Chapter 1

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SDS MEETS SDS

THE ORIGINS OF THE STUDENT MOVEMENTS IN
WEST GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES

When the 21-year-old German student Michael Vester started his 1961-62 exchange year at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, with the support of the Fulbright program, he had no idea that he was to become the earliest mediator of an emerging transnational New Left and, at the same time, take an active role in the creation of one of the most influential manifestos of the American student movement of the 1960s. Vester had been born in 1939 Berlin into a middle-class family and spent the first years of his life there before his family moved to Silesia. Committed to a leftist Christian communitarianism and pacifism, part of his mother's family had become politically active in the Weimar Republic after their belief in German nationalism had been shattered by the human catastrophe of the First World War. As a result of their commitment, some family members were forced to emigrate after the National Socialists came to power in 1933. The Second World War and the Soviet advance eventually forced the family to relocate to Holzminden in rural-industrial Northern Germany in March 1945, where Vester's father had been deployed as a soldier.

As refugees, they built up their life anew in this provincial setting during the postwar years while keeping in touch with the other branches of their internationally dispersed family that had spread to Great Britain, the United States, and Latin America. These contacts enforced Vester's orientation toward the Anglo-American branches of the family, who had left England around 1630 as politico-religious dissenters and had been known for their activity in the antislavery movement of the nineteenth century. Most prominent among these relatives was his grandfather's cousin, Thurman Arnold, who, as assistant attorney general in the Roosevelt administration, was in charge of the Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice and was an intrepid liberal and partisan of civil rights.

The German Protestant environment in which Vester grew up after the Second World War encouraged his decidedly antiwar position, which included opposition to the politics of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the Federal Republic's rearmament in the 1950s. Members of Vester's family were inspired by the theologian Martin Niemoeller and, as part of a critical middle class, gradually turned to the Social Democratic Party and its representatives such as Willy Brandt. Vester's own political coming of age, however, occurred with the unsuccessful 1953 workers' uprising in East Germany and the 1956 revolt in Hungary, which symbolized the persistent harsh realities of Stalinism. His skepticism toward communism drove him to look for a third way between Western capitalist democracy and Eastern-style communism, a political philosophy based on humanist values. This search was fostered by the actions of the Western alliance during the Suez crisis in 1956, which for Vester signified the continuous interest of the old imperial powers in the Third World. At the age of 16, he was therefore deeply suspicious about any close alliance with either one of the two power blocs in the cold war. He channeled his protest into activism in high school student governments and advanced to the respective student representation on the state level. There he took on the task of political education, running information events on the crimes and legacy of National Socialism in Germany and Stalinism in the Soviet Union. Another politically formative outlet was his participation in Deutsche Freischar, one of the organizations of the Bündische Jugend, a youth movement going back to the 1920s and dedicated to outdoor group experiences. These groups began to rebel against the narrow conservative mood of cold-war society and moved to a neutralist stance against U.S. and Soviet cold-war politics. All of these activities finally brought him closer to the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German Social Democratic Party; SPD), which he perceived as a gathering pool for intellectuals disenchanted with the status quo in the young Federal Republic.

In 1959, Vester finished high school and started studying social sciences at the University of Hamburg. There he was immediately drawn to the SDS (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund, or German Socialist Student League), which was an ally of the SPD, and he was elected into its regional office. After moving to Frankfurt in 1960, Vester also organizationally drifted to the trade union movement where he met people who had been engaged in resistance efforts during National Socialism, such as trade union chairman Otto Brenner. After his academic year in the United States, he completed the practical parts of his sociological curriculum in the trade union's public relations department and in the educational department under Hans Matthoefer. Through the left-wing Social Democrat Matthoefer (who, in the 1970s, became minister of research under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt), Vester would also become acquainted with European and American labor organizations. His main activism, however, concentrated on the German SDS. Soon after his arrival in the Frankfurt chapter, he became the national vice president of the German SDS, and was also responsible for its international contacts.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the organization that Vester represented already had a long history to look back upon.¹ It was rooted in the Association of Socialist Student Groups of Germany and Austria (1922 to 1929) and its successor, the Socialist Student Association (1929 to 1933).² Despite these continuities to prewar times, the group was newly founded on September 3, 1946, out of an initiative of informal socialist student groups at German universities, and it adopted the name that it was to carry throughout the 1960s. Erich Ollenhauer, vice chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and Kurt Schumacher, the charismatic SPD chairman, in particular supported the meeting of these regional groups and the creation of this socialist student organization. From its inception, SDS was thus associated with the SPD in West Germany, which in the following years urged SDS to adhere to official party lines. The great diversity of the founding generation of SDS after 1945 is illustrated by its first two presidents: Alfred Hooge, who was involved in the socialist resistance during National Socialism, and Heinz Joachim Heydorn, who became a deserter. What initially united them and their membership was the conscious experience of the Weimar Republic, the immediate impetus to re-create a socialist youth movement, and the aim to prevent any future war by actively engaging in peace politics. With the first generational shift in the organization and the replacement of the founding members by people who had still been in school in 1933 and had later been soldiers or involved in other youth party organizations during National Socialism, the organization gradually began to change. This new stream of younger people was characterized by the experience of comradeship, a deep skepticism against any kind of nationalism, openness toward the political culture of the West, a lack of interest in complex theories of society, and an emotional distance to the values of the old labor movement. One member of this new generation was Helmut Schmidt, who was elected president of the SDS in 1947 and would later become West German Chancellor (1972-82). During his time at the head of the German SDS, Schmidt displayed characteristics that would mark his later career: an extraordinary organizational talent, disapproval of “utopian” visions, great sympathy for decisions based on Realpolitik, an international perspective, and diplomatic skills in dealing with competitors or internal rivals.³

In ideological terms the German SDS followed a policy that was outlined in the “Eschweger Guidelines” following a conference in February 1948 near Kassel. It envisioned a society that would enable people to develop their own personalities in harmony with each other, a democratically controlled government, and an economic order that would guarantee even the needs of the poor, otherwise exploited by capitalism, through a planned economy. The university, according to the SDS, was to offer free education and a material basis sufficient for living, because one's studies were, in the long run, work for the benefit of society itself. Responsibility for society as a whole and a strong interaction with the SPD were further dominant features of the student organization in its early years.

A further shift in the German SDS took place on October 23, 1958, when for the first time its leftist faction gained ground during the National Convention in Mannheim. The new leaders of the organization, especially Jürgen Seifert, Monika Mitscherlich, and Horst Steckel, were closer in their thinking to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as represented by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer as well as to the democratic-humanist Marxism represented by political scientists like Wolfgang Abendroth and Peter von Oertzen at the universities of Marburg and Göttingen. Political issues like the threat of nuclear power, the demand for negotiations between the two German states, and a possible German confederacy became prominent items on the new agenda. The Frankfurt branch of the SDS continued to exercise an enormous influence on the organization throughout the 1960s. As an informal discussion circle, the organization was close not only to the Frankfurt School, humanist Marxism, and the trade unions, but also to the cultural scene of the city, to which a substantial number of emigrants had returned after the Second World War. The leftward turn of the new leaders of the SDS, however, caused outrage in the party council of the SPD, whose most outstanding members were Herbert Wehner, Helmut Schmidt, and Willy Brandt. With the “Godesberger Program” of 1959, the SPD aimed to become a mass party through integration into the existing political system of the Federal Republic. As part of this process, leading reformers in the party council such as Brandt, Wehner, and Fritz Erler, hoped to distance the organization from its Marxist heritage or, at least, from its dogmatic incarnation in Soviet communism. The German SDS itself, although internally torn between various factions, frequently tried to reconfirm its loyalty to the Social Democrats but could not conceal the growing ideological divide. In this process of increasing separation, the concept of a “New Left” was to play a particularly significant role.

Encouraged by Michael Vester, Frankfurt SDS member Gerhard Brandt (who later taught industrial sociology in Frankfurt) was among the first to introduce the term “New Left” to the theoretical discussions in the organization. In 1961, he described the rise of the New Left in England in the SDS journal neue kritik summing up its most important characteristics: a departure from orthodox Marxism, a breakaway from the established party system, a criticism of authoritarian tendencies and apathy in society, a demand for social change, a general dissatisfaction with the cold-war situation, and an affinity to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).⁴ He also presented a review of the New Left's most influential book, Out of Apathy, edited by social historian Edward P. Thompson, and analyzed the individual contributions by Stuart Hall, Alasdair Mac-Intyre, and Kenneth Alexander, among others. For Brandt, the goal of these authors was to liberate British society from the dominance of big business and the spiritual void of consumer society. Their means was a “reformist tactic within a revolution strategy,” which included a strengthening of organized labor and a belief in the humanism of the working class. Although Brandt was critical of what he viewed as old-fashioned hope for the potential of labor, he nonetheless concluded that the British New Left as a whole combined the innovative dynamics of a socialist youth movement and the strengths of an already-respected political force. By declaring this new movement an example for the German SDS and demanding a more action-oriented strategy, Brandt's article was symptomatic of a push for new discussion within the organization.⁵

As a consequence, the theme of a New Left became dominant at the SDS national convention in 1961, where the organization's president, Michael Schumann, proudly declared, “[W]e feel that we belong to the movement which originates in England under the name ‘New Left’ and in France is called ‘Nouvelle Gauche.’ ”⁶ The president-elect of SDS caused even greater alarm for the Social Democrats when he referred to the SDS as a promising “point of crystallization of a New Left” with possible “organizational tasks.”⁷ The Social Democratic Party eventually moved to action when, in addition to this, a socialist support society (Sozialistische Förderergesellschaft, SFG) was constituted to help the student organization financially. This society even considered itself to be “the intellectual conscience of the social democratic movement.” Deeming the German SDS an institutionalized version of inner-party opposition under the label “New Left,” the Social Democratic Party's leading circle decided to break completely with its former ally. In its press statements, the SPD among other things explained the decision as a determined move against the New Left as such, which, according to the party heavy weight Herbert Wehner, was also trying to destroy Social Democratic forces in other European countries.⁸ As a result, the SPD executive committee decided to set up its own student organization within its regional chapters in February 1960, thereby officially disassociating itself from the SDS, on November 6, 1961. Membership in the two organizations was from then on declared mutually exclusive.⁹

Facing institutional independence, the SDS allowed the concept of a “New Left” to become even more the focus of internal debate. It was during this period that ideas transported from the American scene started to play a more significant role. Until that point, the alienation between the SPD and SDS had also taken on different dimensions as far as ideological orientation and political concepts were concerned, yet the nature of the definite break left SDS with valuable qualities: the experience of exclusion, a newly gained self-confidence, and a strong intellectual curiosity that also transcended national borders. Indeed, these characteristics would become increasingly valuable in the future. In the years ahead, SDS tried to come to terms with its independence, both financially and theoretically. Ideological diversity and autonomy were celebrated, seen as a distinctive feature of the new generation in SDS. This generation increasingly sought and found a new theoretical definition and identity in a compromise between theoretical and practical socialism associated with the New Left. In other words, SDS as an organization of the “young socialist intelligentsia” from then on positioned itself as a representative of a New Left movement; this movement would not necessarily focus on the workers alone as agents for social change, but would additionally look toward the growing technical and scientific elite at the universities for alternatives to the existing order.¹⁰ SDS understood itself less as a recruiting resource to lead a labor movement, but more and more as an avantgarde organization, which was to attract the educated middle classes and win them over to emancipatory goals for changing society. The concrete relationship between socialist theory and practice, however, still remained to be determined.

At the beginning of the 1960s, there were very few indications of an emerging student movement in the United States. The Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), the renamed heir of the early-twentieth-century Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS), had only three chapters (at the universities of Columbia, Yale, and Michigan), which operated largely as discussion clubs with a small membership of a few hundred students.¹¹ The organization had its part-time headquarters in a lower Manhattan office building, and yearly support of not more than $3,500 from its parent organization, the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). It defined itself as “a non-partisan educational organization which seeks to promote greater active participation on the part of the American students in the resolution of present-day problems.”¹² In 1960, however, SLID adopted the name Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which was to become known as the most vocal and popular American youth organization in the upcoming decade.¹³

The name change occurred only shortly after a conference at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, which secured the American SDS a prominent place in the public perception of student activism in 1960. Inspired by the lunch-counter sit-in in Greensboro, N.C., student interest and involvement in the civil rights movement spread all over the South; it also reached the North when 150 students gathered at the “Human Rights in the North” conference in Ann Arbor during April 28-May 1, 1960, eager to combat racial discrimination. The fact that students from Greensboro and members of the newly founded Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) also participated in the conference generated extraordinary interest and brought publicity and recognition for the American SDS. The organization helped to put segregation and racial inequality in the United States on the political agenda of students in the North, who also found inspiration in the protest techniques and strategies of their Southern peers. The conference therefore provided a first meeting ground for two strains of student activism in the 1960s and formed a loose alliance between them; an alliance, however, which was marked by SDS's attempt to absorb the issue of civil rights into the larger political program of a burgeoning New Left movement.

The mastermind behind this strategy was 24-year-old student Al Haber, who had joined SLID in 1958 and afterward turned its University of Michigan chapter into the most active and fastest-growing chapter of the organization. Haber was an extremely talented and persuasive organizer, who very successfully recruited students for this multifarious organization around specific issues such as civil rights, disarmament, and poverty in America. Between 1960 and 1962 he became the first president and national secretary of SDS. With the help of equally ambitious student-organizers such as Richard Flacks and Tom Hayden, he was able to move SDS further away from the Old Left, whose doctrines they perceived as timid and ineffectual. Haber's strategy was to bring together existing campus chapters and groups of various organizations, to coord...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - SDS Meets SDS
• Chapter 2 - Between Berkeley and Berlin, Frankfurt and San Francisco: The Networks and Nexus of Transnational Protest
• Chapter 3 - Building the Second Front: The Transatlantic Antiwar Alliance
• Chapter 4 - Black and Red Panthers
• Chapter 5 - The Other Alliance and the Transatlantic Partnership
• Chapter 6 - Student Protest and International Relations
• Conclusion
• Notes
• List of Sources
• Index