Karl,
It was one of the tragic and traumatic periods in West-German history.
First you had the ruins of a war and the ancien regime, secondly you
had the devidance of Germany in two pieces with a wall which separated
them, and which separated families, friends and former colleages for
often decades. Third there was the civil unrest in Germany in the
roaring year of 1968 when revolutionairy student protest in Paris and
Berlin turned violent. The extremes were released from the bottle.
What started as a non-violent protest of left-wing youngsters against
an elder generation, whom they sometimes rightfully and sometimes
wrongfully accused of their Nazi-past and involvement, became violent
when a radical minority started to follow the extremist path of armed
struggle, follwing the Southern-American path of city guerilla.
Many young West-Germans discovered and rebelled against the Nazi
past of their grandfathers and fathers. In the German society former
prominent NSDAP members, people from the SS, SD, Gestapo and other
Nazi organs had high positions in the German society.
They were police commanders, police officers, judges, lawjers, doctors,
dentists, civil servants and etc. Germany had stil a bad reputation and
in many European countries there was stil the anti-German attitude
and aversion which was expressed in a hostile and sometimes
aggressive attitude of other Europeans towards Germans.
The young Germans witnessed this when they went abroad or when
they met foreign visitors in Germany. Today that is often forgotten.
That was the root of the later student riots, violence, killings,
kidnappings, highjackings and political extremism.
First there was the legitimate questioning of one generation of
the other, every generation questions the older one, because that
is part of teenage rebellion, growing up and adolescence.
Where they crossed the line was the moment that they started
using violence in which indiscriminately they killed compatriots,
foreigners (Americans and Dutch policemen), and following a
blind ideology of dogmatism, nihilism and radical left idealism.
Yes, idealism can be a dangerous starting point for extremism.
Pieter
links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutschke and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohn_Benditen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohnesorg (Martyr of the Left movement)
www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/KontinuitaetUndWandel_photoTodBennoOhnesorg/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_of_1968en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Autumnnl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns-Martin_Schleyer
