Emergency community for a free university

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Emergency community for a free university
(NofU)
purpose 1. To preserve and promote the freedom of research, teaching and learning; 2. To educate the public about the state of the universities; 3. Develop and implement reforms that guarantee a free and efficient university.
Chair: Ernst Büchi , Jürgen Domes , Hans Joachim Geisler , Peter Hanau , Georg Nicolaus Knauer , Folkmar Koenigs , Bernd Rüthers , Horst Sanmann , Otto von Simson (1st board member 1970)
Establishment date: February 9, 1970
Dissolution date: 1990
Number of members: approx. 500 (1970s)
Seat : Berlin

The Notgemeinschaft für eine Free University (NofU) was an association of university teachers and citizens from different political directions that existed from 1970 to 1990. The aim of the association was, on the one hand, to oppose the psychological and sometimes considerable physical violence of extremist sections of the student movement against those who think differently in the 1970s, the older professors such as Ernst Fraenkel and Otto von Simson , both main founders of the NofU, who were involved in the Nazi dictatorship Victims of political and racial persecution are strongly reminiscent of attacks by the Nazi student unions on Jewish lecturers in the early 1930s. On the other hand, the aim of the association was to ward off the communist and totalitarian- Marxist dangers for the democracy of the Federal Republic of Germany that arose in this context, partly due to the great influence of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the universities of West Berlin, but also in others Parts of society were given. In this context, he criticized sections of left-wing extremist students who had called for the “conquest of the university” as the first stop on the “long march through the institutions ”. The Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft (BFW) , which was formed among other things by the NofU, rejected Marxism as the sole guiding ideology of all research and teaching, but found that it should have its place in research as a self-critical method of knowledge and scientific interpretation.

The investigations of current historical research showed that the members were primarily a male, educated elite shaped by bourgeois values, but that they were younger and much more modern and progressive in their attitudes than what their opponents assumed were for the interest group was occasionally downright an "enemy image". and circulated over the cliché images. For example, they advocated a necessary university reform , the abolition of the ordinariate and a better position for non-ordinaries and assistants. Many of the professors organized in the BFW also gained their scientific reputation in the “methodologically and theoretically most innovative research branches” of their subjects and saw their work as a “contribution to the consolidation of the liberal-democratic social order of the Federal Republic ”.

One of the main founders of the NofU was Ernst Fraenkel , who is considered to be one of the "fathers" of modern political science in the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin and who, as a Jew (also in the resistance against National Socialism ), was forced to leave Germany during the Third Reich . His work " Der Doppelstaat ", which appeared in the USA in 1940 and then in Germany in 1974 , is still considered essential standard literature on National Socialist Germany today . Fraenkel saw many months of attacks and threats by the student movement against dissenters and himself as great dangers and suffered greatly as a result. The student movement, however, claimed for itself to catch up with the German resistance and to fight against “fascist” structures of the German state. The other side saw this as a threat to the young democracy and drew parallels with the end of the Weimar Republic . The conflict at that time grew out of these contradictions, especially at universities. For example, in the late 1960s, Fraenkel asked Hans Maier in view of the psychological and physical violence : “Is it starting again in Germany?”. Recent research has shown that a change in the public reappraisal of National Socialism had already started before the 1968 movement and that it may even have depersonalized and “derealized” National Socialism as “ fascism that is ubiquitous in the present ”. According to the latest contemporary historical research, this has led to a political “conceptual wilderness”, as can also be seen in the disputes about the NofU and the BFW at the time.

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War in 1990, the NofU dissolved and became the “Berlin-Brandenburg” section of the BFW, which increasingly turned to other issues of school, university and educational policy. Incidentally, the remaining veterans of the BFW fought at a crucial point almost side by side with the student representatives against the Bologna reform until 2014. But neither side had really noticed that. The BFW later suffered from a lack of money and the old age of its members and disbanded in 2015.

Due to the many misunderstandings and misinterpretations from its time of origin, work on the NofU reproduced the typical generalities against the association until the end of the 2000s. This pattern broke for the first time scientifically sound and more balanced articles from 2008 and 2010.

Emergence

The center of the West German student movement was West Berlin . The symbols and codes of the 68 movement, Rudi Dutschke , Commune I , the International Vietnam Congress are attached to Berlin. In no other university town were protests as persistent as in Berlin, where the student movement was particularly active. Something like an “academic civil war” took place on the Kudamm in Berlin. The reason for this was the frontal and island location of the divided city together with the special composition of the student body in West Berlin.

The Free University of Berlin was founded in 1948 as a counter-foundation to the University of Unter den Linden , which had been in the Soviet sector since the division of Berlin . The establishment was therefore an expression of the German-German system competition at the time and, together with the Kaufhaus des Westens and cultural counterparts such as the Berlin Opera House, it was part of a symbolic struggle in the East-West conflict , which particularly took place in Berlin as a showcase for both systems.

In retrospect, various aspects of the period of the “ sixty-eighties ” of the past century are considered in an attempt to assess this period. For example, in 2017 a son of the student leader, Rudi Dutschke, said:

“You have brought a lot of good. For the upbringing of children, the emancipation of women, environmental protection and the third world. On the other hand, of course, there is violence […]. [To the comment that some people were talking about the power cartel of the sixty-eight years old, which colored their past, he replied:] Let's take Joschka Fischer. He threw stones back then, today he's almost an oligarch. It depends on how strongly you want power. "

- Hosea-Che Dutschke : What is life like as Rudi Dutschke's son? , In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , 2017

Causes: Violence against those who think differently at universities

The more recent historical research attaches importance to also addressing the follow-up effects of the student movement , which the older research hardly considered, although they played an important role for the constitution of the NofU and the BFW: The experiences mostly psychological, but also physical violence caused by the The student movement contributed significantly to the development, but also to further solidarity with these associations. Looking back on the familiar images of the Vietnam Congress and Commune I, it is often forgotten that the 1968 movement was first and foremost a university revolt. University teachers were the first to suffer from the student movement . The “Ordinarius” with the thousand-year-old mustache under his gown was for radical students the symbol of a supposedly reactionary university system. Especially in the early 1970s, there were sometimes extremely violent actions by students from the extreme left spectrum against dissenting teachers and students. In lectures and seminars, dissidents were also attacked with heckling and chanting, not infrequently with eggs and bags of paint.

The NofU published numerous papers in response to these events at the universities. These publications were most impressive where they documented original accounts of the victims of violence by radical students, giving an impression of that time in universities. This applies above all to the destructive and sometimes extremely violent actions of the Red Cells and later other associations. For example, the NofU published a report by students at the Pädagogische Hochschule Berlin who were initially locked in a classroom in November 1970 by a red cell demonstrating for the abolition of Latin and theology:

“The tables were carried out of the room and the lights turned off. After about 5 minutes in the dark ... the representatives of the 'Red Cell' decided to enforce their demand now by force. Professor Molinski was pushed out of the room by physical violence - blows and knocks. Then the present Russian lecturer, Mr. Taurit, was forcibly driven out of the room with blows, kicks and knocks. The same thing happened to several students. "

- Students of the PH : University of Education Berlin under hammer and sickle

As a counterpoint to such actions, the letters of justification from radical groups of students also documented by the NofU developed a revealing effect. For example, she printed a report by the "Rotzang", which in 1970 reinforced its call for the hiring of Marxist tutors by showing around 70 students in a meeting to "tap the reaction on the fingers". “Reaction” meant Erich Loos , professor of Romance studies, social democrat and persecuted by the regime during the Nazi era . In 1967 he was a speaker at the official funeral service for Benno Ohnesorg . At the same time, however, he later belonged to the NofU because of the violence at the university. His name, along with other board members, appeared on almost all NofU publications. The 70 students referred to Loos as a "pond toad" and pelted him with eggs while he tried to protect himself behind a table.

Manfred Scheler came to NofU early on. In 1969 he was only able to take the intermediate examination under police protection. There was also a campaign in the following years that meant for him a two-year "hunt without equal". In 1973, for example, two students threatened him (the "pig") with a "shot in the neck". Through the whole situation Scheler came close to a "mental and physical breakdown".

One of the early members was Folkmar Koenigs , who held a chair at the Technical University of Berlin. In the 1970s he, too, put his experiences with physical violence in connection with parts of the student movement on record.

Around 1970 all of this determined the climate at the university. There was great uncertainty among the teachers.

Richard Löwenthal , who as a Jew could no longer publish his dissertation in 1931 and emigrated soon afterwards, said on a television broadcast in 1970:

“Most […] the forms of student terror that we have had in recent years are similar to fascist ones. It is not a question of the percentage […] when in so many universities it turns out again and again that certain people are targeted for insults and threats, physical attacks, threats to their families and the impossibility of their existence because of their opinions; that targeted campaigns against university professors by all means [...] because of their convictions [...] take place. And then I would like to ask you, Herr Westphalen, if you had been old enough to see in 1932 how the first lectures of university lecturers were disrupted because of their race, with similar, with comparable methods - I would like to know whether you asked about the question at the time the percentage. "

- Richard Lowenthal

But statements by professors who were initially very positive towards the student movement were similar in view of the violence at the universities. Jürgen Habermas, for example, raised the charge of "left-wing fascism" (which he publicly withdrew a short time later) and Max Horkheimer pointed out that "an affinity for the mindset of the Nazis striving for power" was "unmistakable". The movement is about "enjoying the riot, acting out aggression". Even Theodor W. Adorno to have said: "I have set up a theoretical model of thinking. How did I know that people want to make it happen with Molotov cocktails? ”There are now similar statements from former members of the student movement , who now see them critically, such as: B. by Götz Aly .

Younger professors such as the social democrat Thomas Nipperdey , who counted themselves to the liberal reform avant-garde, were outraged that the students attacked them as “Nazis” with statements such as “NiPerDey is a fascist tail”.

Causes: Expansion of co-determination for students at universities

The NofU added a political motive to the rejection of psychological and physical violence against those who think differently. With the intention of curbing the student movement, after 1968 many federal states responded to their most important university policy demand: the expansion of student participation in academic self-administration. Under the heading of “democratization”, the West Berlin University Act of 1969 created almost a third parity of students, assistants and university lecturers in the collegial bodies. For the first time, the students gained relevant influence on the distribution of research funds, on appointment procedures, on doctorates and even on their own examination regulations. Especially the more radical part of the left among the students took this as a license. At the Free University of Berlin in November 1969, a tripartite council elected the 31-year-old sociology assistant Rolf Kreibich as Germany's first university president without a doctorate.

Kreibich had won the election mainly thanks to the promise not to allow any more police operations on the university premises in the event of future protests. The communist Red Cells used this in December 1969 to force a business administration lecture to be broken off.

The shocked deans of the Free University of Berlin spoke to the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Schütz (SPD). He expressed his understanding, but did not intervene.

The professors got the impression that it was not wrong for the political leaders if the conflict with the students focused more strongly on the universities. In a private conversation, Klaus Schütz is said to have said that as long as he had peace on Kurfürstendamm , he was not interested in the riot in Dahlem .

In this situation, Ernst Fraenkel gave the signal for the foundation of the NofU at the end of 1969: Since the fight within the university was lost, it had to be waged from outside from now on. “There was only a comparable situation in Germany in 1933”, Otto von Simson also declared in the daily newspaper “ Die Welt ”, referring to a violent action by the Red Cells . Horst Sanmann said: "At least in ten years we don't want to let our children accuse us of having done nothing."

In 1969 the circle around Otto von Simson and Ernst Fraenkel joined forces and first founded the “Action Group for a Free University”, deliberately writing “free” in lower case because the name refers to the general freedom of research and teaching at all Berlin universities related, not only to the Free University. A short time later, the name was changed to “Notgemeinschaft für eine Free University”.

To the circle of these beginnings belonged besides the already mentioned u. a .: Otto von Simson , Thomas Nipperdey , Helmut Kewitz , Jürgen Domes , Georg Nicolaus Knauer , Günter Neuhaus, Hans Joachim Geisler , Horst Sanmann , Peter Hanau , Ernst Büchi , Bernd Rüthers , and Stanislaw Karol Kubicki , in 1948 the very first at the Freie University of Berlin enrolled students, as well as Helmut Coper . Kubicki and Coper had co-founded the Free University of Berlin in 1948 as students .

Hans-Eberhard Zahn was one of the most active actors in the NofU. He had spent seven cruel years in the Brandenburg penitentiary. As a student at the Free University of Berlin in the early 1950s, he and the AStA created a network of helpers who brought money to relatives of students in the GDR . During such a surrender in East Berlin , he was arrested in 1953 and convicted of “military espionage” and “propaganda endangering peace”.

All members of the NofU were observed by the Ministry for State Security of the GDR . Above all, Zahn was under special observation by the MfS in the 1980s.

Georg Nicolaus Knauer was the unofficial "leader" of the NofU early on. He had been full professor of Ancient Philology at the Free University of Berlin since 1966 and had already referred to the situation at his university in an article in Oxford Magazine in 1967 in order to find colleagues. In addition to the publication of critical texts, many later BFW founders also worked as reviewers against the radical sections of the student movement . Knauer wrote, for example, together with Fritz Borinski , the then professor for educational sciences, on behalf of the rector of the Free University of Berlin in 1967 an opinion on the " critical university ". They were advised by Richard Löwenthal and the sociologist Otto Stammer . The paper came to the conclusion that contrary to the assertion of the General Student Committee (AStA) that the “ critical university ” is a contribution to higher education reform, an organ of the student body and a place of engagement with “critical science”, it is rather the arm of non-university political groups Forces like the APO and a “management school” at the university. On the basis of this statement, the Academic Senate of the Free University of Berlin decided in 1967 not to support the “ Critical University ” for the time being.

The later historian Michael Wolffsohn also joined the NofU as a young student. Wolffsohn was very active and co-founded the history reform group at the Free University of Berlin . Kezia Knauer and Rita Braun-Feldweg were personalities in the early environment of the NofU.

As the spirit rector of the NofU, Ernst Fraenkel gave the motto: After the fight within the university had been lost, it must now be carried on from outside. It consequently followed that the NofU did not want to be an association only of professors from the Free University of Berlin . It wooed all interested citizens and university members and tried to influence public opinion, especially outside the universities. The NofU consisted of about 500 people. Other members of the NofU included a .: Ursula Besser , Wolfram Fischer , Dieter Heckelmann , Richard Hentschke , Ingo Pommerening and Jürgen Zabeck . Folkmar Koenigs , one of the early members of the NofU, went to the Kurfürstendamm after an attack to demonstrate against the violence. Like no other, the “painted professor at the Kranzlereck” symbolizes the strategy of the NofU to bring the strife at the West Berlin universities back to Kurfürstendamm .

Further course

As early as 1971, the boundaries within the committees no longer ran along the status groups of the university. Rather, since the beginning of the group university, organized political camps had formed across all statuses. The trigger for this development was the politicization of the university by the 1968 movement , which led to an initial split into “left” and “right” camps. The effects of the university laws, but also the resistance of NofU and BFW, set in motion a further polarization process.

The “liberal” forces in the “center” were increasingly deterred by the violence of the Red Cells and K groups or the often unsuccessful and lengthy committee work and had begun to form coalitions with representatives of the NofU and the BFW. The most prominent example of this is probably Alexander Schwan , director at the Otto Suhr Institute , who played a key role in developing the institute's “revolutionary” draft statutes in 1969 and, in this sense, was a supporter of Rolf Kreibich for the implementation of the preliminary law . In 1971, Schwan and the NofU founded the “Liberal Action”, which arose from a broad alliance. In it there were among other things the social democratic working groups of the Liberal Action, in which u. a. Nipperdey, Schwan and Heinrich August Winkler worked together.

From today's perspective, it must not be forgotten that parts of the left among the students themselves first called for the “conquest of the university” as the first stop on the “long march through the institutions ”. Threatening at the time of was the Cold War in West Berlin in this context, the great part of the influence of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) at the universities of West Berlin.

The influence of the SED in West Berlin

The Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin (SEW) had emerged from the SED in West Berlin . In the 1970s, due to its organizational strength and the wide range of activities, SEW was a force that could not be overlooked, well beyond the scene of the New Left .

The SEW , controlled by the SED , in turn led the student organization ADS and thus had a great deal of influence at the universities, as well as through its party groups there. In the 1970s, ADS played an important role at all West Berlin universities in this manual and in cooperation with the SEW university groups. She had not only organizational, but also financial support in the GDR . The ADS had existed since 1971. It emerged from union representatives of students at the Free University of Berlin , the Technical University of Berlin and some “ red cells ”, which carried out the sometimes extremely violent actions against those who think differently, especially at the FU.

In list connections with the Social Democratic University Association (SHB), which was largely infiltrated by the SED , the ADS was able to win up to 30 percent of all student mandates in university elections in West Berlin in the early 1970s .

In the 1970s, for example, the SED and the SEW, thanks to their organizational strength and diverse activities, were a size that could not be overlooked, far beyond the scene of the New Left . The SEW communists were unsuccessful in the elections, but the party recorded an increase in membership by the mid-1970s. She gained positions and gained influence among educators and within the Education and Science Union (GEW). Starting from the universities, the West Berlin communists initiated a variety of campaigns on educational policy issues as well as campaigns that went beyond that.

This great influence of the SED through the SEW it controls at the universities in West Berlin also prompted the NofU to undertake educational work. In the beginning, the NofU could only be reached via a mailbox. She also listed communist infiltration efforts in other areas of society. This documentation, for example “Berlin universities under hammer and sickle”, went to over 11,000 multipliers, including press agencies, all members of the Bundestag and the state parliaments, state governments, scientific, church and political institutions, authorities, trade unions, employers' associations and universities in Germany and abroad Foreign countries.

The Marxist orientation of parts of the student movement at that time was an important driving force behind the founding of the association. a. BFW, which emerged from the NofU, the student movement no longer uses Marxism as a scientific interpretation among many, but based on the model of the " Eastern Bloc " as the guiding ideology of all research and teaching. The association members argued that Marxism should not be elevated to a monopoly of truth and function as an all-encompassing paradigm at universities, but that it certainly has its place there as one method among others. Already in 1970 the BFW's appeal for the foundation of Marxism said:

“[Science] can only exist as long as no dogma defines in advance what is good and what is bad. Therefore, Marxism has a legitimate place at the university, provided that it sees itself as a self-critical method of knowledge, not on the other hand as a fanatical claim to sole possession of the truth or even militant actionism. "

- Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft : call for founding

The ADS / SEW lists

However, it was the SED's great influence on West Berlin, especially at the universities, that led the NofU to undertake what is still in some cases the most controversial action to this day: from 1974 to 1980, it recompiled the publicly accessible, official ADS electoral lists in the form of lists. Within six years these were the names of a total of 1664 ADS activists . Although these were actually mere compilations of the official ADS electoral lists, critics spoke of proscription lists. The NofU won all of the lawsuits brought against them in this matter. In the heated debates about these lists from 1974 onwards, the NofU attached great importance to the statement that all of its information was based on published sources accessible to everyone and therefore would not violate the personal rights of those named, and as early as 1974 saw itself prompted to launch the “ ADS -Lists "to defend:

"Mind you: all the names on the following list are, as in the first episode, taken from the election newspapers of the Berlin universities, ie official and generally accessible sources. The indignation of the ADSs about 'black lists' [...] is incomprehensible - unless the left- wing radicals want to be voted anonymously in the future. "

- Emergency community for a free university

Nevertheless, this NofU action remained controversial within and outside the Verbende.

Even Wolfgang Fritz Haug , Klaus Holzenkamp and Urs Jaeggi were on such a compilation of the official electoral lists of ads.

The NofU lawyer Peter Raue also always presented the condolence letter of the board of the SHB on the death of Walter Ulbricht , under whose political responsibility the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, in court trials .

The Union for Education and Science (GEW), in which the SED had gained influence in the 1970s, criticized such a publication in 1980. But it also met criticism from the then President of the Free University of Berlin , Eberhard Lämmert , and the deputy university senator Jürgen Brinckmeier . In the 1970s, the NofU also criticized high-ranking university representatives such as the President of the Free University of Berlin , Eberhard Lämmert, and the Vice-President of the Free University of Berlin , Margherita von Brentano , but also politicians such as the Berlin Senator for Science, Peter Glotz . In a publication, the NofU described the Protestant student communities as " focal points of the popular fronts at the universities".

The ADSs soon lost their importance in West Berlin .

After 1980 the NofU discontinued the " ADS " series . The increasing loss of importance of the groups controlled by the totalitarian Socialist Unity Party of Germany was seen by the NofU as a success of its publication practice, even if this brought it in part massive criticism. The lists were highly controversial both inside and outside the association.

The NofU and the BFW

Apart from small changes, the founding committee of the BFW was based on the statutes of the NofU. As the first founding of a regional association and the most active section of the BFW, it was always a special case and remained so until the end. She remained actively involved in education policy and changed to the “Berlin-Brandenburg” section after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 2000 it formed the last active local branch of the BFW. With its focus on public relations outside the universities, but also with the opening up to broad membership, the construction of the NofU became a model for the BFW. NofU professors who emigrated from West Berlin such as ( Willi Blümel in Bielefeld, Horst Sanmann in Hamburg, Jürgen Zabeck in Mannheim, Bernd Rüthers in Konstanz, Roman Herzog in Speyer and, last but not least, Thomas Nipperdey on the BFW federal board) also took care of the early years for the dissemination of the NofU's know-how throughout the BFW. Georg Nicolaus Knauer emigrated to Philadelphia from the Free University of Berlin in 1975 .

In the times of the political-intellectual polarization of the West German academic milieu in the 1970s, defining figures of the BFW, which emerged from the NofU among others, were highly renowned humanities and social scientists, high-ranking science functionaries and influential public intellectuals such as B. Ernst Fraenkel , Wilhelm Hennis , Roman Herzog , Georg Nicolaus Knauer , Helmut Kuhn , Richard Löwenthal , Hermann Lübbe , Hans Maier , Thomas Nipperdey , Ernst Nolte , Heinz-Dietrich Ortlieb , Konrad Repgen , Walter Rüegg , Erwin K. Scheuch , Alexander Schwan , Otto von Simson and Friedrich Tenbruck . Even this list corrects a widespread cliché that the professors organized in the BFW were the last contingent of an older, arch-conservative and often Nazi-burdened generation of professors who wanted the student movement to blow away the thousand-year-old stench under their gowns . A large part of the members mentioned were still among the younger professors around 1970 and had been academically socialized after 1945 and only moved to the chairs in the early 1960s, i.e. shortly before the “ 68 revolt ” (so Roman Herzog, Hermann Lübbe, Hans Maier , Thomas Nipperdey, Erwin K. Scheuch and Alexander Schwan). In addition, there were those persecuted by the National Socialist regime and remigrants such as Ernst Fraenkel , Helmut Kuhn , Richard Löwenthal and a few more. Christian Democrats like Roman Herzog, Helmut Kuhn, Hans Maier, Konrad Repgen and Social Democrats like Hermann Lübbe, Thomas Nipperdey, Heinz-Dietrich Ortlieb and Alexander Schwan were roughly in balance. When Hans Maier took over the nationwide organizational preparation of the BFW's founding congress, he also relied on the NofU. Apart from small changes, the committee was based on the statutes of the NofU.

Axel Springer was one of the sympathizers of the NofU, in particular, but also of the Federation of Freedom of Science . On November 23, 1980, he hosted a reception in his home for members of both associations. He said:

“Freedom was the goal of the men and women who rebelled against Hitler, with scientists at the forefront. Freedom has also inspired Berliners to stand up to the communists here in this city and to persevere in this way: in 1946 in the election to the city parliament ; 1948 during the blockade ; 1961 when the wall was built . And also with the establishment of the 'Emergency Community for a Free University'. "

- Axel Springer

In the newspaper BILD , however, the BFW was rarely a topic, even if the NofU placed some advertisements here in 1972 in order to address as many citizens as possible. However, members of the association often published their articles in the national "Springer-Presse" ( Die Welt , Welt am Sonntag ), which also reported positively about the BFW. Otherwise, BFW members placed articles in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Also, Time reported positively about the association. Overall, the BFW used particularly national papers with a “high” claim.

Hans Joachim Geisler , a co-founder of the NofU and the BFW, can be described as one of the most active BFW members and one of the most driving forces in the association (in 2011, the BFW Geisler therefore transferred - for the first time in the association's history - a specially created one Honorary chair). Michael Wolffsohn gave a laudation in which he described the individual views of the actors involved in NofU and BFW. In retrospect, Geisler justified his motivation for his commitment in the 2010s with three arguments, which the contemporary historical research u. a. with the rejection of violence and totalitarianism as typical for a large part of the people involved in the BFW:

"What we all felt in 1969 was that the university threatened to be destroyed by a kind of pincer grip on the one hand by these radical left-wing disruptors of the courses [...] and on the other hand [...] the fulfillment of the demands of these people through the Berlin University Act. [...] Well, we just felt completely abandoned by the state and on the other hand exposed to these immediate threats, which for some colleagues were really bad and dangerous [...]. The second, however, was also concern about democracy in Germany. This student movement explicitly referred to communist dictators [...], and many older people remembered the Nazi era again [...] and they said: Our children shouldn't ask us later: Why didn't you do anything? ? [...] In West Berlin , of course, the communist threat was also particularly noticeable. The Russians stood around Berlin with their tanks, […] the Khrushchev ultimatum was not forgotten […]. This threat was real and was alive. "

- Hans Joachim Geisler

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War in 1990, the NofU dissolved and became the “Berlin-Brandenburg” section of the BFW, which increasingly turned to other issues of school, university and educational policy. Incidentally, the remaining veterans of the BFW fought at a crucial point almost side by side with the student representatives against the Bologna reform until 2014. But neither side had really noticed that. The BFW later suffered from a lack of money and the old age of its members and disbanded in 2015.

literature

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  • Michael Wildt: The transformation of the state of emergency. Ernst Fraenkel's analysis of Nazi rule and its political topicality . In: Jürgen Danyel, Jan-Holger Kirsch, Martin Sabrow (eds.): 50 classics of contemporary history . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-647-36024-9 , p. 19–24 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Till Kinzel : The “Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft” and the “Emergency Community for a Free University” in the resistance against the sixty-eight . In: Hartmuth Becker , Felix Dirsch and Stefan Winckler (eds.): The 68ers and their opponents. Resistance to the Cultural Revolution . Stocker, Graz / Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-7020-1005-X , p. 112-136 .

Web links

  • Michael Wolffsohn: In honor of Hans Joachim Geisler. Memories of rough years. (PDF; 0.39 MB) Laudation for the award of the honorary chairmanship of the Federation of Freedom of Science [with a description of the view of the Federation of Freedom of Science]. In: freedom of science online, January 2012. Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft, archived from the original on December 11, 2016 .;

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ansbert Baumann: Review: Svea Koischwitz, Der Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft in the years 1970–1976. An interest group between the student movement and university reform, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna (Böhlau) 2017, (Kölner Historische Abhandlungen, 52) . In: German Historical Institute Paris (Ed.): Francia-Recensio (Francia. Research on Western European History) . No. 4 , 2017, ISSN  2425-3510 , doi : 10.11588 / frrec.2017.4.43170 , urn : nbn: de: bsz: 16-frrec-431707 ( [1] [PDF; 187 kB ]).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Nikolai Wehrs: Protest of the professors. The “Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft” in the 1970s . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1400-9 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au Svea Koischwitz : The Federation of Freedom of Science in the years 1970–1976. An interest group between the student movement and university reform (=  Kölner Historische Abhandlungen . Volume 52 ). Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-412-50554-7 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Nikolai Wehrs: Student revolt in West Berlin. The professors' revenge. In: Der Tagesspiegel . June 22, 2014, accessed February 18, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e Olav Teichert: The Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin. Investigation of the control of SEW by the SED . Kassel Univ. Press, Kassel 2011, ISBN 978-3-89958-995-5 , pp. 256 f . ( [2] [PDF; 9.7 MB ]).
  6. ↑ a b c d Thomas Klein: SEW. The West Berlin unit socialists. An “East German” party as a thorn in the flesh of the “front city”? Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-559-1 , p. 76 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ^ Wilhelm Bleek : History of Political Science in Germany . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47173-0 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  8. ↑ Michael Wildt : The transformation of the state of emergency. Ernst Fraenkel's analysis of Nazi rule and its political topicality . In: Jürgen Danyel, Jan-Holger Kirsch, Martin Sabrow (eds.): 50 classics of contemporary history . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-647-36024-9 , p. 19–24 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  9. ↑ Sebastian Balzter: What is life like as the son of Rudi Dutschke? Interview with Hosea-Che Dutschke. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . December 24, 2017, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Quoted from Nikolai Wehrs: Protest of the Professors. The “Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft” in the 1970s . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1400-9 , p. 287 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  11. ↑ "Fear and tolerance are over" . In: Der Spiegel . tape 52 , December 24, 1973 ( spiegel.de [accessed February 19, 2018]).
  12. ↑ Quoted from Svea Koischwitz: The Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft in the years 1970–1976. An interest group between the student movement and university reform (=  Kölner Historische Abhandlungen . Volume 52 ). Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-412-50554-7 , p. 68 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  13. ↑ a b Michael Wolffsohn: Hans Joachim Geisler in honor. Memories of rough years. (PDF; 0.39 MB) Laudation for the award of the honorary chairmanship of the Federation of Freedom of Science [with a description of the view of the Federation of Freedom of Science]. In: freedom of science online, January 2012. Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft, archived from the original on December 11, 2016 .;
  14. ↑ Quoted from Svea Koischwitz: The Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft in the years 1970–1976. An interest group between the student movement and university reform (=  Kölner Historische Abhandlungen . Volume 52 ). Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-412-50554-7 , p. 71 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. ↑ Quoted from Svea Koischwitz: The Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft in the years 1970–1976. An interest group between the student movement and university reform (=  Kölner Historische Abhandlungen . Volume 52 ). Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-412-50554-7 , p. 402 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  16. ↑ a b c Der Spiegel : PO Box 330 445 , November 3, 1980
  17. ↑ Karoll Stein : Fishermen in the cloudy , December 18, 1970 in Die Zeit
  18. ↑ Hans Maier: Bad Years, Good Years. Ein Leben 1931 ff. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61285-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  19. ↑ Quoted from Svea Koischwitz: The Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft in the years 1970–1976. An interest group between the student movement and university reform (=  Kölner Historische Abhandlungen . Volume 52 ). Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-412-50554-7 , p. 149 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  20. ↑ Michael Wolffsohn: German Jewish lucky children. A world story of my family . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-28126-3 ( limited preview in Google book search).