Our fight in 1968 - an irritated look back

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Our fight 1968 - an irritated look back is a monograph by the historian Götz Aly from 2008. In the work, which is controversial among social scientists from various disciplines, Aly deals with what he sees as irritating or incongruent aspects of the so-called 68 generation and their social and political Move.

theses

Aly states that the 1968 generation have more in common with the generation of their parents than was previously assumed in science. The 68ers would have tied “to the activism of their thirty-three fathers”. With reference to Erwin Scheuch , who turned to right-wing conservatism under the impression of the '68 events, Aly states an “evil historical continuity of rape of fellow human beings out of conviction”, which is particularly recognizable among Germans, from which it can be explained that the German students “im Appearance and in their objectives [were] more anti-democratic than their restless fellow students in other countries ”. As a common feature between Alys "33 generation" and the 68ers, the author already sees the politically independent self-designation as " movement " and states that both the National Socialist "student rebellion" and the 68ers called themselves that. The term was "resumed" in 1967 by the students.

In his book, Aly tries above all to portray anti-democratic and reactionary lines of tradition among the 68ers. For this purpose, for example, the development towards anti-imperialism in its dimension of supporting national liberation movements and terrorist organizations is used, which in the case of Ulrike Meinhof , for example, extended to open anti-Semitism . In relation to its aftermath, Aly accuses the 1968 movement of an often uncritical supporter of Maoism, which went as far as supporting Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge .

Aly believes that reforms in the Federal Republic and social liberalization cannot be traced back to the 1968 movement, but rather that these developments were already part of the government activities of the then Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger . Rather, the 68ers hindered and thus delayed the efforts of the Kiesinger government to liberalize.

From a survey from 1967, in which 81 percent of the students surveyed agreed with the thesis that German politics should “free itself from Western paternalism”, Aly draws the conclusion that the protagonists of the 68s shared a deep anti-Americanism with their parents' generation and likewise how they were "senseless German". With the beginning of an openly interventionist military policy under President Lyndon B. Johnson , a previous affection for American culture would have changed to anti-Americanism. Aly described this development as "uncontrolled, emotionalized, first slow, then strongly accelerated backward travel."

Throughout the entire font, Aly the “33 generation” serves as an object for comparison with the 68 movement. Aly leaves open the problem that the “33 generation” refers exclusively to Germany and the National Socialist “movement”, but the second object of comparison was global and heterogeneous and in most cases could not refer to the German National Socialists largely ignores the 68ers as an international phenomenon. Aly very often refers to statements and writings by publicists such as Ernst Fraenkel or Richard Löwenthal , who at the time equated the SDS with the NSDAP. Erwin K. Scheuch , the co-founder of the conservative federal freedom of science , who was sharply attacked by students around 1968, is also cited. In some cases, entire theses and lines of argument are based on these sources.

reception

Aly's theses and methods were widely discussed and criticized. For example, his idea of ​​a "33 generation" was rejected, which has no serious basis in the history of the generations. Aly, according to Philipp Gassert , aims more at "self-mortification than historical analysis" and has above all the "bang" in mind. Elmar Altvater described the largely positive reception of Aly's theses by the power elites as a sign of the "decline of political culture". Altvater referred to the achievements of the 1968 movement for the development of democracy, for example in the Prague Spring , as well as the fact that the protests of 1968 were not only supported by students, but also by workers and other layers of society, and threw Aly a belittling of National Socialism. The historian Clemens Vollnhals complains that Aly seems to only “know the little, dogged world of the K-groups” in a “self-loving navel gaze”: That thousands of young people join the Jusos, the Young Liberals, in church student communities and numerous initiative groups for Introducing a radical democratic reform of German society remains as ignored as the long-term effects of pop and youth culture as well as an emancipatory change in values.

Norbert Frei , who also published a popularly written volume about 1968 on the market in 2008, accused Aly of having written a "historiographically completely exaggerated account" in favor of the "media bang" and criticized the construction of a "33 generation" who , in contrast to the 68 generation, could not exist due to the most diverse biographies of their supposed "actors". The historians Rudolf Walther and Wolfgang Kraushaar expressed themselves in a similarly critical way in his reply to Hitler's children? One answer to Götz Aly .

Luise Hirsch criticized Alys methodical impurities in the jungle world , but expressed her approval of the content. Aly, on the other hand, does not go far enough and repeat what is already known about the cultural continuity between the parents and children generation, instead of working out the regressive elements of the 68s. Ingo Way's verdict in the Jüdische Allgemeine is similar : Aly wrote a polemical essay with many methodological weaknesses, but its content is far less outrageous than many reviews suggest.

Uwe Soukup discovered a mistake in Aly's portrayal. Aly had written that the police officer and unofficial Stasi employee Karl-Heinz Kurras , who shot the student Benno Ohnesorg , had been sentenced in the second instance to two years in prison, of which he had served four months. None of this is true. Kurras "to fantasize under lock and key means nothing less than the indignation of an entire generation over the repeated acquittals for a police officer who shot a demonstrator from the foundation," wrote Soukup.

Siegward Lönnendonker points to a false claim that Aly cites as the only support for his thesis of the allegedly “self-legitimizing” historiography of the former left-wing radicals. Götz Aly writes on page 94, Richard Löwenthal's speech of June 8, 1967, “is not to be found in any of the extensive documentation on the history of the Free University or the student movement. The reason for this is obvious: The source collections for the troubled years were created exclusively by former left-wing radicals who were once involved, who produced self-legitimizing tendencies and who later refused to take note of such a fundamental objection. ”In the FU documentation Freie, which Aly also used extensively University of Berlin 1948 - 1973. University in transition. Part V: 1967 - 1969. Violence and counter-violence (1983) by Siegward Lönnendonker, Tilman Fichter and Jochen Staadt , on the other hand, in the chronological table under the date June 8, 1967, the entry for this speech (p. 20) with a - also quoted by Aly - quote. The entire speech is also well documented in this volume, namely as a contemporary commentary (p. 437 ff).

On request, S. Fischer-Verlag announced on April 9, 2018 that the volumes had now been accompanied by an erratum note with Götz Aly's apology and that the relevant section had been changed for printing. In Note 133, which has now been changed, Götz Aly raises his accusation further in relation to other books by the authors.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Aly 2008, p. 169
  2. ↑ Aly 2008, p. 169 ff.
  3. ↑ Aly 2008, p. 170
  4. ↑ Aly 2008, p. 114
  5. ↑ Aly 2008, p. 144 ff.
  6. ↑ See Stefan Reinecke : Der Studienräte-Schocker. In: the daily newspaper, February 18, 2008.
  7. ↑ Philipp Gassert: The short "1968" between history and culture of remembrance: Newer research on the history of protest in the 1960s
  8. ↑ Elmar Altvater: The fascination of 1968. In: Friday , February 15, 2008.
  9. ↑ Clemens Vollnhals: "Götz Aly: Our Struggle"
  10. ^ Norbert Frei: 1968: Youth revolt and global protest. Munich 2008.
  11. ↑ Interview with Norbert Frei, in: Friday, March 20, 2008
  12. ↑ Rudolf Walther: Escape from empiricism. In: Friday , June 22nd, 2012.
  13. ↑ Hitler's children? One answer to Götz Aly ; Essay by Wolfgang Kraushaar from March 25, 2009 (online at perlentaucher.de).
  14. ^ Luise Hirsch: Hitler's children. In: Jungle World , March 13, 2008.
  15. ↑ Ingo Way: His fight. In: Jüdische Allgemeine , February 21, 2008; Ingo Way: Götz Aly: "Our fight". A review. The review originally published in the Jüdischen Allgemeine, September 22, 2008.
  16. ↑ Aly 2008, p. 27.
  17. ↑ Uwe Soukup: Good for surprises. In: the daily newspaper , April 18, 2008.
  18. ^ Siegward Lönnendonker, Tilman Fichter, Jochen Staadt: An important supplement. In: Preface to the setting of the FI documentation in the network. March 2008, p. 3 ( [1] ).
  19. ↑ PDF of the FU documentation (2008).] Of the FU documentation (2008).