Civil Rights Movement - German Student Movement

German Student Movement

Main article: German student movement See also: Red Army Faction

The civil rights movement in Germany was a left-wing backlash against the post-Nazi Party era of the country, which still contained many of the conservative policies of both that era and of the pre-World War I Kaiser monarchy. The movement mainly attracted disillusioned students and was largely a protest movement analogous to others around the globe during the late 1960s. It was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments and the poor living conditions of students. A wave of protests, some violent, swept Germany, further fueled by over-reaction by the police and encouraged by other near-simultaneous protest movements across the world. Following more than a century of conservatism among German students, the German student movement also marked a significant major shift to the left-wing and radicalization of student politics.

Read more about this topic:  Civil Rights Movement

Famous quotes containing the words german, student and/or movement:

    “Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
    —John Berger (b. 1926)

    “When I tried to talk to my father about the kind of work I might do after college, he said, “You know, Charlotte, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to that, and it seems to me that the world really needs good, competent secretaries. Your English degree will help you.” He said this with perfect seriousness. I was an A student at Bryn Mawr ...”
    —Charlotte Palmer (b. c. 1925)

    “What had really caused the women’s movement was the additional years of human life. At the turn of the century women’s life expectancy was forty-six; now it was nearly eighty. Our groping sense that we couldn’t live all those years in terms of motherhood alone was “the problem that had no name.” Realizing that it was not some freakish personal fault but our common problem as women had enabled us to take the first steps to change our lives.”
    —Betty Friedan (20th century)