Action and Reaction
By the year 1966 the number of students which were interested in the conflict between the students and the authorities had increased. Many of those who had not been interested before became at least passively interested by now. This newly-formed public took part in the demonstrations, sit-ins and other protest actions arranged by the students and their organizations (e.g. the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund).
The government tried to fight the situation by decreasing the funds for universities and student organizations and by turning public opinion against the students with the help of the press. The view that students should study and not demonstrate grew stronger. The students were also repressed in the streets by the police. Yet, the more pressure the government put on the students, the more they came together.
On June 2, 1967 the conflict would finally escalate. Students had organized demonstrations against the official visit by the Shah of Iran. In their opinion, the German government was demonstrating a positive attitude towards a dictatorial government that was suppressing and torturing its own people.
During the first demonstration in front of the Opera House, which the Shah was visiting, the police of Berlin and the Iranian service attacked the protestors. In the turmoil, the unarmed student Benno Ohnesorg was shot in the head from behind by Polizeiobermeister (Police Sergeant) Karl-Heinz Kurras and killed.
The following days saw many demonstrations throughout the whole republic against police brutality. The students in Berlin, however, were anxious and in a desperate situation. The police were preventing them from gathering in public, the universities had submitted their authority to the government and the press wrote that the students were the brutal and aggressive component of the demonstrations and that they had provoked the death of Benno Ohnesorg. Even though there were some students groups supporting the idea of a violent revolution the protesting students were mostly peaceful.
For the following days the students took over control of the Free University of Berlin. Finally being able to meet again, they used the time to discuss and reflect on the events of the past days.
Read more about this topic: German Student Movement
Famous quotes containing the words action and/or reaction:
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)