Memory and Protest in the West German Peace Movement of 1960s

Abstract

When thinking the West German 1960s, the focus is often on the student movement and its radicalization after 1968. Nevertheless, the 1960s was a period of continuous political fermentation in country, that evolved connected to social and protest movements. This paper explores the role memory and historical culture had in these movements, especially to the extent that it was connected to recent, Nazi, past. It raises the argument that historical and memory culture shaped the environment within which protest movements evolved and at the same time was a main component of the political contestation they were part of. In order to do so, the paper will trace the process of memory work, especially as far as the conceptualization of the recent past was considered. More specifically, it will do so by examining the journal Informationen zur Abrüstung, which was published by the peace movement that developed in the political and cultural environment of the extra-parliamentary left, and focusing on the its references to the past, their contextualization and the meanings attributed to them.