Other ’68ers in West Berlin: Christian Democratic Students and the Cold War City

Abstract

AbstractMany of the most iconic moments of Germany's “1968” took place in the walled confines of West Berlin, the emblematic Cold War city often referred to as the “capital of the revolt.” Most accounts portray the events in West Berlin as having been characterized by confrontations between the leftist student movement, on the one hand, and a conservative press and generally hostile, older, urban population, on the other. This article rethinks and refines existing historiographical narratives of the 1968 student movement in West Berlin, as well as of West Berlin's place in the student movement. It examines the actions and experiences of student activists in West Berlin, who rarely feature in the familiar narrative—namely, Christian Democratic activists, particularly those from the Association of Christian Democratic Students (RCDS). Using oral history interviews, memoirs, and a wide array of archival sources from German and US archives, the article sheds light on the background of some of the most important conservative players and discusses the manifold ways in which they engaged with the goals of the revolutionary left in the city. The analysis pays special attention to the effects that German division and life in West Berlin had on Christian Democratic activists, to the sources of their anti-Communism, and to their views about the US-led war in Vietnam, a major Cold War conflict that carried special resonance in the divided city. The article concludes that there were important (yet shifting and often porous) dividing lines in West Berlin's “1968” other than those that separated politicized students from an older and more conservative city leadership and population, a conclusion that calls for a modification of the familiar storyline that simply pits Rudi Dutschke and others on the left against the city's “establishment.” The article suggests that this has repercussions for interpretations of the student movement that center on generation. It argues, in short, that Christian Democratic students—activists who were, in effect, other ’68ers—helped to shape and were, in turn, shaped by the events that took place in West Berlin in 1968.