5. Women's Liberation and the Fragmentation of the Movement

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Lecture

In this module, we think about the emergence of the women's liberation movement from the German student movement and the fragmentation of the movement from the late 1960s, focusing in particular on: (i) gender inequality within the student movement and the creation of new women's groups; (ii) the decline of the moral authority of the Soviet Union following their crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968, and the range of different directions taken by members of the student movements – to other political ideologies (e.g Maoism), to a life outside of politics, to violent activism (e.g. the Red Army Faction) or to parliamentary politics; (iii) the figure of Willy Brandt and the importance of his election as Chancellor in 1969; (iv) the incorporation of student activities into the establishment – as doctors, professors, publishers, teachers and politicians; and (v) the overall impact of the German student movement.

Course

In this course, Dr Hanno Balz (University of Cambridge) explores the West German student movement between 1966-69. In the first module, we think about the growth of protest movements in Germany in the 1960s, especially following the formation in 1966 of the 'grand coalition' between the SPD and CDU. In the second module, we think about the impact of Germany's Nazi past on the German stuent movement, before turning in the third module to consider the international context – the Cuban Revolution (1953-59), the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), the Vietnam War (1955-75), and so on. In the fourth module, we trace the escalation and radicalisation of the student movement through two shootings – that of Benno Ohnesorg in June 1967 and that of Rudi Dutschke in April 1968 – before turning in the fifth and final module to consider the growth of the women's liberation movement out of the German student movement, and the fragmentation of the movement from the late 1960s onwards

Lecturer

Dr Hanno Balz is DAAD Lecturer in Modern German and European History at the University of Cambridge. He has published extensively on the history of the "Red Army Faction" West-German militant group and the legal, intellectual, and political reverberations in West German society that came along with challenging the state. He works more broadly on European social movements from the 1960s to the 1980s as well as on the history of Nazi rule and the Shoah.