Ganymede History

1968 Tet Offensive, Assassination Attempt on Rudi Dutschke and Prague Spring The events of 1967 agitated and enlarged the Western German student movement. During 1968 there would be an increase and ultimately a peak of the student movement. It's important to see both the state Western Germany and the rest of the world was in during this year. The Vietnam War intensified. During the "Tet Offensive" the North Vietnamese forces surprised American troops with a large scale attack.   ARVN Rangers defend Saigon during the Tet Offensive   US military personnel, ARVN Rangers defend Saigon, Tet Offensive , marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons   It ended in a severe military defeat for North Vietnam and the Vietcong yet nevertheless it became a propaganda victory for them. The North Vietnam forces had shown that they were still dangerous and the war was not won yet. The violence of this war appalled many people around the world an...

 Germany: June 2 1967, Shah Visit and Death of Benno Ohnesorg The years 1967 and 1968 were exceptionally turbulent not just in Western Germany but many parts of Europe. At June 2 1967 the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was visiting West Berlin. This was highly controversial especially in the eyes of German students since the Shah was a dictator who was torturing and executing his people. Yet the official position of the Western German government was positive towards him and large parts of the public adored him and his wife. The couple was a favorite in the tabloids back then. At an official event in front of a Berlin city hall protests broke out at noon. Students were holding up signs and banners protesting the situation in Iran. Yet there weren't only people there who were against the Shah. A large group of people was cheering towards the Shah. Those persons weren't German citizens, they were actually Iranian secret service agents. The Shah brought them to give him s...

Germany: Grand Coalition, Emergency Laws and APO The changing political landscape within West Germany also had an affect on the student movement. Until this point the conservative parties CDU/CSU (who always work together in a partnership) were governing alone or in a coalition with the liberal party FDP . Yet in 1966 there was a coalition between the two largest parties, the CDU/CSU and the social democratic party SPD . This "Große Koalition", 'grand coalition', was a significant change for the political landscape. Suddenly the whole opposition was represented by the relatively small FDP. Plans by the Große Koalition to change the rules about voting further alarmed many people who didn't think the FDP was strong enough as an opposition or who didn't feel properly represented by it. Many young people also felt disappointed by the only large left party SPD following controversial and relatively conservative politics. A new protest movement was created call...

German society of the 1960s Part 3 The Western German students cared both about education and the fight for the powerless. Both of those goals combined when it was about child-rearing. Raising children used to be a very cold matter with little empathy and a lot of violence. Beating your children and expecting obedience was very common, many parents didn't know anything else. Even worse were children's home that were affected by the old Nazi way of thinking. Children were treated like recruited soldiers, they were forced to work very hard, they were beaten and often sexually abused. Many students and other young adults started questioning this. They debated different ways to raise children without violence or even an upbringing without authority. People tried being more empathic with children and treating them with respect. It wasn't just theory what they were doing. Many people helped children who were in need. Many children from notorious children's homes ran away. S...

German society of the 1960s Part 2 Within a society there's a group of highly educated, critical thinkers who may get called intellectuals or Intelligentsia . Until this point in history the majority of this group in Germany had been conservative or right-leaning. They were often against democratic and labor movements, they represented the establishment and the elite and they wanted to keep those structures intact. During the 60s this started to change. Western German students had been mostly conservative or apolitical during the 50s but now they started to lean left. They became critical of capitalism, the pervasive fight against communism, the exploitation of the Third World and the nuclear arms race. They questioned both the Western German society and the state the world was in, they became highly political. This wasn't an isolated movement. Many countries around the world experienced (left-leaning) student movements during the 60s. Particularly important were the ones...

German society of the 1960s Part 1 During the 60s the Western German society began to change rapidly. After the war people had started getting more children again. The new prosperity of the Wirtschaftswunder further reinforced this effect. Now, 20 years after the end of the war, many of those were teenagers or young adults. They represented a relatively large percentage of the population and they started questioning the rules of their parents generation. Women became more independent. The invention of contraceptive pills meant they could feel safer in avoiding a pregnancy. An unwanted pregnancy was a huge problem for a woman during the 50s. Unwed mothers were heavily ostracized and discriminated. There wasn't as much social welfare as there is today. The "pill", as it was colloquially called in Germany, drastically changed the form of relationships. Women had more power and control over their own lives. Relationships started getting more free from restriction and ...

Kennedy visit and "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in 1963 One year after the Cuban Missile Crisis president John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin at June 26th 1963. Kennedy had to accept the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 without being able to do anything about it. At that time people in the US had accused him of not responding forcefully to the construction of the wall. His visit at the 15th anniversary of the Berlin airlift and his speech were supposed to show his support towards West Berlin and his determined fight against communism. Kennedy didn't have the intention to substantially act against the confinement of West Berlin. Despite its oppressing nature the construction of the Berlin Wall represented a peaceful outcome out of the Berlin Crisis . The main goals of the Western Bloc were still achieved. The Western Powers were able to have representation within their sectors, they had access to West Berlin and the safety and the rights of the West ...

Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 In 1962 another critical situation occured between both Blocks. Both sides fought for control over an Island in the Caribbean Sea named Cuba. In the past Cuba was ruled by the dictator Fulgencio Batista who was supported by the US. Yet in 1959 a small guerilla group lead by Fidel Castro managed to overthrow him. Batista fled into exile and Castro became the new ruler of Cuba. Castro began to nationalize farmland and industry and expropriated US property assets. Many Cubans started leaving the country, often towards the US. Batista had been an ally of the USA and Castro tried as well to establish a relationship with the USA. The US remained skeptical thought because of Castros proximity to the communists. The US refused to send economic aid and instead supported the Cuban opposition and also terrorist groups within the country who committed attacks and sabotage acts. There were assassination attempts on the life of Castro and also a secret plan...

Germany: Construction of the Berlin Wall 1962 During the 50s and early 60s the situation in Eastern Germany didn't improve. People kept leaving the state because they were unhappy about the conditions and weren't allowed to change anything or even utter criticism. This "exodus" was a huge problem for Eastern Germany because especially its well educated and young population kept leaving which further damaged their economy. Western Germany was about to bring Eastern Germany "to its knees" simply by existing and by being more attractive. Between 1945 and 1961 around 3,5 million people fled from the Soviet occupation zone/the GDR towards the West. This diagram shows the population loss of East Germany. (Left: "Citizens in millions". Vertical text: "construction of the Wall") It was an existential crisis for East Germany, the years 1959–1961 were even worse than those of 1952/1953 (when ultimately protests by discontent workers broke...

Germany: Spiegel Affair and Eichmann Trial In 1962 the Spiegel affair happened. The German magazine "Der Spiegel" published an article about a NATO exercise under the name  "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("Partially Ready to Defend"). The article mentioned details about the performance of the Western German army and the assessment of a NATO commander that found the West German forces to be only partially ready to defend the country. This was a very big issue because if the Bundeswehr wasn't able to defend Western Germany against the Warsaw Pact with conventional means then this meant that nuclear weapons would be necessary in the case of an attack. Or in other words, the Bundeswehr wasn't an efficient deterrent against a conventional attack. Further, if they weren't a serious deterrent then the risk for war would increase because there'd be an "opportunity" for the Warsaw Pact. Western Germanys minister of defence Franz Jose...

 German society of the 1950s The 50s were a particularly repressive time in western Germany. The murderous Nazi oppression had stopped but in many ways the Western German society was keeping groups of people down. Most people were very conservative, in some regards more than in other countries of that time. Being conservative means attempting to "conserve" traditions of the past. Yet at the same time German people tried being very different to the NS society. One example were sex morals. The Nazis were very "open" and unrestricted about this. They promoted nudeness in movies for example. Their propaganda movies particularly showed "perfect" nude bodies of for example athletes. Leni Riefenstahl produced some of those movies . Being "healthy", having a "strong" body was something you were supposed to have and you were supposed to be proud of it. Of course this was just one piece of Nazi ideology that also killed million...

Germany 1949 until 1953 When the Western German state, the Federal Republic of Germany, was founded in 1949, its government was eager to obtain more sovereignty and autonomy. The occupational forces still controlled many important areas of the state. The new chancellor of western Germany, Konrad Adenauer , slowly tried gaining more indepency step by step. This was especially important on an international and diplomatic stage. After the war Germany was a pariah, an outcast, in the eyes of other countries. It just lead a genocidal war against its neighbors, how was there ever going to be a discourse or even a partnership with them? Nobody wanted to have diplomatic relations with Western Germany. This changed only very, very slowly. Establishing relationships with your neighboring states was important but how was it supposed to be done? One way to achieve it was over creating economic partnerships first. One of those projects was the "Montanunion" , a partnership to...

 Germany 1945 until 1949 In the last days of WWII many Germans became aware that despite the Nazi propaganda there was no way to achieve a victory or even a truce anymore. The situation was hopeless. Many German civilians and military personnel resorted to "saving their own hide" in the time to come. Many of them were burning anything that was connecting them to the Nazi regime. Flags, uniforms and especially membership books of the Nazi Party NSDAP were destroyed. Many people claimed they haven't actually been a Nazi, they just entered the Nazi party to advance their career or they have been forced to enter or they simply didn't know what was going on.  At the end of the war the Nazis suddenly "vanished". Nobody was going to admit anymore that he was a Nazi. There was the "zero hour myth" that said that at the moment of unconditional surrender there were no Nazis anymore and it was like a "fresh start" for the german societ...