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The Other Alliance: Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties
Using previously classified documents and original interviews, The Other Alliance examines the channels of cooperation between American and West German student movements throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, and the reactions these relationships provoked from the U.S. government. Revising the standard narratives of American and West German social mobilization, Martin Klimke demonstrates the strong transnational connections between New Left groups on both sides of the Atlantic.
Klimke shows that the cold war partnership of the American and German governments was mirrored by a coalition of rebelling counterelites, whose common political origins and opposition to the Vietnam War played a vital role in generating dissent in the United States and Europe. American protest techniques such as the "sit-in" or "teach-in" became crucial components of the main organization driving student activism in West Germany--the German Socialist Student League--and motivated American and German student activists to construct networks against global imperialism. Klimke traces the impact that Black Power and Germany's unresolved National Socialist past had on the German student movement; he investigates how U.S. government agencies, such as the State Department's Interagency Youth Committee, advised American policymakers on confrontations with student unrest abroad; and he highlights the challenges student protesters posed to cold war alliances.
Exploring the catalysts of cross-pollination between student protest movements on two continents, The Other Alliance is a pioneering work of transnational history.
Klimke shows that the cold war partnership of the American and German governments was mirrored by a coalition of rebelling counterelites, whose common political origins and opposition to the Vietnam War played a vital role in generating dissent in the United States and Europe. American protest techniques such as the "sit-in" or "teach-in" became crucial components of the main organization driving student activism in West Germany--the German Socialist Student League--and motivated American and German student activists to construct networks against global imperialism. Klimke traces the impact that Black Power and Germany's unresolved National Socialist past had on the German student movement; he investigates how U.S. government agencies, such as the State Department's Interagency Youth Committee, advised American policymakers on confrontations with student unrest abroad; and he highlights the challenges student protesters posed to cold war alliances.
Exploring the catalysts of cross-pollination between student protest movements on two continents, The Other Alliance is a pioneering work of transnational history.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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September 7, 2022
In his meticulously researched book, Martin Klimke casts the student protests of the 1960s in a new light by demonstrating that they had a global extent and shared methods and issues internationally. The focus of his study are the parallels between the protest movements in America and West Germany and the reaction of the American government to the interactions of American and German student activists.
On March 14, 1969, Karl Dietrich Wolff, a German student leader travelling through America on a lecture tour, stood before the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and was questioned about the cooperation between the West German and American protest movements. This Senate hearing revealed one of the most notable results of the close relationship that America and the Federal Republic of Germany had developed after the Second World War – the close relations among student protesters on both sides of the Atlantic. That Wolff accused the committee of conspiring against the global protest movements, one of which he represented, added fuel to the fire and turned the event into a public sensation.
Klimke argues convincingly that Wolff was only one of many members of a bigger network of American and West German activists who inspired one another and collaborated, envisioning themselves as parts of a worldwide revolutionary movement. He traces this network back to the early 1960s, when the American and German radical student organizations, which were both called SDS – Students for a Democratic Society and Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund – began communicating with each other because of Michael Vester, an exchange student from Germany. Vester became invested in the political activities of his American co-students and contributed ideas to Tom Hayden's Port Huron Statement, which announced the political program of the Students for a Democratic Society and is considered to be the most coherent statement of the New Left. Vester returned to Germany having acquired knowledge of American protest methods and debates about the Establishment. The American and German protesters started influencing each other to a substantial extent. The Germans, for instance, adopted not only the theoretical ideas of the American New Left, but also several of their practical ones, such as the sit-ins, teach-ins, and civil disobedience.
According to the author, more than one factor was responsible for this widespread, international student unrest in the 1960s. The prosperity of the 1950s and early 1960s led to an abrupt increase in university enrollments, allowed students to have sufficient income, and promoted a youth subculture. The ease of communication and travel between countries further increased opportunities to share ideas and engage in joint activism. The students also drew inspiration from the protests against nuclear weapons in the 1950s and were united by their disapproval for the American involvement in the Vietnam conflict and of the Cold War ideology, which they saw as old-fashioned and countereffective, in general.
As the author narrates, the activists of the two countries influenced each other, but actual cooperation between the American and German radical student organizations proved difficult. He explains that although they had a shared commitment to socialism and perceived themselves as the New Left, they were not ideologically compatible to a T. They came from different cultural backgrounds and experienced difficulties with communication. Furthermore, each of them, just like other New Left national groups they met at international meetings, was divided into factions that not even the unanimous vehement opposition to the Vietnam conflict could unite. The result was a combination of revolutionary enthusiasm and insurmountable differences.
Klimke argues that radical politics in West Germany were significantly influenced by the Black Panthers. German activists had been paying attention to the American civil rights movement for long, seeing it as both disturbing evidence of American flaws and a source of protest techniques. Some African-Americans started expressing their indignation that they were an internal colony of White America and that only violence could liberate them, which prompted some West German radicals to see their own country as a remote American colony. They turned to violence as the only way to defeat capitalism and secure the liberation of Germany. The author also points out that the major West German terrorist group, the Red Army Faction, drew inspiration from the ideology of the Black Panthers as it devised its own strategy of violence.
American officials were compelled to address the expanding worldwide student movements. In West Germany, and elsewhere, protesters vocally disparaged the American government's efforts to explain its foreign policy, especially the one in Vietnam. The author chronicles the efforts of the State Department and the Johnson and Nixon administrations to meet what they saw as a growing threat. After the Second World War, the American government had successfully used cultural exchange programs to build on the credit America had earned for liberating countries from Nazi and Japanese oppression. However, in the 1960s, the protest movements were promoting an unflattering image of America as an unjust imperialist power that was characterized by civil rights struggles and the Vietnam conflict. This is why American officials launched a range of initiatives aimed at the youth that had no memories of the Second World War, whose purpose was to foster a pro-American, anti-Communist attitude.
The author draws one conclusion with which I disagree – that despite their radicalism, the student movements of the 1960s were not anti-American. He claims that the young radicals who were vehemently opposed to certain American government policies, especially racial inequality and Vietnam, nevertheless saw in America much to be admired and copied, from pop culture to protest ideologies and methods. However, many SDS statements point to the contrary. The student radicals' ultimate objective was to overthrow the System. They believed that everything about the existing American institutions was evil and had to be replaced. This is precisely why President Richard Nixon accused them of trying to demolish the old house without having a plan for a new one.
THE OTHER ALLIANCE is a well-written account of student protest in the 1960s. Klimke focuses mainly on the radical students and their leadership, which limits the scope of his study, but his work is still a valuable contribution to the protest movement scholarship. This book is informative and easily graspable.
On March 14, 1969, Karl Dietrich Wolff, a German student leader travelling through America on a lecture tour, stood before the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and was questioned about the cooperation between the West German and American protest movements. This Senate hearing revealed one of the most notable results of the close relationship that America and the Federal Republic of Germany had developed after the Second World War – the close relations among student protesters on both sides of the Atlantic. That Wolff accused the committee of conspiring against the global protest movements, one of which he represented, added fuel to the fire and turned the event into a public sensation.
Klimke argues convincingly that Wolff was only one of many members of a bigger network of American and West German activists who inspired one another and collaborated, envisioning themselves as parts of a worldwide revolutionary movement. He traces this network back to the early 1960s, when the American and German radical student organizations, which were both called SDS – Students for a Democratic Society and Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund – began communicating with each other because of Michael Vester, an exchange student from Germany. Vester became invested in the political activities of his American co-students and contributed ideas to Tom Hayden's Port Huron Statement, which announced the political program of the Students for a Democratic Society and is considered to be the most coherent statement of the New Left. Vester returned to Germany having acquired knowledge of American protest methods and debates about the Establishment. The American and German protesters started influencing each other to a substantial extent. The Germans, for instance, adopted not only the theoretical ideas of the American New Left, but also several of their practical ones, such as the sit-ins, teach-ins, and civil disobedience.
According to the author, more than one factor was responsible for this widespread, international student unrest in the 1960s. The prosperity of the 1950s and early 1960s led to an abrupt increase in university enrollments, allowed students to have sufficient income, and promoted a youth subculture. The ease of communication and travel between countries further increased opportunities to share ideas and engage in joint activism. The students also drew inspiration from the protests against nuclear weapons in the 1950s and were united by their disapproval for the American involvement in the Vietnam conflict and of the Cold War ideology, which they saw as old-fashioned and countereffective, in general.
As the author narrates, the activists of the two countries influenced each other, but actual cooperation between the American and German radical student organizations proved difficult. He explains that although they had a shared commitment to socialism and perceived themselves as the New Left, they were not ideologically compatible to a T. They came from different cultural backgrounds and experienced difficulties with communication. Furthermore, each of them, just like other New Left national groups they met at international meetings, was divided into factions that not even the unanimous vehement opposition to the Vietnam conflict could unite. The result was a combination of revolutionary enthusiasm and insurmountable differences.
Klimke argues that radical politics in West Germany were significantly influenced by the Black Panthers. German activists had been paying attention to the American civil rights movement for long, seeing it as both disturbing evidence of American flaws and a source of protest techniques. Some African-Americans started expressing their indignation that they were an internal colony of White America and that only violence could liberate them, which prompted some West German radicals to see their own country as a remote American colony. They turned to violence as the only way to defeat capitalism and secure the liberation of Germany. The author also points out that the major West German terrorist group, the Red Army Faction, drew inspiration from the ideology of the Black Panthers as it devised its own strategy of violence.
American officials were compelled to address the expanding worldwide student movements. In West Germany, and elsewhere, protesters vocally disparaged the American government's efforts to explain its foreign policy, especially the one in Vietnam. The author chronicles the efforts of the State Department and the Johnson and Nixon administrations to meet what they saw as a growing threat. After the Second World War, the American government had successfully used cultural exchange programs to build on the credit America had earned for liberating countries from Nazi and Japanese oppression. However, in the 1960s, the protest movements were promoting an unflattering image of America as an unjust imperialist power that was characterized by civil rights struggles and the Vietnam conflict. This is why American officials launched a range of initiatives aimed at the youth that had no memories of the Second World War, whose purpose was to foster a pro-American, anti-Communist attitude.
The author draws one conclusion with which I disagree – that despite their radicalism, the student movements of the 1960s were not anti-American. He claims that the young radicals who were vehemently opposed to certain American government policies, especially racial inequality and Vietnam, nevertheless saw in America much to be admired and copied, from pop culture to protest ideologies and methods. However, many SDS statements point to the contrary. The student radicals' ultimate objective was to overthrow the System. They believed that everything about the existing American institutions was evil and had to be replaced. This is precisely why President Richard Nixon accused them of trying to demolish the old house without having a plan for a new one.
THE OTHER ALLIANCE is a well-written account of student protest in the 1960s. Klimke focuses mainly on the radical students and their leadership, which limits the scope of his study, but his work is still a valuable contribution to the protest movement scholarship. This book is informative and easily graspable.
December 21, 2017
Key Arguments:
1. In 1968 "Activists from different political and cultural frameworks tried to construct a collective identity that could lead to solidarity and cooperation, as well as a more global consciousness." (3) "Intercultural exchange created a common, though constructed, reality explains why the protesting students of the 1960s felt connected to each other, as if they were on an 'international crusade.' It turned the sixties into a shared experience across national boundaries" (7)
2. New system of international exchanges and networks forms "well before 1968" and provides "a favorable climate for the emergence of transnational subcultures and protest movements." (3)
3. Vietnam is the "issue that most deeply connected activists to each other" (5) across the world. Thus "many student protesters sought to overcome the bloc confrontation of the cold war between East and West in favor of a greater focus on the North-South divide, and reached out to their peers in other countries for this endeavor." (5)
4. The perception of West German students towards the US was not one of anti-American sentiment but rather was more nuanced: "Countercultural items and their import can hardly be labeled as anti-American, given their origins and strong roots in the United States. They instead formed a critique of the official U.S. government... these shared sentiments reflected an additional degree of American (counter-)cultural influence. In other words, the dissent was (if at all) an anti Americanism of 'With America against America.'" (7)
5. "Faced with growing internal unrest in the country of one of its closest allies during the cold war, the U.S. government not only stepped up its monitoring of student activities in West Germany but also decided to make the young generation the primary target group of its cultural and educational activities." (239)
1. In 1968 "Activists from different political and cultural frameworks tried to construct a collective identity that could lead to solidarity and cooperation, as well as a more global consciousness." (3) "Intercultural exchange created a common, though constructed, reality explains why the protesting students of the 1960s felt connected to each other, as if they were on an 'international crusade.' It turned the sixties into a shared experience across national boundaries" (7)
2. New system of international exchanges and networks forms "well before 1968" and provides "a favorable climate for the emergence of transnational subcultures and protest movements." (3)
3. Vietnam is the "issue that most deeply connected activists to each other" (5) across the world. Thus "many student protesters sought to overcome the bloc confrontation of the cold war between East and West in favor of a greater focus on the North-South divide, and reached out to their peers in other countries for this endeavor." (5)
4. The perception of West German students towards the US was not one of anti-American sentiment but rather was more nuanced: "Countercultural items and their import can hardly be labeled as anti-American, given their origins and strong roots in the United States. They instead formed a critique of the official U.S. government... these shared sentiments reflected an additional degree of American (counter-)cultural influence. In other words, the dissent was (if at all) an anti Americanism of 'With America against America.'" (7)
5. "Faced with growing internal unrest in the country of one of its closest allies during the cold war, the U.S. government not only stepped up its monitoring of student activities in West Germany but also decided to make the young generation the primary target group of its cultural and educational activities." (239)
November 15, 2016
This book is mostly a well written review of the political life and mindset of the New Left in the long sixties (focusing primarily on the US and West Germany), but the research did bring a couple of new things to the table: 1) new analysis of recently released government documents from the time on what to do about the hippies (lol) and 2) Klimke brought new light to the legitimate influence the United States Black Power movement had on West German New Left student groups.
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