West Germany, 1949–1990: Nonconformity as Alienation

The West German parliamentary system provided a framework very different from those of the right-wing totalitarian Third Reich and the left-wing totalitarian German Democratic Republic. Even so, there were currents of nonconformity, dissent, opposition (especially in the early years by unreconstructed Nazis and other anti-Semites, and in the 1960s by young people protesting remilitarization, the government’s support of the U.S. military engagement in Vietnam, and the government’s proposal to pass emergency laws). There was also resistance in the 1970s, chiefly embodied in the far-left terrorist Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, founded in 1970. West German politics was dominated by the questions of collective guilt for Nazi crimes (culminating in the famous historians’ debate—Historikerstreit—in the late 1980s), how to strike the right balance between free enterprise and demands for social justice, and the prospect of eventual German reunification. There were also persistent debates about abortion, homosexuality, and whether women should be legally required to do all of the housework.