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- Title
„Wenn.s der Wahrheitsfindung dient" Antiautoritärer Protest vor Gericht um 1968.
- Authors
Kraft, Sandra
- Abstract
One of the most prominent features of the German Student Movement (a.k.a the '68-Movement) was its anti-authoritarian self-image. Yet despite many attempted approaches and interpretations, this core characteristic is difficult to pin down. This is not only due to missing or imprecise theoretical deliberations of the protagonists, but also due to the complexity and terminological ambiguity of the term authority. The present article deals with the problem of the theoretical and practical meaning of authority for the Student Movement. Using the concrete example of the criminal proceedings against Fritz Teufel and Rainer Langhans, it shows to what extent the movement's understanding of authority also shaped the form and content of the confrontation in court. The two activists turned the court room into a political stage with "happenings" and verbal provocations of the judges and prosecutors. The goal was to expose the structures of the West German courts as undemocratic and undermine the authority of its officials. But while the accused were ostensibly seeking out "putrid authority", they also used the trials to drop their own authoritarian personality structures, therein following an idiosyncratic interpretation of applied critical theory. Authority was to be broken from the outside as well as from the inside.
- Subjects
GERMANY (West); STUDENT activism; AUTHORITARIANISM; STUDENT activism -- History; AUTHORITY; ACTIVISTS; PROTEST movements; TWENTIETH century; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law); HISTORY
- Publication
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 2017, Vol 65, Issue 2, p163
- ISSN
0042-5702
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/vfzg-2017-0009