Introduction

The ‘68 movement marks a phase of intense and diverse mobilizations that left considerable traces in the German political landscape. As the first broader left-wing movement in post-war Germany, the movement constituted a crucial testing ground for extra-parliamentary politics and new repertoires of protest, including sit-ins as well as militant actions. Despite being more than 50 years ago, the ‘68 movement remains a prominently and controversially discussed issue in German public discourse until today (von Lucke 2008a; 2008b). Interpretations of the movement's long-term legacies differ considerably, ranging from a positive liberal framing of ‘68 as the democratic and emancipatory awakening of German society to the more negative conservative reading as the starting point of (left-wing) political violence and the erosion of traditional values (von Lucke, 2008a; Mittler & Wolfrum, 2008). This chapter explores the role of present-day left-wing movements in this “politics of memory” around ‘68. In particular, we are interested in how far left-wing movements today share a counter-memory of ‘68, a memory that “does not fit the historical narratives available” (Medina 2011, 12) and that differs from – and may influence and challenge – public memory.

With this analysis the paper seeks to contribute, on the one hand, to the emerging body of research on memories of ‘68 in Germany. This literature so far has largely focused on personal memories of former activists or broader public memories of ‘68 in media and political discourses but has overlooked how present-day activists remember ‘68.