Anna von der Goltz has written a truly excellent book, from many perspectives. Her leading arguments begin with the “other ‘68ers,” that is, student activists in the Cold War FRG who sought reform—but not from left-wing political perspectives. Her subjects, leading members of the CDU's student auxiliary, the RCDS, as well as of the self-founded Democratic Center (DM) and German Student Union (DSU), numbered as many or more as those at least formally in the Socialist German Student Federation (SDS). Their numeric strength was moreover more than matched by their political power, relative both to the left-wing movement and, by the time of Helmut Kohl's 1982 victory at the latest, to any other political generation within the CDU/CSU. This was an enduring power, bringing about demonstrable changes in the political culture—and already by the late 1960s firmly putting their imprimatur on interpretations of the better-known and endlessly discussed “’68ers.” This bold, compellingly argued, and beautifully written volume is essential for any student of the German and European Cold War and of European conservatism and is highly recommended for those interested in European popular politics and political culture.

In her first chapter, von der Goltz firmly situates her student subjects in the mid-1960s: not as “also-rans,” but as quite literally sharing the stage with the better-known and -remembered SDS members. Thus, for example, it was DM leaders Meinhard Ade and Ignaz Bender who organized the prominent January 1968 debate between SDS activist Rudi Dutschke and liberal sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf. Up till just about this point, activists across political persuasions often worked together and toward similar goals of university and broader societal “reform.” Students acted in concert and in mostly friendly rivalries. Some of the “other ‘68ers” admired their counterparts’ enthusiasm for theoretical self-instruction and sought to fill what they perceived as a deficit in conservative thought and vision, beyond “Christian”—and not Nazi. They sought to emulate too the forms of their fellow students—but, von der Goltz argues, the borrowings ran freely in both directions. From provocative theater to mass marches, her subjects led as well as joined political acts. In turn, they could suffer from the same, often brutal official efforts to quash such activism. Yet, even as members of the DM established themselves as the student political “Center” (some rejecting the term “conservative” under the long-lived Adenauer chancellorship), as tensions mounted between the “other ‘68ers” and their peers to the left, particularly in the wake of the August 1968 Soviet toppling of the Prague Spring, the former sought to paint their counterparts as “extreme”—and inimical to a fragile West German democracy.

Despite the widening chasm of both theory and practice that her subjects proclaimed, von der Goltz insightfully argues for the highly personal nature of this perspective, as she draws both from contemporary sources and from oral history interviews she conducted. On the one hand, the “other ‘68ers” felt subject to the same attacks by authorities as protestors on the left. On the other hand, they felt erased by contemporary media coverage and public debate (and even official attention), which seemed to attend with such laser focus increasingly on figures such as Dutschke, Rainer Langhans, and Fritz Teufel. This, along with their sense of being increasingly scorned and even reviled for their views by fellow activists, led to their extraordinary perception of being themselves the “outsiders.” This was the lasting sentiment that fed their effective revenge against their erstwhile fellow activists. At the same time, even as resentments festered, these activists grew in confidence, finding new political partners—precisely in the CDU/CSU, from 1968 to 1982 in the opposition. Yet, von der Goltz makes clear, this was not because these activists now capitulated to the vision—and will—of the “grown-ups,” but rather precisely because they moved into leading positions of party-political and formal political power, a “march through the institutions” of a type that Dutschke could perhaps only have dreamed of.

With extraordinary speed and strength, it was members of the RCDS, DSU, and DM who rose through the ranks, playing in turn the decisive role in a new CDU ascendancy—and even a new CDU tout court. This was the CDU that moved away from a reflexive invocation of Christianity, even while insisting on “superior moral judgment”; upholding new abortion rights (albeit already limited after initial passage in 1974 under the SPD-led government); and continuing recognition of the East German government, even while declaring the German-German border the “most inhumane” in the world. This was the new, smart CDU of the sons (mostly though not all men), not the fathers: the CDU that, referring to the party's traditional political “color,” appropriated for itself the term “Black is beautiful.” Well before its renewed rise to power, moreover, this was also the CDU that deployed its new secret weapon, turning publicity concerning left-wing activists sharply against them with astonishing efficacy, smearing the broader movement as engaging in “terror”—and helping push a besieged Willy Brandt to enact the 1972 “Radical Declaration.” These activists continued this signal role, absolutely shaping retrospective views of 1968 two decades later. If the CDU fell from power nine years after Kohl had engineered a German reunification, moreover, it was no fault of the “new generation” in the party, but was rather related to increasing unwillingness to follow the advice of these “other ‘68ers.”

There is little to quibble with in this extremely smart and original study. The attention to both the period of student activism and a longer history; the insightful use of oral history and interpretation of visual sources; the thoughtful renewed discussion of terms like “generation” and “political identity”; and the highly effective use of case studies in each chapter all contribute to the volume's success. One might ask, for example, whether the “other ‘68ers”’ turn to nudity and sexualization in appeals to fellow youth was any more emulation of left-wing strategies than it was of BILD; whether von der Goltz's subjects were far more likely to come from Catholic backgrounds than were left-wing activists; and whether the paucity of women in the groups examined was entirely equivalent to their counterparts elsewhere on the political spectrum. But these are tiny questions in a big book.