E-Book Overview
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.
E-Book Content
The Other Alliance
AMERICA IN THE WORLD SVEN BECKERT AND JEREMI SURI, series editors
Also in the Series David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order Andrew Zimmerman, Alabama in Africa: Booker T. Washington, the German Empire, and the Globalization of the New South Ian Tyrell, Reforming the World: The Creation of America’s Moral Empire Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.–Mexico Border
The Other Alliance STUDENT PROTEST IN WEST GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE GLOBAL SIXTIES
Martin Klimke
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Second printing, and first paperback printing, 2011 Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-15246-2 The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows Klimke, Martin. The other alliance : student protest in West Germany and the United States in the global sixties / Martin Klimke. p. cm. — (America in the world) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-13127-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Student movements—United States—History—20th century. 2. Students— United States—Political activity—History—20th century. 3. Protest movements—United States—History—20th century. 4. Student movements—International cooperation—History—20th century. 5. Student movements—Germany (West)—History. 6. Students— Germany (West)—Political activity—History. 7. Protest movements— Germany (West)—History. 8. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Protest movements—United States. 9. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Protest movements—Germany (West) I. Title. LA229.K54 2009 373.1’81097309046—dc22 2009021743 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Publication of this book has been aided by the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), University of Heidelberg. This book has been composed in Sabon Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United