Socialist German Student Union
독일 사회주의 학생동맹 (SDS)
A socialist students’ organisation in West Germany and West Berlin, founded in Hamburg in September 1946. It began as the university organisation of the Social Democratic Party of Germany but clashed with the party over rearmament, nuclear armament and the Godesberg Programme and was expelled from the SPD in November 1961; thereafter it was the only party-independent socialist university organisation in Germany and saw itself as part of the international New Left. From the mid-1960s it was the core of the extra-parliamentary opposition (APO) and the West German student movement, but after the shooting of Rudi Dutschke in April 1968 it broke apart into rival groups and dissolved itself on 21 March 1970.
In depth
After the Second World War newly formed student groups at the universities met at the founding congress in Hamburg on 3–6 September 1946. The more than 90 delegates from 20 university towns were sharply divided over whether to found a social democratic or a party-independent association; Erich Ollenhauer of the SPD leadership saved the congress by asking only for a commitment to democratic socialism, not SPD membership, and backing organisational independence. Helmut Schmidt, later Chancellor of West Germany, chaired the SDS in 1947–1948. In the 1950s the SDS opposed rearmament and nuclear armament and criticised the Godesberg Programme, deepening its conflict with the SPD. The party-loyal Social Democratic University Union (SHB) split off in May 1960, and in November 1961 the SPD leadership passed an incompatibility resolution expelling SDS members and sympathisers from the party.
The expulsion made the SDS more attractive to critical students. Already in 1961 its chairman Michael Schumann described it as part of an international New Left modelled on the British New Left and the French nouvelle gauche. In 1964–1965 it had 21 university groups, the largest in West Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg, yet in 1964 only about 750 active members received its newsletter. Early in 1965 Dieter Kunzelmann, Frank Böckelmann, Rudi Dutschke and Bernd Rabehl of the Subversive Aktion joined, pushing the SDS towards an anti-authoritarian course, and the Berlin SDS developed the limited breach of rules into a deliberate demonstration tactic. From 1965 the SDS was regarded as the core of the extra-parliamentary opposition (APO) against the Emergency Acts. On 2 June 1967, at a protest in West Berlin against the visit of the Shah of Iran, the policeman Karl-Heinz Kurras shot dead the student Benno Ohnesorg. Membership stood at 1,600–1,800 in mid-1967 and peaked at about 2,500 in 1968.
In 1968 the SDS was torn by internal factional struggles, and the student movement, especially after the shooting of Dutschke on 11 April 1968, broke up into hostile K-groups, left-socialist groups and a few terrorist groups. At the end of 1969 some groups of the orthodox wing formed the Association of Marxist Students, from which the Marxist Student Union Spartakus later emerged. On 21 March 1970 a meeting in the Frankfurt student union building dissolved the federal association by acclamation, and only a few local groups carried on for a time. Among its members, Ulrike Meinhof later co-founded the Red Army Faction.