Media, Activism, and Democratization: The News Coverage and Politics of West Germany’s Easter Weekend, 1968.

Todd M. GoehleState University of New York (SUNY)

at Geneseo, USA

Photograph by Michael Ruetz, “Aura,” 1967.

Beginning with the near shooting death of the charismatic

student activist Rudi Dutschke on April 11, 1968 by a young

anti-communist and Nazi sympathizer Josef Bachmann, West

German citizens took to the streets and protested throughout

the holiday weekend, targeting the properties of the

publishing giant Springer Verlag in particular…

Shot from the ARD News Program Panorama, 00:04:31. Aired April 22, 1968.

West Germany’s Easter Protests Of 1968: A Culmination Of Year-long Tensions Between The State, Media, And Activists?

Shot from an UFA Newsreel, 0:07:40:00. 16 April 1968.

Cover, Der Spiegel, 22 April 1968.

Cover: Bild, Berlin Edition, 13 April 1968

From 12 April to 16 April 1968, Protests and Anti-Springer Verlag demonstrations occurred throughout the major cities of West Germany, especially West Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Munich.

For critics, Springer Verlag and its publications promoted a Cold War, anti-totalitarian discourse that sensationalized Dutschke and the wider, left-wing student movement as threats to the Federal Republic

Activists’ Refrains: “Springer Shot Too!”

Important as well were the deaths of the AP photographer Klaus Frings and the student Rüdiger Schreckoutside of a Springer office in Munich, 15 April 1968. For the conservative press especially, Frings’ death was covered as an assault on freedom of the press and more broadly German democracy.

Source: Bild, Berlin Edition, 18 April 1968

A Weekend Noted Throughout The Globe…

-April 12-16, 1968

Solidarity Demonstrations Throughout

The World In Front Of Springer

Publishing Buildings/German Embassies.

-April 15, 1968

American SDS Rally At Columbia And

NYU, Protest Outside Springer’s NYC

Headquarters At Rockefeller Center, Burn

Nazi Flag.

-Haskel Wexler’s Medium Cool (1968-69)

Notes The Shooting of Frings In Larger

Debates About Journalism, News Framing,

And The Effects On Audiences…MEDIA

And what of the Historiography?

-The Shooting of Dutschke and Subsequent Easter Protests are lynchpins for narratives centered around violencePast: Fascism/NazismFuture: Baader-Meinhof, “Terrorism” of the 1970s

-Accounts are often dominated by former activists or other cultural gatekeepers, raising questions about the intersection of memory and history….

Historiographical Strand #1: Emphasizing the Easter Weekend

as a Key Incident of “1968”

Kathrin Fahlenbrach: “1968” was a “revolt against the media and revolt by means of media.” But what does this mean?

Source: Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Protestinszenierungen: visuelle Kommunikation und kollektive Identitäten in Protestbewegungen (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001), 179.

Columnism: “It is opportunistic to claim to be struggling against the conditions that one is actually reproducing. It is opportunistic to use the methods that stabilize a system and claim to be seeking change. It is opportunistic to clamp down on editorial freedoms and the extra-parliamentary opposition and cave in to the market, i.e., to profits. It is opportunistic to limit the anti-authoritarian position to the authoritarian form of the column.”

From Protest to Resistance: “Protest is when I say I don’t like this and that. Resistance is when I see to it that things that I don’t like no longer occur. Protest is when I say I will no longer go along with it. Resistance is when I see to it that no one else goes along with it anymore either.”

DOES FOCUSING ON WEST GERMANY’S “1968” FULLY EXPLAIN THIS TENSION?

The Example of Ulrike Meinhof: Speaking About Violence AND Media Structures Immediately After Easter 1968

Quotes removed from Bauer, Karin, ed. Everybody talks about the Weather, We Don’t: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof. New York: Seven Stories, 2008.

Accounts “Typically” Deemphasize “1968” As A Caesura For Longer Processes Of Political And Cultural Democratization. This Often Includes The Mass Media…

Historiographical Strand #2: Emphasizing Change Over The “Long 1960s”

AND YET…

1) Press Consolidation, Public Television, and Politics2) Expropriate Springer, Cold War and Media Politics, and The Easter Protests3) The Matter of Media Effects: Assessing Authoritarianism After The Easter Protests

-Many in the This Historiographical Strand Underemphasize The Influence Of Conservative Outlets Such As Springer Verlag in Processes of West German Democratization. Zeitkritisch Journalismus

-Others Downplay The Effects Of Incidents Such As The Easter Protests On Larger Processes Of Media Modernization/Democratization

RATHER…

THREE ISSUES WILL BEAR THIS OUT…

To take Serious AND Complicate Fahlenbrach’s claim that,“1968 was a revolt against the media and revolt by means of media,” one must look beyond the Student Activism of the Period and Zeitkritisch Journalism. One must address the full West German Media Sphere, including Springer Verlag.

Issue 1: Press Consolidation, Public Opinion And The Politics of Public Television

Springer as Defender of Print? The Growth of

Public Television has Led to the “Death of the

Newspaper”16 December 1966 speech at the University Kiel, Axel Springer

blamed the inability of publishers to remain competitive in West

German media markets on television, a trend that Springer

predicted would only worsen with the advent of public color

television. “We must print in color, because the advertisers wish it, and we

must print in color, because we can not serve to the reader day after day

black and white stew, when the electronic competitor dishes up visual Genüsse

in Color. Color television is not simply about the continuation of black and

white television in red, yellow, and blue. This new technology is changing our

world … Only this is clear: regarding the color quality of newspapers, color

television raises higher the demands of advertisers and the reader.”

Source: Axel Springer, Deutsche Presse zwischen Konzentration

und Subvention (Kiel: Kiler Vorträge, 1967): 14-15.

The Politics of Public TelevisionA Question of Balance? By 1967, CDU/CSU politicians accuse

“corrupt” public television administrators of pursuing a politicized

agenda

-Similar concerns had been raised in private conversations between Axel

Springer and these politicians. On 9 June 1967 for example, Springer

discussed how his advocacy for commercial television led to his

publishing house being “branded as a heretic” by competing print and

television critics, in particular Spiegel, Konkret, Panorama, Kapital, who also

sought to establish their own television program on Süddeutschen

Rundfunk.

Axel Springer as Opportunistic Media Mogul?In 1964, Springer Verlag controlled nearly 31% of West

Germany’s daily newspaper market, 89% of the regional market,

and 85% of all Sunday newspaper sales. Springer also controlled

67% and 69% of West Berlin and Hamburg’s respective

newspaper markets.

Source: Speech by Axel Springer, „Vortrag von Axel Springer vor dem

Rundfunkpolitischen Arbeitskreis der CDU/CSU, am 9 Juni 1967 in

Eichholz.“ ASV-UA, Reden Axel Springers von 1946-1985.

Issue 2: Expropriate Springer, Cold War and Media Politics, and the Easter Protests

-The sensationalistic news coverage of Springer Outlets and questions about press competition

led left-wing student groups joined with other critics to form the Expropriate Springer campaign in

the summer of 1967, a ‘strategic transmission belt between students and other parts of the

population” in the estimation of the student leader Rudi Dutschke.

-Politically, Dutschke argued Springer Verlag was the symbol exemplar of a morally corrupt West

German Establishment, an institution that internationally supported the neo-imperial ventures

of the US in Vietnam and domestically threatened democratic dissent with its media monopoly.

Responding with Internal Research: “Thesis of the Expropriate Springer Verlag: Its Origins and its Effects” (July 1967).

The Key: Cold War Paranoia And The Fear Of Declining Profits Led Springer Executives To Take Serious Action Against “Radical Elements.”

-The report argued East German leader Walter Ulbricht first established Expropriate Springer in a speech to communist party officials on 21 April 1966. Ulbricht targeted Springer to undermine West German democracy as well as a prominent, Cold War opponent within the West German media.

-The report then accused Der Spiegel’s editor-in-chief Rudolph Augstein of following “Ulbricht’s lead” when he published a damning article about owner Axel Springer on 1 August 1966. Created by Ulbricht and legitimized by Augstein, Expropriate Springer was said to be embraced by a number of “radical” West Berlin student newspapers, student leader Rudi Dutschke in an interview for Der Spiegel on 10 July 1967, and other West German television and print competitors.

Source: “Die These von der Eintiegung Springer,” July 1967. (ASV-UA), Nachlaß Hans Mahnke, Band 10, AS und APO/3.05/67-70

Following the Easter Protests then, it is not just Meinhof and the Left who view the Easter Protests as a breaking point with regarding the Media

A Letter Exchange Begins: Beginning on 29 April 1968, nearly three weeks after the shooting of student leader Rudi Dutschke, a self-described “conservative liberal mother” began a nearly nine-month long letter exchange with the NDR broadcast official and journalist Axel Eggebrecht.

Biased Television News Media? The woman expressed concern over NDR’s coverage of the student movement and its negative portrayal of Springer Verlag as monopolistic and manipulative. Rejecting the criticisms levied against Springer Verlag by “anarchistic” television personalities and student protestors, the writer argued that public television was the only media monopoly that threatened West Germany, since it failed to provide audiences with a diversity of opinions from across the political spectrum. The writer feared that “The APO was exaggerated through television.”

The Role of Media and A Fear of the Past?According to the writer, the lack of critical coverage offered by public television led citizens to “take no notice of the student protests” against Springer property. Fearing the consequences of an uninformed citizenry, the writer warned that, without a critical media informing readers of the threats posed by the SDS against the democratic state, the Federal Republic would parallel the Weimar Republic and fall victim to an extremist group. In 1933, it was the Nazis. In 1968, it would be the APO. On the merits of the publisher’s militant stance against these interests, the writer championed Springer’s “idealism and patriotism.”

Source: Letter from S.Z. to Axel Eggebrecht, 29 April 1968. Staatsbibliothek Hamburg (StbH), Nachlaβ Eggebrecht, NE B463:1, B1-B6.

Above: Title Card for the West German, ARD news program Panorama (1968)

Right: Cover for Bild, Berlin Edition, 16 April 1968

Specifically: In May 1968, The Institute for Applied Social Sciences (INFAS) released a study -Zeitkritik on the Television: Viewers, Attitudes, and Effects- that explored “how zeitkritisch programs were regarded, who watched them, and what value they can have on the shaping of public opinion.”

Source: Todd Michael

Goehle, „Challenging

Television’s Revolution.’

Media Representations of

1968 protest in West

German Television and

Tabloids," in “The Revolution

will not be Televised:” Media

and Protest Movements, edited

by Kathrin Fahlenbrach,

Erling Sivertsen, Rolf

Werenskjold. (New York:

Berghahn, 2014), 225-226.

Issue #3: The Matter of Media Effects: Assessing Authoritarianism Immediately Following The Easter Protests

Survey: Media And Characteristics Representative Of Authoritarian Tendencies

Selected Opinions Frequently Frequently Infrequently Infrequently

watches watches watches watches

Panorama Panorama Panorama Panorama

Reads Bild Does not Reads Bild Does not

read Bild read Bild

Germany needs an energetic Yes 70% 60% 60% 62%

leader who thinks of his own No 30% 40% 40% 38%

people first.

It is a fact that there are people Yes 39% 29% 30% 36%

of different races and colors in No 61% 71% 70% 64%

the world. They will always

struggle against one another.

This is natural law.

National Socialism also had its Yes 67% 55% 56% 56%

good sides. At least order and No 33% 45% 44% 44%

discipline prevailed.

The Jews have no claims to Yes 24% 12% 22% 17%

reparations. It would have been No 76% 88% 78% 83%

better if Germany had not given

even a penny to the Jews.Source: Todd Michael Goehle, „Challenging Television’s Revolution.’ Media Representations of 1968 protest in

West German Television and Tabloids," in “The Revolution will not be Televised:” Media and Protest Movements, edited

by Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Erling Sivertsen, Rolf Werenskjold. (New York: Berghahn, 2014), 225-226.

Example #1: Attempted Libel Lawsuit vs. Springer Verlag and a 2 February 1976 Die Welt article titled “Dutschke’s Dream of German Socialism.” (1976)

Example #2:Commemorating “1968” for Stern and Claus Lutterbeck. (1977)

Concluding Thoughts: Rudi Dutschke, The Easter Protests, And The 1970sMore Than A Matter Of Memory And Activism: Continued Challenges About Media, Access, And Effects As It

Relates to the Easter Protests

Sources: Archiv des Hamburger Instituts für

Sozialforschung (HIS),

Nachlass_Rudi_Dutschke_RUD160,06 and

RUD161,03. Single Shot from Dutschke and Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s

appearance on the ORF debate program Club 2

(16 Aug 1978).

Coverage of the Club 2 debate in Der Spiegel

(21 August 1978)