The politics of socialism and the West German "1968"

This article discusses the place of a politics of socialism around the West German "1968." In order to do so, it focuses on a network of activists who cannot be adequately described as either student protesters or a cultural avantgarde and who are often neglected in the Anglophone literature as well as more mainstream accounts of the German "1968." This article zooms in on activists linked to the left wing of the SPD, in particular its former front organizations, such as the "Friends of Nature," trade union youth organizations. It traces the transformation of this network from the early 1960s into the 1970s.