Senin, 13 Desember 2010

In 1960s and 70s Germany, as an entire generation of young people sought to orient themselves on different influences and models than their parents’ Nazi-influenced past, disenchantment and social unrest were prevalent. Despite denazification, ex-Nazis held powerful positions in government and business. Ninety-five percent of the Bundestag in the late 60s was controlled by a coalition of the SPD and CDU headed by former Nazi Party member Kurt Georg Kiesinger.

The police killing of a peaceful protester in the Summer of 1967 sparked the beginning of violent actions by radicals known as the Red Army Fraction (RAF). The RAF quickly became the biggest challenge the West German government ever faced, culminating in a series of high-profile kidnappings and murders in the Fall of 1977 that shook the underpinnings of German society and spawned a number of conspiracy theories and widespread anger at the government’s response.