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The 1960s and early 1970s were characterized by planning optimism and major reforms associated with notions of efficiency on the one hand, and a change in political culture on the other. When government bodies in the Federal Republic of Germany initiated in a top-down way a comprehensive territorial reform and intervened into the everyday life of many people this provoked resistance from citizens. Using the example of the municipal territorial reform as carried out in the Federal Republic, the article addresses tensions as well as a governance processes between the representatives of the state, the municipalities and citizens alongside with a fundamental change in political culture during the 1960s and 1970s. The article shows how the local municipalities reacted to territorial and functional reforms elaborated by the federal and state governments and the ministerial bureaucracy of West Germany with a special focus on North Rhine-Westphalia. It sheds light not only on new players in the political arena, municipalities and local citizens' initiatives that were increasingly trying to take an active role in decision-making, but also a general change in political culture. Claims for political and social participation and political transparency, a "vital civic spirit" which opposed state planning optimist approaches - demands that those responsible for the reform had to react on. The article examines the redefinitions of the relationship between state and municipality, and citizens in the course of reform processes and related political debates, and analyses how far decisions-making processes changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines the debate on the expansion of the welfare state in Western Germany during the 1950s. This debate does not only provide important insights into the self-perception of Western German society. It can also be read as a risk debate, because the contemporaries were aware of the ambivalent effects of the preventive measures against poverty: While especially social democrats emphasised the stabilising effect of the fight against poverty on democracy, politicians from economic-liberal circles stressed the risk that such measures could give the state excessive power over its citizens. Despite the consensual conviction of all relevant political actors that an expansion of the welfare state was historically consequent and expected by the population, the weighing of individual freedom on the one hand and social security on the other hand coined the debate on, as well as the organisation of, the Western German welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines the question of to what extent individual experiences and exposures of by-standing, persecution and perpetration during the Third Reich effected what could and what was expressed by members of the West German parliament and what not. To date, political science has not explored this set of problems systematically, however a number of contemporary studies highlight the importance of distinguishing different communities of remembrances and of experience in order to better understand politics in West and East German postwar society. The samples examined in a study on the history of "militant democracy" lay the groundwork for two hypotheses. On the one hand, individual experiences during the Third Reich influenced the way parliamentarians argued. On the other hand, they avoided to talk frankly about this influence's existence. Instead, members of parliament used more abstract topoi which reduced the political explosive force of the debate. Even when the Bundestag debated the "historical lessons" to be drawn from "1933", the parliamentarians did not mention what they personally said and did before 1945. This "dosage" of (auto-)biographical information avoided historical mudslinging and guaranteed constructive collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses West German historiography and Italian historiography practices in the period from the end of World War II to 1960, with a focus on the Nazi and Fascist history and collective memory of the two countries. Reference is made to the social and educational role of historians in shaping public and mass media representations of the Nazi and Fascist periods. Topics discussed include attitudes of historians toward individuals formerly involved with Nazi and Fascist activities, analysis of the scholarship of these historians, and the relationship between their public activity and writings.

The protests of '1968' are a powerful symbol of generational belonging and central to Germany's collective memory. The so-called '68ers' have been transformed into a mythical yardstick of what constitutes a generation. Yet few people thought of themselves in this way in the late 1960s: the idea of the '68er' only emerged from complex and often retrospective processes of generational building, which this article investigates. It is shown that such age-related affinities were not confined to members of the West German Left. Two alternative generational narratives that emerged out of the late 1960s are examined in this piece: those of the West German moderate right-wing 'counter-generation' and of the 'East German 68ers'. The antagonistic character of the West German events and the subsequent public projection of left-wing activists as a 'generation' mobilized their political contemporaries and led to a growing desire to collectivize their experiences in their turn. East Germany's '1968', on the other hand, may have been far less iconic than the West German revolt, but former East German activists have also given their memories generational form, particularly since the 1990s. This article addresses these manifold processes of generation building to show that they have much to reveal about how activists - and those who observed them - made sense of the events of 1968 and about how different groups mobilized the idea of a generational experience politically to powerful effect in the years that followed. We are not dealing with a single and monolithic generation of 1968, but with more diverse communities of German '68ers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on politics in France and West Germany including the political crisis of May 1968 in France, interventions of the Républicains indépendants deputies during the parliamentary debates in May 1968, and debates about the antiestablishment student movement in West Germany in 1968.

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This article explores the successful transformation of West Germany to democracy after the Second World War. It highlights the role of the Allied Power in the democratic transformation of West Germany. It identifies some of the policies that helped West Germany to make changes. The article concludes by recognizing the contribution of the Germans to their own country's path to democracy.