TY - CHAP

T1 - Vietnam War Protest and Solidarity in West Germany

AU - Sedlmaier, Alexander

AU - Anders, Freia

PY - 2022/1

Y1 - 2022/1

N2 - West-German Vietnam solidarity and protest had three main organisational roots: (1) the “Campaign for Disarmament”, which emerged from the pacifist Easter March movement, (2) the New Left internationalist circles of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), and (3) the Hilfsaktion Vietnam (Vietnam Aid Campaign) organising humanitarian aid. Vietnam War protest became an integrative moment favouring cross-movement mobilisation among the “new” and “old” social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which did not end with the period of the student revolt. The extensive protest repertoire of a loose but broad alliance comprised demonstrations and political events, solidarity resolutions for South Vietnamese students who had run into trouble with the West German authorities, support for deserters as well as reports about delegations travelling to and from Vietnam. After the disintegration of the extra-parliamentary opposition, not only newly founded small-scale communist parties and spontaneist circles, but also groups that turned towards underground armed struggle (Red Army Faction) sought to interpret, utilise, and influence the course of the war in Indochina. West German authorities responding with bans on demonstrations and splinter parties were unable to prevent debates about US warfare and breaches of international law to unfold in the context of various criminal proceedings against protesters.

AB - West-German Vietnam solidarity and protest had three main organisational roots: (1) the “Campaign for Disarmament”, which emerged from the pacifist Easter March movement, (2) the New Left internationalist circles of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), and (3) the Hilfsaktion Vietnam (Vietnam Aid Campaign) organising humanitarian aid. Vietnam War protest became an integrative moment favouring cross-movement mobilisation among the “new” and “old” social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which did not end with the period of the student revolt. The extensive protest repertoire of a loose but broad alliance comprised demonstrations and political events, solidarity resolutions for South Vietnamese students who had run into trouble with the West German authorities, support for deserters as well as reports about delegations travelling to and from Vietnam. After the disintegration of the extra-parliamentary opposition, not only newly founded small-scale communist parties and spontaneist circles, but also groups that turned towards underground armed struggle (Red Army Faction) sought to interpret, utilise, and influence the course of the war in Indochina. West German authorities responding with bans on demonstrations and splinter parties were unable to prevent debates about US warfare and breaches of international law to unfold in the context of various criminal proceedings against protesters.

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-81050-4_7

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-81050-4_7

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-3-030-81049-8

T3 - Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements

SP - 173

EP - 205

BT - Protest in the Vietnam War Era

A2 - Sedlmaier, Alexander

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

ER -