German neo-conservatism, ca. 1968–1985

Hermann Lübbe and others

Jerry Z. Müller

pp. 161-184

in: German ideologies since 1945, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Abstract

German neo-conservatism was primarily a reactive phenomenon, in which those who had been the reformist but loyal opposition were transformed into defenders of the existing order, in the face of a radical challenge.¹ That is hardly surprising: Most intellectual conservatism has been neo-conservatism, since the rationale for existing institutions comes to require articulation only when those institutions are under attack.² The institutions that conservatives defend do, of course, change over time, which is one reason for the neo- in neo-conservatism. What was the existing order that the German neo-conservatives set out to defend, and what were the forces challenging that order? The challenge came primarily from the German New Left, its academic Nestors and fellow travelers; by the New (neo-Marxist) Left I mean a range of movements, from the SDS to the K-Gruppen and the APO to the Red Army Faction. The existing order, on the broadest level, was "bourgeois democracy," or if you prefer, the liberal-democratic, parliamentary, capitalist, welfare-statist Rechtsstaat. The major challenges to which the neo-conservatives responded included the neo-Marxist interpretation according to which the relationship between the Third Reich and the Federal Republic was one of fundamental continuity, not least since both were capitalist societies.

Cited authors

Marx Karl

Lübbe Hermann