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Chronicle 1968

  • February 
  • March 
  • April

     
    • 2 April

      1968

      The start of open terrorism in West Germany: Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Horst Söhnlein are arrested on suspicion of having carried out arson attacks on two Frankfurt department stores. The arsonists have taken as their model the attack on a department store in Brussels on 22 May 1967, in which 322 people died. These attacks are designed to bring home to Europeans the napalm deaths in Vietnam.
    • 8 April

      1968

      In the GDR, a new constitution comes into force in which the GDR is described as a "socialist state of the German nation". It has been previously approved by referendum.
    • 11 April

      1968

      In West Berlin, the president of the SDS, Rudi Dutschke, is shot and badly injured in the street. There are demonstrations by the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition against the assassination attempt in many cities around Germany ("Osterunruhen") ["Easter riots"].

      In Berlin, delivery vehicles from the Springer publishing house, whose campaign against the student movement is considered by some to have motivated the would-be killer, are set on fire and an anti-Springer tribunal is held.
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    • 28 April

      1968

      At elections in Baden-Württemberg, the radical right-wing NPD enters the state parliament with 9.8 percent of votes; CDU and FDP maintain their share of the vote, while the SPD suffers severe losses.
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