ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: FROM RED TO GREEN IN ... - Isioma

importance of the AL, its history remains surprisingly unexplored. 12
Two
historical studies of the AL have been undertaken, both by writers closely
connected to the party. The nearest thing to a complete history of the party, Zehn
Jahre Alternative Liste: Bilder und Geschichte(n), was assembled by various
members of the AL, and was published to celebrate the party’s achievements in
its first decade of existence. This account ends in 1988, and consists mainly of a
chronology interspersed with personal comments by AL members themselves,
and is best viewed as a primary source. 13
The second, Die Alternative Liste Berlin:
Entstehung, Entwicklung, Positionen, provides a good overview of the AL’s early
years. The work is particularly useful for the documents it publishes on the AL’s
formative period. However, even its authors, most of whom were closely
associated with the AL, admit that their account is not objective. 14
This dissertation therefore is the first archives-based exploration by a
historian of the origins and evolution of the AL. To my knowledge, it is also the
only historical study focusing on a specific geographical area that traces the
evolution of the West German Left from its radical anti-parliamentary origins to
12
Joachim Raschke’s section on the AL, though full of very useful insights
and structural information, gives more of a snapshot of the party at a particular
time, and is based aside from interviews on only a few published works by AL
members. See Raschke, Die Grünen, 274-283.
13
Elkebarbara Mayer, Martina Schmolt, and Harald Wolf, Zehn Jahre
Alternative Liste: Bilder und Geschichte(n) (Bremen: Steintor, 1988).
14
Michael Bühnemann, Michael Wendt and Jürgen Wituschek, eds., Die
Alternative Liste Berlin: Entstehung, Entwicklung, Positionen (Berlin: LitPol
Verlagsgesellschaft, 1984).
11