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

It faced a number of new dilemmas that could potentially undermine the general
trend toward a stable, participatory democracy. 39
Part of the task of the historian of the Federal Republic therefore must be
to explain why the predictions of doom regarding the Federal Republic’s stability
were mistaken. This dissertation examines developments in West Berlin from
the mid-1960s to 1990 in order to help understand this phenomenon. There, anti-
Western, anti-parliamentary elements became reconciled with modern Western
parliamentary democracy. There, the new generation consigned to the ash heap
of historical irrelevance by Brzezinski made itself relevant again. There, the West
German parliamentary system demonstrated its ability to absorb and integrate
challenges from the far Left.
As we have seen, one facet of the concerns about the stability of the Bonn
Republic related to terrorism. Not only the acts of terror themselves represented
a threat to the Federal Republic, however: contemporary observers were correct
to point out that the state’s response to these acts also could undermine
democracy. Critics accused the West German state of both overreacting and
applying a double standard in its fight against terror, suspending civil liberties in
39
In particular, Kalberg worried that structural components of the Basic
Law such as the five percent clause had outlived their usefulness and would
frustrate citizens and thus lead to instability. Kalberg, “Federal Republic,” 34-38.
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