104 Habermas: An intellectual biography
unionists developed a campaign against the introduction of emer-
gency legislation. The first conference held by the opposition to the
planned laws was held at the University of Bonn on May 30, 1965,
under the title, “Democracy and the State of Emergency.”^66 The
campaign was led by a group called “Emergency of Democracy”
(Notstand der Demokratie). The proposed emergency laws became
the central focus of the APO in the latter half of 1967 and the sub-
ject of public hearings in the Bundestag in November. That month,
the German Socialist Students’ League (SDS) in Frankfurt called
students to a “go-in” protest of the lecture of Frankfurt professor of
political science Carlo Schmid, selected because he had as an SPD
minister in the coalition government helped author the proposed
emergency laws.^67 On May 11, 1968, 30,000 demonstrators, most of
whom were students, marched on Bonn.
Between the first parliamentary discussions of the laws in mid-
May and their adoption on May 30, Horkheimer, Adorno, Hans-
Jürgen Krahl, and Oskar Negt all wrote or spoke against the
amendment. Habermas signed a statement on May 17 declaring the
future of democracy in Germany to be in danger.^68 Legal scholars
Helmut Ridder, Jürgen Seifert, and Abendroth also played promi-
nent roles in the opposition campaign. In retrospect, the concern
over the emergency laws may seem overblown, given that once
passed, the provisions were never invoked in the subsequent his-
tory of the Federal Republic. But this neglects the sentiments of the
time: The relative proximity to the Nazi period meant that the pub-
lic memory of how Article 48, the emergency clause of the Weimar(^66) Vol. 1, 220.
(^67) SDS Gruppe Frankfurt, Flugblatt-Anruf zur Teilnahme am Go-in in die
Vorlesung von Carlo Schmid (November 16, 1967), in Wolfgang Krausharr,
ed., Frankfurter Schule und Studentenbewegung. Von der Flaschenpost zum
Molotowcocktail, 1946–1995, Vols. 1–3 (Hamburg: Digital Edition, 2003
[orig. 1998]), Vol. 2, No. 162.
(^68) Max Horkheimer, “Gedanken zum Notstandsgesetz, mit grosser Mehrheit
angenommen am 15 Mai 1968,” Krausharr, Frankfurter Schule 2 : 2 0 7; T h e o d o r
Adorno, “Gegen die Notstandsgesetze. Ansprache auf der Veranstaltung
‘Demokratie im Notstand’ im Grossen Sendesaal des Hessischen
Rundfunks” (May 28, 1968), Krausharr, Frankfurter Schule 2:212; Oskar
Negt, “Fernsehrede im Hessischen Rundfunk” (May 28, 1968), Krausharr,
Frankfurter Schule 2:213; Hans-Jürgen Krahl, “Romerbergrede. Gegen die
Verabschiedung der Notstandgesetze,” Krausharr, Frankfurter Schule 2:209;
see also Abendroth, “Die Gefahren einer Notstandsverfassung,” Rede in
der Anhörung des Deutschen Bundestages zur Notstandsgesetzgebung,
(November 9, 1967).