36 Habermas: An intellectual biography
Adenauer-Erhard government presented itself as the only guarantee
of security – military or social – and developed modern advertising
slogans that articulated this – “No experiments,” “You have what
you have,” and “Prosperity for all.”^32
The December 1957 decision of NATO to equip European
member states with nuclear weapons spurred nationwide protests
from a diverse range of West German citizens. In January 1958, the
“Struggle Against Atomic Death” (Kampf den Atomtod) campaigns
began; Habermas participated in its Frankfurt branch. On March
25, 1958, the Parliament voted to ratify the NATO decision, even
though 52 percent of adults polled in West Germany and West Berlin
were opposed. On April 17, 150,000 people marched in Hamburg.
On May 20, 20,000 people demonstrated in Frankfurt; 40,000 peo-
ple turned out in Hannover in June. That same month, Habermas
wrote an article in the Frankfurt student magazine Diskus arguing
for a plebiscite.^33
At the end of April, leading SPD politician Erich Ollenhauer
introduced a bill in Parliament calling for a plebiscite; the govern-
ment rejected this as a maneuver incompatible with representative
democracy. Supported by the unions, several Social Democratic–
controlled cities and states then tried to carry out plebiscites at the
level of the Länder (federal states) – notably Hamburg, Bremen,
and Hesse. These efforts failed because the Federal Constitutional
Court decided on July 30, 1958 that the plebiscites were not com-
patible with parliamentary government.^34 The SPD let the move-
ment die slowly over the next few months rather than risk further
confrontation with the popular chancellor.^35 The weapons were
stationed in late 1959.^36
In November 1959, a historic conference of the SPD was held in
Bad Godesburg. After a decade of intraparty debate, and the SPD’s
consecutive defeats at the polls in 1953 and 1957, the SPD adopted a(^32) Habermas, Strukturwandel, 323–4; Transformation, 219–20.
(^33) Habermas, “Unruhe, erste Bürgerpflicht: Römerbergrede gegen die
Atombewaffnung des Bundeswehr,“ Diskus 8:5 ( 1958 ). See Wiggershaus, The
Frankfurt School, 551.
(^34) 8 BVerfGE 104; see Kommers, Jurisprudence, 86–91.
(^35) The movement reconstituted itself as the Easter March of the Opponents
of Nuclear Weapons in Hamburg in 1960, which drew 1,000 in 1960 before
peaking in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis at 100,000. See Thomas,
Dissent, 37–8.
(^36) Thomas, Dissent, 34.