The Making of a ‘58er 37
new platform in 1959. The conclusion of the conference was that if
the party were to again win elections, it must transform itself from a
working-class party into a “people’s party” (Volk s par tei). Although it
had espoused an evolutionary, parliamentary path to socialism since
the 1890s, with the Godesburg platform the party took a further
step away from its Orthodox Marxism. The choice for socialism
became an ethical choice as opposed to a decision to align oneself
with an immanent historical process. Lobbying by representatives of
the reform wing at hundreds of party meetings between the spring
of 1958 and the fall of 1959 prepared this success. Herbert Wehner,
a former Communist, threw his weight behind the program, which
added to its credibility with the rank and file. The platform was
heralded as a step in the right direction by the more than 320 of the
340 delegates who approved it.^37
In February 1960, the SPD party executive demanded that the
league of German socialist students, the Sozialistischer Deutscher
Studentenbund (SDS), accept the Godesburg platform. Three
months later, an organization of students dissatisfied with the
platform formed. On October 8, 1961, shortly after completing
Transformation, Habermas joined Abendroth and political scientist
Osip Flechtheim in attending the long-planned founding of a group
of “sponsors” of the German Socialist Students League (SDS)
opposed to the Godesburg reforms.^38 This founding meeting took
place in the Studentenhaus of the University of Frankfurt; 260 aca-
demics, writers, unionists, and active SDS functionaries were pres-
ent. In November 1961, the party executive expelled the members
of both the SDS and the Association of Socialist Sponsors from the
SPD, which now included Habermas. The SDS’s unwillingness to
compromise on the issue of atomic weapons, as well as Abendroth’s
critique of the Godesburg platform published in the SDS paper
Standpunkt, were two of the factors behind the decision to expel the
groups.^39
(^37) The Bad Godesburg party platform of November 13–15, 1959 was the first
complete redraft of the party program since 1925, and it remained in force
through 1989. See Anthony Nicholls, Freedom and Responsibility: The Social
Market Economy in Germany, 1918–1963 (Oxford, England: Oxford UP,
1994 ), 386.
(^38) Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 561.
(^39) Ibid., 561–2. Wiggershaus follows the account of Tilman Fichter and
Siegward Lonnendonker, Kleine Geschichte des SDS: Der Sozialistische Deutsche
Studentenbund von 1946 bis Auflösung (Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 1977 ), 46.