In 1976, at a conference held by the Baden-Württemberg state agency for civic education in Beutelsbach in Swabia, scholars of civic education found three points they could agree on. They are still an important reference for civic education. Teachers may not overwhelm students into holding desired opinions. Students must be enabled to analyze a political situation and their own interests. And the second rule reads: Was in Wissenschaft und Politik kontrovers ist, muss auch im Unterricht kontrovers erscheinen. (What is controversial in scholarship and politics must also appear controversial in the classroom.)
Conflict as a Creative Force
The sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, a pioneering thinker of liberalism, built his work on one idea about conflict. He did not see it as a disturbance of social order. He saw it as eine hervorragende schöpferische Kraft, an outstanding creative force, of social change. He wrote about it from his 1957 book on class conflict in industrial society to Der moderne soziale Konflikt (The Modern Social Conflict, 1992).
Say It to the Board
On 7 November 2009, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an interview with the Bayern Munich defender Philipp Lahm that the club had not approved. Lahm criticized the quality of the squad, the transfer policy and the lack of a clear philosophy: Man darf Spieler nicht einfach kaufen, weil sie gut sind. (You cannot simply buy players because they are good.) Two days later, Lahm met the board. He apologized for the way he had done it and for the tone, and he accepted a fine. The club’s statement said that Lahm has accepted that it would have been better to express his opinion directly to the board. Lahm later revealed in his book that the fine was 50,000 euros.
A Culture of Arguing With the Boss
In September 2015, after the emissions scandal broke at Volkswagen, the head of the works council, Bernd Osterloh, wrote to the company’s employees. He demanded a fundamental change: Wir brauchen für die Zukunft ein Klima, in dem Probleme nicht versteckt, sondern offen an Vorgesetzte kommuniziert werden. (In future we need a climate in which problems are not hidden but communicated openly to superiors.) And: Wir brauchen eine Kultur, in der man mit seinem Vorgesetzten um den besten Weg streiten kann und darf. (We need a culture in which people can and may argue with their superior about the best way.) In 2011, a VW technician had warned the head of engine development about illegal practices. An internal audit later left open why that warning had no consequences.
Communication Is Disturbed
On 10 September 1989, two months before the Wall fell, thirty East Germans published the founding call of the Neues Forum, the New Forum. Its first sentence was: In unserem Land ist die Kommunikation zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft offensichtlich gestört. (In our country, communication between state and society is evidently disturbed.) It asked for a democratic dialogue in aller Öffentlichkeit, gemeinsam und im ganzen Land, in full public view, together and in the whole country. On 21 September, the state news agency called the group hostile to the constitution and the state. By the end of 1989, about 200,000 people had signed the call.
Ask, Not Demand
On 16 November 1976, the leadership of the East German ruling party stripped the singer Wolf Biermann of his citizenship while he was on a concert tour in West Germany. The next day, a group of leading writers and artists met at the home of the poet Stephan Hermlin. Among them were Christa Wolf, Heiner Müller, Stefan Heym and the sculptor Fritz Cremer. They wrote an open letter: Wir protestieren gegen die Ausbürgerung, we protest against the expulsion. They asked the state to reconsider the measure. According to a witness, the word bitten, to ask, replaced the original fordern, to demand, at Cremer’s suggestion. More than one hundred other artists joined them. Some were expelled from the party, others received party penalties, and more than one hundred artists and writers eventually left the GDR.
We Reject the False Doctrine
On 31 May 1934, the Confessing Synod of the Protestant Church met in Wuppertal-Barmen and adopted a declaration written mainly by the theologian Karl Barth. It rejected the attempt by the pro-Nazi Deutsche Christen to subordinate the church to Nazi ideology and to build a centralized Reich Church. It has six theses. Each states a teaching and then names what it rejects, beginning with the words Wir verwerfen die falsche Lehre, we reject the false doctrine. Today the Barmen Declaration is printed in the Protestant hymnal. In many Reformed and United churches, pastors commit to it at their ordination.
The Göttingen Eighteen
On 5 April 1957, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told the press that tactical nuclear weapons were only a Weiterentwicklung der Artillerie, a further development of artillery. A week later, on 12 April, eighteen nuclear scientists published a declaration. Among them were the Nobel laureates Otto Hahn, Max Born and Werner Heisenberg. It began: Die Pläne einer atomaren Bewaffnung der Bundeswehr erfüllen die unterzeichnenden Atomforscher mit tiefer Sorge. (The plans to arm the Bundeswehr with nuclear weapons fill the undersigned nuclear researchers with deep concern.) They explained why they spoke: Deshalb können wir nicht zu allen politischen Fragen schweigen. (That is why we cannot stay silent on all political questions.) None of them, they wrote, would take part in making, testing or using nuclear weapons. Adenauer was outraged and rejected the scientists’ interference in politics. He met them on 17 April. The German Wikipedia states that public pressure led Adenauer to give in, and that the Federal Republic renounced nuclear weapons.
Give Freedom of Thought
In the central scene of Schiller’s Don Carlos, first performed in Hamburg on 29 August 1787, the Marquis Posa speaks to King Philip II of Spain. Twice he tells the king: Ich kann nicht Fürstendiener sein. (I cannot be a servant of princes.) Then he makes his demand: Ein Federzug von dieser Hand, und neu / Erschaffen wird die Erde. Geben Sie / Gedankenfreiheit. (One stroke of the pen from this hand, and the earth is created anew. Give freedom of thought.) In the text, the demand runs across a line break. The king answers: Sonderbarer Schwärmer! (Strange dreamer!)
The Yes-Sayer and the No-Sayer
In 1930, Bertolt Brecht and the composer Kurt Weill wrote Der Jasager, the Yes-Sayer, a school opera to be performed by students. It was first performed on 23 June 1930 in Berlin and broadcast live on radio. In it, a boy agrees, according to the Großen Brauch, the great custom, to be thrown into a valley. In November 1930, students at the Karl-Marx-Schule in Berlin-Neukölln performed the piece and discussed it. On 9 December, their teacher sent Brecht the minutes of the discussions. Brecht printed extracts of the students’ suggestions in his own publication. Based on their objections and on the reviews, he wrote a counterpart: Der Neinsager, the No-Sayer, in which the boy refuses and successfully contradicts the verdict.