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Rudi Dutschke born Alfred Willi Rudi Dutschke (March 7, 1940 – December 24, 1979, Århus, Denmark) was the most prominent spokesperson of the left-wing German student movement of the 1960s. Later he was one of the founding members of the Green Party of Germany.

In 1968, he survived an assassination attempt by a right-wing extremist, living for another twelve years until related health problems caused his death.

The public assessment of Rudi Dutschke's political activities has undergone several changes, from the very aggressive condemnation by the Springer Press in the 1960s to a broad recognition today that the movement for which Dutschke was a leading spokesperson played an essential role in the democratization of German institutions in the post-World War II period.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Political views 3 Shooting and later life 4 References in Literature and Music 5 See also 6 External links 7 Bibliography

Dutschke was born in Schönefeld, (Kreis Jüterbog-Luckenwalde, Brandenburg), Germany. Rudi Dutschke attended school in Luckenwalde and graduated from the Gymnasium there, but because he refused to join the army of the German Democratic Republic and convinced many of his fellow students to refuse as well, he was prevented from attending university in the GDR. He fled to West Berlin in August, 1961 just one day before the Berlin Wall was built. He studied sociology at the Free University of Berlin under Richard Lowenthal and Klaus Meschkat where he became acquainted with alternative views of Marxism.

Dutschke joined the German SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (which was not the same as the SDS in the USA, but quite similar in goals) in 1965 and from that time on the SDS became the center of the student movement, growing very rapidly and organizing demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. He married the American Gretchen Klotz (de) in 1966 and they had three children.

Influenced by critical theory, Rosa Luxemburg and critical Marxists, Dutschke developed a theory and code of practice of social change which did not propose a final Utopian form of society like the Utopian Socialists Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, of whom Karl Marx was equally critical. Instead he believed that the direction, form and content of a more just and more democratic society should be developed in the process of revolutionizing society.

Dutschke also believed the transformation of Western societies should go hand in hand with Third World liberation movements and with democratization in communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. His socialism had strongly Christian roots. He called Jesus Christ the "greatest revolutionary", and at Easter 1963, he wrote in his diary, "Jesus is risen. The decisive revolution in world history has happened - a revolution of all-conquering love. If people would fully receive this revealed love into their own existence, into the reality of the 'now', then the logic of insanity could no longer continue."

Attempts have been made recently by conservatives with the goal of discrediting the movements of the sixties and seventies to stress the origin of German extremistism in the student movement. The death of Benno Ohnesorg in 1967 at the hands of German police, pushed some in the student movement toward increasingly extremist violence and the formation of the Red Army Faction. The violence against Dutschke further radicalised parts of the student movement into committing several bombings and murders. Dutschke rejected this direction and feared that it would end up causing the dissolution of the student movement.

On April 11, 1968 Dutschke was shot in the head by Josef Bachmann, a young unskilled worker. After the attempted assassination in 1968, Rudi Dutschke and his family went to the United Kingdom in the hope that he could recuperate there. He was accepted at Cambridge University to finish his degree in 1969, but in 1971 the Tory government under Edward Heath expelled him and his family as an "undesirable alien" who had engaged in "subversive activity", causing a political storm in London. They then moved to Aarhus, Denmark.

Rudi Dutschke reentered the German political scene after protests against the building of nuclear power plants activated a new movement in the mid-1970s. Dutschke recognized that this movement had a far broader base than the student movement had, and that its ecological orientation was going to define the progressive direction for the next generation.

He also began working with dissidents opposing the Communist governments in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, including Robert Havemann, Wolf Biermann, Milan Horáček, Adam Michnik, Ota Šik and more.

Rudi Dutschke recovered almost sufficiently to play an essential role in the 1980 formation of the Green Party of Germany by convincing the former student protesters (including Joschka Fischer) to join the Green movement. As a result in October, 1979 the Greens were able to reach the 5% limit required to obtain parliamentary seats in the Bremen provincial election.

Because of massive brain damage from the assassination attempt, Rudi Dutschke continued to suffer health problems. He died on 24 December 1979 in Aarhus, Denmark. He had an epileptic seizure while in the bathtub and drowned.

The song "Rot" by Markus Henrik features a mention of Dutschke, who can also be seen in the music video of the same. The song uses Dutschke as a reminder of political activism in Germany in the 60s and 70s, and affirms his status as an icon for the generations of then and now.

• Kommune 1

• Biography at the German Historic Museum (German)
• Music video featuring Rudi Dutschke

• Mein langer Marsch: Reden, Schriften und Tagebücher aus zwanzig Jahren (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1980).
• Jeder hat sein Leben ganz zu leben - Diaries of Rudi Dutschke edited by Gretchen Dutschke German review at buechernachlese.de.vu
• Wir hatten ein barbarisches, schönes Leben - Biography by Gretchen Dutschke German review at buechernachlese.de.vu
• Wir hatten ein barbarisches, schönes Leben - Biography by Gretchen Dutschke German review at carpe.com