Postwar West Germans showed mostly negative or ambivalent attitudes toward democratic values
Evidence
The overall quantitative result, which made no claim to be generally representative of the West German population, and which was also restricted to those participants who spoke, was (for all topics excluding East Germany): 16 per cent positive, 40 per cent ambivalent and 44 per cent negative. On the topic of the East, rejection, classified as positive, was the overwhelming result. Despite an odd attempt to keep this evaluation of attitudes non-committal, and to leave undecided the question whether the attitudes being evaluated in this way were to be seen as attitudes to democracy or attitudes to the discussion topics, the interpretation which kept gaining acceptance, even in the text itself, was that the attitudes being examined were attitudes to democratic values. For supporters of a democratic system, it was therefore a result which gave little grounds for confidence. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1888
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: West German political attitudes measured 16 percent positive and 44 percent negative — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1888; Nazi rule and restoration alienated postwar Germans from utopian-social criticism; Postwar Germany taught Europeans that passive sympathy with tyranny pays more than resistance. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1718 (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- West German students showed more authoritarian than democratic latent political potential
#corroborates(0.92) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2349 - Ethnocentric and anti-democratic attitudes sometimes coexisted with left-leaning political views
#corroborates(0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 495 - Post-Nazi Germany needed fifty years of resocialization to acquire liberal political culture
#expands(0.82) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 24 - Postwar German philosophy remained apolitical and untouched by Nazi history
#corroborates(0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1914