The SPD expelled its own critical left-wing public sphere when it banned the SDS

Evidence

The party executive gave no reason for its decision. Since the left-wing intellectuals who had come to dominate the SDS had certainly been willing to reach an understanding with the party executive, and had, for example, declared that they were opposed to blind anticommunism but also supported maintaining a critical distance towards communism in Germany, the only explanation for the behaviour of the SPD party executive was that it was irritated about various other matters. … What the party executive was therefore expelling was, precisely, a critical public sphere within the organization, initiated by left-wing intellectuals. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2381

Categorization

• XREF: The phrase ‘condemned to impotence, according to Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere’ directly ties to Habermas — a central Frankfurt School reference the reader is building. — connects to: The SPD abandoned the anti-atomic campaign for electoral calculation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2347; The SPD expelled the SDS to destroy its internal critical public sphere. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2381; The SPD expelled the SDS over atomic weapons, Nazi-lawyer exposures, and Godesberg criticism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2381 (+2 more)