Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

‘The truth will make us free’: students on the march in post-war Europe

The radical Rudi Dutschke in 1960s Berlin and the angry Johnny Rotten in 1970s London are just two of the charismatic figures in this history of youth activism

Rudi Dutschke speaking out against the Vietnam War, Berlin, 1968. [Getty Images] 
issue 21 October 2023

One night in early autumn 1982, two young men roamed the streets of Lodz in Poland. It was a dark period in the country’s history – one of many. A mass movement led by the Solidarnosc trade union had recently attempted to challenge the communist regime which had kept the country under a heavy Soviet yoke, with little to offer but food shortages, economic decline and the erosion of national identity.

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