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German neo-conservatism was primarily a reactive phenomenon, in which those who had been the reformist but loyal opposition were transformed into defenders of the existing order, in the face of a radical challenge.¹ That is hardly surprising: Most intellectual conservatism has been neo-conservatism, since the rationale for existing institutions comes to require articulation only when those institutions are under attack.² The institutions that conservatives defend do, of course, change over time, which is one reason for the class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">neo- in neo-conservatism. What was the existing order that the German neo-conservatives set out to defend, and what were the forces challenging that order? The challenge came primarily from the German New Left, its academic Nestors and fellow travelers; by the New (neo-Marxist) Left I mean a range of movements, from the SDS to the K-Gruppen and the APO to the Red Army Faction. The existing order, on the broadest level, was "bourgeois democracy," or if you prefer, the liberal-democratic, parliamentary, capitalist, welfare-statist Rechtsstaat. The major challenges to which the neo-conservatives responded included the neo-Marxist interpretation according to which the relationship between the Third Reich and the Federal Republic was one of fundamental continuity, not least since both were capitalist societies.

DOI: 10.1057/9781403982544_9

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