ALFRED MARQUART that there was no playground in the city center of Cologne), we decided to act after years of fruitless waiting. We no longer believe in city and party promises. Our children should have the chance to go out and play now; no promises and plans can help them do it. That is why we and our children are building a playground ourselves."(7) At the beginning of the CAG movement, in 1969, a poll taken by the Wickert Institute in Tiibingen showed that dissatisfaction with city bureaucracy and its constantly broadening powers was on the increase. According to this poll, 68°/o of the men and 50°/o of the women questioned were dissatisfied with the work of and communications with local bureaucracy .(8) The state and its administration, in part due to Social Democrat participation in government, had become somewhat more totalitarian. The campaign against the illegality of abortion brought forth a strong echo in the population just as the passing of the emerg. ency laws had. Prominent and less prominent people publically admitted to having had abortions or having helped others to obtain them. Soon everyone was speaking about paragraph 218. Thanks to this first movement, more and more womens' groups were founded which, at first, limited their goals to the abolition of paragraph 218, but which then, out of necessity, began to deal with a wider spectrum of womens' issues. Today the womens' movement in Germany has a very relevant role to play in discussing and changing society. * * * 1973, the year of the oil crisis in Germany and in many other European nations, then brought an issue to the fore which has since divided the German population in two. The media, the government, and the population as a whole began to discuss the question of atomic energy. Under the influence of United States "progress", the German government now began to be more and more interested in the construction of nuclear power plants. But (7) Leaflet, Biirgerversammlung Altstadt (Cologne), 5.8.1972. (8) Mayer-Tasch, p. 41. 66
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExMDY2NQ==