Generation

Generations fascinate me, they offer me as a historian an abstraction possibility of social developments, a structure in the flow of history. Of course, their transitions are fluid and their characteristics are not binding, and yet they help me to gain a better understanding of an ever more rapidly changing society. The journalist Erik Albrecht and the social scientist Klaus Hurrelmann express this as follows:

“Because all age groups of a generation grow up at the same time and are shaped by the same events in the decisive phase of personality development, namely in youth, a quite uniform social character is formed. [...] The experiences of youth determine the interpretation of later events, they breathe a spirit of the times and frame the world view. This forms collective similarities."

Ever since I discovered my interest and passion for politics and history in September 2005, I have asked myself every day why my generation doesn't take to the streets and rebel like the 68ers did in their time. In the last 14 years, I have therefore almost despaired of the vast majority of my peers.

And then, in 2018/19, Greta Thunberg (*2003) and Fridays For Future suddenly enter the stage of the world - hundreds of thousands of students are striking the school lessons for saving the planet. Why were we Millennials not willing or able to do this? Why do students all over the world follow the example of a 16-year-old climate activist? And what defines the character of this new generation?