German Student Protester. He was the charismatic leader of widespread German student protests of the 1960s. During a protest in Berlin on April 11, 1968 he was shot in the head by Josef Bachmann, a young neo-Nazi; Dutschke recovered sufficiently to be instrumental in the eventual formation of the Green Party by convincing the former student protesters (including Joschka Fischer, presently Germany's Foreign Minister) to join the Green movement. Consequently the Greens reached the 5% minimum for parliamentary seats in the Bremen Landtag elections. Dutschke graduated from the gymnasium in his hometown of Luckenwalde and his refusal to join the East German Red Army caused the GDR to ban him from attending any university. He fled to West Berlin in 1961 and attended the Free University of Berlin where he came to believe transformation of Western societies should go hand in hand with third world liberation movements and with democratization of Eastern Europe. The student unrest in Germany stemmed from questions the post WWII generation raised about Hitler's era. They wanted to know why their parents had allowed it to happen--the response was mostly silence. Early protest actions were aimed at removing former Nazis from senior governmental and judicial positions. Dutschke joined the German SDS, Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund (similar goals as the SDS in the USA), in 1965 after which time the SDS became the center of the student movement; it grew rapidly and organized demonstrations against the Vietnam War. After the assasination attempt, Dutschke went to England to recuperate and was accepted at Cambridge University to finish his degree; in 1970 he was expelled and moved to Denmark. In the mid 1970s he reentered the German political scene when protests against new nuclear power plants launched a further movement which he recognized was broader based than his earlier student movement and with an ecological orientation defining future progressive direction. He began working with dissidents opposing the Soviet government in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Although condemned in the 1960s, Dutschke is now recognized as a leading spokesperson who played a key role in the democratization of German institutions in the post-World War II period.