After the dedication of the reconstructed Cologne synagogue in September 1959, incidences of neo-Nazi and antisemitic graffiti rose throughout the Federal Republic, with 470 cases being reported between September 1959 and January 1960 alone. In response, in January 1960, university students and young labor unionists staged a demonstration in front of the Memorial for the Victims of National Socialism on Steinplatz in West Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. West Berlin students were known for being particularly political, and they also took this opportunity to protest what they saw as a high degree of continuity between the elites of the Third Reich and the Federal Republic. They were troubled that many people in positions of influence in the postwar period—in the government, the economic sector, but also in education—had also occupied high-ranking positions during National Socialism.