Abstract

1968 marks an important turning point in the political history of both Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany. The comparative historical literature highlights the similarities between the two national case studies. This research presents the alternative argument, that the different political responses given in the two countries to that trauma is an evidence of the growing division between them. In particular, the different importance that the so called intellectual «conservative response» had in the political and party systems of the two countries in paradigmatic of the increasing difference between the two belated nations of Europe.