Intellectuals as cultural agenda-setters in the Federal Republic?

This article argues that intellectuals in Germany post‐1945 have had, and continue to have, an important influence both on the political culture in general and on cultural policy in particular. Our thesis has been structured in three parts. The first traces the introduction of the term “intellectuals” into German, sketches out how they have variously been defined and sets out the reasons why they have been polemically abused as well as critically lauded. Parts two and three are dedicated to case studies on Jürgen Habermas and Hilmar Hoffmann respectively. Between them they are seen to embrace the two aspects (cultural politics and cultural policy) of the term Kulturpolitik: Habermas by discursive interventions in a changing terrain of values, mentalities and institutional frameworks determining the lifeworld of an ever changing modernity and Hoffmann by theoretical reflection about the parameters and tasks of cultural policy as a field of professional administration and decision‐making. To what extent, in connection with what issues and areas of public life and at what stages in the development of the Federal Republic they can be deemed to be agenda‐setters is critically assessed throughout