The article attempts to provide an answer to the query as to what role fell to the year 1968 in the development of terrorism. Being but one of its chapters, it was clearly not that of the beginning of terrorism. The author describes briefly the genesis of terrorism and points out that, after 1945, terrorism had returned to its revolutionary connotations, namely, to fighting the incumbent regime, as well as the colonial regimes. It was then that the concept was born of terrorism as a weapon of the weak and the poor, of those who got into trouble and of the oppressed, for whom reaching for the methods of terrorism reflected their desperation and dejection. From the end of the 1960s, together with the youth rebellion (in May 1968!), the political arena is entered by ideologically motivated groups for whom it is fighting the social and political system as such, rather than a specific regime, that has become the basic motivating factor. The circumstances which contributed to the emergence of post-1968 terrorist organisations and the process of radicalisation which led from the debates and public speeches to terrorism, are analysed by the author, who also points to the specific combination, in West Germany’s case, of 1968 and nationalism.