German Student Union
In 1957, Agnoli also joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD); he would be expelled in 1961, for being a member of the Socialist German Student Union, the former college organization of the SPD, which then rebelled against the party. In 1960, he started working as the assistant of Ferdinand A. Hermens, the only political scientist at the University of Cologne at the time. In Cologne Agnoli got to know his future wife, Barbara Görres. Görres's devoutly Catholic family at first objected to her relationship with Agnoli, an atheist, even calling on Hermens to intervene. The two married in 1962. After it was reported that Agnoli called on the West German government to recognize the socialist German Democratic Republic (East Germany), he came into conflict with Hermens and his contract was not renewed. Wolfgang Abendroth, a renowned German left-wing academic, recommended Agnoli to Ossip K. Flechtheim of the Otto Suhr Institute at the Free University of Berlin. Agnoli worked as Flechtheim's assistant until becoming a professor in his own right in 1972.