Action group for nonviolence

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First German Easter March flyer
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Vigil 1958

The Action Group for Nonviolence was an action group that existed in Hamburg from 1956 to 1963 in the context of the peace movement .

Concrete action based on worldview

As part of the International of Conscientious Objectors and later the Association of Conscientious Objectors , a core of 10 to 15 workers, craftsmen, schoolchildren, students and young teachers between 18 and 25 years, including two women, formed the action group from 1956. Marked by the ideological and principled positions of the Bulgarian anarchists Theodor Michaltscheff by Nikolaus Koch and by the founders Helga Stolle and Konrad Temple introduced Quaker -Auffassungen responsibility of the individual / Do not wait for Others / consensus principle , developed a from the pacifist policy stance strong need for action. Inspired by the London PEACE NEWS and the contacts it made, the group felt more connected to American and English activists of War Resisters' International than to German groups. The sociologist Karl-Adolf Otto said: "This group took remarkable initiatives".

Commitments of the action group

  • From 1956: Exercise courses for the first German conscientious objectors and training in non-violent behavior in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart a. a.
  • 1958: Attempt to transfer the London Hyde Park discussions to a park near Hamburg Central Station, which remained without a response.
  • 1958: Following the last great fight against atomic death - rally by the action group and members of the three pacifist associations in front of the Hamburg City Hall, the first vigil over several days was set up . One participant was u. a. during this time also Uwe Timm . The term vigil was in the action group by the young glazier Jürgen Grimm for engl. vigil "invented". WRI activists April Carter and Pat Arrowsmith from England and WRI Council member Bayard Rustin from the USA came to this 14-day vigil .
  • 1959: 4 weeks evening vigil in front of the French consulate as a protest against the nuclear tests in the Sahara and support for a nonviolent action by the international committee for direct actions.
  • Based on experiences with the English Aldermaston March, search in northern Germany for an (atomic) "death center" as the target point of a protest was unsuccessful.
  • 1960: Initiation and coordinating overall planning of the first German, star-shaped Easter marches by Konrad Tempel, who was spokesman for the Easter March movement until 1964. Later: Campaign for Disarmament.
  • 1960: Action Mole as a protest against the construction of a nuclear protection bunker in Hamburg-St.Pauli.
  • 1961/62: Co-founding of the (WRI) World Peace Brigade in Beirut (forerunner of today's Peace Brigades International ), 1961: Coordination of the march from San Francisco to Moscow, both by Helga Stolle. A training course for German participants in Bückeburg was carried out by Konrad Tempel.

Publications as a result of literature reception

  • 1958/59: The study of theory and practice by Gandhi , Nkrumah and King led to the publication of two "TEXTS ON VIOLENCE": Gene Sharp : In other ways. and Henry David Thoreau : Civil Disobedience. (Resistance against the government) as the first German single publication.
  • 1962/63: Translation and publication of Charles C. Walker: Handbook for planning direct, non-violent actions by Helga Tempel and Konrad Tempel. Walker was an influential American pacifist in the circle of Abraham J. Muste and ML King ("Fellowship of Reconciliation" ( International Union of Reconciliation ), " War Resisters' League "). Theodor Ebert reported that in 1967 he sold more than 100 copies in one evening in front of the Free University of Berlin. Because of the later "pirated printing", the script was widespread into the later peace movement.

Turning to supra-regional activities

Several members of the action group were involved in the coordination and organization in the first years of the Easter March regionally and nationally. Reinforced by the confrontation with groups from the labor movement , which was determined by fear of contact on both sides, the action group formulated - for the first time - a self-image. The vitality of the group was - after seven years - exhausted. Heavily used for years by the new form of action, there was no further practical experimentation - despite the resolutions.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ KA Otto: Classics of the history of the 60s. In: KA Otto: From Easter March to APO. History of the extra-parliamentary opposition in the Federal Republic 1960-70. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt 1977, ISBN 3-593-32192-0 , p. 71.
  2. ↑ Christian W. Büttner, Gernot Jochheim, Nadya Luer, Torsten Schramm (eds.): Politics from below. Theodor Ebert on his 60th birthday. Special volume of the Nonviolent Action / Quarterly Issues for Peace and Justice, Issue 111/112, Volume 29, Berlin 1997, therein “Beginnings of nonviolent action in the first 20 years after the war - who knows what it really was like”, p. 63 ff
  3. ↑ Uwe Timm: Withdraw money from governments - against war and the military (an interview), in: Wolfram Beyer (Hrsg.): Refuse war services - pacifism current. Libertarian and humanistic positions, Berlin (2007) 2011, p. 140.
  4. ↑ analyzed in "Nonviolent Politics in the FRG / Thesis Papers, Statements and Protocols", Documentation of the grass roots workshop Cologne 1987, p. 15ff. as well as in Konrad Tempel "Incitement to Nonviolence", Berlin 2008, p. 66.
  5. ↑ Andreas Buro: The emergence of the Easter march movement as an example for the development of mass learning processes. In: Friedensanalysen. For theory and practice. Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt 1977, pp. 60ff; KA Otto: From Easter March to APO. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt 1977, ISBN 3-593-32192-0 , pp. 70f; Horst Bethge: The bomb is bad. How the Easter March came about in Hamburg. In: J. Berlin (ed.): The other Hamburg. Pahl-Rugenstein-Verlag, Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-7609-0654-0 , p. 360; NDR 3, school radio history, 2nd half of 1982 The sixties - years of unrest / Easter marches against atomic death. Hamburg 1982, p. 24ff; Andreas Buro: Nonviolent against war. Memoirs of a militant pacifist. Brandes & Apsel Verlag, Frankfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-86099-709-3 , pp. 87 and 91ff.
  6. ^ Robert Cooney (Ed.): The Power of the People. Active Nonviolence in the United States. Peace Press, Culver City 1977, ISBN 0-915238-06-3 , pp. 129, 161.