Bilthoven meeting

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1919 meeting in Bilthoven

The Bilthoven Meetings are a series of gatherings of pacifist activists that took place shortly after the First World War at Kees Boeke's home in Bilthoven , the Netherlands ( De Bilt municipality , near Utrecht ).

These meetings enabled the creation of an important network of men and women from different countries who laid the foundations of the pacifist movement of the 20th century. Between 1919 and 1921 three international peace organizations were founded:

The three meetings

The International Union of Reconciliation (October 1919)

At the invitation of Ernest and Eveline Fletcher, Kees Boeke and Henry Hodgkin, an international peace conference with 50 male and female participants took place in Bilthoven from October 4th to 19th, 1919. In addition to the English and Dutch hosts, there were delegates from Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, Switzerland and the USA. The participants included: Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze , JB Hugenholz, Mathilda Wrede (1863–1928), Lilian Stevenson (1870–1960), Leonhard Ragaz (1868–1945), Pierre Cérésole (1879–1945). Many of the participants were draft evaders who were detained during the war.

Service Civil International (August 1920)

The International Federation of Reconciliation held another conference in Bilthoven in the summer of 1920. A young German participant addressed these words to the participants: “We discussed for two days; it would be time to do something. ”He reported about his brother, who was involved as a soldier in the destruction in northern France and now wants to help with the reconstruction. This attitude met with enthusiasm among several participants, including Secretary Pierre Cérésole, and it was decided to set up a reconstruction group. Soon afterwards, in Germany, Cérésole met the English Quaker Hubert Parris , who had experience with relief services organized by the Religious Society of Friends . Parris reported: “We spent a long evening together in his hotel room in Berlin and I didn't leave him until after midnight. It was on that evening that the Service Civil International was born, Pierre's ideals and my practical experiences met and took on a new meaning. ”Maria van der Linden insisted that Parris meet again with Pierre Ceresole during his stay in Bilthoven in September met. Boeke and Ceresole disagreed on the choice of means.

The first reconstruction campaign took place in Esnes near Verdun in November 1920. Then other projects followed after natural disasters, with the unemployed, with Spanish refugees. The movement was not structured until the 1930s. While the official documents of the SCI name the work in Verdun as a founding event, the texts by Hélène Monastier, a close collaborator of Pierre Ceresole, focus on the conference of 1920: "In Bilthoven it began to take shape [...], the Idea of ​​a voluntary community service for peace ". In 1960 the international committee met in Bilthoven and celebrated its 40th anniversary with Kees Boeke.

War Resisters' International (March 1921)

A small conference with representatives of radical European peace organizations took place in Bilthoven from March 22nd to 25th, 1921. Together with Helene Stöcker they founded the movement “PACO” ​​( Peace in Esperanto), which in 1923 changed its name to International of War Resisters International). The secretariat was in Bilthoven from 1921 to 1923, then in London. Kees Boeke appears as one of the main initiators and the Bilthoven conference is considered the founding in the texts of the WRI.

The founders of "PACO" took part in an international anti-militarist conference of the IAMV in The Hague on March 26, 1921. The International Antimilitarist Association (IAMV) was founded in 1904 on the fringes of the Second International . While the two movements worked together fraternally, they had different views on nonviolence: the founders of WRI recognized it as a fundamental principle, while the IAMV saw it as a tactical choice. PACO became active in autumn and joined the "International Antimilitarist Bureau" (IAMB) founded by the IAMV.

The formation of pacifist networks

Before the First World War, some pacifist networks existed such as the International Permanent Peace Office (since 1891) and the IAMV (since 1904). The trauma caused by the 8 million deaths in war intensified the anti-war mood with the well-known slogans " La Der des Ders ", "Never again war" and "No More War". In this context, the Bilthoven meetings structure the emerging peace movement in three complementary dimensions: the Christian pacifism of the International Union of Reconciliation, the alternative to military service of the Service Civil International, and the conscientious objection of the War Resisters International.

These pacifist networks built relationships with other international movements of the time, which also campaigned for a fairer world in other areas: an undogmatic spirituality represented by the Quakers ( Henry Hodgkin , Kees and Betty Boeke and Elisabeth Rotten , Pierre Cérésole, Hubert Parris) , the preoccupation with Esperanto , Montessori education (Kees and Betty Boeke and Elisabeth Rotten) and the role of women with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Elisabeth Rotten).

References and comments

  1. ↑ Julia Boeke, Cees Smit: Archief Werkplaats Kindergemeenschap (Bilthoven), (1921-) 1926-1954 (-1986). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 23, 2011 ; Retrieved March 22, 2018 (Dutch). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iisg.nl
  2. ↑ John Ormerod Greenwood: Quaker encounters . Vol. 3. William Sessions, York 1978 (English).
  3. ^ J. Jürgen Seidel: Biographisch-Bibliographisch Kirchenlexikon . In: Biographisch-Bibliographisch Kirchenlexikon . tape XXVI . Traugott Bautz, 2006, p. Columns 1573-1576 .
  4. ↑ Hélène Monastier et al. : "Pierre Ceresole d'après sa correspondance", La Baconnière, Neuchâtel, 1960.
  5. ↑ Hélène Monastier: "Pierre Ceresole", Société religieuse des Amis, Paris, 1947 - Donne par ereur l'année 1918 pour la conference de Bilthoven.
  6. ^ Walter Koch, after John Ormerod Greenwood, 1978, p. 220.
  7. ↑ Pierre Ceresole: Vivre sa vérité, carnets de route . 2nd Edition. La Baconnière, Neuchâtel 1950.