German peace cartel

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The German Peace Cartel (DFK) was an umbrella organization for most of the organizations of the German peace movement in the Weimar Republic . It was founded on January 26, 1922 and existed until some of the founding members left on June 17, 1929. When it was founded, it represented 14, a total of 28 peace organizations.

founding

The DFK emerged from the ninth German Pacifist Congress in Braunschweig in 1920 , which was organized by the German Peace Society . There a main committee for unfinished business and the preparation of the following congress in Essen was decided. This comprised delegates from all groups involved in the congress and was supposed to take decisions on their behalf. After the Essen Congress, its members decided on December 16, 1921 to stay together permanently and to meet regularly. In doing so, for the first time since 1918, they agreed on a permanent representation that should not only prepare national and international congresses, but also act as a mouthpiece and link between all groups involved and take a public position on political issues.

Ludwig Quidde was elected as chairman and Hellmut von Gerlach , Helene Stöcker and Gertrud Baer were elected as his deputies .

Members

In addition to the DFG, 13 organizations were involved in the establishment of the DFK:

Later came:

politics

Since the member groups represented different, sometimes conflicting goals and positions on current political issues, the DFK under Ludwig Quidde had to reach compromises and represent them publicly.

A major point of contention among the German peace groups during the Weimar period was their relationship to the Versailles Peace Treaty , particularly to the question of war guilt . Although not all groups recognized the war guilt paragraph of the treaty, they jointly affirmed the fulfillment of the treaty conditions in order to reach an understanding with France and a medium-term mitigation of the reparations . To this end, they demanded from German politicians, on the one hand, a relentless inventory of financial capacities and, on the other hand, a higher burden on those in possession of the war costs.

The DFK viewed the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 as a result of German provocations and acts of sabotage. At first it supported the call of the government under Wilhelm Cuno for passive resistance against it. But when the government made no proposals to resolve the conflict to France, the DFK ended this approval.

After this occupation of the Ruhr, the government declared a state of emergency in order to restore public authority. The DFK protested against this only when this measure also resulted in bans on pacifist actions. Now it turned against the restriction of freedom of assembly and advocated the protection of the Weimar Constitution by the population.

The main concern of the DFK was the fight against the resurgent German militarism . Here it insisted on full compliance with the disarmament and armaments ceilings set by the Treaty of Versailles. It denounced rising arms spending, uncovered the secret rearmament of the Reichswehr , fought revanchism and plans to reintroduce conscription . For this, individual DFK members were accused and sentenced as traitors .

Although anti-militarism was strongly represented in the DFK, Ludwig Quidde laid it down on a moderate foreign policy line in order to maintain influence on government policy. Here the DFK stayed within the framework of traditional demands for détente, general disarmament, turning away from hegemonic politics and international cooperation.

When some member associations of the DFK took part in the referendum on the expropriation of the royal houses without compensation , which the KPD had initiated, the moderate German League for the League of Nations distanced itself from the DFK. In 1927 she supported German military policy and resigned from the DFK in order to receive financial support from the government.

After Germany was accepted into the League of Nations and thus a short-term goal of the treaty pacifists had been achieved, the more radical groups carried out a collection of signatures on preventive conscientious objection in some countries and municipalities. In addition, the anti-militarist associations rallied in the left- wing cartel . For its part, the DFK now represented more radical positions, but this only increased the competition between the two umbrella organizations. The main representative of the DFG, Fritz Küster , and the newly founded GRP, Kurt Hiller , attacked each other, but continued to agree on essential goals - conscientious objection, abolition of the Reichswehr, criticism of the military policy of the democratic parties.

The break came about the question of whether the DFK should participate in the referendum against the construction of the armored cruiser and protest against the ban on demonstrations for the KPD in May 1929. When this protest failed to materialize, the DFG and the German League for Human Rights resigned from the DFK. This practically ended.

Succession

In December 1931, 16 Weimar peace associations founded the German Committee for Disarmament Propaganda . He wanted to sensitize the German public to the disarmament conference in Geneva at the time, but this hardly succeeded.

The historian Wolfram Wette judges:

When the German peace cartel had to be disbanded in 1929 because of unbridgeable tensions between the moderate and radical tendencies, this meant a step into political insignificance for the German peace movement.

literature

  • Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin: Pacifism between cooperation and confrontation. The German Peace Cartel in the Weimar Republic. Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-7609-5104-X

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pacifism in the Weimar Republic. Contributions to historical peace research , ISBN 3-506-77457-3 , p. 12