Peace Committee of the Federal Republic of Germany
The Peace Committee of the Federal Republic of Germany was one of the organizations that formed itself like the Without Us movement , the Fight for Nuclear Death Committees and other movements based on the experiences of the Second World War and the tensions of the Cold War against those by the Adenauer government advanced rearmament and the founding of the Bundeswehr .
Trial of the Peace Committee
From November 10, 1959 to April 8, 1960, the pastor Johannes Oberhof , the former KPD functionary and former pastor Erwin Eckert , the interpreter Walter Diehl, the publishing director Gerhard Wohlrath, the worker Gustav Tiefes, the insurance employee Erich Kompalla and the former SPD City Councilor Edith Hoereth-Menge accused by the Federal Public Prosecutor for her work in the ring leadership peace committee in an anti - constitutional organization. This was justified in particular by the fact that some of the defendants had belonged to the now banned KPD . Its activities are therefore camouflage for the attorney general adopted real aim of the "establishment of a communist regime in the Federal Republic."
The lawyers Walther Ammann , Diether Posser , Friedrich Karl Kaul , the British Crown Prosecutor Denis Nowell Pritt and Heinrich Hannover could not prevail in their attempt to prove the statements criticized by the prosecution about the "remilitarization of the Federal Republic" through official political documents . The requests for evidence were almost completely rejected. As witnesses for the defense, u. a. Gustav Heinemann and Martin Niemöller .
The defendants received suspended sentences, Walter Diehl was sentenced to one year in prison.
literature
- Friedrich-Martin Balzer (Ed.): Justice injustice in the Cold War. The criminalization of the West German peace movement in the Düsseldorf trial in 1959/60 . With an introduction by Heinrich Hannover . Contributions by Walter Ammann, Friedrich-Martin Balzer, Walter Diehl, Heinrich Hannover, Rudolf Hirsch , Friedrich Karl Kaul , Diether Posser and Denis Nowell Pritt . Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-89438-341-0
- Heinrich Hannover : The Republic in Court , Berlin 2005; 4th chapter. ISBN 3-7466-7053-5