Josef Weber (peace activist)

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Josef Weber (born June 11, 1908 in Speyer ; † August 22, 1985 ) was a colonel in the German Wehrmacht and had been a functionary of the Federation of Germans , the German Peace Union and the Action Democratic Progress since the 1950s .

Until 1945

Weber came from a family that was strictly loyal to the emperor. After embarking on a military career, he initially served in the Wehrmacht as Ordonnanzoffizier von Friedrich von Rabenau . In the Russian campaign he held the rank of colonel and worked as a general staff officer. In British captivity, he was in contact with the communist publisher Oswald Dobbeck .

Political career

Weber was active in the Bund der Deutschen (BdD) since 1953 . As a result of the list connection in the Bundestag election in 1953 with the All-German People's Party (GVP) , he ran for the Bundestag on the GVP state list in North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1955 he was a full-time functionary of the BdD. In this function he became editor of the Deutsche Volkszeitung . From 1956 to 1961 he acted as general secretary of the BdD , from 1964 as its last party chairman. In 1961 he stood as a Bundestag candidate for the German Peace Union (DFU), and in the 1970s he worked full-time for the Action Democratic Progress (ADF) and the DFU.

process

In 1958 Josef Weber was charged with offenses and crimes according to §§ 90a, 128, 94, 47, 73 StGB ( secret grouping , founding of an anti-constitutional organization) after the establishment of the "Tatgemeinschaft für Frieden und Einheit" . In 1959 he was acquitted before the Koblenz Regional Court . The background to this was the prohibition of communist organizations or organizations considered to be influenced by communism in the Federal Republic of Germany (for example, the FDJ in 1952, the KPD in 1956).

Krefeld appeal

In 1980 Josef Weber and some representatives of the Kampf dem Atomtod movement initiated the so-called Krefeld Appeal , which opposed NATO's double decision and the continuation of the nuclear arms race . Together with Gert Bastian, he designed the text that Karl Bechert , Petra Kelly , Martin Niemöller , Helmut Ridder , Christoph Strässer and Gösta von Uexküll contributed as the first signatories.

Although the appeal was not drafted and approved by Weber alone, his participation was one of the reasons that the SPD did not support the appeal and some of the initiators portrayed the SED as "useful idiots" or even as paid and remote controlled by the Soviet Union .

The Krefeld appeal was signed by four million German citizens by 1983.

Awards

In 1973 Weber received the Peace Medal of the GDR Peace Council, in 1985 the Lenin Peace Prize of the Soviet Union .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dirk Mellies: Trojan horses of the GDR? The neutralist-pacifist network of the early Federal Republic and the Deutsche Volkszeitung, 1953–1973, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 128.
  2. ^ Rudolf van Hüllen : The Krefeld Appell. In: Jürgen Mahrun / Manfred Wilke (eds.): Rocket poker around Europe, Munich 2001, p. 226f.
personal data
SURNAME Weber, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German functionary of parties and groups of the West German peace movement
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Speyer
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1985