Nuclear Holocaust
The complete or most extensive destruction of human civilization through a nuclear war is called a nuclear or atomic Holocaust . The political catchphrase was mainly used in the 1980s in what was then the Federal Republic of Germany . It expressed the fear of the unforeseeable consequences of the arms race between the then superpowers USA and the Soviet Union . The Holocaust concept was not yet decidedly occupied in the 1980s with the extermination of European Jews.
Usage history
The term was already used by Erich Fromm in 1961 , in his essay Russia, Germany, China - Comments on Foreign Policy , he spoke of the hope that an end to the arms race would “make a nuclear Holocaust less likely”.
The catchphrase was used in the Federal Republic of Germany in particular in the 1980s. Both in the circles of the peace movement and in the mass media. For example, said Karl-Heinz Janssen in 1980 in a time -Article that the Cuban Missile Crisis "brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear holocaust" 1,962th
The political debate of these years was largely determined by the so-called NATO double decision . In addition, there was widespread concern about the security and foreign policy of the then US President Ronald Reagan , which reached far into bourgeois circles. His chief negotiator with the Soviet Union, Paul H. Nitze , was asked in a 1983 Spiegel interview: "So the next war, if there is one, will be a nuclear holocaust?"
Nuclear disarmament and the end of the East-West conflict have resulted in the threat scenario behind the term being hardly seen any more.
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Kluge Etymological Dictionary of the German Language , 24th edition, 2002, Lemma Holocaust , where the dominant use of the term in German today is seen in particular as a result of the television series Holocaust - Die Geschichte der Familie Weiß , which was first broadcast in Germany in 1979
- ↑ Original: Russia, Germany, China: Remarks on Foreign Policy , New York 1961 (manuscript print), online edition of the Erich Fromm Documentation Center , p. 3 ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; German by Rainer Funk, Russia, Germany, China: Comments on Foreign Policy , in: Ethics and Politics. Answers to current political questions (Rainer Funk (Ed.), Writings from the estate, Volume 4), Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 1990 and Heyne, Munich 1996, pp. 66–79
- ↑ Karl-Heinz Janßen: Before the Second Cold War , Die Zeit No. 3/1980 of January 11, 1980, accessed June 17, 2011
- ↑ Spiegel Interview: The Soviets are out for superiority . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1983, pp. 120–127 ( online - June 17, 2011 , interview).
