Easter March
The Easter March is a pacifist or anti-militarist motif and is a regular annual political expression of the peace movement in Germany in the form of demonstrations and rallies . Its origins go back to the British anti-nuclear campaigns for nuclear disarmament with the " Aldermaston Marches " in the 1950s.
background
The impetus for marching actions in Great Britain as well as in Germany came from peace activists of the War Resisters' International / Internationale der Kriegsdienstgegenner (IdK e.V.). Their commitment to this day is: “War is a crime against humanity. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war, either directly or indirectly, and to work to eliminate all causes of war. "
The British Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War engaged in non-violent actions “to achieve the total renunciation of nuclear war and its weapons as a first step towards disarmament by Great Britain and all other countries” (“to assist the conducting of non-violent direct action to obtain the total renunciation of nuclear war and its weapons by Britain and all other countries as a first step in disarmament ”), and was a founding member of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). This organized a march from London to the Aldermaston nuclear research center at Easter 1958 and mobilized around 10,000 people against nuclear armament. From this, such demonstration marches developed at Easter in other Western European countries. Only in Germany did they develop a traditional form of expression of the peace movement under the name of Easter marches, which is still taking place every year .
Easter marches in the Federal Republic of Germany
Beginnings
The Hessian Naturefriends Youth organized a forerunner of the Easter marches in 1959 on the occasion of their state youth meeting. The march, still under the motto fight against atomic death , led from Hanau-Steinheim to Offenbach am Main . One of the organizers was Klaus Vack , who was elected State Youth Secretary of the Hessian Naturefriends Youth in 1958 and who helped design and organize eight Easter marches from 1961 onwards.
In 1960, the first Easter marches in the Federal Republic of Germany were initiated by the pacifist action group for nonviolence after press reports had reported the start of testing of Honest John nuclear missiles near the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . Konrad Tempel , like his future wife Helga Stolle, correspondent of PEACE NEWS (a pacifist magazine of the peace movement in the United Kingdom), friends with members of the Direct Action Committee and Quakers , was able to support pacifist groups in Hamburg (see photo), Bremen, Hanover and Braunschweig for win a North German star march lasting several days. The demonstration ended on Easter Monday 1960 with around 1,200 participants at the Bergen-Hohne military training area .
As a result of this first Easter march, there was a meeting in Hanover at which it was agreed to organize several Easter marches in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1961.
Easter marches from 1960 to 1970
The then German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer stated at a press conference on April 5, 1957 that the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons was “nothing more than the further development of artillery . Of course, we cannot do without our troops taking part in the latest developments in normal armament as well. "He was referring to a new military doctrine of the US Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson , who in addition to the use of strategic nuclear missiles (" massive retaliation " ) had also formulated the use of tactical atomic bombs below the “ Armageddon threshold” as a strategic option (“graduated deterrence ”).
Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had asked the USA to have sole access to nuclear warheads that were suitable for shooting by artillery with a range of 15 to 20 kilometers. The Adenauer government tried to enforce this option within the framework of rearming the Federal Republic . However, the demand was rejected by the Allies, especially the USA. To date, there nuclear warheads as part of the nuclear sharing jointly guarded by Germans and Americans in Germany ( Büchel Air Base ). Their withdrawal is still a demand of the peace movement to this day.
Against this planned armament, with the support of the SPD and the trade unions , the fight against atomic death was formed . But neither the widespread rejection within the population, nor the mass actions supported by the churches , the trade unions and the SPD were able to prevent the Bundestag's rearmament decision on March 25, 1958. On April 17, 1958, demonstrations took place in Bremen, Kiel, Munich, Mannheim, Dortmund Essen and Hamburg. In the Hanseatic city, most of the urban transport systems were idle for almost an hour to allow their employees to participate. Following this up to then largest political demonstration of the post-war period with well over 120,000 participants, the first German “ vigil ” took place, with which the Hamburg Action Group for Nonviolence , member of War Resisters' International (WRI), 14 days and nights against the planned Nuclear weapons protested (this is where the term “vigil” originated). In the spring of 1958, the mass rallies reached a total of around 1.5 million participants.
However, the SPD withdrew from the campaign after the CDU had won the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia on June 6, 1958 with an absolute majority and the SPD leadership sought their salvation in an intensified adjustment course to the policy of the CDU, which began in 1959 the adoption of the Godesberg program and, in 1960, the split of the party-loyal Social Democratic University Association (SHB) from the Socialist German Student Union (SDS), which a year later excluded SDS members and sympathizers from the party by means of an incompatibility resolution. This political vacuum formed the breeding ground for the developing Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO), whose strongest force was the Easter March movement, which first appeared nationwide in 1961.
From the beginning, the Easter marches were defamed as events that had been infiltrated by communists and could mostly only take place under sometimes harassing official conditions. Klaus Vack described what that meant using the example of the first Hessian Easter March, which led from Miltenberg to Frankfurt in 1961 .
“Not only the Bavarian police ensured that the Easter march became a closely cherished march in accordance with police regulations. A rule fanaticism in a bureaucratically stale form. Among many other hair-raising requirements from the police: the banners carried at the demonstration had to be submitted and approved in advance; it was only allowed to walk on 3rd order country roads; It goes without saying that they had to march in rows of two; [..] Rallies were only allowed to take place in selected margins; if a federal road had to be crossed, the banners had to be rolled up, the demonstration temporarily disbanded and the noble, sovereign road to be crossed individually; Loudspeakers, initially only tin cones, were banned until 1963; and so on. We stuck to it and we didn't. "
The first spokesman for the campaign was Konrad Tempel; he was followed in 1964 by Andreas Buro . Klaus Vack, who as secretary of the Association of Conscientious Objectors from Offenbach had been managing the organization of the Easter marches since 1961 , became secretary of the Central Committee of the Easter March Movement in 1965 . He headed an office community in which the Naturfreundejugend Hessen, the Association of Conscientious Objectors and the Campaign for Disarmament worked together for many years. This had “three rooms, file folders, file boxes, an Adrema , telephone, typewriter, fax, copier and a legendary Rotaprint printer. And in Klaus Vack it had a politically and organizationally versed secretary - and with his wife Hanne the perfect office manager. If necessary, they were able to fall back on many voluntary helpers, especially from the Offenbach Friends of Nature. ”Classic protest campaigns continued to be designed and coordinated there, but just as new forms of protest were established in Germany with the student movement ( sit- ins , go-ins , teach-ins ), so new “forms of action arose even in the context of the Easter marches, which did not disdain the gag and were aimed at attracting attention (“ Volkssärg ”campaign,“ BALD newspaper ”,“ Seid nice to Springer, expropriating him now «and similar)“.
Initially, the protest was directed exclusively “against nuclear weapons of every kind and every nation” in East and West . Due to the experiences with the fight-the-atomic death movement , and in order to prevent an appropriation by activists of left organizations, the necessary “trust in the power of the individual” was emphasized in a joint leaflet, thus “from a decided minority a powerful one Majority ”could become.
In the following years, more and more people took to the streets in more and more places on the Easter holidays to demonstrate for an end to atomic armament and the nuclear arms race in both camps of the Cold War . Important personalities such as Erich Kuby and Robert Jungk , the member of the Bundestag Arno Behrisch and the theologian Martin Niemöller declared their consent, later came among others. Ernst Rowohlt , Stefan Andres , Erich Kästner , Heinz Hilpert , Robert Scholl , Helmut Gollwitzer and Bertrand Russell . One of the highlights of the Easter March 1966 was the participation of Joan Baez
Already from the first Easter campaigns, pacifists, anti-armaments opponents from the labor movement and religiously motivated individuals took part in the marches . The subsequent cooperation of various currents and the lively internal discussions also led to increasingly concrete, political demands (e.g. the demand for nuclear-weapon-free zones , in accordance with the Rapacki Plan ). This turned it into an extra-parliamentary collection movement, the annual number of which rose to 300,000 by 1968. The campaign changed its name from "Campaign for Disarmament" (1963) to " Campaign for Democracy and Disarmament " (1968). Typical were the peace songs by Gerd Semmer and Fasia Jansen .
Buro later assessed this as follows:
“The basic structure of the Easter March movement avoided ... a decisive blockade for mass learning processes: There were no avant-garde cadres who, like teachers in school, already knew the correct learning result and the mass movements in the sense of a preliminary to this 'avant-garde' were only more or less open to it Result controlled. During the Easter march, the organizers themselves were involved in the common learning process. It was only through learning from personal experience that the willingness to learn independently on a broad basis was created. "
The Easter march movement became involved early on in the resistance to the emergency laws . An example of this is the above-mentioned “Volkssarg” campaign in 1965. The campaign took place in Hanau , Oberursel and Offenbach , and a preparatory leaflet informed the citizens there that the Bundestag was reviving air raid protection and beyond passed a law on the provision of people's coffins in the event of a defense (Federal Coffin Storage Act ) . In the leaflet, the population was asked to buy a people's coffin and should find out in advance at a public people's coffin exhibition about the officially tested types and their correct use. In fact, on the dates announced in the leaflet, public presentations of the people's coffins took place in the three locations .
The magazine Der Stern identified Egon Becker as the initiator of the campaign and self-appointed legislator of the Federal Coffin Storage Act and quoted him as saying: “As a physicist, I can get an idea of the effects of a nuclear war. The precautions of the Emergency Act seem even more senseless than to the layman. "Smugly is recognized in the Stern article:" What the Easter marchers have not yet achieved because of their sectarian and Anabaptist allure, that has brought them Volkssarg-Becker's black humor: the attention of Publicity. For the first time one of her actions was taken seriously by people of different faiths. "
CDU- affiliated publications spoke less benevolently of the "Volkssarg" campaign and saw it as a "macabre action by the neutralist 'Easter marchers'", through which old people in particular were "misled and frightened". And when the CDU / CSU, which was caught up in the Cold War ideology , revolted, the attention of the authorities was guaranteed. Becker was charged several times in Frankfurt in 1965: for defamation of the state, for violating the assembly law and for "presumption of office" as a result of the Volkssarg action , whereby it was also a question of whether one can arrogate a non-existent office at all. Fortunately for him, all of these proceedings were discontinued, but whether they were also forgotten for the state security organs remained an open question. In 1992 he was one of the signatories of the appeal to disclose our constitutional protection files! . The action was explicitly aimed at the information gathered by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution "in the times of the Cold War and a predominantly administrative-repressive dispute with the extra-parliamentary opposition (APO)" . Reactions of this authority in the sense of the signatories of the call have not been handed down.
Under the impression of the emergency legislation (1968), the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact in the CSSR (1968), the formation of a social liberal federal government (1969) and the accompanying and growing political differences within the movement, the Easter March movement split in 1969 and ended 1970 their actions. In a declaration published in July 1970, signed by Andreas Buro, Christel Beilmann , Heiner Halberstadt , Arno Klönne and Klaus Vack, the five founding members of the “Campaign for Democracy and Disarmament” declared that they had already taken place in 1969Leaving the organization. They considered it “structurally outdated in the current situation” and criticized the lack of a broad range of political directions. Above all, however, they assumed that the circles close to the DKP , in adhering to the given structures, were “attached to the campaign”, which was determined more by party political discipline than by real expectations ”. On the other hand, they wanted "the possibility of new forms of cooperation between the radical democratic and left-wing groups". In order to create space for these “new forms of political cooperation”, Klaus Vack, together with Andreas Buro and others, founded the “ Socialist Office ” (“SB”) in Offenbach as early as 1969 , an information and organization center for groups of left and undogmatic socialists . which published the monthly magazine on the left .
New upswing from 1979
The Easter marches experienced their second boom and climax from 1979 to 1990 in the movement against the neutron bomb and the NATO double decision to station short and medium-range nuclear weapons in the Federal Republic. In 1983 about 700,000 people took part in various peace campaigns. The Easter marches were and are always just one form of demonstration among the many actions that the peace movement emanated.
Easter marches in the GDR
As in West Germany, it was above all the Evangelical Church in the GDR that turned against militarization at an early stage. But while the protests against the rearmament of Germany and against the nuclear policy of the Adenauer government in the Federal Republic were carried out openly from the beginning (campaign "Kampf dem Atomtod" of the trade unions and the SPD in 1958, Easter marches from 1960), it was to last for decades in the GDR take time until open protest became possible.
Easter marches in reunified Germany
Since the end of the Cold War between East and West, the work of the peace movement has changed fundamentally. Since then, the main topics and demands of the peace movement have been presented on the Easter marches and the planned activities have been made known. The nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011 caused a new influx of Easter marches. In the same year, the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster was also commemorated .
The Easter marches are organized and carried out by peace groups at regional and local level. Therefore, the main topics of the calls and speeches vary from city to city.
Long-time spokesman for the former nationwide Easter March office in Frankfurt am Main was Willi van Ooyen . In the last few years the Peace Cooperative Network in Bonn has acted as a coordination point .
In 2018, 60 years after the first Easter March in England in 1958, the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons is a very important concern for many people. Therefore, many activists demanded the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Büchel and Germany's accession to the " UN Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty ".
Other focal points in 2018 were the increasing rearmament of Germany, the threat from nuclear weapons , German arms exports , the conflicts in the Middle East , especially in Syria , and the demand for a new policy of détente towards Russia .
In 2019, Easter marches took place in around 100 cities over Easter. Central demands were military disarmament, a world free of nuclear weapons and the stop of German arms exports. There were new Easter marches and the number of participants rose again.
Due to the Corona crisis and the “comprehensive ban on contact” to reduce social contacts, which will apply from March 22, 2020, the Easter marches 2020 did not take place as usual. In many cities, instead of the traditional marches and rallies, there were alternative actions, such as For example, hanging up the peace flag at home, flower-planting campaigns or newspaper advertisements were placed and the messages of the peace movement were spread via social media. Several organizations (including IPPNW Germany, the German Peace Society , pax christi Germany and the Network Peace Cooperative ) called for the first virtual Easter march in Germany as the “Alliance Virtual Easter March 2020” in the 60th anniversary year of the Easter marches . In a video on YouTube were on Holy Saturday in a live stream speeches and music u. A. Transferred by Konstantin Wecker. In Baden-Württemberg , a retired propeller plane with the words "disarmament now! Easter March 2020 "labeled banner and flew over the state. In addition to the traditional themes of the Easter March, there was the admission of refugees from the camps on the Greek islands as well as demands for a climate protection policy that complies with the goals of the Paris Agreement .
literature
- Holger Nehring : The peace movement . Aschendorff, 2008, ISBN 978-3-402-00436-4
- Klaus Vack: The other Germany after 1945 - as a pacifist, socialist and radical democrat in the Federal Republic of Germany. Political-biographical sketches and contributions , edited by Wolf-Dieter Narr, Roland Roth, Martin Singe and Dirk Vogelskamp, Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy, Cologne 2005, ISBN 978-3-88906-116-4 .
- Markus Gunkel: Our no to the bomb is a yes to democracy. Easter March North 1960–1969. Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-926922-29-X .
- Christoph Butterwegge , Joachim Dressel (Eds.): 30 Years of the Easter March: A contribution to the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany and a piece of Bremen's city history . Stone gate, Bremen 1990.
- Jan Wienecke / Fritz Krause: Our march is a good thing. Easter marches then - now . Verlag Marxistische Blätter, Frankfurt / M. 1982.
- Reinhard Aehnelt / Winfried Schwamborn : Paths to Peace. The Easter marches . Weltkreis-Verlag, Dortmund 1982.
- Karl A. Otto : From Easter March to APO. History of the extra-parliamentary opposition in the Federal Republic 1960–1970. Frankfurt am Main / New York 1979.
- Andreas Buro : The emergence of the Easter march movement as an example of the development of mass learning processes. In: Peace analyzes for theory and practice. Volume 4, Frankfurt am Main 1977.
- Claus Clausen: Without-me, atomic death, Easter march. Struggle of the peace movement for peace and democracy from 1945-70 . German Peace Society-United War Service Opponents, Cologne 1977.
- Easter marches 1966, German Institute for Contemporary History, Berlin 1966.
- Robert Jenke: Easter March. Review . Reaction to a brochure . Bridge builder, Cologne-Riehl 1964.
- Robert Jenke: Easter March . Bridge builder, Cologne-Riehl 1964.
- International Easter marches of the anti-nuclear warriors . German Institute for Contemporary History, Berlin 1963.
- Easter March 1962. Report on a campaign for disarmament , plans, No. 9/10, October 1962, Dortmund.
Web links
- Coordination point for the Easter fairy tales
- All information about the Easter marches 2019
- The history of the Easter march movement
- Easter March in Bern
- Review of 50 years of history of the Easter marches , article by Andreas Buro for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung ( online flyer from March 13, 2008)
- Information on current and historical Easter marches
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Guardian: Aldermaston marches and the Cuban missile Crisis , accessed July 31, 2019
- ^ Rolf Wiggershaus : "Ban the bomb": 50 years ago the first Easter March against nuclear armament took place in London , Deutschlandfunk , April 7, 2008, accessed on October 17, 2020.
- ↑ a b Klaus Vack: The other Germany after 1945 , pp. 63–64
- ↑ About Peace News | Peace News. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ NDR TV: Three days on the go: The first Easter marches , accessed on July 31, 2019
- ↑ Konrad Adenauer: Memoirs 1955 1959 . Stuttgart 1967, p. 296.
- ^ Federal Agency for Civic Education: March 20-25, 1958 | bpb. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Axel Schildt: Citizens' power against the bomb . einestages.spiegel on spiegel.de. April 16, 2008. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
- ↑ 50 years ago: The first Easter March in Germany | Life house Swabian Alb. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Egon Becker: The Socialist Office - An Unfinished Project? In: Barbara Klaus / Jürgen Feldhoff (eds.): Political autonomy and scientific reflection. Contributions to the life's work of Arno Klönne . PapyRossa Verlag, Cologne 2017, ISBN 978-3-89438-644-3 , pp. 161-182. (Also online at researchgate.net )
- ^ Karl A. Otto: In memory of Arno Klönne
- ↑ OBITUARIES FROM FRIENDS AND REPORTERS OF IRA SANDPERL
- ↑ Andreas Buro: The emergence of the Easter march movement as an example for the development of mass learning processes. In: Peace Analyzes for Theory and Practice, Vol. 4, Frankfurt am Main 1977, pp. 60 f.
- ↑ a b Gerhard E. Gründler: Cover closed in the event of an alarm. The Volkssarg campaign started in Oberursel . In: Der Stern, No. 31, August 1, 1965.
- ↑ "Outrage over people's coffins" , in: UNION in Germany. INFORMATION SERVICE of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union , Volume 19, No. 29, Bonn, July 22, 1965, p. 8
- ↑ Platform of the initiative for the disclosure of our constitution protection files!
- ↑ a b apo press. Information service for the extra-parliamentary opposition in Cologne. Volume 2, No. 7, August 1, 1970.
- ↑ mdr: Peace Movement in the GDR , accessed on July 31, 2019
- ^ Frankfurter Neue Presse Left-wing politician van Ooyen resigns from his parliamentary mandate , accessed on March 31, 2018.
- ↑ Topics of the Easter marches , accessed on July 31, 2019.
- ↑ Philipp Ingenleuf: Balance of Easter Marches 2018 , accessed on July 31, 2019.
- ↑ Background to the Easter fairy tales 2018 from the network Friedenskooperative , accessed on July 31, 2019.
- ↑ mdr tv: Easter marches announce a higher number of participants , accessed on July 31, 2019.
- ↑ Measures against coronavirus Agreement on a comprehensive ban on contact. In: Website tagesschau.de . March 22, 2020, accessed March 22, 2020 .
- ↑ What's going on on site - Alternative Easter March 2020. Network Peace Cooperative, April 1, 2020, accessed on April 13, 2020 .
- ↑ Call for the “Virtual Easter March 2020”. Evangelical Church in Germany, accessed on April 13, 2020 .
- ↑ That was the virtual Easter March 2020 on YouTube
- ↑ Instead of Easter marches: Airplane pulls message of peace. Welt.de , April 11, 2020, accessed on April 13, 2020 .