Association of conscientious objectors

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The Association of Conscientious Objectors (VK) - with its full name Association of Conscientious Objectors in War Resisters' International e. V. - was a left-wing pacifist organization whose roots go back on the one hand to the group of Cologne conscientious objectors (GKW), which later became the group of conscientious objectors (GdW), founded in 1953, and on the other hand to a split from the International of Military Service Opponents (IdK). The groups that separated from the IdK and the GdW formed the Association of Conscientious Objectors in 1958 , which, like the IdK, became a section of the War Resisters' International. After the merger of the DFG with the IdK to form the DFG-IdK in 1968, it merged with the UK in 1974 to form the German Peace Society - United War Service Opponents .

The group of opponents of military service

After 1945, survivors of the Second World War, under difficult material and political conditions in the western occupation zones, founded several of the pacifist organizations that were active until they were banned in 1933: The German Peace Society (DFG), which existed from 1892 until it was broken up in 1933, was founded in 1946 re-established; In the same year the Peace Association of German Catholics was re-established as a German branch of the International Association of Reconciliation ; the following year, the Association of War Resisters (BdK) founded in 1919 was revived as the “International of War Resisters” (IdK) as the German branch of “War Resisters International” (WRI). Organizationally, personally and politically and ideologically, the experience in the Weimar Republic was linked. The burden of tradition was embodied by individual personalities, most of whom were already active in peace politics before 1933. They were shaped by experiences in the Nazi era, in the war or in emigration, had to cope with a new generation and adapt to the conditions of the post-war period: a bipolar post-war order, cold war and rearmament , restoration and economic miracle . The re-established peace organizations were collecting basins for people with different experiences and ideological orientations. The inclusion of the right to conscientious objection as Article 4.3 in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany can be seen as a success of these pacifist groups. They were able to rely on a widespread mood of “ without me ” in the population . "The terribly decimated front generation that had returned from the war never wanted to be a soldier again, never again to wear uniform, never to have to kill again."

In the mid-1950s, there was violent opposition to the plans for rearmament in the Federal Republic . A campaign developed that “[grew] into the first major political uprising in the young republic” and “which can be compared with the student unrest from 1967 to 1969 and the demonstrations against NATO rearmament at the beginning of the 1980s is ". Fritz Rau even went so far as to say: “It was not“ the 68ers ”that one should look at when it comes to who brought a democratic wind to our post-war state. It was "the 55s"! "

This resistance to rearmament was not inherently uniform. There were differences between radical pacifists and pragmatic anti-militarists , who rejected military service , but did not fundamentally use weapons in certain political upheavals; and there were differences in the assessment of the rearmament in the GDR , which was carried out in parallel with the rearmament in the Federal Republic , "where no public protest was tolerated after June 17, 1953 ". As a result, the movement against rearmament got between the fronts of the Cold War and had to locate itself in the political and ideological spectrum of the Federal Republic between the CDU , FDP , SPD and KPD . An initiative for a referendum against the rearmament of the FRG failed, even though it had collected almost six million signatures: after it was suspected of being Communist, the Federal Minister of the Interior banned it in 1951.

“The failure of the referendum movement makes it clear to what extent neutralist and pacifist initiatives lost their resonance as soon as they were captured by the communist side. Such experiences have since contributed to attempts to campaign in bourgeois and social democratic circles for a policy of neutralizing a German state that renounces rearmament. "

- Karl Holl : Pacifism in Germany , p. 224

Against the background of such experiences and in view of the beginning of the establishment of the Bundeswehr and the National People's Army , discussions began around 1952 within the Cologne Young Socialists (Jusos) about a strategy against rearmament, which the Jusos also carried into the Cologne Youth Workers Cartel (AJK) founded in 1953 in which the jusos, the hawks and the nature lovers worked together.

“At the end of this discussion, the idea arose to prevent the emergence of a Bundeswehr through mass conscientious objection. For this reason, on September 25, 1953, the Cologne conscientious objectors group (GKW) was formed by the student Albert Graf, the wire weaver Karl Jonas, the electrician Horst Keller, the representative Anton Kolzen, the journalist Hans Hermann Köper, the locksmith Heinz Wientgen and the IG -Metal youth secretary Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski founded. At least Keller and Wischnewski were in Juso management positions at the time, the others mostly came from the falcon division. "

- Fritz Bilz : Risen from the ruins

The fact that the GWK was founded and not joined the IdK or the DFG was, beyond political differences with these two organizations, an expression of a generation conflict and a changed cultural self-image.

“In our opinion, there were too many people at the DFG with too many long, white beards. Idealists, fundamentalist pacifists, ideologues, very honorable ladies and gentlemen, but somehow not to our taste. The DFG had almost no young people in its ranks. In the public relations work of both organizations the reference to the horrors of the war was in the foreground. The darker and grayer, the more effective, it was thought. The most famous poster was the picture by the painter Otto Pankok , on which Jesus is depicted breaking a rifle over his knee. As a counterpart to this, the later Association of Conscientious Objectors developed the open-topped steel helmet from which a flower grows. We wanted an advertisement for affirmation of life, for joy and pleasure. This is how our anti-militarist work should be. "

- Werner Böwing : Memories of the attempt to change the wind direction with an air pump , p. 173

The theologian Fritz Wenzel , who, as President of the IdK and as President of the DFG, was certainly a prominent opponent of military service in the Federal Republic of Germany and, in addition to these two presidential posts, also as an SPD member of the German Bundestag, could be an example of the generation with long white beards belonged - just at the time when the conscription law was being discussed and passed there. "But he only went to the lectern once during the deliberations on the conscription law - in the second reading - and advocated that the concept of conscription should be given even wider than the federal government had intended." should be exempted from compulsory military service, making it clear how little he was concerned with "fighting the defense policy of the federal government by weakening the conscription law" as a social democratic member of parliament.

The GWK, founded in September 1953, carried out its first small public demonstration in December of the same year, during which the demonstrators with cardboard signs hung with protest slogans marched through Cologne's Schildergasse and Hohestrasse . At the end of the year the GWK had 24 members, and in spring 1954 Hans Hermann Köper succeeded Wischnewski as its chairman. The group, which grew rapidly, pursued an anti-communist course that differed from that of the SPD and that of the trade unions.

“[He] had its cause, of course, in the behavior of the communist rulers in the GDR. In assessing the question, however, there was a huge difference between us and the SPD. The SPD massively blocked all contacts, we tried to talk to each other despite the Cold War. It took the SPD a long time to revise its position on this issue. "

- Werner Böwing : Memories of the attempt to change the wind direction with an air pump , p. 153

For years this critical attitude towards the GDR was an important obstacle to a cooperation or even merger of the GdW with the IdK or the DFG, but did not prevent the organization from growing. The German Peace Society , in which about 20 years later the Association of Conscientious Objectors (VK) emerged from the GWK / GdW, stated in retrospect that the GdW “was more pragmatic and focused on combating conscription, promoting conscientious objection and advocacy the KDVer had made the task. The GdW relied primarily on workers and employees who were close to the trade unions and social democratic youth associations. Due to unconventional advertising methods (car parade, spit slip) it was able to gain around 5,000 members by 1957. "

What brought the group, which in the autumn of 1954, in the course of its expansion across the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia, to the Group of Conscientious Objectors (GdW), gained popularity and attention, were its often unconventional slogans and appearances, especially for the early 1950s. In 1957, SPIEGEL quoted Hans Hermann Köper as saying, “We are neither seriously serious nor irrelevant. We're trying the brisk tour. No keynote speeches in events, no event ceremony with opening. Welcome, speaker introduction and so on. "And lists a few other actions and slogans:

  • In October 1954 the group carried out a three-hour car parade through Cologne, in which three cars and 15 motorcycles took part. In SPIEGEL, the body commented with the sentence: “Cars are more impressive than a small group of a hundred demonstrators. The impression is reinforced by the police vehicles. "
  • “On the day of surrender in 1955, Köper's people held a ceremony in the evening in a destroyed Cologne church. Members from abroad came in rallies, there were torches, actors reciting, and at the end a trumpeter borrowed from the church blew the American tattoo from the film 'Damned in Eternity'. "
  • Slogans like:
    • "Head off to prayer!"
    • "The way to the mass grave leads through the barracks gate."
    • "Not for dollars, not for rubles, away with the hustle and bustle of the barracks."
    • “The coward moves in to the barras, the brave one says: No!”.

The attempt was made primarily to address younger people who felt repulsed by the cultural stench of the Adenauer era and were looking for new forms of expression. However, this did not rule out classic forms of protest. In 1955/56 the GdW organized mass rallies and demonstrations against rearmament together with the falcons, the Jusos and the Friends of Nature.

On October 30, 1955, the first GdW Federal Congress took place in Duisburg . By this time the GdW had "grown to 35 branch groups, of which 5 groups had more than 300 and 5 less than 50 members. Hans-Herrman Köper, who was re-elected as chairman, announced the intention of the organization to expand its activities to other federal states. ”Köper was confirmed in his office as chairman of the GdW at the two following federal congresses.

Bilz noted another pragmatic turnaround with regard to the main focus of work: “The GdW was now more and more concerned with the conscientious objectors, it carried out consultations for the young people in the DGB House and also represented them legally. From the point of view of many Jusos, this organization degenerated more and more into a purely pacifist association “because the Jusos set different political priorities after the introduction of general conscription in 1956 and focused their activities on the fight against atomic bomb tests and on equipping the Bundeswehr with nuclear weapons. The GdW prospered nonetheless - or precisely because of its focus on “a trade union interest organization for conscientious objectors”. In November 1956 it already had 15,000 members nationwide, a year later even 18,000, 85% of whom were between 20 and 35 years old. Most of them came from the hawks, the Jusos and the union youth, but many students also joined the association. At the University of Bonn there was a student working group of conscientious objectors that worked closely with the GdW.

The Association of Conscientious Objectors

The founding phase of the UK

“In May 1958 the GdW merged with parts of the International of Conscientious Objectors (IdK) to form the Association of Conscientious Objectors (VK). Member number 1 of the new organization was Günter Schlatter , who later became the SPD district chairman. ”According to Nils C. Nagel, the founding act took place on May 4, 1958 on Frankfurt's Römerberg . The founding of the association was based on the coming together of members from the GdW “a non-pacifist organization of political conscientious objectors” with members from the IdK. This was preceded by negotiations with the GdW, which had around 5,000 members in 1957, and the IdK, which had around 4,000 members. The reason for this was on the one hand Konrad Adenauer's victory in the elections in 1957, and on the other hand the very low number of conscientious objectors following the first drafts after the military service introduced a year earlier.

“However, the negotiations failed in 1959 mainly because the strictly anti-communist GdW, which hoped to achieve its goals by exerting influence on the SPD and the trade union, demanded the inclusion of an anti-communist independence clause in the statutes. Only a few IdK groups then formed the Association of Conscientious Objectors (VK) with the GdW on May 4, 1958, whose activities in the following years concentrated primarily on the KDV. "

- DFG-VK: Our story

This “anti-communist independence clause” consisted of an addition required by the GdW in the statutes to be adopted for the new association as a follow-up to the passage “War is a crime against humanity”, which is undisputed between the two associations. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war, either directly or indirectly, and to work on eliminating all causes of war. ”The addition required by the GdW read:

“Every member is obliged to support the association in the fulfillment of its tasks in the sense of this declaration and to work to ensure that the independence of the association from all interest groups and political parties that were one-sided during the Cold War, such as communist or militant anti-communist circles and the corresponding Front organizations are preserved. "

- Quoted from : Werner Böwing: Memories of the attempt to change the wind direction with an air pump , p. 173

Following the previous quote, Werner Böwing reported that, despite the IdK's general willingness to merge, around 60 percent of its delegates voted against this independence clause, thereby abandoning the merger. One of the IdK groups that subsequently left the IdK was the non-violence group founded by Konrad Tempel and his wife Helga Tempel in Hamburg . Both temples were then also active on the national board of the UK. The VK members coming from the IdK were only willing to cooperate with the GdW after it was stipulated “that the newly emerging association must be a pacifist organization and therefore have to become a member of War Resisters' International (WRI). The pacifist character of the new organization must be clearly expressed in the name and statutes. ”In return, the GdW had insisted that the independence clause mentioned, which was primarily intended as a demarcation from the KPD , as at least some had to be anchored in the statutes IdK groups were not fundamentally opposed to joint actions with groups influenced by communism. This relationship to communist groups and the relationship to rearmament in the real socialist countries was the topic that continued to burden the relationship between the UK and the IdK and later with the DFG.

The first federal chairmen of the UK were Hans Hermann Köper and Wilhelm Keller, who had come from the IdK . In the spring of 1960 he lost “his teaching position at the Northwest German Music Academy in Detmold because of his pacifist commitment.” Larger activities are not documented for the following years. Werner Böwing reported that the Solingen group to which he belonged was involved in the repatriation service for Foreign Legionnaires towards the end of the Algerian War and was increasingly involved in the Easter march movement, and Fritz Bilz reported on the situation in Cologne: "At the end of 1958 the movement petered out" Kampf the atomic death ”in Cologne, as the Juso report in March 1959 noted. Only the advice of conscientious objectors remained at the end of the 1950s. In October 1959 there was another car parade of the VK through Cologne, combined with an appeal to those born in 1922 to refuse military service. “The fact that things were quieter for the association was probably due to internal problems, not least financial ones. as reported by Klaus Vack , who took up his position on September 1, 1961 in Offenbach am Main as full-time federal manager of the United Kingdom, where the association's office had been relocated from Cologne.

“I am taking up the post of Federal Managing Director at the Association of Conscientious Objectors. The association has 7,000 members, is heavily in debt and doesn't know how to fi nance my salary and an office in the beginning. We form an office community of Hessian nature friends with Fritz Amann as youth secretary and Heidi Wandelt as secretary and the Association of Conscientious Objectors, where Hannelore [Vack] now also works part-time (without pay). We must see our first task in bringing order to the association, so to speak, and restructuring the finances. Just one year later, the conscientious objector association is liquid again. "

- Klaus Vack : w2 attempt to present history and experience , p. 165

At that time the UK had long been a part of the developing Easter march movement , whose founders also included UK board members Helga and Konrad Tempel, and Vack then made a significant contribution to the success of the (West) German Easter march movement as the UK's secretary. The Offenbach office community, to which the office of the Easter march movement was later added, developed into the organizational center of the nationwide protest movement in the 1960s, and the VK played an important role in this movement within this protest movement - not least because of various personal ties.

In 1961, the GdW association organ Informations, which had been published in Cologne since 1956, became the monthly magazine “ Zivil You”, according to Klaus Vack, “played a not inconsiderable role in these years, which went far beyond its actual aim, political pacifism and conscientious objection, reaches out ".

Political pacifism

The political pacifism previously quoted by Vack was by no means the goal or focus of UK work in the early 1960s. “He advocated the design of the alternative service in the sense of an alternative peace service and called for the examination procedure to be abolished without replacement . That is why it saw itself more as a union for conscientious objectors and was perceived accordingly by the public. ”Something about this internal self-image only changed after the 1962 Federal Congress.

"Since Herbert Stubenrauch was elected chairman of the Federal Congress in 1962, opinion leadership was increasingly won by the self-so-called" political pacifists ", including board members Egon Becker and Alfred Riedel and federal manager Klaus Vack. For the political pacifists, the struggle for a policy of detente and disarmament as well as against the causes of war in their own country (anti-communism, economic and political concentration of power) was in the foreground; They advocate social democratization and the activation of individuals. Although the members continued to be closest to the SPD in party politics, the UK now increasingly saw itself as part of the extra-parliamentary opposition. The association set up both a solidarity fund for the benefit of the colored US-American civil rights activists as well as an "aid fund Vietnam" and was significantly involved in the congress "Emergency of Democracy" initiated by the SDS in October 1966 in Frankfurt / Main. "

- Guido Grünewald : Put down your weapons! , P. 156

Egon Becker, born in 1936, was released from service in the German Armed Forces as a member of a white class . Nevertheless, he became involved in the UK, became a member of the federal executive committee in 1964 and - alongside Herbert Stubenrauch - a civil editor-in-chief . In it he published numerous essays in which he linked the idea of ​​political pacifism with radical criticism of restorative political tendencies and capitalist forms of rule. Together with Riedel and Stubenrauch he campaigned in civilian clothes after the founding of the grand coalition for the founding of a new left-wing socialist party. The nucleus of this new party was to form the campaign for disarmament - an idea that was vehemently rejected by Klaus Vack, for whom it is “the only intact extra-parliamentary opposition in which social democrats, liberals, neutralists, trade unionists, pacifists, socialists , Protestants, Catholics, individualists etc. work together on a common political platform ”. Nevertheless, “the determination of the position of the 'political pacifist' begun by E. Becker [..] became the central content” of the 1967 Federal Congress in Wuppertal. However, the discussions did not lead to a new party, but to a repositioning of the association's work, for which, according to the newly elected federal chairman Reinhold Settele, it is important “that one is active on the social level, that one works in the unions, that one and this seems to me to be the most important thing, as a pacifist appears politically and acts as an opinion-forming factor ”.

At this federal congress, Becker and Stubenrauch resigned from the VK federal board for professional reasons. Alfred Riedel said goodbye to Egon Becker together with Herbert Stubenrauch in the October 1967 issue of Civil and linked this with the hope of having the magazine's first foreign correspondent in Becker. At the time Riedel's open letter was published, Becker was already a postdoc at Yale University and subsequently fulfilled Riedel's hopes by writing about developments and conflicts in the USA for civilians . With contributions about the Black Panther Party in the USA, however, he once again caused discussions in the ranks of the UK at the Federal Congress in Bremen in 1968, since some groups in it, as well as in the sympathies of other UK members, for the armed struggle of the Viet Cong , saw a violation of the principle of strict nonviolence.

The failed merger with the DFG

Since February 1966 there were merger negotiations between IdK and VK. At the federal congress of the UK on April 30, 1967 in Wuppertal, the then federal chairman of the UK, Reinhold Settele (1928-2017), also made a keynote speech about these negotiations with the IdK and described them as necessary because the differences between the two Associations "which were understandable maybe 10 years ago from the various previous histories of these associations" are now "an old ponytail". But in November 1967 it says from Setteles pen: “Poor one good hope. IdK prevents merger ”. Settele blamed the IdK executive committee for this, who negotiated with the DFG in parallel to the negotiations with the UK. Two board members of the IdK, Fritz Hartnagel and the forward editor Nils C. Nagel, also saw in these parallel negotiations a deliberate torpedoing of a merger with the UK and transferred to it. In a joint declaration by the two of them, it is said: “The overall merger with the UK failed because of the same forces that took place at the Schweinfurt IdK Federal Congress against those of Dr. Michaltscheff's elaborated principles of party and power-political neutrality agree and were only slightly inferior at the time. Their actual intention is clear and logical: while they exercise a decisive influence in the IdK - as the federal congress in Hanover showed - they would be in a minority in a merged general association with the UK. That had to be prevented. "

In fact, in 1968 the merger of the DFG and IdK led to the creation of the German Peace Society-International of Opponents of War (DFG-IdK). On the homepage of this association it says about the failed merger with the UK: "The recent failure was mainly caused by the articulation of left-wing socialist ideas by leading UK board members who aimed at a socialist association, while the IdK stuck to the alliance character of the organization." That the evocation of the “alliance character of the organization” rather refers to a traditional understanding of organization on the part of the DFG-IdK, which was often questioned under the influence of the student movement , is made clear by the report from the Bremen Federal Congress 1968. According to the report, this congress “was under the influence of the movements and tensions which, as a result of the unrest of the rebellious youth, have reached the West German public and not least the traditional opposition organizations. Accordingly, opinions clashed violently in long [...] discussions, with the revolutionary “left” and the “traditionalist” pacifists, who unconditionally advocate non-violence, facing each other as “wings”. ”This debate on political and organizational questions also accompanied the UK in the following years, and it was exacerbated by the questions whether and in what way the UK can contribute to overcoming the late capitalist system and what function fundamental nonviolence plays in this context.

From crisis to merger

The VK, which had 9,850 members in 1968, faced a tough test in 1969 because at the federal congress in Stuttgart in April 1969 a group opposed to the previous management board policy had prevailed, which resulted in an amendment to the statutes through which, among other things, the express waiver The use of force to achieve the set tasks was abandoned and a board of directors acting in this sense was elected. Die Zeit interpreted these disputes as one between “dogmatic pacifists” and “peace fighters inspired by the SDS”, whereby for the latter the relationship to violence was a tactical one, but not a dogmatic one. “They not only want to politicize the conscientious objectors, but also radicalize them in order to use their help to disintegrate the Bundeswehr. Your vocabulary sounds worse than it is meant to be. Many young people in the UK dream of a socialist society (without the Bundeswehr, of course), but nobody wants to act against barracks and tanks other than with leaflets and chants. But even the war of words goes too far for pure paci fi cts - for fear of the reaction. "

VK member Wilhelm Ude (1925 to 2007) brought an action against the Stuttgart resolutions and obtained in court that both the amendment to the articles of association and the election of the board of directors were declared invalid. This means that the Federal Executive Committee of the UK under Nils C. Nagel, elected in Bremen in 1968, was still in office and responsible for association policy and excluded four initiators of the Stuttgart resolutions - all members of the Frankfurt VK Group - from the association.

In 1970 the board tried to re-interpret the different positions on the issue of violence within the association to a new common ground by reinterpreting the WRI declaration. The central point was the opinion advocated by Nagel that the “WRI pacifism to which the UK is bound according to the will of its founders and the wording of its statutes” is by no means a “dogmatic pacifism”, and this followed in March 1970 Policy Statement by UK Leading Members

“Conscientious objection is an important step, but it is not enough to create and secure peace. As long as and as long as non-violent means and methods are sufficient, they are preferable to any use of force.
We know how to distinguish between oppressive violence and violence that arises from the defense against it. Without prejudice to our basic objective of eliminating the causes of violence and our conscientious objection to military service, we therefore judge the use of violence by oppressed people as a reaction to exploitative and suppressive violence differently than they do. "

- Hans Hammer - Wilhelm Keller - Nikolaus Koch - Peter Langos - Nils C. Nagel - Alfred Riedel - Wilhelm Ude : For discussion of the political location of the UK draft

This balancing act in the question of violence did not calm the association. There were split-offs as well as shifts in power and factions, which led to Nils C. Nagel accusing the board of directors elected in 1973 to be too close to the DKP. In fact, at this federal congress, the UK decided to directly support the Xth World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin and thus to work with youth organizations from the DKP environment, instead of working in a mere coordination group under Among other things, it was supported by the Judos , the Friends of Nature in Germany , the Association of German Scouts , the Jusos and the DGB youth . The majority argument was that the DFG-IdK was also a member of the working group now supported by the UK. After the congress had already decided to nominate a commission to work towards a merger with the DFG-IdK, this was a further course in the direction of what was then carried out in 1974. From the perspective of the later DFG-VK it reads like this:

“In 1969 the antagonism between pacifists and militant socialists had become so strong that the association was effectively paralyzed. Consolidation did not take place until the early 1970s. Together with the DFG-IdK, the UK fought for the ratification of the Eastern Treaty and for the establishment of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). With the election of a new board under Klaus Mannhardt in 1973, the prerequisites for renewed merger negotiations were created, which were successfully concluded on November 24, 1974 with the establishment of the German Peace Society-United War Service Opponents (DFG-VK). "

- DFG-VK: Our story

The civil magazine

The GdW association organ Information , which had existed since 1956, became the VK association journal “Zivil” in 1961 . Both publications were edited by Hans Hermann Köper from 1956 to 1963.

On the website Nikel! Art wants to tell , which is dedicated to Hans A. Nikel , who died in 2018 , there is a lot of wrong information - both about Nikel himself and about the development of civil . With reference to the year 1955, he is named there as “co-initiator and founder of the Association of Conscientious Objectors”, and it is further claimed that the “ZIVIL magazine [...] was printed on the“ first own printing press [..], supervised by Willy Fleckhaus ". Without denying Nikels various activities against military service, which Fritz Rau , among others, testified: the VK did not yet exist in 1955. Elsewhere on the website, however, there is a note that Jürgen Wischnewski was “there with his [Nikels] association”, and this suggests that Nikel was connected to the Cologne GdW. This closed the circle to Willy Fleckhaus, who in 1950 became editor of the union youth magazine Aufwärts , published by Bund-Verlag and published in Cologne, and who in 1953 took over its design management. Fleckhaus belonged to Hans Hermann Köper's circle of friends (see above), and therefore it is entirely possible that he also designed the layout of the GdW association information , the first edition of which was then on Hans A. Nikel's "first own printing press" has been printed.

Civil , published from 1961 to 1974, first in Offenbach, then in Stuttgart. Her successor was the magazine "Zivilcourage" of the DFG-VK. In the 1960s, the magazine “Zivil”, according to Klaus Vack, “played a not inconsiderable role that went far beyond its actual objective, political pacifism and conscientious objection”. Not only VK members wrote in it, but also many prominent intellectuals: Wolfgang Abendroth , Heinrich Böll , Hans Magnus Enzensberger , Robert Jungk , Sebastian Haffner , Erich Kuby , Wolfgang Leonhard , Martin Niemöller , Arnold Toynbee , Gerhard Zwerenz .

The database “Materials for the Analysis of Opposition” (MAO) only contains issues of civil from the years 1966 to 1967, and unfortunately also no complete volumes (see sources ). They show that issues related to conscientious objection and legal issues naturally occupy a large place in their environment. In addition to the documentation of internally disputed issues, there are also many articles in which the socio-political issues of these years were thematized: Easter marches, emergency laws, reunification, the military dictatorship in Greece, the Vietnam War, the suppression of the Prague Spring. This makes it clear that the magazine “Zivil” was not only close to the campaign for democracy and disarmament , as it is called on the MAO side, but also saw itself (like the UK as a whole) as part of a broad extra-parliamentary opposition .

Known members

  • Egon Becker
  • Heinz Brandt
  • Werner Böwing was initially a member of the GdW and has been a member of its federal executive committee since the VK was founded. In 1968 he resigned from this body.
  • Theodor Ebert
  • Wieland Giebel was federal manager of the association from 1971 to 1973.
  • Peter Grohmann
  • Heinrich Hannover was elected Deputy Federal Chairman of the UK in 1962.
  • After leaving the IdK in 1968, Fritz Hartnagel was elected to the national board of the UK.
  • Fritz Katz (1900–1977) In 2016, the teacher and historian Wolf Seltmann gave a lecture on the Iserlohn doctor Fritz Katz. In a press report about this report it was stated: “That is because [Fritz Katz] had joined the NSDAP and the SS while studying medicine in Berlin in 1930. After his return to Iserlohn in 1932, Katz even became a local group leader of the Nazi party, and from 1933 also headed the city council faction. In 1935 he left the party and turned to the Church. He was drafted in 1941 and later captured by Russia. In 1949 he finally returned to Iserlohn. "In the following years he was committed to world peace, against nuclear power and hunger in the world, against ties to the West and armament, and also for reunification," explained Seltmann. Katz was also involved in the Association of Conscientious Objectors - a topic that was still a very sensitive one in the 1970s and 1980s. "
  • Wilhelm Keller
  • Nikolaus Koch
  • Hans Hermann Köper was a co-founder of the GKW des VK, whose first federal chairman he became together with Wilhelm Keller in 1958. He was a member of the federal executive committee until 1963 and was the editor in charge of civil society.
  • Nils C. Nagel (* 1940 in Berlin) moved from the IdK to the VK in 1967 after the failed merger negotiations between the VK and the IdK and was elected chairman in 1968. The former Vorwärts editor later belonged to the editorial team of IG Metall -Zeitung Metall , today's metallzeitung .
  • Hans A. Nikel
  • Armin Prinz zur Lippe . He joined the UK together with his wife Traute in Detmold in 1959.
  • Johannes Rau was a member of the GdW in Wuppertal in 1957 .
  • Alfred Riedel, from 1965 to December 31, 1969 VK managing director and co-editor of the legal advisor on the right of conscientious objectors. Handbook for the entire practice of conscientious objection and alternative civil service . Riedel was chairman of the Stuttgart VK in the early 1960s.
  • Günter Rixe
  • Helmut Schauer
  • Reinhold Settele (1928–2017) succeeded Herbert Stubenrauch as Federal Chairman of the UK in 1967. As a student from Ulm, he was already active in the resistance during the “Third Reich”. He is remembered with a portrait at the White Rose Memorial in Ulm .
  • Gangolf Stocker
  • Herbert Stubenrauch (1938-2010). Herbert Stubenrauch was federal chairman and responsible editor of civil for several years . At the Federal Congress in 1968 he and his long-time editorial colleague Egon Becker said goodbye to their work for the association magazine - for professional reasons, as Alfred Riedel wrote, because he wanted to finish his dissertation. At that time he was already a teacher at the Ernst Reuter School (Frankfurt am Main) , one of the first integrated comprehensive schools in Hesse. Some brief information about him can be found in the German Digital Library , and in the special collection Protest, Resistance and Utopia in the Federal Republic of Germany of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS) it says: “Herbert Stubenrauch (pedagogue and therapist, 1938-2010 ): He was one of the early activists of the Easter March movement, co-founded the Socialist Teachers' Association (SLB) in 1968 and helped found the Socialist Bureau (SB) in 1969. Together, the SLB and SB published the 'Information Service of the Socialist Teachers' Association', later the 'Information Service for Schools Work Field'. He taught as a teacher at a comprehensive school in Frankfurt and worked as a therapist. "
  • Helga temple
  • Konrad Temple
  • Hanne and Klaus Vack
  • Willi van Ooyen was a member of the federal executive committee in the 1970s.
  • Fritz Vilmar , "IG Metall official and chairman of the Frankfurt conscientious objectors"
  • Peter-Paul number
  • Wolfgang Breeding

Literature & sources

Used literature
For further reading

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Holl, Pacifism in Germany , pp. 223–224
  2. ↑ a b Herfried Münkler : The Germans and their Myths , Rowohlt, Reinbek 2010, ISBN 978-3-499-62394-3 , p. 414
  3. ↑ a b Nikel! Art wants to tell: About Nikel
  4. ↑ Sponsorship for Police History Lower Saxony e. V.: The referendum on rearmament & the five-brochure judgment
  5. ↑ a b c d ARMED SERVICE / REFUSER: Do it like Adenauer
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Fritz Bilz: Risen from the ruins
  7. ↑ a b c DFG-VK: Our story
  8. ↑ Grünewald wrote of "ten cars and fifteen scooters". (Guido Grünewald: Conscientious Objectors Union , p. 33)
  9. ↑ In a letter to the editor to the Frankfurter Rundschau (FR), Guido Grünewald wrote: "That the GdW stood out from the traditionally operating ldK with loose propaganda slogans (Neither a people's police officer nor a federal army soldier! Head off to prayer! Better rock'n roll than marching band) was due not least to Nikel ; Pardon the artist Kurt Halbritter delivered pointed caricatures. "(Guido Grünwald: With loose sayings , FRI, January 22, 2019)
  10. ↑ Guido Grünewald: Conscientious Objectors Union , p. 34
  11. ↑ Guido Grünewald: Between Conscientious Objectors Union or Political Peace Organization , p. 36
  12. ↑ Guido Grünewald: Between Conscientious Objectors Union or Political Peace Organization , p. 35
  13. ↑ a b c d Nils C. Nagel: The importance of the WRI membership of the UK. On the founding of the association and its pacifist position , civil, 16th year, no. 2, February 1970, pp. 15-17
  14. ↑ a b Guido Grünewald: Pacifists in the Cold War: Attitudes, reactions and behavior of West German pacifist actors in the 1950s and early 1960s , lecture in January 2017 at the annual meeting of the Archives of the Workers' Youth Movement in Oer-Erkenschwick
  15. ↑ Guido Grünewald (ed.): Down your arms! , P. 147
  16. ↑ Werner Böwing: Memories of the attempt to change the wind direction with an air pump , p. 175 ff.
  17. ^ Journal database (ZDB): information. Monthly for conscientious objectors
  18. ^ Journal database (ZDB): civil. Journal for conscientious objectors
  19. ↑ a b Klaus Vack: An attempt to represent history and experience , p. 170
  20. ^ Maria Klein, Gerhard Müller, Rüdiger Schlaga: Political currents in the peace movement 1966-1974 , p. 2
  21. ↑ See the essays by Egon Becker available in the database materials for the analysis of opposition (MAO) .
  22. ↑ Alfred Riedel had become VK managing director in 1965 and in this role replaced Klaus Vack, who had been elected full-time managing director of the Central Committee , the central management body of the Easter march movement, as the successor to Andreas Buro , who had previously worked as an honorary managing director . (Karl A. Otto: Vom Ostermarsch zur APO. History of the extra-parliamentary opposition in the Federal Republic 1960-70 , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-593-32192-0 , p. 81) Vack stayed with his wife Hannelore continues to be part of the Offenbach office community. Before working for the UK in Stuttgart, Alfred Riedel was managing director of the Ostermarsches Südwest ( Easter March 1963: participation doubled compared to the previous year , Neues Deutschland , April 10, 1963)
  23. ^ The contributions of the three to this discussion can be found in Civil , Vol. 12, No. 1, Offenbach, January 1967
  24. ↑ Klaus Vack: An attempt to present history and experience , p. 181
  25. ^ Maria Klein, Gerhard Müller, Rüdiger Schlaga: Political currents in the peace movement 1966-1974 , p. 63
  26. ↑ Reinhold Settele, quoted from Maria Klein, Gerhard Müller, Rüdiger Schlaga: Political currents in the peace movement 1966-1974 , p. 64
  27. ^ A b Alfred Riedel: Dear Herbert, dear Egon! A farewell letter to two members of the editorial team , ZIVIL, 12th year, No. 10, October 1967, p. 102
  28. ↑ Becker also translated and commented for the newspapers for German and international politics and wrote about America's Left in the weekly newspaper Die Tat , the organ of the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime .
  29. ↑ See on this: Civil , Vol. 12, No. 12, Stuttgart, December 1967
  30. ^ Maria Klein, Gerhard Müller, Rüdiger Schlaga: Political currents in the peace movement 1966-1974 , p. 142
  31. ↑ Reinhold Settele: The political location of the conscientious objector today , in: Zivil , Vol. 12, No. 5, May 1967, p. 55
  32. ↑ Reinhold Settele: Poorer than one good hope. IdK prevents fusion , in: Zivil , Vol. 12, No. 11, November 1967, p. 119
  33. ↑ Hans-Werner Conen: Congress of conscientious objectors. Not Spearhead , ZEIT, No. 23/1970 of June 5, 1970
  34. ^ Declaration by Nils C. Nagel and Fritz Hartnagel , in: Zivil , Vol. 12, No. 11, November 1967, p. 119
  35. ↑ a b c d The Federal Congress 1968 & Nils C. Nagel new Federal Chairman , in: Zivil , Volume 13, No. 6, June 1968, p. 63
  36. ↑ See the article by Ursula Ossenberg: Nonviolent Resistance and Social Defense. A statement on Theodor Ebert's conception , civil, 14th year, N1. January 1, 1969, pp. 8-9
  37. ↑ a b DEFENSES: expropriated Schröder
  38. ↑ Militant Pacifists. Split in the Association of Conscientious Objectors , Die Zeit , No. 19/1969 of May 9, 1969
  39. ^ Obituary for Wilhelm Ude , Nordwest-Zeitung , October 19, 2007
  40. ↑ On this discussion see: On the situation in the UK , civil, vol. 15, no. 8/9, July / August 1969
  41. ↑ To the discussion about the political location of the UK - draft - , civil, 16th vol., No. 3, March 1970, p. 26. The identities of Hans Hammer and Peter Langos could not be clarified, although in the case of Peter Langos there is much to suggest that he is the former Tübingen SDS chairman. See: Peter Langos is dead , obituary dated December 15, 2015.
  42. ↑ Guido Grünewald: Down your arms! , P. 158
  43. ^ Maria Klein, Gerhard Müller, Rüdiger Schlaga: Political currents in the peace movement 1966-1974 , p. 203
  44. ↑ “The cooperation between DFG-IDK and VK as a result of political rapprochement” is described in detail by Maria Klein, Gerhard Müller, Rüdiger Schlaga: Politische Strömungen in der Friedensbewegung 1966-1974 , pp. 207 ff.
  45. ↑ Nikel! Art wants to tell: life and works
  46. ^ House of Press Freedom: Willy Fleckhaus
  47. ↑ ZEITZEUGEN LINKS / 002: Lateral thought and made difficult - The upright spirit ... Ingrid Zwerenz in conversation , Schattenblick - an electronic newspaper, 2016
  48. ↑ ZivilCourage - Our magazine
  49. ↑ Klaus Vack: An attempt to represent history and experience, p. 170
  50. ↑ Iserlohner Kreisanzeiger from June 24, 2016, quoted from: Friedensfestival Iserlohn - Press Review 2016
  51. ↑ Dr. Armin zur Lippe. In: Der Spiegel 7/1959, February 11, 1959
  52. ↑ Werner Böwing: Memories of the attempt to change the wind direction with an air pump , p. 147, as well as a letter Raus to Werner Böwing from October 21, 1997 in the opening credits of the book.
  53. ↑ Law of conscientious objectors. Handbook for the entire practice of conscientious objection and alternative civil service . The basic work, laid out as a loose-leaf collection, appeared for the first time in 1966 and then in a revised edition in 1967; supplementary deliveries followed from 1969.
  54. ^ Theodor Ebert: consequent , p. 15
  55. ↑ Oliver Helmstädter: Radiant Heroes of a Dark Time , Augsburger Allgemeine , November 30, 2013 & Obituary: Reinhold Settele died at the age of 89 , swp.de, November 23, 2017
  56. ↑ ( Herbert Stubenrauch on HIS-online )
  57. ↑ See also: Herbert Stubenrauch in the catalog of the German National Library