Debate: Peace Movement | Blind in no eye

Both sides in view: On October 10, 1981, the peace movement demonstrated together in Bonn with 300,000 participants “against the nuclear threat in East and West”. Photo: imago/Sommer Lay down your weapons!” Bertha von Suttner understood this appeal, published in 1889 in her book of the same name, in a universalistic way. She referred to all the wars, threats and preparations for war that were taking place around the world at that time. The “Never Again War” movement, which was founded in 1920 on the initiative of the “Peace Association of War Participants” (including Carl von Ossietzky and Kurt Tucholsky) and which in the following years organized rallies and demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of participants under this motto, was also universalist in its orientation. The same applies to the peace movement of the 1950s (“Fight against nuclear death”) and the 1980s. On October 10, 1981, despite all the heterogeneity and all the different positions of the many groups and organizations involved, the latter demonstrated together with 300,000 participants in Bonn “against the nuclear threat in East and West” as well as against the “spirit, logic and politics of deterrence”, as it was said in the call and in the speeches of the day. But it is precisely this convinced attitude of a comprehensive movement that criticizes all parties equally for their logic of violence, which is often a minority position these days.

Germany is experiencing the greatest rearmament and the strongest internal militarization since 1945 - with gigantic costs and catastrophic consequences for the country's future. Hundreds of thousands of people should actually demonstrate against this. But the peace movement has only brought a few tens of thousands of people onto the streets in recent years. What are the causes? Reflections from the center of the movement.

Unfortunately, the initiative “Never again war – put down the weapons!”, which is supported by an alliance of people, does not argue in a universalistic way. (hereinafter: the initiative), which is calling for demonstrations on October 3rd this year for the third time since 2024. From the beginning there was clear criticism of the blindness of their calls towards Russia. In the call for October 3, 2024, the West and the federal government were quite rightly criticized; However, there was no mention of Russia waging war against Ukraine. Let alone calling this war illegal under international law. Or even a call to the Putin government to end this war. Only “the West – including the federal government” was held responsible for “accelerating the escalation of this war”.

Leading organizations in the peace movement (DFG-VK, IPPNW, Pax Christi, Life Without Armor, Action Group Service for Peace) tried in vain to sharpen the call in these places in 2024. The initiative also rejected the demand for "protection and asylum for conscientious objectors and deserters from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine" as well as a clear demarcation from the right with the following formulation: "There is no place at the campaign for groups and people from the nationalist, anti-democratic or right-wing extremist spectrum and those who work with them - we are fighting for a world in which all people can live freely, peacefully and in security!" As a result, all organizations involved in the negotiations refused to sign the call.

That's the case this year too. Because this year's call from the initiative for October 3rd remains one-sided. He names in detail and completely accurately the actions of Western states that violate international law, such as the current, partly genocidal wars by the USA and Israel, the occupation of Palestine and the US sanctions against Cuba. But the fact that Russia is waging a war against Ukraine that violates international law is kept secret. Once again, only “Germany, the EU and NATO” are held responsible for the “escalation” and “extension” of the “war in Ukraine”. Instead, the call criticizes the fact that the federal government does not “denounce Russia’s specific violations of international law,” but at the same time “supports” the actions of Western states politically, logistically and militarily or at least “accepts them through their silence and inaction.”

This year's call by the initiative for a peace demonstration on October 3rd also remains one-sided.

The call for this year's Easter march in Berlin was just as one-sided, with only 1,600 people following in the city with four million inhabitants. Proportionate to the population, the peace movement in Mainz-Wiesbaden was able to mobilize far more people with its all-round, universalist call.

With the one-sidedness and double standards in criticizing violations of universally applicable international law and human rights norms, parts of the peace movement are behaving in a similar way to how they rightly criticize Western governments, NATO and the EU. This has seriously damaged the credibility of the peace movement. Although this is not the only reason, it is a significant reason for the mobilization failures in October 2024 and 2025. Instead, the critics of the initiative's calls were accused of a split in the peace movement and, together with the media, were held responsible for the low number of participants.

Russia's war against Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which also violated international law, are repeatedly relativized, trivialized or even explicitly justified in discussions among (supposedly) peace activists, mostly with reference to NATO's eastward expansion - which I have rightly criticized sharply (again and again for 30 years). But only if the peace movement clearly names and criticizes this war by the Putin government, which violates international law, would it have any chance of countering the bellicose and sometimes Russophobic mainstream in politics and the media, the secret service, the Bundeswehr and among security policy “experts” that essentially determine public perception. This is the only way to have a chance of success, at least among parts of the population.

Only then is it possible to perceptibly demystify the completely unrealistic and unsubstantiated threat claims, according to which the Putin government is planning military attacks against Poland, the Baltic states, Germany and other NATO states after the end of the war against Ukraine and will be able to do so militarily by the end of this decade at the latest. Because it is these threat claims that are used to justify the massive rearmament with its horrendous financial costs and the resulting fatal spending cuts in all non-military areas of politics and to enforce it domestically. A credible refutation can only succeed if a universalist perspective once again asserts itself in the peace movement without exception.

At the end of the 1950s, the major controversies in the Federal Republic of Germany over rearmament, NATO membership and the stationing of US nuclear weapons had been resolved. After that, there was no relevant debate on security policy issues for over 20 years. The consensus only broke when in 1979, Bundeswehr General Gerd Bastian, a member of the Bundeswehr, was the first to publicly criticize the planned stationing of US medium-range missiles in Europe. As a result, generals from other NATO states also made public statements similar to Bastian's ("Generals for Peace"). Soldiers from the Bundeswehr, the Dutch and Italian armed forces also took part in the large demonstrations of the peace movements in Bonn, Amsterdam and Rome in autumn 1981 - in uniform. Two years later, SPD party leader and former Chancellor Willy Brandt spoke at the peace movement's Bonn rally against the impending deployment of the Pershing II and cruise missiles. This made the further path towards the INF agreement and the complete disarmament of this type of weapon possible. In this way, the security policy consensus was radically broken.

The stationing of new US medium-range weapons in Germany, agreed in July 2024 between Chancellor Scholz and US President Joe Biden, could also currently offer a window to soften the front of security politicians and the military, which has been visibly closed since Russia's attack on Ukraine. US President Trump initially put these plans on hold in April of this year. At the same time, however, the governments of Germany and France have confirmed their intention to develop their own European medium-range weapons with the same capabilities and purposes and to station them in Germany and other NATO states.

If the peace movement succeeds in making the intended first-strike function of these weapons against Russian missile positions and the resulting significantly increased risk of Russian attacks on the stationing locations and the command center of the new US missiles in Germany aware not only of the general public, but also of as many Bundeswehr soldiers as possible, such a consensus could falter. 

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