Introduction: the Nuclear Crisis, NATO's Double-Track Decision
Introduction Th e Nuclear Crisis, NATO’s Double-Track Decision, and the Peace Movement of the 1980s Christoph Becker-Schaum, Philipp Gassert, Martin Klimke, Wilfried Mausbach, and Marianne Zepp In the fall of 1983 more than a million people all across West Germany gathered under the motto “No to Nuclear Armament” to protest the imple- mentation of NATO’s Double-Track Decision of 12 December 1979 and the resulting deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles in West Germany and other European countries.1 Th e media overfl owed with photos of human chains, sit-in blockades, and enormous protest rallies. Th e impressive range of protest events included street theater performances, protest marches, and blockades of missile depots. During the fi nal days of the campaign there were huge mass protests with several hundred thousand participants, such as the “Fall Action Week 1983” in Bonn on 22 October and a human chain stretching about 108 km from Ulm to Stuttgart. It seemed as if “peace” was the dominant theme all over Germany.2 Despite these protests, the West German Bundestag approved the missile deployment with the votes of the governing conservative coalition, thereby concluding one of the longest debates in German parliamentary history.3 A few days later the fi rst of the so-called Euromissiles were installed in Mut- langen, near Stuttgart, and in Sigonella, on the island of Sicily.4 Th e peace movement had failed to attain its short-term political aim. However, after a brief period of refl ection, the movement continued to mobilize masses of people for its political peace agenda.
[Show full text]