The Protest for Peace: Mass Opposition to Nuclear Arms (1980 to 1986)

Abstract

The rebirth of the West German peace movement was brought on by a special meeting of the NATO foreign and defence ministers in Brussels on 12 December 1979, when the so-called ‘dual track’ decision was taken. The strategic shifts in NATO defence policy had moved from ‘massive retaliation’ in the early 1950s via deterrence by ‘graduated response’, dating from 1957, to the notion of ‘flexible response’ which had been the agreed position since 1967. The concept of ‘theatre nuclear war’ had emerged, with Europe as the stage for what was euphemistically termed a ‘limited nuclear exchange’. This policy was now substantially confirmed by a wide-ranging modernisation programme of weapons systems which was to involve the stationing of 572 American medium-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, to be deployed from 1983 onwards unless, in the intervening period, the necessity for doing so was obviated by agreements on arms limitations. Nachrüstung was now the order of the day. By this term was understood in the first instance a ‘reply’ to the Soviet SS-20s by matching weapons but, in effect, this programme inaugurated an extensive updating of the entire military arsenal. Since more than a third of the missiles (108 Pershing IIs and 96 cruise missiles) were destined for West German territory and given the key role played in the decision by the Federal Chancellor — for it was Helmut Schmidt who, in a speech delivered in London at the end of October 1977, had first publicly mooted the superiority of the Soviet nuclear potential — it is hardly surprising that reaction to this policy in the Federal Republic was particularly vehement.