On Good Friday, April 15, 1960, opponents of nuclear war start the first Easter march in Germany. It heralds the beginning of a new movement. In view of the war in the Ukraine, it has seen a little more interest than last time.
"It was a terrible day, with slush and cold. We stood in Braunschweig with a group of a little more than 20 people between the pillars of the church, the pastor gave us good words and then we had to go out." Political scientist Andreas Buro, who died in 2016, remembered the first Easter march in Germany in 1960. "I would have liked to have stayed there between the pillars. Then we marched for three days". Small groups of protesters break out from Bremen, Hamburg, Braunschweig and Hanover. The destination of their star march:the Bergen-Hohne NATO military training area in the south of the Lüneburg Heath.
There, in the Celle district, not far from the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the activists want to demonstrate against nuclear missiles. Just a few months earlier, NATO stationed Honest John missiles in Bergen-Hohne. They are designed to pick up nuclear warheads.
We sleep in barns and gymnasiums
On their way, the protesters stay in barns, youth hostels and gymnasiums. More and more people are joining the march. At the final rally on Easter Monday, the crowd of demonstrators grew to around 1,000.
Easter march movement adopted from Great Britain
It is the first Easter march in the history of the Federal Republic. The idea came from Great Britain. Two years earlier, peace activists had organized a three-day Easter protest march there. The pacifists of the anti-nuclear alliance "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament" ("Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament") demonstrated with it against nuclear armament and the planned construction of a hydrogen bomb on the island. The high-profile spectacle becomes a role model for peace activists throughout Western Europe.
Easter marches are getting more and more popular
From the early 1960s, people from a wide variety of political camps joined the Easter marches.The North German Easter March of 1960 is not a one-off event either. In the 1960s, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the East-West conflict fueled fears of a nuclear world war and allowed the Easter marches to grow into a mass movement. Every year, more Germans sign the public appeals for the Easter March - including many well-known personalities from church and society, such as the philosophers Walter Jens and Ernst Bloch or the writers James Krüss and Hans Magnus Enzensberger.
Protest spectrum widens
In 1963 the movement was officially named the "Campaign for Disarmament". Soon the protest was no longer aimed solely at nuclear weapons:the Easter marchers took to the streets for peace, for a total renunciation of weapons and for good relations between the countries. War opponents from the most diverse social milieus and political camps go out together, discussing and singing songs:"Are we marching against the East? No! Are we marching against the West? No! We are marching for the world, which no longer believes in weapons!" The special feature:The protest movement takes place outside of established structures and organizations such as parties, churches or trade unions. It is therefore also considered to be one of the roots of the extra-parliamentary opposition (APO).
Easter march songs on May Day demonstrations in the GDR
In the mid-1960s, the Easter March songs also spilled over the Wall. In 1966, members of the young GDR singing movement spread the melodies to the GDR as well - sometimes slightly reworded and with criticism also against the armaments on the part of the Warsaw Pact. However, the GDR rulers managed to adapt the songs to the socialist world view and to functionalize the movement for their own purposes:the Easter march songs resounded a little later at East Berlin May Day demonstrations.
After 1968 the movement splintered
At the end of the 1960s, the protests were no longer just directed against nuclear weapons, but also against the emergency laws.In 1968 the West German Easter March movement reached its peak, with 300,000 people taking part in West German rallies. However, issues such as the Vietnam War and the looming emergency laws are causing the various ideological groups among peace activists to polarize. The alliance began to fall apart in the following year. The military suppression of the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia in August 1968 by Warsaw Pact troops put a heavy damper on pacifist fantasies. At the same time, the strong student protest group is taking its own direction. The themes of the student movement do not only focus on pacifism, but also cover a broad spectrum of political and social demands.
Easter Marches:Increased attendance in years of war and crisis
Only at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, with rearmament and the NATO double-track decision, did the Easter March movement revive. But after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, interest waned again. Since then, the Easter marches have been more of a marginal phenomenon. However, in years of particular crisis, such as the 1991 Gulf War or the 2003 Iraq War, they regularly experience greater growth. In 2019, the organizers of campaigns in around 100 German cities again registered a larger number of people with the central demand for disarmament. According to Tagesschau, on the one hand because of the "worrying political situation in the world". But climate change has also brought new participants to the Easter marches since the "Fridays for Future" movement brought the topic into focus.
Protest under conditions in the corona pandemic
In the past two years, peace activists have only been able to draw attention to their concerns to a very limited extent or under certain conditions due to the contact restrictions in the wake of the corona pandemic. Instead of large demonstrations, however, smaller parades, rallies with a limited number of participants or human chains took place in some places.
Easter marches marked by the Russia-Ukraine war
This year, the protests against war and armament were primarily directed against the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the primary aggressor, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and again slightly more people took part than last time. However, in view of the divided attitude towards NATO within the peace movement and blanket calls for disarmament, there was also criticism of the core statements of the marches. The motto "Create peace without weapons" currently reveals an arrogance towards the Ukraine, according to the former Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse (SPD).