With the "Göttingen Appeal" in 1957, scientists protested against Adenauer's plans for atomic armament. Their manifesto becomes the basis for the "Fight Nuclear Death" campaign.
by Britta Probol
"Duck &cover", sings the cartoon turtle "Bert the Turtle" in an American civil defense film from the 1950s:When the atomic bomb falls, duck down and hold something over your head - for example a newspaper! The superpowers USA and USSR compete to develop the hydrogen bomb, show off their new weapon technology and invite spectators to nuclear tests in the desert. From today's perspective, dealing with the nuclear threat at the beginning of the Cold War seems grotesquely naive.
Nuclear weapons - just a "further development of artillery"?
Konrad Adenauer and Franz Josef Strauss - here in 1958 during an autumn maneuver - were advocates of nuclear armament.The federal government also classified the "effects of this terrible weapon", according to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, as quite manageable at the time. Is it naivety or political impudence - on April 5, 1957, Adenauer announced in an interview that tactical nuclear weapons were "nothing more than the further development of artillery" and of course the Federal Republic had to "join in the latest developments in normal armament as well".
The background to this explosive statement:Adenauer and his Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss want tactical, i.e. "small" nuclear warheads for the Bundeswehr, which was not even two years old at the time. The Federal Republic, the youngest NATO member, should implement the "doctrine of graduated deterrence" issued by US Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson and thus establish itself as an equal partner in the Atlantic Alliance.
18 nuclear scientists go public
Otto Hahn, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Walther Gerlach (from left) were among the signatories of the "Göttingen Appeal".The public trivialization of nuclear weapons at the highest political level causes consternation in science and calls the "Göttinger 18" into action. The West German nuclear physicists - including Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker - formulated a declaration within a week that went down in history as the "Göttinger Appell" of April 12, 1957.
The paper released to the press by Otto Hahn's office puts the potential danger emanating from nuclear weapons in the right light and closes with the words:
"For a small country like the Federal Republic of Germany, we believe that it is still best protected today and most likely to promote world peace if it expressly and voluntarily renounces the possession of nuclear weapons of any kind. In any case, none of the undersigned would be prepared to take part in the to participate in any way in the manufacture, testing or use of nuclear weapons." from the Göttingen Appeal of 12. April 1957
Protest against nuclear weapons forms in the population
The "Göttingen Appeal" was intended to provide the impetus for the first broad extra-parliamentary opposition in the Federal Republic. From the hummus of this resistance grew the campaign "Fight dem Atomtod", which gradually began to form over the following months with the support of the SPD, churches and trade unions.
120,000 people demonstrate in Hamburg
In a representative opinion poll in February 1958, 83 percent of Germans spoke out against the installation of nuclear launch pads in West Germany. Nevertheless, on March 25, 1958, after heated debates, the Bundestag decided to equip the Bundeswehr with delivery systems for nuclear weapons. The warheads themselves are to remain in American custody.
After this decision, an avalanche of spontaneous silent marches, protest rallies and work stoppages erupted. On April 19, 1958, large-scale demonstrations took place in Hamburg, Bremen, Kiel, Munich, Mannheim, Dortmund and Essen. 120,000 people took to the streets in Hamburg - the largest mass demonstration to date since the Second World War. The SPD even calls for a referendum on nuclear armament. The May rallies are dominated by the issue, and protests continue into June.
Withdrawal of the SPD - the campaign dies
However, the CDU government manages to discredit the campaign by branding it "communist-driven". When the CDU then clinched an overwhelming victory in the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in June 1958, the SPD began to withdraw significantly from the movement. In 1959, with its Bad Godesberg program, the party finally oriented itself in the direction of a grand coalition and support for the Bundeswehr.
Due to the lack of this important logistical support, the "fight nuclear death" movement finally collapsed. The Easter March movement will later be recruited from its ruins.