In 1983, more than one million Germans joined together to protest NATO’s deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe. International media overflowed with images of marches, rallies, and human chains as protesters blockaded depots and agitated for disarmament. Though they failed to halt the deployment, the episode was a decisive one for German society, revealing deep divisions in the nation’s political culture while continuing to mobilize activists. This volume provides a comprehensive reference work on the “Euromissiles” crisis as experienced by its various protagonists, analyzing NATO’s diplomatic and military maneuvering and tracing the political, cultural, and moral discourses that surrounded the missiles’ deployment in East and West Germany.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Nuclear Crisis, NATO’s Double-Track Decision, and the Peace Movement of the 1980s: An Introduction
Christoph Becker-Schaum, Philipp Gassert, Martin Klimke, Wilfried Mausbach, and Marianne Zepp
Chapter 1. From Helsinki to Afghanistan:
The CSCE Process and the Beginning of the Second Cold War
Anja Hanisch
Chapter 2. The NATO Double-Track Decision: Genesis and Implementation
Tim Geiger
Chapter 3. SS-20 and Pershing II: Weapon Systems and the Dynamization of East-West Relations
Oliver Bange
Chapter 4. NATO’s Double-Track Decision and East-West German Relations
Hermann Wentker
Chapter 5.Political Parties
Jan Hansen
Chapter 6. Eco-Pacifism: The Environmental Movement as a Source for the Peace Movement
Silke Mende and Birgit Metzger
Chapter 7. Rationality of Fear: The Intellectual Foundations of the Peace Movement
Marianne Zepp
Chapter 8. The Institutional Organization of the Peace Movement
Christoph Becker-Schaum
Chapter 9. The Spaces and Places of the Peace Movement
Susanne Schregel
Chapter 10. The Protagonists of the Peace Movement
Saskia Richter
Chapter 11. The Independent Peace Movement in East Germany
Rainer Eckert
Chapter 12. Visual and Media Strategies of the Peace Movement
Kathrin Fahlenbrach and Laura Stapane
Chapter 13. The Churches
Sebastian Kalden and Jan Ole Wiechmann
Chapter 14. Trade Unions
Dietmar Süß
Chapter 15. The Police
Michael Sturm
Chapter 16. “Men Build Rockets”: The Women's Peace Movement
Reinhild Kreis
Chapter 17. Civil Defense: Preparing for the Worst-Case Scenario in Politics and Science
Claudia Kemper
Chapter 18. Nuclear Doomsday Scenarios in Film, Literature, and Music
Philipp Baur
Chapter 19. A Triumph of Disarmament? The 1980s and the International Political System
Florian Pressler
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Christoph Becker-Schaum is the Director of the Green Memory Archive at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.
Review :
“Overall, this work provides an outstanding multidimensional framework of the nuclear crisis and its resulting peace movement. The chapters adequately detail the crisis, the political environment that led to the Double-Track Decision, and the progression of the peace movement throughout Germany and on an international level. I recommend this volume to anyone seeking information on German politics during the Cold War and to researchers or academics with an interest in social movements and their effects on society, morality, and politics.” • H-Net Reviews
“[This volume consists] of nineteen erudite and informative contributions by an extraordinary series of contributors -- making it an unreservedly recommended publication for college and university library Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History, War & Peace, and Political Advocacy collections.” • Midwest Book Review
“This volume is a well-conceived collection of different approaches to the events of the “Nuclear Crisis” and the reactions of a large, broad and heterogeneous peace movement. It is especially through its multidimensional description also well suited as an introduction to this topic. With the help of this volume is seems possible to ‘learn from history,’ because who considers the arguments and discussion threads of the debates will recognize much in the contemporary themes of the peace movement.” • Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen
“This is an important volume on a key phase of the Cold War, one that will be of interest to scholars, but can also be assigned to undergraduate and graduate students. The various chapters build on each other beautifully, forming a coherent whole. Aside from a couple of rough spots, they are beautifully written, though they originally appeared in German. A list of abbreviations and annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter make this volume highly reader-friendly.” • German History
“The breadth and balance of this collection make it an excellent introduction to the strategic challenges and nuclear anxieties of the Second Cold War. In giving such detailed coverage of the 1980s, it represents a kind of milestone in the historicization of peace movements.” • William Glenn Gray, Purdue University
“With great conceptual clarity, the contributions to this volume offer innovative perspectives on the connections between international and domestic politics, the renegotiation of ‘peace’ in the political arena, and questions of collective agency. One of its great strengths is its multi-dimensional approach, integrating traditional methods of studying policy and diplomacy with an astute and precise analysis of media, protest actions, grass-roots activism, and the gendering of peace and protest.” • Benjamin Ziemann, University of Sheffield
