Peace Movement

Post photo: Demonstration | © Shutterstock

When I think back to the peace movement, I think of those people who organized themselves as early as the 19th century and consequently joined forces with the European Federalists in 1946 and the World Federalists in 1947.

Her magazine, which is still worth reading today, is die Peace Wait, which was founded in 1899 and which succeeded the magazine "Die Waffen Nieder!" (1892-1899). I would like to mention in particular Hans Wehberg, who was its editor from 1924 to 1962 and who not only made a contribution to European unification, but also to the European federalists.

Significantly, after the Second World War, the Friedens-Warte and its publishers deliberately distanced themselves from the new “peace movement”, which I myself was only able to experience as a stone and Molotov cocktail thrower and which, particularly in my hometown, was characterized by the fact that it was American as well as also discriminated against and defamed German soldiers in equal measure.

The particular aggressiveness and perfidiousness of members and sympathizers of this new type of "peace movement" has also led to many soldiers becoming convinced that the NATO soldiers are nowadays the only real peace movement in our country alongside the federalists and the fellow citizens who are allegedly so peace-loving rather the fifth column of the Soviet system.

To this day, it is not known in Heilbronn how many Heilbronn soldiers, whether Americans or Germans, have lost their lives serving our country since the end of the last war, nor how many of them fell victim to loose wheel nuts or other nasty attacks.

To this day, the only thing that is commemorated every year is a very tragic accident on the Waldheide in which three US soldiers died in 1985.

Not only was this accident exorbitantly exaggerated and politically exploited by the so-called "peace movement" from the start, but the three dead are also misused every year and without mercy for purely political purposes - politics can't get any more disgusting.

A good 30 years after the fall of the Wall and the end of the Soviet system, it really is high time that these three dead were finally given a rest and that all Heilbronn soldiers who gave their lives for peace, our freedom and our democracy a common memorial.

It would be nice if this memorial could find its place at the Hafenmarktturm and we Heilbronners could then commemorate our dead together without any party politics or ideological frippery, including of course the Americans.