West German rearmament with atomic weapons spurred the first large-scale protest wave

Evidence

The first large-scale wave of protest began when the German government publicly declared its willingness to provide the West German armed forces with atomic weapons. Responding to a statement by the Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, that `tactical atomic weapons are basically nothing more than the further development of artillery’, eighteen of the most distinguished German atomic scientists, in the Göttingen Manifesto of April 1957, gave a public warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons. After the decision of the NATO conference in Paris in December 1957 to equip European member states with atomic weapons installations, town councillors and professors protested, and mass meetings of workers, shop stewards and trade union organizations passed resolutions demanding strikes, and even a general strike. On 25 March 1958 the majority in the Bundestag, after four days of debate, agreed to allow West German armed forces to be equipped with atomic weapons within the NATO framework, thus belatedly approving what was already a fait accompli. Several thousand manufacturing workers at Henschel in Kassel went on strike. Fifty-two per cent of the adult population of West Germany and West Berlin were in favour of a strike to prevent the army from acquiring atomic weapons. In the middle of April, 150,000 people took part in a demonstration in Hamburg. On 20 May there were demonstrations by 20,000 university teachers and students, in Frankfurt and elsewhere, against arming West German forces with atomic weapons. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2345

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Adenauer-era ‘atomtod’ movement and the Göttingen Manifesto; parallels the anti-nuclear movement literature and Habermas’s ‘Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit’ account of plebiscitary demands. — connects to: West German plans to arm forces with atomic weapons triggered mass protests — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2345; A narrow majority of West Germans favored strikes against atomic arming — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2345; 1960 protest art explicitly compared nuclear war to Nazi crematoriums — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York…, 225 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• 1960 protest art explicitly compared nuclear war to Nazi crematoriums #exemplifies (0.85) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 225
• Establishment critics branded anti-nuclear protesters as proto-Nazi collaborators #responds-to (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2345
• Anti-war splinter groups radicalized into theatrical protest tactics via factional chain #expands (0.75) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 2009