International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Nuclear Weapons Free Darmstadt

A Chronology

Regina Hagen

On July 14, 1998, a local initiative to declare Darmstadt, Germany nuclear weapons free bore fruit: the City Council Meeting (Stadtverordnetenversammlung) of the medium-sized German university town adopted the following resolution:

• the Town Government (Magistrat) is requested to declare Darmstadt a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone,
• the City Council Meeting (Stadt-verordnetenversammlung) signs the German translation of the Abolition 2000 Resolution for Municipalities, and
• Darmstadt joins the "World Conference of Mayors for Peace Through Inter-City Solidarity". This chronology gives background information and a list of the events which made the grassroots initiative a success.

Locally active for a nuclear weapons free world

In spring 1997, the nuclear phycisist Dr. Martin Kalinowski, Senior Researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science, Technology and Security (IANUS) at the Darmstadt University of Technology and member of INESAP, issued a call of the German NaturwissenschaftlerInnen-Initiative to become "locally active for a nuclear weapons free world". In his appeal, he pointed out that a municipal nuclear weapons free zone is not legally binding. Rather, its declaration is a symbolic act.

When the Persing II intermediary range missiles aimed at Russia were deployed in Germany, more than 100 German municipalities declared nuclear^_weapons^_free status in the 1980s. Martin Kalinowski urged the local initiatives to revive the existing declarations as well as to initiate the required process in additional municipalities. He suggested that this would back up politicians, diplomats, military officials, and other decision makers who support steps towards nuclear abolition. A growing number of nuclear weapons free municipalities in Germany could eventually evolve into a nuclear weapons free zone Central Europe. A logical step would also be to withdraw all British and US-American nuclear weapons from German soil. Currently, there are still about 80 US nuclear weapons deployed in Germany.

At about the same time, the Darmstädter Friedensforum, a small grassroots peace group, intensified contacts with a few IANUS members. The peace group took up the issue of Cassini (a space mission to planet Saturn which uses 32.8 kg of Plutonium-238 to power the satellite instruments and experiments;) discusssed during the IANUS symposium "The Ambivalence of Space Technology" in March 1997, (see INESAP Bulletin No. 12, March 1997). In addition to becoming co-organizers of the German Cassini protests, the Darmstadt activists took up again the issue which led to the foundation of most German peace groups in the 1980s: the madness of nuclear deterrence.

In December 1997, the Darmstaedter Friedensforum sent an open letter to the Mayor of Darmstadt, Peter Benz (he belongs to the Social Democratic Party, SPD.) The letter started with a short summary of the movie "The Peacemaker" which had its German premier just a few days before. The film is an action packed adventure story about nuclear terrorisms. In the movie, two US citizens chase stolen nuclear weapons (`loose nukes') to prevent their use. The letter to the Mayor pointed out that not only was the movie plot fiction, but the same could be said about Bill Clinton's recent Thanksgiving prayer where he thanked God that with the end of the Cold War children may grow up without the threat of nuclear war.

In reality, the letter continued, thousands of nuclear weapons were deployed by the five official nuclear weapons states, additional countries had the knowledge and technology to produce nuclear weapons, subcritical testing continued, and proliferation was a constant threat.

The letter informed the Mayor that the Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice on July 8, 1996, states "There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control". It also referred to the statement of 60 retired generals and admirals on nuclear weapons. It listed the five Nuclear Weapons Free Zones which have been officially established in the southern hemisphere. And the letter contained information about Abolition 2000, the Global Network for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons with (at that time) more than 850 supporting organizations.

Local expertise available

With respect to the local situation in Darmstadt, the group urged the Mayor to make use of the unique resources locally available: the scientists of IANUS, among them three reknown experts on nuclear abolition (Martin Kalinowski, Wolfgang Liebert, and Jürgen Scheffran.) Why should Darmstadt, which adopted the official title of "Wissenschaftsstadt" (city of science) just a few weeks before, was home to IANUS and the place where the INESAP Bulletin is published, ignore the work of the co-authors of the Draft Nuclear Weapons Convention? Why not rather give an example to other German municipalities by installing a local nuclear weapons free zone and by becoming the first German town to sign the municipality declaration of Abolition 2000?

A whole pack of attachments with additional information and original texts about nuclear weapons and steps to a nuclear weapons free world were enclosed to the open letter which was also sent to the IANUS scientists, to the local Green party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and to the local media.

In early February 1998, Martin Kalinowski and the Darmstaedter Friedensforum were invited to attend a meeting of the Green City Council members to provide background information about the plan to establish a nuclear weapons free zone. It became soon clear that they were willing to support the initiative and to submit an application on behalf of the City Council Meeting. They did, however, stress that they wanted to do so together with the SPD party members with whom they formed a coalition.

In mid February 1998, the Darmstädter Friedensforum contacted the leaders of all parties represented in the Darmstadt City Coundil. They received a comprehensive information pack and were asked to include the nuclear weapons free zone on the agenda of one of their next party meetings.

While the Free Democrats (FDP) did not bother to react, the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) send a short letter. He explained that "establishing nuclear weapons free zones or releasing appropriate support declarations, respectively, might be good public relations but an ineffective means to solve a globally relevant problem. In general, diplomats, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the German Parliament are the appropriate and competent contacts ^__ not local politicians in Darmstadt." The leader of the SPD called to let us know that nuclear weapons are currently not an issue of public discussion and are therefore not useful to lead a campagin (at that time, the parliamentary election campaign was started).

The Darmstaedter Friedensforum offered both, CDU and SPD, to send a representative to one of their party meetings and give more background information.

Going public

At the end of February 1998, the Darmstädter Friedensforum produced a radio show about their initiative. In December, shortly after receiving the group's letter, Peter Benz, the Mayor of Darmstadt, had agreed to discuss the issue with the head of the environmental department of the Town Government, Daniela Wagner (from the Green party) and with Martin Kalinowski and a member of the peace group. Due to conflicting schedules, the discussion was recorded and aired in full length two days later on Radio Darmstadt, a local, non-commercial, and non-professional radio station.

During the discussion, Martin Kalinowski and the Friedensforum gave detailed information about the current nuclear weapons status. The Mayor stressed the importance of solidarity (especially with Hiroshima and Nagasaki) without promising any activities. Daniela Wagner mentioned her political roots ^__ the peace movement ^__ and promised to support the initiative. She made it a point, however, that she expected the peace activists to bring the topic to the citizens, not just to the parlamentarian representatives. Declaring a municipalitiy nuclear weapons free should be combined with broad public discussions. (She was right, of course. However, getting the attention of media and citizens is really hard!) In parallel with the radio show, the Darmstaedter Friedensforum released a leaflet with the appeal on one side and information about the initiative for a nuclear weapons free Darmstadt on the other. The citizens were encouraged to contact the political parties and representatives and ask them to support the initiative. The leaflet was distributed in shops, culture centers, youth centers, church communities, etc.

At the end of April 1998, IANUS and the Darmstaedter Friedensforum organized a public panel discussion at the Darmstadt University of Technology. The panel was made up by the City Council representatives Michael Siebert (Greens) and Markus Hoschek (SPD), by Martin Kalinowski from IANUS and two Friedensforum members. (The CDU was invited but refused to participate.) Although less than 50 people attended the discussion (in a town of appr. 145,000), the evening brought two positive outcomes:

Markus Hoschek, who had been rather reluctant to get involved, prepared very carefully for the event. He read the information provided by us, worked through historical documents issued by his party, and searched the party archives to learn more about the historical attitude of his party with respect to weapons of mass destruction. In particular, he quoted the SPD election manifesto of December 1997 which confirms the party's intention to work towards a world free of weapons of mass destruction and focuses on nuclear weapons. Very openly, he admitted that while preparing for the panel discussion he had changed his mind ^__and was now vigorously advocating the attempt to declare Darmstadt a nuclear weapons free municipality.

The second outcome was local media covarage. In addition to Radio Darmstadt, the local newspaper as well as the supraregional daily Frankfurter Rundschau reported about the panel discussion and provided their readers with background information about nuclear weapons.

International reality knocks at the door

Two weeks later, on May 11, 1998, the initiative was invited to present their case at a meeting of SPD City Council members. At the beginning, the majority of the audience disapproved of the topic, many clearly showed their lack of interest. Several speakers stated they believed that nuclear weapons are currently not an issue for public debate in Germany. When, however, their party member Markus Hoschek told about his investigations and the resulting change of his mind, most of them listened carefully.

Then, completely unexpected, proliferation creeped into the assembly: Peter Benz, the Mayor of Darmstadt, entered the room. He told his party colleagues that so far he had not been really convinced about the usefulness of the initiatve. But he had just listened to the radio news and heard about three Indian nuclear test detonations. He was quite emotional and said that in the view of this event he would appreciate a clear sign from the Darmstadt City Council that total nuclear abolition was required. International reality had caught the local citizens' representatives unexpectedly...

At the end of this agenda topic, the majority agreed to take up consultations with the Green City Council members about a common resolution. As Darmstadt is governed by an SPD/Green majority, this was the major breakthrough.

During May and June, the Darmstädter Friedensforum continued to lobby for the nuclear weapons free zone. Occassionally, the group organized an information stand on a busy plaza at the center of the town. They wrote letters to the editor of daily papers and pointed out that nuclear proliferation like in India and Pakistan could only be checked by complete abolition. Martin Kalinowski was asked to assist the City Council coalition with the wording of the resolution. SPD and the Greens issued a joint motion to the City Council which was accepted with their majority on July 14, 1998.

• The motion requests the Town Government to declare Darmstadt a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, to indicate this clearly (whatever that means), and to demand that nuclear weapons are neither deployed on nor transported through municipal territory.
• The City Council declares their solidarity with similar efforts throughout the world. By declaring the town a "nuclear weapons free zone" they underline their will to become locally active towards complete abolition of all nuclear weapons. Accordingly, they sign the German translation of the Abolition 2000 Resolution for Municipalities. Thus they call "for all nuclear weapons to be taken off alert status, for all nuclear warheads to be separated from their delivery vehicles, and for the nuclear weapons states to agree to unconditional no first use of these weapons." They also call "upon the governments of all nuclear weapons states to begin negatiations immediately on a Nuclear Weapons Convention to prohibit and eliminate all nuclear weapons early in the next century, and to complete these negotiations by the year 2000".
• Darmstadt applies for membership in the "World Conference of Mayors for Peace Through Inter-City Solidarity". The purpose of that organization, which is presided by the Mayor of Hiroshima, is "the promotion of peace with a focus on nuclear disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons."

Darmstadt is nuclear weapons free: and what next?

Media coverage of the City Council resolution was negligable. Therefore, the Darmstaedter Friedensforum continued their publicity campaign. Another radio show on August 6 focused on the 53rd Hiroshima anniversary . Prior to this show and an information stand in town on August 8, the group launched a new attempt to attract media attention - this time with more success (it was made sure that media photographers got motives for their pictures) In parallel, other German and international peace groups where informed about the City Council resolution. Quite a few groups in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland responded by (re-)starting their own local initiatives.

Particularly the decision to become member of the Word Conference of Mayors for Peace holds a good potential to continue local grassroots activities. The program of this organizations requires each member city to "exert its efforts in introducing the idea to as many other cities as possible". The city is also asked to "hold gatherings and events devoted to the cause of disarmament and peace, and/or to the solution of such problems as starvation, poverty, the plight of refugees, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation", to "send a message regarding the total abolition of nuclear weapons and general and complete disarmament to the U.N. Secretary-General during the U.N. Disarmament Week", and to "hold photographic exhibitions which describe and depict to citizens around the world the actual nature of the devastations wreaked by the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

For the time being, the Environmental Department of the town administration took over responsibility to track the activities which result from the resolution. They do so in co-operation with the Darmstädter Friedensforum.

There is no doubt that the City Council, the Town Government, as well as the municipal administration might tend to neglect the duties into which they entered with this program in the course of time. However, local grassroots as well as scientifically working groups will have a good argument for requesting municipal support for activities along this line. In addition, official inquiries to the administration and the City Council might prove useful means to bring the topic of nuclear weapons, disarmament, justice, and sustainability into the public occassionally. (Darmstadt has just started a local Agenda 21 initiative.) Not to mention the outreach to 14 twin towns of Darmstadt throughout all of Europe ^__ from Turkey to the United Kingdom, from the Baltic states to Spain. It seems like there is a lot of work ahead for the Darmstaedter Friedensforum.

By the way: cooperation with IANUS was very helpful for us activists. We profited from the co-operation and we enjoyed it. Scientists' and other experts' support for grassroots activitities is invaluable, especially as media and politicians jump on official titles like "Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics." INESAP members should plan a little time every now and then for contacts with and support of grassroots activists. Where this is not possible, however, activists should not hesitate to rely on their own strength. You need not become nuclear phycisists or experts in political science to be persuasive ^__ the nuclear reality is clear enough!

Regina Hagen is a freelance technical translator and member of the German grassroots group Darmstaedter Friedensforum. Address: Regina Hagen, Teichhausstrasse 46, D-64287 Darmstadt; phone [49] (6151) 47114, fax 47105. regina.hagen@jugendstil.da.shuttle.de