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Pankow Happening Here

The Communist government of East Germany is having trouble with its own peace movement. While most Soviet satellite states have nominal “peace” organizations, they are under firm control, and totally responsive to the official party line. Now East German Protestant leaders have lashed out against their government for cracking down on unofficial peace demonstrators. A letter signed by Bishop Werner Krusche of Magdeburg—and read recently from pulpits in East Berlin and circulated throughout the country—said the state was taking excessive measures to repress peace demonstrators. Some of these young people have been wearing armbands which carry a design representing swords being beaten into plowshares; lately, the police have been tearing off these armbands. The Bishop’s letter quoted a state official as saying the armbands were an incitement to resist military service and could not be tolerated. “We fear that the actions of state bodies,” the letter went on, “are leading to difficult problems in the relationship of basically well-intentioned youth to the state, and for the inner peace of our society and the personal development of young people . . .” Publication of the letter came shortly after the death of Robert Havemann, East Germany’s best-known peace leader. Havemann, condemned to death by the Nazis, had been placed under house arrest several times for his opposition to the lack of freedom in East Germany.

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Pankow Happening Here

The Communist government of East Germany is having trouble with its own peace movement. While most Soviet satellite states have nominal “peace” organizations, they are under firm control, and totally responsive to the official party line. Now East German Protestant leaders have lashed out against their government for cracking down on unofficial peace demonstrators. A letter signed by Bishop Werner Krusche of Magdeburg—and read recently from pulpits in East Berlin and circulated throughout the country—said the state was taking excessive measures to repress peace demonstrators. Some of these young people have been wearing armbands which carry a design representing swords being beaten into plowshares; lately, the police have been tearing off these armbands. The Bishop’s letter quoted a state official as saying the armbands were an incitement to resist military service and could not be tolerated. “We fear that the actions of state bodies,” the letter went on, “are leading to difficult problems in the relationship of basically well-intentioned youth to the state, and for the inner peace of our society and the personal development of young people . . .” Publication of the letter came shortly after the death of Robert Havemann, East Germany’s best-known peace leader. Havemann, condemned to death by the Nazis, had been placed under house arrest several times for his opposition to the lack of freedom in East Germany.