Johannes Varwick Analyzes Peace Protests and German Rearmament Debate

On October 3, up to 35,000 people protested against rearmament, gathering at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Johannes Varwick, the author of the piece, also spoke at the event. The following day, Friedrich Merz pledged further Ukraine aid during a visit to Kyiv. The article draws a parallel to the 1980s, when as many as 500,000 people in West Germany demonstrated against nuclear armament. Those protests failed to stop the stationing of US intermediate-range missiles on West German soil, but they shaped public debate and contributed to a process that culminated in the 1987 INF Treaty and the reduction of intermediate-range missiles. The government of the time, led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl under the black-yellow coalition formed in October 1982, did not change course, and the 1983 federal election confirmed the coalition. At the same time, the Greens entered the Bundestag for the first time, a party that at the time clearly advocated disarmament and opposed the missiles. The article asks whether the current protests represent a Bonn Hofgarten moment and what can be learned from the demonstrations of the 1980s.