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Economics Minister Robert Habeck at an election campaign event for the Greens in April
Photo: IMAGO/Petra Nowack / IMAGO/penofoto
At first glance, demonstrating for peace might seem like a consensus.
However, a heated debate broke out this year about the so-called Easter marches of the peace movement.
The background is the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
The motto "make peace without weapons" is inappropriate in view of the situation, according to the criticism.
Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) called on those involved in the demonstrations to send a clear message to Russia.
Habeck told the Funke media group that pacifism is "a distant dream" at the moment.
War crimes are "obviously part" of Russian warfare.
For him, therefore, »watching is the greater guilt«.
It is "clear who is attacking in this war and who is defending themselves in dire need and who we have to support - also with weapons".
Easter marches in criticism
The Easter marches for peace have a long tradition in Germany.
The marches are organized by the Peace Cooperative Network.
This spoke on Saturday of a "successful start" of the Easter marches.
"In many cities such as Berlin, Bremen, Göttingen, Leipzig, Munich, Münster, Rostock, Stuttgart or Wiesbaden, people are taking to the streets to campaign for peace and disarmament," it said in a statement.
The Peace Cooperative Network condemns "Russia's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law."
However, in some of the calls, some of which differ significantly from one another, "permanent rearmament" in the West and "political failure" there are made jointly responsible for the military escalation.
Therefore, it must now be a matter of "breaking the spiral of escalation," it said.
The FDP politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff spoke out against the Easter marches in Die Zeit last week.
Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine has shown that the slogans of the Easter March movement are "removed from reality and dangerous," according to the deputy head of the FDP parliamentary group.
Lambsdorff accused the participants of relativizing the Russian actions and the associated war crimes and described them as Vladimir Putin's "fifth column".
The journalist Marina Weisband, who grew up in the Ukraine, was also critical of the Easter marches in the “Tagesthemen” on Friday.
The problem with the radical pacifists is that they put peace at the beginning and not at the end.
"We cannot avoid living in a world in which there are also weapons, in which there are also aggressors," says Weisband.
It must be made as expensive as possible for these aggressors to attack someone – “and that only works with weapons”.
Encouragement for pacifists
The former EKD Council President Margot Käßmann, on the other hand, defended the Easter marches.
It is not fair to accuse people who have been working for peace for decades of being on the side of Russia, Käßmann said on Saturday on NDR.
She warned of an escalation of the war, also through Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
A representative of the peace cooperative network dismissed the criticism by FDP politician Lambsdorff as "polemical".
In his opinion, the marches should emphasize that "one can only get ahead with talks".
Rallies are planned in numerous German cities until Monday.
fla/afp/dpa