“What we are experiencing right now is the beginning of a civil movement!”, shouted Alice Schwarzer on the success of the “Uprising for Peace” rally on 25 February at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate.
A defining moment of the rally was when the peace anthem “Imagine” by John Lennon started playing. Tens of thousands sang along: “You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.”
The “Uprising for Peace” rally is the initiative of one Germany’s most well-known feminist and journalist,Alice Schwarzer, and Sarah Wagenknecht, Bundestag politician and co-founder of the Die Linke party. Together, they launched the petition “Manifesto for Peace” on 10 February, which includes a day of demonstration at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
The manifesto, which received more than 700,000 signatures, calls on the German government to “stop the escalation in arm deliveries” and to start negotiations to end the Ukraine war. The motto, according to Wagenknetcht on Twitter, is “negotiations instead of tanks”:
“Alice #Schwarzer and I wrote a “Manifesto for Peace”. For #negotiations instead of #tanks. Starting today, anyone can join: change.org We invite you to a rally at the Brandenburg Gate on February 25, 2 p.m. #uprisingforpeace”
In their manifesto, the two women warn:
“Today is the 352nd day of the war in Ukraine. Over 200,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians have been killed so far. Women were raped, children frightened, an entire people traumatized. If the fighting continues like this, Ukraine will soon be a depopulated, devastated country. And many people across Europe are also afraid of an escalation of the war. They fear for their and their children’s future.
Supported by the West, Ukraine can win individual battles. But it cannot win a war against the world’s largest nuclear power. That’s what the highest military in the United States, General Milley, says. He speaks of a stalemate in which neither side can win militarily and the war can only be ended at the negotiating table. Then why not now? Immediately! […]
Negotiating does not mean surrendering. Negotiating means making compromises on both sides. With the aim of preventing hundreds of thousands more deaths and worse. That’s what we think too, and that’s what half of the German population thinks. It’s time to listen to us! […]
We call on the Chancellor to stop the escalation in arms deliveries. Now! He should lead a strong alliance for a ceasefire and peace negotiations at both German and European level. Now! Because every lost day costs up to 1,000 more human lives – and brings us closer to a 3rd World War.”
Why People Came?
Police estimate at least 10,000 people attended the rally. The organizers say the numbers are much bigger, between 30,000 and 50,000 people. In any case, the numbers are significant: there is a clear and loud demand for peace. What was also interesting was the sheer variety of the people who attended the rally. Political colour did not seem to matter: people and politicians across the political spectrum came to ask for one thing: frieden (peace)! There were partisans from Die Linke, SPD, CDU/CSU, Die Grunen, FDP and the AfD.
Why did they all agree on that day? Because the peace manifesto struck a deep chord. It made demands and asked questions that people wanted to know but felt they couldn’t ask. What should Germany do about the war in Ukraine? On 25 February, one year after the war started, it was right and less politically delicate to ask the hard questions about the war. What is the fighting about? What will bring peace? Is Germany really helping Ukraine win by sending more weapons? There was a hunger to speak and to be heard.
Schwarzer stressed a peace deal had almost been concluded as early as April 2022:
“Negotiations would probably result in the compromises that both sides almost made on April 9, 2022. Nearly. But then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened on behalf of the “West” and certainly with the consent, if not on behalf of US President Biden. At the beginning of the war, the result would have been: A relative autonomy for eastern Ukraine (in which the majority are Russians), as already agreed in the Minsk Agreement in 2015, as well as the renunciation of Ukraine’s accession to NATO, in favor of political neutrality. Russia’s quid pro quo: the withdrawal of its troops from all occupied territories as of the day before the war broke out, February 23, 2022. And Crimea? Status quo for 15 years and then, if necessary, a referendum.”
So, for Schwarzer, the critical question is what the real objective of the war: to defeat Russia or to bleed it dry in a war of attrition that cannot be won but only prolonged.
“Is the goal the withdrawal of the Russians from the territories occupied since February 24, 2022? That is legitimate and would probably be achievable in negotiations with compromises acceptable to both sides. Or is the goal a victory over Russia? That would be neither legitimate nor realistic. You can’t defeat the world’s largest nuclear power. If you seriously try, it could mean the end of our world. We are now in a so-called “war of attrition”. In such a war, the enemy cannot be defeated, only weakened. But at what price?,” she asked in her rally speech.
“In Ukraine, the two world powers, Russia and America, are waging a proxy war – primarily at the expense of the Ukrainians. Hundreds of thousands die. Your country will be left devastated at the end of this war. And all of Europe is already shaken, not just economically,” she added.
Schwarzer warned about “the psychological poisoning of the social climate” and the vilification of opponents due to the increasing black and white thinking.
For her, ‘no one can win the war of attrition” in Ukraine:
“No one can win the “war of attrition” is now being predicted by military experts. And everyone knows that too. As early as November last year, America’s top military, General Milley, spoke of a “stalemate”. He has been calling for urgent negotiations ever since (…)”
“The President of tiny Ukraine and his patrons really believe that the world’s largest nuclear power can be defeated? Do they accept that the whole world is dragged into this war?,” she added.
Why did they all agree on that day? Because the peace manifesto struck a deep chord. It made demands and asked questions that people wanted to know but felt they couldn’t ask. What should Germany do about the war in Ukraine? On 25 February, one year after the war started, it was right and less politically delicate to ask the hard questions about the war. What is the fighting about? What will bring peace? Is Germany really helping Ukraine win by sending more weapons? There was a hunger to speak and to be heard.
Diplomacy, Not War
According to Schwarzer, only diplomacy can stop the war, and this is how Germany could help Ukraine:
“…nothing, in my opinion, helps Ukraine now to stop the dying in their country more than offering a ceasefire and entering into peace negotiations. This is exactly where we should help Ukraine with all our might! Especially the diplomats.”
Former Brigadier General Erich Vad, a longtime security adviser to ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, also spoke at the rally, drawing an analogy to the First World War:
“Back then, what military attrition means was practiced. Between 1914 and 1918, almost a million young French and Germans died, pointlessly and for nothing!”
Sarah Wagenknecht stressed the historical significance of Germany sending weapons to Ukraine:
“We don’t want German tanks to fire on great-grandchildren of Russian women & men. Have you forgotten German history?”
The rally marks a turning point in the public debate on how Germany should respond to the Ukraine war. For the first time since the war started, there is now a popular movement to carry the growing call for peace as Germany reckons with the price it is paying for a proxy war between the U.S and Russia.
For Wagenknecht, the “Uprising for Peace” has changed things:
“From now on, our voice is so loud that it can no longer be ignored!”, she shouted.
