66 FRANK BÖSCH AND JENS GIESEKE
and Chernobyl in 1986 drew more people into social movements. The
fears associated with these protests demonstrated that the general faith
in a better future was waning in both Germanys. Beginning in the 1970s,
moreover, many local groups and citizens’ initiatives formed in the West
that could be mobilized for major national protests thanks to their alter-
native press outlets and pamphlet circulations.
The oppositional protest movement in East and West Germany en-
joyed the most support when it came to calls for peace as opposed to all
other political issues. Accordingly, the peace movement functioned like
an umbrella organization for diff erent initiatives and strains of protest. It
brought Christians, Social Democrats, leftist-alternatives, and Commu-
nists together for joint actions. Likewise, it created bridges between East
and West, which is why some studies have highlighted its role in bringing
about the end of the Cold War.^82 Furthermore, the broad base of support
for the peace movement, with its millions of followers, demonstrated just
how many people hoped for an end to the East-West confrontation and
had committed themselves to the idea of “one world,” which was also re-
fl ected in the anti–nuclear power protests and development aid projects.
That said, however, the question of to what extent the GDR’s Stasi infl u-
enced or even steered the West German peace movement has sparked
intense discussions among scholars.^83 Without a doubt, the SED and the
Stasi supported the Komitee für Frieden, Abrüstung und Zusammenar-
beit (KOFAZ, Committee for Peace, Disarmament and Cooperation) and
parts of the peace movement, including the initiators of the Krefelder
Appell (Krefeld Appeal). Yet it is also quite clear that such a mass move-
ment in all its plurality could not be controlled by a secret intelligence
service, and certainly not one that would have then been agitating against
rearmament and in favor of pacifi sm on behalf of the SED. Rather, it had
in fact become quite apparent that the peace movement presented a true
challenge to the militarism of the SED.
Regardless of these fantasies about the manipulative power of Com-
munist fi fth columns, the peace movement nonetheless aptly functions as
a prism for exploring East-West entanglements. On the one hand, ques-
tions related to peace and the arms race hit a nerve among East Germans.
Memories of the horrors of World War II were alive and well in the minds
of the older generation while younger East Germans were skeptical about
hefty measures of social discipline such as the military draft, and they
were also on the lookout for an international political dialog. The SED
could thus reckon with a certain amount of recognition as long as it did
more than just invoke the idea of peace incessantly and actually worked
to deescalate tense situations. This interest in peace also harbored po-
tential for the opposition as it could expand its base of social support