Rifts Among the Pacifists

By Patricia Blake

The Communists emerge as a force in the anti-Reagan protests

The bomb blasts came in calculated sequence, each explosion hitting at symbols of the American presence in West Germany. The first four exploded at U.S. Army bases near Frankfurt. Two others damaged the Duesseldorf offices of U.S. computer firms, IBM and Control Data Corp. Then came a blast at the German-American Institute in Tuebingen. In a letter to the West German press, the Revolutionary Cells, a leftist terrorist group, announced that the explosions were a mere foretaste of what President Ronald Reagan can expect when he arrives in West Germany this week. Said the letter: "This is the start of a noisy, eventful and unforgettable reception."

For months a number of West German groups have been preparing to greet Reagan with loud and visible protests. The main event, which is not believed to be linked in any way with last week's bombings, will occur this Thursday. Some 150,000 people are expected to descend on Bonn to protest against "America's warmongering course" and, more specifically, against NATO's plans to install a new generation of nuclear missiles in Western Europe at the end of 1983. A similar though smaller demonstration will coincide with Reagan's visit to West Berlin the next day.

Outwardly, the demonstrations will look much like the gigantic antinuclear march that drew 250,000 protesters to the West German capital last October, carrying such signs as REAGAN: YOUR BOMB WILL NOT BE OUR TOMB. But there will be differences. While some of the earlier protesters had condemned the 300 Soviet SS-20 missiles targeted on Western Europe, the organizers of Thursday's rally have tried to block all mention of Moscow's arms buildup. As a result, what emerged last year as a groundswell of popular feeling opposed to nuclear weapons is now being exploited by West German Communists to bolster an aggressive Soviet campaign to generate Western European opposition to NATO's defense strategy.

Although it was no secret that Communists were involved in the peace movement from its inception, the issue came to the fore at a meeting held in Bad Godesberg in April to plan the June rally. Repeatedly, leaders of Protestant and environmentalist groups that led the antinuclear protest last year were shouted down. A proposal to mention Soviet missiles at this week's rally was loudly booed, then voted down. A motion calling for a "nonviolent" demonstration against Reagan was rejected. Later, Ernst Hoplitscheck, a spokesman for the Greens, West Germany's ecology party, charged that "of the 800 people present, two-thirds came from the Communist Party or from its suborganizations."

Although West Germany's Communist Party has only 40,000 members, many of its members are professional organizers. Says the West German Interior Ministry's Wilhelm Bracht: "Pacifists in the movement are idealistically committed to the cause, but their families and jobs set limits to their mobility. Many Communists have the time to do nothing but demonstrate. They also have the money." Much of the funding for peace comes from East Germany as part of Moscow's overall peace offensive in Western Europe. West German pacifists are invited to Moscow on all-expenses-paid trips to attend peace meetings.

Two of Western Europe's most peace organizations will take no part Thursday's demonstration. One is Action for Reconciliation, a group with strong ties to the Lutheran Church. Said Spokesman Wolfgang Brinkel: "We cannot on one hand do nothing during [Soviet President Leonid] Brezhnev's visit [last November] and then suddenly stage a demonstration during Reagan's visit." The Dutch-based Inter-Church Peace Council, a highly effective grass-roots organization that has served as a model for peace groups throughout the Continent, also will not take part in the rally. Said Spokesman Mient-Jan Faber: "We do find the demonstration meaningful."

Erhard Eppler, a member of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's Social Democratic Party who gave a major speech at the October demonstration, is also refusing to attend this week's rally, explaining that he "did not intend to participate in a purely anti-Reagan demonstration." Another speaker at the earlier event, Nobel Prize-winning West German Novelist Heninrich Boell, will not be present on Thursday. In recent interview Boell said: "Inasmuch as the Communists are controlled from Moscow, their orders are to destroy what is meaningful in these movements by taking part in them and indeed by forcing their way into them."

Another group that will not be represented is the growing peace that has already held several unauthorized protests in East Germany. Like some of the middleclass, middle-of-the-road West Germans who participated in October's rally, many of East Germany's unofficial peace protesters blame both the U.S. and the Soviet Union for fueling the arms race.

--By Patricia Blake.

Reported by D.L. Coutu/Bonn

With reporting by D.L. Coutu

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