Helga Zepp-LaRouche Addresses East-West Peace Meeting in Berlin

Reflecting the growing anti-war movement in Germany, a conference was held in Berlin on March 27 under the banner: “Dialogue Instead of Weapons — Nonpartisan Action Against the War”, organized by the East German Advisory Board of Associations (OKV, founded in 1994). The initial impetus to hold the event came from two open letters issued on Jan. 31 by two generals (ret.) of the East German Army (NVA), Sebald Daum and Manfred Grätz, to protest against German weapons deliveries to Ukraine as dangerous and a scandalous historical amnesia, and condemning the campaign to hold Russia solely responsible for the war in Ukraine.

The purpose of the meeting was create a new peace movement across party affiliations and ideological difference. It is not enough to call for “peace”, the organizers stressed, we have to demand “peace with Russia”, which means “ending the U.S./NATO war in Ukraine and its potential expansion to the rest of Europe but also stopping the deindustrialization of Germany by the U.S.”

Among the speakers were: Chairman of the German Peace Council Gerhard Fuchs-Kittkowski, physics professor and peace activist Prof. Joachim Wernicke, Prof. Wilfried Schreiber (Welt Trends, economist and former NVA officer), and Wolfgang Effenberger (author and former West German military officer).

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo), opened the second part of the program. She called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and for negotiations, as proposed by China, Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Pope Francis. She laid out in some detail scenarios of U.S./NATO think tanks for dismantling Russia, which has been on the agenda of U.S. neo-cons since the fall of the Soviet Union, including support for terrorists in the Caucasus shortly after President Putin assumed the leadership of Russia. To avoid the immediate threat of nuclear confrontation, she said, all efforts must be focussed on fostering a new international peace movement, and cooperating with the Global South. She invited the participants to take into consideration in their deliberations the Schiller Institute’s Ten Principles.

The joint resolution adopted by a large majority of the participants states: “In the great danger in which our peoples currently find themselves, we no longer have time to argue about party political differences and different socio-political orientations. Instead, we must focus on what unites us!… The U.S. and NATO are standing with their military might on Russia’s borders, arming Taiwan against China and thus threatening the security of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.” It goes on to call for “an end to this course of war through a just peace that guarantees Russia’s security and a peaceful anti-fascist Ukraine without NATO”.