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Thinking Globally, Acting (Trans-)Locally: Petra Kelly and the Transnational Roots of West German Green Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2010

Stephen Milder
Stephen Milder
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Extract

Thousands of demonstrators crowded Trafalgar Square on a chilly April afternoon in 1978 to protest the planned expansion of nuclear fuel reprocessing operations at the Windscale Reactor in rural Cumbria. Toward the end of the rally, a young woman faced the mass of protestors from behind the podium. “I am here to bring you greetings of solidarity from the various European, Australian, and Japanese anti-nuclear movements,” she announced. She explained that the movements whose greetings she brought to London represented “a great wave of transnational determination to put a stop to Windscale, to put a stop to a nuclearized, militarized Europe.” Within the next few moments, she described the contours of this “transnational wave.” She took her audience from Aboriginal territory in Australia, where Green Ban strikes interfered with uranium mining, to the nonviolent demonstrations against reactor construction in German villages, and back to Windscale, where protesters demanded a stop to nuclear fuel reprocessing. In the few minutes she stood at the podium, Petra Kelly narrated an around-the-world journey that had taken her most of the previous two decades to complete.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 2010 , pp. 301 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2010

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References

1 Petra Kelly, “Anti-Windscale Demonstration” (speech, Trafalgar Square, London, April 29, 1978), 1–2. PKA Akte 538,5.

2 Beckmann, Lukas, “‘Beginne dort, wo Du bist.’ Das Leben der Petra K. Kelly,” in Petra Kelly. Eine Erinnerung, ed. Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, (Berlin: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, 2007), 7Google Scholar.

3 Rucht, Dieter, Von Wyhl nach Gorleben (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1980), 195–6Google Scholar.

4 Bevan, Ruth, “Petra Kelly: The Other Green,” New Political Science 23 (2001): 182CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ibid., 181.

6 See, for example, Tokar, Brian, The Green Alternative (San Pedro, CA: R. and E. Miles, 1987)Google Scholar; Mayer, Margit and Ely, John, eds., The German Greens: Paradox between Movement and Party (Philadelphia: Temple, 1998)Google Scholar; and Raschke, Joachim, Die Grünen: Wie sie wurden, was sie sind (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1993)Google Scholar.

7 Rucht, Dieter and Roose, Jochen, “Von der Platzbesetzung zum Verhandlungstisch? Zum Wandel von Aktionen und Struktur der Ökologiebewegung,” in Protest in der Bundesrepublik. Strukturen und Entwicklungen, ed. Rucht, Dieter (Frankfurt: Campus, 2001), 201Google Scholar.

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10 Keith Alexander's doctoral dissertation describes this process of leftist reconvergence into the Green movement in West Berlin, focusing on the relationship of the Maoist KPD-Rote Fahne to West Berlin's Alternative Liste. Keith D. Alexander, “From Red to Green in the Island City: The Alternative Liste West Berlin and the evolution of the West German Left, 1945–1990” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 2003).

11 Davis, Belinda, “What's Left? Popular Political Participation in Postwar Europe,” American Historical Review 113, no. 2 (April 2008): 384CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 According to Davis, “Postwar popular politics was not only protest … nor was it necessarily public in a conventional sense.” For a more complete explanation of what Davis means by “popular politics,” see ibid., 369–70.

13 Ibid., 376.

14 Rodgers, Daniel T., Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), 362Google Scholar.

15 Two published biographies describe Kelly's early life in detail. Sperr, Monika's Petra Karin Kelly. Politikerin aus Betroffenheit (Munich: Bertelsmann, 1983)Google Scholar; and Parkin, Sara's The Life and Death of Petra Kelly (London: Pandora, 1994)Google Scholar. Though I have used some information from these works here (particularly where basic biographical data is concerned), several important aspects of the biographies appear to be contradicted by primary source material available at the Petra-Kelly-Archiv in Berlin. Thus, I have tried to use other sources wherever possible.

16 Young Petra Lehmann took John Edward Kelly's last name when he became her stepfather, but she refused to be formally adopted by him, a decision that would later prevent her from easily attaining American citizenship. Sperr and Parkin both refer to John Edward Kelly as “Lieutenant Colonel Kelly,” but it seems far more likely that this was Kelly's rank upon his retirement from the Army Corps of Engineers in 1970, since the rank of Lieutenant Colonel is usually attained after seventeen to twenty-two years of service as an officer. Sperr, Petra Karin Kelly, 49. Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 27.

17 Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 38.

18 See, for example, Eley, Geoff, Forging Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 353–357Google Scholar.

19 Petra Kelly, “In Defense of My Generation” (1966). Reprinted in Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 38–9.

20 Petra Kelly, “To A.U.'s Revolutionaries …” (poem, Brussels, n.d. [May 1972?]). PKA 530,23.

21 Edward Short, education secretary in the British Labour government in 1968, cited in Eley, Forging Democracy, 354–5.

22 Senator Kennedy invited Kelly to “come to his office and discuss the matter” after she wrote him concerning problems she was having with a scholarship she had been awarded at AU. Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 45.

23 Kelly had been corresponding with Humphrey since she invited him to attend AU's “International Week” in June 1967. Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 40.

24 Ibid., 47.

25 “HHH Phones Girl in Dorm; Students Join VP on TV,” The Eagle, October 22, 1968.

26 Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 46.

27 Kelly, “To A.U.'s Revolutionaries …”

28 Petra Kelly, Untitled (Seminar Paper, American University, Spring Semester 1970), 10–12. PKA Akte 530,1.

29 Wolfrum, Edgar, Die Geglückte Demokratie. Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland von ihren Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2006), 267–8Google Scholar.

30 Gillingham, John, European Integration, 1950–2003: Superstate or New Market Economy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Petra Kelly to Vorwärts, January 29, 1973. PKA Akte 531,3.

32 Though Kelly was also accepted at the University of Bruges and offered a scholarship to participate in a program run through Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, she chose Amsterdam because it was the only option that offered a scholarship and that she considered to be reasonably close to her relatives in Franconia. Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 59.

33 Kelly's dissertation was supervised by Professor Carl J. Friedrich at the University of Heidelberg. She never completed the project. Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 62, 68–9.

34 Petra Kelly, “Demokratisierung der Institution der Europäischen Gemeinschaften,” n.d. [1972?], 2. PKA Akte 530,35.

35 Petra Kelly to Jo Leinen and Gisela [?], September 25, 1974. PKA Akte 2249.

36 Though Mansholt was sixty-three and Kelly only twenty-four when the pair met, Parkin claims that “From the moment he met her, Mansholt was obviously enchanted by Petra, and she seemed just as delighted with him: ‘I shall trail along as I think as I have discovered one of the most sensitive and gentle yet radically revolutionary men in Sicco Mansholt!’” Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 74–5.

37 Ibid., 72.

38 Sperr, Petra Karin Kelly, 94.

39 Mansholt asked Kelly to meet him at the airport in New York while she was visiting her parents in Washington. During the weekend they spent together in the United States, “He declared his passion, and his desire that they should live together.” Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 77–8.

40 von Merriënboer, Johan, Mansholt. Een biografie (Amsterdam: Boom, 2006), 9Google Scholar.

41 Gillingham, European Integration, 1950–2003, 123.

42 Petra Kelly, “Mister New Europe,” Vista, April 1973, 19. PKA Akte 531,14.

43 Petra Kelly, “Europe … it is a little mainland off the south-east coast of Northern Ireland” (Speech at the University of Coleraine, Northern Ireland, May 7, 1975), 7. PKA Akte 533,4.

44 Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart's value-change thesis is described in his pathbreaking 1971 article “The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies,” The American Political Science Review 65, no. 4 (1971): 991–1017 and laid out more fully in his classic 1977 work The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977).

45 Brand, Karl-Werner, “Kontinuität und Diskontinuität in den neuen sozialen Bewegungen,” in Neue soziale Bewegungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, ed. Roth, Roland and Rucht, Dieter (Frankfurt: Campus, 1987), 30Google Scholar.

46 Rucht, Von Wyhl nach Gorleben, 30.

47 Joppke, Christian, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), 93Google Scholar.

48 Rucht, Von Wyhl nach Gorleben, 27.

49 Meadows, Donella H. et al. , The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972), 17Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., 23.

51 Kelly, “Mister New Europe,” 19.

52 Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 26–27. See also Rucht, Von Wyhl nach Gorleben, 79.

53 Kelly attended the meeting shortly after her sister Grace died of cancer at the age of ten. Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 79.

54 Petra Kelly to Hans-Helmuth Wüstenhagen, February 2, 1975, PKA Akte 2262.

55 Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 38.

56 Kelly often used this description of fast-breeder reactors, which she borrowed from Dr. Alvin Weinberg of the U.S. Federal Energy Office. Petra Kelly, “The Faustian Pact with Breeder Reactors!” (Speech, Brussels, November 22, 1974), 1. PKA Akte 532,16.

57 Petra Kelly, “An Open Letter to All within the European Communities” (Brussels, March 23, 1975), 5. PKA Akte 531,10.

58 Ibid., 2.

59 Ibid., 3.

60 Buchholtz, Hanz-Christian et al. , Widerstand gegen Atomkraftwerke. Informationen für Atomkraftwerkgegner und solche, die es werden wollen (Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag, 1978), 8Google Scholar.

61 Kelly, “The Faustian Pact,” 4.

62 The important role played by economic issues in motivating grassroots anti-nuclear protest has been discussed extensively in recent analyses of the West German anti-nuclear movement. See, for example, Engels, Jens Ivo, Naturpolitik in der Bundesrepublik. Ideenswelt und politische Verhaltensstile in Naturschutz und Umweltbewegung, 1950–1980 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006), 348Google Scholar.

63 Gladitz, Nina, Lieber heute aktiv als morgen radioaktiv. Wyhl: Bauern erzählen. Warum Kernkraftwerke schädlich sind. Wie man eine Bürgerinitiative macht. Und wie man sich dabei verändert (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1976), 15Google Scholar.

64 In fact, Franz Kirchheimer, President of Baden-Württemberg's geological office, found the resistance at Wyhl to be quite predictable. In March 1975 Kirchheimer wrote to Rudolf Eberle, the state's minister for economics and a member of the board of the utilities company planning to build the Wyhl plant, explaining how he had helped planners overcome similar local resistance to the Karlsruhe nuclear research center in the 1950s. Franz Kirchheimer to Rudolf Eberle, March 25, 1975. Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Staatsarchiv Freiburg, Bestand F 230/1, Nr. 309.

65 Chaney, Sandra, Nature of the Miracle Years: Conservation in West Germany, 1945–1975 (New York: Berghahn, 2008), 90Google Scholar.

66 Leinen, Jo, “Von der Apfelsinenkiste auf den Ministersessel,” in Im Streit für die Umwelt. Jo Leinen, Basis-Aktivist und Minister: Bilanz und Ausblick, ed. Sattler, Karl-Otto (Kirkel: Edition Apoll, 1995), 47Google Scholar.

67 Petra Kelly to Jo Leinen, November 7, 1974. PKA Akte 2249.

68 Though accounts that describe this veritable horde of protesters as coming from France and Switzerland as well as the Federal Republic seem to suggest that the protesters at Wyhl came from all across the European continent, Wyhl's location in Germany's southwestern corner meant that the French and Swiss activists actually came from villages within several kilometers of Wyhl. Though the demonstration included activists from somewhat farther away, particularly from the city of Freiburg, this was by and large a protest of people from the immediate region. See Sternstein, Wolfgang, Überall ist Wyhl. Aus der Arbeit eines Aktionsforschers (Frankfurt: Haag+Herchen, 1978)Google Scholar.

69 Kelly's “Wyhl Presseberichte” file is stored at the Petra-Kelly-Archiv as PKA Akte 3167.

70 The comment was made by Mayor Pierre Pflimlin, who had also served briefly as Prime Minister of France (May 13-June 1, 1958). John Vincourt, “Two Rhine Villages Succeed in Halting Industrial Invasion,” International Herald-Tribune, March 5, 1975. PKA Akte 3167.

71 “Wyhl—Die Anfänge” (Freiburg: Archiv Soziale Bewegungen). An excellent collection of press reports and clippings on the feared shortage of cooling water can be found at the Baden-Württemberg Hauptstaats Archiv in Stuttgart: “Kraftwerksprojekte 1966–73.” Bestand EA 1/107.

72 Engels, Naturpolitik in der Bundesrepublik, 351–352.

73 The occupation of a lead factory construction site in Marckolsheim, France, from August 1974 until February 1975 was seen by at least one Alsatian as a rehearsal for everything that took place at Wyhl. Mayer, Frederic, “Ein Elsässer fühlt sich wie im Dritten Reich,” in Wyhl. Kein Kernkraftwerk in Wyhl und auch sonst nirgends, ed. Nössler, and de Witt, (Freiburg: inform-Verlag, 1976), 91Google Scholar.

74 Activists described the name “Dreyeckland” as a play on the German term “Dreiländereck” used to denote a point where the borders of three countries meet. See “Umweltbewegung in Dreyeckland” (n.d [1977?]). PKA Akte 3166.

75 Kelly's copy of the Speakers' List for the Easter Monday Rally includes her name, written in by hand, as the penultimate speaker of the afternoon. “Rednerliste” (Wyhl, March 31, 1975). PKA Akte 3166. Biographer Sara Parkin claims that Kelly attended the rally as a substitute for Sicco Mansholt, though his name does not appear on the speakers' list in Kelly's files. Parkin, The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, 80.

76 Lutz Anders from the group Gewaltfreie Aktion Kaiseraugst/Schweiz told the crowd about the occupation in Swiss Kaiseraugst. See Nössler and de Witt, eds., Wyhl, 123. See also “Rednerliste,” PKA Akte 3166.

77 Petra Kelly, Untitled (speech, Wyhl, March 31, 1975). PKA Akte 3166.

78 Nössler and de Witt, eds., Wyhl, 123.

79 Leinen, “Von der Apfelsinenkiste auf den Ministersessel,” 48.

80 Petra Kelly, “WAS TUN ??? Einige Aktionsmöglichkeiten für die Westeuropäischen Sozialisten!” (Letter, November 1975), 1. PKA Akte 534,2. Emphasis in original.

81 Kelly, “An Open letter to All within the European Communities,” 1. Emphasis in original.

82 Ibid., 2.

83 Raschke, Die Grünen, 895. Anna Hallensleben notes that beyond bankrolling later campaigns, the reimbursements earned by SPV Die Grünen also allowed the party's activists “more freedom to be active.” See Hallensleben, Anna, Von der grünen Liste zur grünen Partei? Die Entwicklung der Grünen Liste Umweltschutz von ihrer Entstehung in Niedersachsen 1977 bis zur Gründung der Partei die Grünen 1980 (Göttingen: Muster-Schmidt, 1984), 182Google Scholar.

84 Kelly, Petra and Vogt, Roland, “Ökologie und Frieden. Der Kampf gegen Atomkraftwerke aus der Sicht von Hiroshima,” Forum Europa (January/February 1977): 18. PKA Akte 534,4Google Scholar.

85 Kelly, Petra, “Kalkar-Ansprache der Frau Petra Kelly,” Die Unabhängigen, October 4, 1975Google Scholar. PKA Akte 533,7.

86 Though the rally was in opposition to the reactor under construction at Brokdorf, rural activists met at Itzehoe (twenty kilometers from the site) because the government had asked them not to protest in Brokdorf after a court order had temporarily halted construction there. Urban activists staged a parallel protest in Brokdorf despite the government's request. Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 104–5.

87 Petra Kelly and John Lambert to Hans-Helmuth Wüstenhagen and Freimut Duve, February 23, 1977. PKA Akte 2879.

88 Kelly and Vogt, “Ökologie und Frieden,” 18. PKA Akte 534,4.

89 Ibid.

90 Petra Kelly to August and Renate Haußleiter, March 3, 1979. PKA Akte 2301. Emphasis in original.

91 Hallensleben, Von der grünen Liste zur grünen Partei?, 178.

92 Petra Kelly, “My dear Friends and Comrades” (Letter, Brussels, March 24, 1979). PKA Akte 540,6. Emphasis in original.

93 Petra Kelly to Mary [?], March 25, 1979. PKA Akte 2301.

94 Becker-Schaum, Christoph, “The Origins of the German Greens,” in Green Parties: Reflections on the first three Decades, ed. Zelko, Frank and Brinkmann, Carolin (Washington, D.C.: Heinrich Böll Foundation North America, 2006), 30Google Scholar.

95 Petra Kelly to August and Renate Haußleiter, March 3, 1979. PKA Akte 2301. Emphasis in original.

96 Simone Veil to Petra Kelly and Roland Vogt, January 18, 1980. PKA Akte 2301.

97 Eley, Forging Democracy, 11.

98 Kelly, “My dear Friends and Comrades.” Emphasis in original.

99 Many potential Green voters chose not to support Die Grünen in 1980 because the party's pledge to remain in “basic opposition” if elected to the Bundestag meant that voting Green would not help to block the Christian Socialist Union's (CSU's) Franz-Josef Strauss from gaining the parliamentary majority necessary to become chancellor.

100 Beckmann, “Beginne dort, wo Du bist,” 8.