The natives here have great awe and respect for our entire Nordic nation. If this had not been the case, they could have easily become our masters. They regard us as the strongest and heartiest people as well as the best and most fortunate warriors, although together with this fear, they also despise us and hold themselves to be better. The English know very well how to keep their respect, although there is no slavery in their settlements here, while it does exist among the Dutch, the French, and the Portuguese. In the establishments of the English, on the other hand, more money circulates, there is more polity, the troops and servants are much better paid, and in this way the English gain much more respect and sympathy.1

In the early morning of May 26, 1935, some residents of the eastern German city of Brandenburg an der Havel awoke to shouts of “We Want Our Kaiser Back” and “We Want Back the Black-White-Red” emanating from the dormitory of the storied and elite Prussian secondary school, the Ritterakademie am Dom zu Brandenburg. A small number of students had thrown an illegal party during which, emboldened by alcohol, at least one student had called for the restoration of the monarchical order, to the audible delight of others present. Informed of the night's events on the following Monday, school authorities quickly investigated the matter and decided that the episode represented neither a genuine act of political subversion nor a reflection of possible “reactionary” attitudes held by the students. The utterances were instead an act of foolishness (Dummheit) committed by immature pupils, the consequence of the more serious and perennial problem of students' drinking parties, concluded the Ritterakademie administration. In response, school principal Georg Neuendorf punished several older pupils by removing them from their position atop the student hierarchy and revoking several privileges. He also wrote to all parents of students boarding at the Ritterakademie, asking them no longer to send their sons money, food, and alcohol. Satisfied with his response, the principal ended his report on the incident to his superiors in Berlin, the Oberpräsidium of Brandenburg Province, by noting optimistically that the episode would be of pedagogical use in the continued “Nazification” of the school. In what must have seemed to those involved to signal the end of the affair, regional authorities approved of Neuendorf's actions three days later, concluding that the drunken utterances were a “foolish youth's prank” (dumm[es] junge Streich).

In the aftermath of World War II, Christian leaders in Germany embraced the political ideology of Christian Democracy. Viewing Nazism as a form of materialism and atheism, which they blamed on the ongoing secularization and moral decay of German society, both Protestant and Catholic leaders argued that only the society-wide renewal of Christian faith and Christian values could provide a solid foundation for the future. Enjoying a privileged position in the eyes of the western Allies (particularly the Americans), the churches took on a leading role in the reconstruction of German society. And, working to overcome the postwar disillusionment of many of their members, church leaders urged their followers to take active, personal responsibility for political life in the new German states.

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.