The Nuclear Crisis: Political Protest, Popular Culture and Political Communication during the 1980s

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Philipp Gassert
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2013 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 245449631

This project looks at the political controversy about nuclear weapons and the 1979 NATO Double Track Decision in order to understand how political protest, established politics, and cultural change mutually reinforced and influenced each other. We intend to show how new forms of political communication gained a broader foothold in West Germany during the 1980s. This nuclear crisis therefore makes connections between politics, society, and culture visible. The project participants intend to analyze these connections by working with different methods and on the basis of a wide variety of source materials.The first subproject analyzes events in the small community of Mutlangen, whose military installations became the focus of the anti-nuclear resistance and a symbol of the West German peace movement. It looks at various forms of protest, blockades in front of the gate, court challenges and the media-oriented strategies. The second subproject looks at the impact of new forms of communication and protest cultures, by analyzing how the conservative political party spectrum (the CDU/CSU) reacted to and was in part influenced by the communication form of the peace movement of the 1980s.The overall project intends to overcome an established dichotomy in contemporary history, which has looked at both sides of the nuclear debate in separation. We intend to look at both the peace and protest movements as well as established actors. Moreover, the project highlights the importance of popular culture for the history of 1980s West German politics, thereby broadening our understanding of what we mean by the political. It also is part of an increasing historicization of the 1980s by mining hitherto unavailable archival source collections and placing the 1980s in the long-term perspective of postwar history.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants