Center for Nonviolent Solutions

23 hours ago

On this date in 1936, Carl von Ossietzky, the well-known German journalist and pacifist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize retroactively for the year 1935. Ossietzky had been born in 1889 in Hamburg, and was a radical pacifist with excellent writing skills. He was — together with Kurt Tucholsky — co-founder of the Friedensbundes der Kriegsteilnehmer (peace alliance of the participants of war), the Nie Wieder Krieg (No More War) movement, and chief editor of the weekly Die Weltbühne (The world stage). After revealing then forbidden army training of the Reichswehr, Ossietzky was indicted in early 1931 for treason and espionage. Even when many tried to convince him to flee, he refused, stating that he would go to jail and would be a most annoying living demonstration against a politically motivated sentence. On the 28th of February 1933 Ossietzky was arrested again, this time by the Nazis. He was sent to a concentration camp where he was brutally mistreated. Suffering progressed tuberculosis, he was released in 1936 but was not allowed to travel to Oslo to accept his prize. Time Magazine wrote: “If ever a man worked, fought and suffered for peace, it is the sickly little German, Carl von Ossietzky. For nearly a year the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has been swamped with petitions from all shades of Socialists, Liberals and literary folk generally, nominating Carl von Ossietzky for the 1935 Peace Prize. Their slogan: ‘Send the Peace Prize into the Concentration Camp.'” Ossietzky died on May 4th, 1936 in the Westend hospital in Berlin-Charlottenburg. ... See MoreSee Less

Center for Nonviolent Solutions

4 days ago

soundcloud.com/world-beyond-war/peace-almanac-november-20

On this day in 1815 the Peace Treaty of Paris ended the Napoleonic Wars. The work for this treaty began five months after Napoleon I’s first abdication and Napoleon Bonaparte’s second abdication in 1814. In February, 1815, Napoleon escaped from his exile on the island of Elba. He entered Paris on March 20th and began the Hundred Days of his restored rule. Four days after his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was persuaded to abdicate again, on June 22nd. King Louis XVIII, who had fled the country when Napoleon arrived in Paris, took the throne for a second time on July 8. The peace settlement was the most comprehensive one that Europe had ever seen. It had more punitive terms than the treaty of the previous year which had been negotiated by Maurice de Talleyrand. France was ordered to pay 700 million francs in indemnities. France’s borders were reduced to their 1790 status. In addition, France was to pay money to cover the cost of providing defensive fortifications to be built by the neighboring seven Coalition countries. Under the terms of the peace treaty, parts of France were to be occupied by up to 150,000 soldiers for five years, with France covering the cost; however, the Coalition occupation was only deemed necessary for three years. In addition to the definitive peace treaty between France and Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, there were four additional conventions and the act confirming the neutrality of Switzerland signed on the same day. ... See MoreSee Less