Europe's Postwar Generations

Archive Report

Rising European Activism

Recent Peace Protests in European Cities

Europe's cycles of youth activism and pacifism have always tended to confuse Americans. In February 1933, one month after Adolf Hitler took power in Germany, students at Oxford University adopted a pledge not to fight “for King and Country.” But before World War I, when young people might have been expected to protest against the naval arms race and fratricidal colonial rivalries, Europe's youth was silent. Now, after more than a generation of peace secured by the Atlantic Alliance, hundreds of thousands of Western Europeans — mostly young people — have taken to the streets to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. Who are these people? And why, at a time when Americans are increasingly alarmed about Soviet military ...

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