Von Pilgerfahrten zu Protestmärschen? : Zum Wandel des katholischen Friedensengagements in den USA und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945–1990

Abstract

Based on a comprehensive examination of peace activism of US-American and West-German Catholics during the Cold War, the article reflects about the general change of religion during the second half of the twentieth century. In this context, protest campaigns and protest sites serve as relevant indicators in order to analyse, if and to what extent Catholics took part in public and 'political' peace movements. We understand religion and politics as two fields which are not distinctly and structurally separated but whose boundaries are constantly redefined by discussing certain issues. The article sees these processes as a recoding and asks if there were forms of protest immediately after 1945 which can be considered as genuinely Catholic-religious. Subsequently it explores to what extent the conflict with the public peace movement of the Cold War and their forms of political protest caused a recoding of Catholic protest. The upshot is that although Catholic peace protest were politicised during the 1960s, this recoding of 'religious' protest campaigns was an incremental process. This conclusion can be differentiated by comparing the USA and Federal Republic of Germany and by identifying national particularities despite a common transnational framework.