Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2021

On September 29, 2021, Susan Crane, a Plowshares activist and member of the Catholic Worker community in Redwood City, California, went on trial in District Court in Cochem, Germany, charged with trespass and damage to the fence for go-in actions at the Büchel air base on July 15 and August 6, 2018. Crane’s trial was only the second time that a US resident has been brought to court, even though over two dozen US citizens joined nonviolent “go-in” actions during annual protests in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021. (Dennis DuVall formerly of Arizona was tried and convicted in 2019 but is now a German resident.)

Bench trials and appeals hearings are crowding the court calendar in the ongoing campaign of civil resistance against the 20 US nuclear weapons, known as B61 gravity bombs, stationed at base.

In her defense, Crane intended to present oral testimony and written documents, including a declaration by international law expert Anabel Dwyer of Michigan, and a written appeal to the base’s military personnel that was carried by the group on July 15, when 18 people gained entry to the base in broad daylight on a Sunday morning. In prepared testimony provided to Nukewatch, Crane intended to argue that “sharing” of the US thermonuclear B61 gravity bombs with Germany violates the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), among other international laws. We go to press before the trial, but judges in all similar cases in the “Büchel is Everywhere” campaign have ignored appeals to “crime prevention” defenses under international law and found the protesters guilty.

Nukewatch staffer John LaForge was convicted on the same two charges May 31, 2021, in the Cochem District court, and is now scheduled for a December 9 appeal hearing in the city of Koblenz, an appeal that Crane hopes to join as a co-defendant.

In the coming months, more than a dozen nuclear resisters from Germany, The Netherlands and the United States face trials in Cochem or appeal hearings in Koblenz, many on charges stemming from the 18-person July 2018 “go-in.” In one case, Margriet Bos of the Amsterdam Catholic Worker, who was convicted of trespass and property damage for joining the big go-in, has been informed that the fine imposed by the Cochem District Court has been transferred to the Dutch judiciary which will try and collect the $1,289 fine.

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021

Nukewatch co-director John LaForge was convicted of trespassing and damage to property May 31 in Cochem, Germany. The charges stemmed from two 2018 nuclear weapons protest actions directed against the US nuclear bombs deployed at the Büchel Air Force Base in the southwest state of Rhineland-Pfalz. The trial was only the second for a US citizen in a 25-year-long campaign against “nuclear sharing” between the United States and Germany at Büchel. Over 90 similar trials have resulted from recent protests at the base, but only residents of Germany or The Netherlands have been prosecuted.

Dennis DuVall, formerly of Prescott, Arizona became the first US citizen convicted of the same charges in May 2020, although the long-time member of Veterans for Peace now lives in Germany.

LaForge, 65, was given a penalty of 600 euros ($727) or 50 days of either community service or jail. The bench trial conducted by Cochem District Court Judge Alexander Fleckenstein took place in LaForge’s absence. LaForge will appeal the conviction.

In the protest on July 15, 2018, LaForge and 17 others entered the base through five openings cut in the base’s chain link perimeter fence in broad daylight on a Sunday morning. In a subsequent action August 6, the anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, LaForge and Susan Crane of the Redwood City, California Catholic Worker also entered the base unhindered, in daytime, and even climbed to the top of one of the bunkers reportedly holding some of the 20 US hydrogen bombs on base. Charges were not brought against Crane.

About his May 31st guilty verdict LaForge said, “The court refused to consider federal and international laws that forbid preparations for mass destruction. It is grimly ironic that my defense relies on the Nuremberg Charter and Principles which were created in Germany by the WW II allies, with US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson as chief prosecutor leading the charge. Nuremberg law declares that planning and preparing indiscriminate attacks is criminal before the fact. Our actions were taken to prevent the illegal preparations for massacres using US nuclear weapons that take place at the base.”

In the May 31 trial, Attorney Busl read John’s written testimony and introduced several supporting documents including formal declarations by international law expert Anabel Dwyer of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and by retired German judges Bernd Hahnfeld and Ulf Panzer. Judge Fleckenstein said international law was irrelevant to the charges and was better suited for consideration by higher courts.

After similar convictions in the campaign against the “sharing” of US nuclear weapons in Germany, gravity bombs known as B61s, appeals to higher courts have not been successful. Germany’s highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court has ruled that addressing the question of whether deployment is lawful “is not in the public interest.”

In view of the court system’s refusal to consider international treaty law as a defense to the protest charges, several resisters intend to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. The ECHR can hear cases of unfair trials under certain circumstances, and the resisters argue that refusing to consider their international law defense constitutes trial court unfairness or judicial bias.

Nukewatch, and the German group Nonviolent Action Abolish Nuclear Weapons (GAAA) coordinated three delegations of US peace activists — in 2017, 2018, and 2019 — to the annual peace encampments near the Büchel Air Base. The delegations participated in vigils, blockades, and “go-in” actions together with resisters from Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, France, and the UK.

Scores of similar actions have taken place at the base over the last 25 years, and over 90 court trials in Cochem have resulted from the long-running campaign which demands: 1) removal of the US H-bombs, 2) cancellation of their replacement with the new bomb, and 3) German ratification of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

 Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court issued a blunt rejection of an appeal from nuclear weapons resisters, on May 4, 2021, without presenting any explanation of its decision. The court did note that under federal law, “reasons need not be given for a decision refusing to accept a constitutional complaint.” 

Stefanie Augustin of Dortmund, Marion Küpker of Hamburg, and Margriet Boss of Amsterdam were convicted last year in Cochem District Court of property damage and trespass at the Büchel Air Force Base, charges that came after the 18-person go-in action of July 15, 2018. Stefanie and Marion appealed, first to the Regional Court in Koblenz which ruled against them, then to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, the Germany equivalent of the US Supreme Court.

The high court said that its judges unanimously agreed that “the constitutional complaint is not accepted for decision” and that there is “no longer any legal remedy at national level.” This finality means the two may now appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, on the grounds that German courts have all unfairly refused to consider the international humanitarian laws and other treaties that forbid any planning and preparations for unlawful, indiscriminate military attacks. The European Court strictly limits the number of appeals it agrees to hear using a stringent set of judicial requirements.