Two More U.S. Peace Activists Win Jail Time in Germany

By Jack Cohen-Joppa

Two American nuclear abolitionists will soon serve time in German prisons for their nonviolent actions opposing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiled at Germany’s Büchel air base.

Susan Crane, age 80, was sentenced in September, 2022 for a series of fence-cutting actions and occupations of the Büchel base beginning in 2018, and ordered to pay a fine equivalent to 229 days in prison. Crane, a Catholic Worker in Redwood City, California, refused to pay, and was notified by the court to report to prison in Germany on June 4.

After sentencing, Crane said, “When I look at Büchel air base, I see nothing but the organization of death … At the same time, I see the suffering of people around the world who lack basic needs that could be met if our economies weren’t based on war-making. … [I]f we are to continue life on this planet, we need to disarm.”

Meanwhile, Dennis DuVall, who already served a 60-day sentence in the spring of 2023 for protests at Büchel, was back in a German court on January 22, coincidentally also the third anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The 82-year-old Vietnam War veteran, now living in Germany, was charged for the “Atom Bomb Crime Scene” graffiti he’d painted in hot pink across the base’s entrance road last summer.

Despite DuVall’s clear and calm defense that he acted to expose criminal preparations for mass murder, he was sentenced to a fine equal to 90 days in prison. Like Crane, he told the court he will not pay, and expects to eventually be sent back to prison.

Supporter Frits ter Kuile wrote, “It was a sad display. An elder man warning with great clarity for the End of Time in his own end time and those blind figures in their black gowns standing on the wrong side of history for the umpteenth time.”