Hans Limmer, political scientist, retired program director at Munich Adult Education Center
Munich February 7th, 2024
Instead of a greeting,
the mayor of the state capital Munich informed the peace conference that it is no longer considered worthy of support, with immediate effect and also in the future.
…
Is this an attempt to stifle civic initiatives that do not fit into the mainstream? Isn’t our city already sufficiently dominated socially and economically by big money from corporations and speculators, by property owners and their financial and cultural interests? Munich has become the capital of new media, attracting only high earners and the wealthy. The working population can hardly afford to live in Munich anymore and is increasingly being pushed out of the city into dreary, cheaper, suburban districts.
Read the full text HERE
Munich February 7th, 2024
Letter to the Mayor of the City of Munich, Mr. Dieter Reiter
Dear Mayor Reiter,
This is the first letter I have written to an official representative of my former employer since my retirement in 1995 as program director of the Munich Adult Education Center. …
I would like to provide some information about my life, as you probably do not know me personally, and this information is also relevant to the background of my letter. I am now 89 years old and was born in Munich in 1935. The Second World War and the air raids on Munich shaped my childhood and probably even my later life. I survived the war in a cellar in Untergiesing, only eight steps deep, where my only help and comfort came from praying the rosary and taking valerian drops. After two years with almost no schooling due to the daily air raid sirens, classes resumed in May 1945 in destroyed classrooms. My school career was bumpy; more important was obtaining food, firewood from the Isar floodplains, and the question of what would happen next in Germany. I was joyfully amazed at what the Americans brought us in terms of culture, diversity, and democracy. …
Ever since I became politically aware, I have been a pacifist, starting with the Easter marches in the 1950s and continuing to this day as a supporter of the International Munich Peace Conference and the actions and demonstrations accompanying the Security Conference. …
Yesterday, I learned from a circular letter from the International Munich Peace Conference about an initiative by a number of city council members to withdraw the previously modest municipal subsidy of approximately €7,000 from the peace conference. This is probably in line with the denigration of German pacifism as “rag pacifism” in SPIEGEL magazine and the speech by the German chancellor in which he demonized pacifists as “fallen angels.”
I don’t know, Mr. Mayor, but you could calculate how much money and monetary benefits the city spends annually on holding the militaristic security conference, where the above-quoted statements would certainly be met with much applause.
And now, in our city, there is an attempt to exclude the pacifist minority, which until now had its place in our diverse and open urban society, from public discourse by taking away its municipal funding, using vague technocratic platitudes as justification.
This is about more than just a little support for a small minority. Ultimately, what is at stake is whether ideological diversity and tolerance still have a secure place in our society. There must never again be any doubt that Munich should be a modern, citizen-friendly city with a liberal, pluralistic, citizen-oriented municipal cultural policy.
My request and expectation of you, Mr. Mayor, is once again that you defend the open, pluralistic urban society and its diversity of opinion against attacks and provide a safe space in this city for the civic activities of pacifists and other minorities.
With kind regards,
Hans Limmer
Read the entire protest letter HERE
