Horst Braun for the award of the Rhineland-Palatinate Peace Prize in 2011 proposed Kirchberg, Wednesday, 26? January 2011
Dear Hans Ripper,
for Verleihung des rheinland-pfälzischen Friedenspreises 2011 möchte ich posthum
Horst Braun aus Kirchberg
vorschlagen.
In diesem Jahr jährt sich Horst Brauns Tod zum fünfundzwanzigsten Mal. Im Alter von nur 53 Jahren ist Horst am 29. Dezember 1986 viel, viel zu früh an Lungenkrebs gestorben.
Horst Braun war Bauer und Landwirt, kein Intellektueller – aber unglaublich kreativ. Manchmal bat er sogar jemand von uns aus dem Kreis seiner Freunde und Weggefährten, seine Gedanken zu Papier zu bringen. Für einen Zeitungsartikel oder wieder mal einen Leserbrief gegen den Rüstungswahnsinn oder das Waldsterben – weil wir, wie er sagte, that could be better than him.
Horst was co-initiator, man of the first hour and later the engine of the Hunsrück peace movement in the early 1980s. Long before the Hunsrück known as barracks for the 96 cruise missiles of the NATO dual-track decision and was long before the church and Christian-oriented groups in the Hunsrück joined the peace movement. Horst Braun it was, had the idea of peace Ackers with the 96 crosses on the Hunsrückhöhenstrasse. And it was also developed this idea itself and the first erected crosses on the peace Sacker - 1984 Hunsrücker just before the Easter March. The peace Sacker, the place of later nationwide, almost globally was one of the symbols of the resistance of an entire region against the nuclear arms delusion. The idea of peace Acker is now so often attributed to Karl-August Dahl, the former evangelical pastor of Bell and future figurehead of the Hunsrück peace movement. An obvious, but incorrect - wrong legend.
Horst visiting Bell
The bearded man in the middle with his hand on the cross-cross bars on the sent image - this is Horst Braun, as it established the first cross.
He reached the simple and ordinary people in the Hunsrück. They knew him and they trusted him - he was one of them. One could feel the man. And there were many who knew him, because Hunsrücker Horst was a genuine personality. Always ready to be the first to do what he called other. And always an imposing figure, he was not in vain throughout the Hunsrück "Tarzan" called. Without Horst Braun would have the Hunsrück peace movement in their colorful, diverse and width, and given the supportive quality of the entire population that never Hunsrück. Horst opened our doors to the community centers in the Hunsrück villages where we are with our slide shows and discussions people about the secret Vorhaben der Militärs im Hunsrück und anderswo informieren konnten. In fast jedem Dorf kannte Horst jemand, der uns dabei half – weil Horst mit dabei war!
Weihnachten 1983 hatte Horst die Idee, sich an das Betonmonument am Eingangstor des US Flugplatzes Hahn Air Base anzuketten. Der Betonklotz direkt an der Hunsrückhöhenstraße, den das Wappen der auf dem Hahn stationierten 50th Tactical Fighter Wing, einer Flugstaffel mit Atombewaffnung, zierte: Ein mythologischer Greif mit Atomblitz in seinen Krallen und hinter ihm aufsteigendem Atompilz! Horst fand auch zwei Mitstreiter, die beim Anketten über die Weihnachtsfeiertage 1983 mitmachten. Eine spektakuläre und bis dahin im Hunsrück nie dagewesene Aktion zivilen Disobedience that moved a lot. But they turned the light of publicity on the nuclear threat and danger emanating from the tap and its strategic importance - and that he was a magnet for enemy nuclear missiles in the East as well. (This, I cover with Horst Braun and articles from HUNSRÜCK FORUM sent No. 5, as another black and white image of the chained Horst)
When Horst died, refused the Middle Rhine-Verlag, Koblenz, part of me to publish written obituary for nest on the side of the obituaries. The ad on behalf of the Hunsrück GREEN, Horst's political home, appeared on the site with commercial advertising - for tile! In my grave speech I did then on. A wave of subscription cancellations and letters of protest and charges against the publisher were the result.
After Horst's funeral in January 1987, wrote his wife Christa, then the first equality officer of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis, a letter to us, the Hunsrück peace group. From this I would like to quote a few passages:
>>>
"Dear friends and friends of the peace group
with pride and gratitude that I have read many obituaries and special. Repeatedly I was asked why, many did not even know what a man of the nest. - I knew it already. - And if you write, "our father's friend," you knew him perhaps the last 10 years. But some 25 years ago when he jumped over walls without start (after all he was once master Rhineland) since it went from first to predict it in the jargon of youth.
Although he loved the show effect, he has done so much without the public learned of it. I'm thinking a few things as hiking with wrought Newborn [Note: The Schmiedel is a children's home near Simmern], he helped strengthen the special school in Schönborn [Note: this means the first school for mentally handicapped children in the Hunsrück region ], he took care of Repatriate families, he kept over the years slide shows for the Christian Blind Mission, he fought for Raiffeisen, the dairy and against forest decline [Note: Horst was one of the first, if not the first in the Rheinland-Pfalz, in the early 80s, sick trees on forest with large white crosses painted to make it to the attention of forest decline]. He collected material for a book about a biogas plant that made survival training, went kayaking. But his greatest love were his wilderness expeditions in Canada. All this in addition to agriculture, which knows no eight hour day. Something remained on the track, which was his family. It was never boring for us, but he had time for uns kaum.
[...]
Die furchtbare Voreingenommenheit vieler gegen die GRÜNEN und auch gegen Friedensgruppen, das waren Dinge, die unseren Horst nicht entmutigt haben, im Gegenteil: Mit Zivilcourage und manchmal auch zivilem Ungehorsam nahm er manchen Kampf auf. Mehr als einmal habe ich ängstlich fragenden Blickes der Polizei die Tür öffnen müssen.
Wie gern würde ich selbst die Zeit noch einmal zurückschrauben. Auch die zwei Jahre seiner Krankheit hatten ein positives Eckchen – es waren die einzigen der 23 Jahre, in denen wir Zeit für uns hatten.“
<<<
Mir ist bewusst, dass sich die Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Friedensgruppen in Rheinland-Pfalz such difficulty is brought to the Rhineland-Palatinate after 2009 Peace Prize 2011 to regain a person from the Hunsrück. But Elisabeth Bernard, which I personally since the early days of their engagement know well in the peace movement and high esteem and has received rightly the Peace Prize to let her ninetieth birthday this honor to be granted and forget Horst Braun to his twenty-fifth anniversary of the death, is unthinkable for me. It would be an irreparable blunder!
chance to remind once again to Horst Braun and to give it the honor of this award be given to offers in 2011 in a special way and probably the last time: It is the year of its fünfundzwanzigsten Todestages – es ist aber auch das Jahr, in dem sich die Hunsrücker Großdemo gegen NATO-Nachrüstung und Stationierung neuer Atomraketen mit über 180.000 Teilnehmern auf dem Beller Markt am 11. Oktober zum fünfundzwanzigsten Mal jährt und an der Horst schon nicht mehr teilnehmen konnte, weil er todkrank war. Es wäre der gebührende Anlass und Rahmen, um noch einmal an eine ganz große Persönlichkeit der ganz frühen Hunsrücker Friedensbewegung zu erinnern.
Denn nur wer vergessen ist, ist wirklich tot...
Mit den besten Grüßen
Axel Weirich
Freund und Weggefährte von Horst Braun und Mitbegründer der Hunsrücker Peace movement
Horst Braun in the wilderness of his beloved Canada
