Saturday, August 30th, 2025, at 2:30 p.m.,
Cologne, Heumarkt (Augustinerstr.)
After being told for many years that the coffers were empty, suddenly unlimited financial resources (“whatever it takes”) are available—for a comprehensive rearmament of Germany. The NATO decision to invest five percent of total economic output, of gross domestic product, in rearmament means that in the future, almost half of the federal budget will be used directly for armaments, military structures, and the German army, the Bundeswehr. The current federal government was a driving force in pushing through this decision by the European NATO states at the recent summit in The Hague. Chancellor Merz’s statement that Germany must take the (military) lead in Europe fits in with this.
For us, this does not bode well. For us, workers, employees, those living in precarious conditions, and pensioners—for the vast majority of people living in this society—this means poorer health care and poor working conditions in the care sector, a lack of funds for good daycare centers, for municipal tasks, and unaffordable rents. Instead, we get longer working hours, crisis, job cuts, and “guns instead of butter.” At the same time, the shareholders of arms companies such as Rheinmetall and Co. are raking in huge profits from the production of military equipment.
This massive NATO build-up is just the latest escalation that’s leading to a global arms race and even more war. Almost all the arms control tools and treaties have expired or been scrapped—and not just by Russia, as is often claimed, but also by NATO countries. This clearly shows us that the political will everywhere is for war, not for an urgently needed policy of détente.
Military armament is only one side of the process that is to be set in motion. In addition, comprehensive psychological armament is needed. War requires not only money, weapons, and technology, but also people as material. People who are willing to become cannon fodder in the trenches in current and future wars for the interests of the state, the government, and the war profiteers. It also requires broad support among the population for the idea that the entire society should be made “fit for war.” Voices that advocate a peaceful perspective and protests that are critical of militarization are to be discredited and pressured. Simple enemy stereotypes and threat scenarios are to be deliberately constructed, constant uncertainty and fear are to be stirred up, forming the breeding ground for a nationalism that justifies the wars of the state and government.
But that is precisely where we refuse to go along! The state power struggles for resources and profit protection are not ours and those of the majority of people who live here. We oppose the military double standards that go hand in hand with arms deliveries to escalating wars and conflicts, to allied actors and states that use German military equipment to wage devastating warfare against civilian populations. Our anti-militarist resistance, our commitment to peace, begins with our refusal to be drawn into this logic of fear, violence, and militarism.
We will not shoot at people from other countries who could be our neighbors, colleagues, siblings, and friends because our government tells us that they are our enemies. We have more in common with these people than with the politicians who conjure up hundreds of billions for fighter jets, tanks, and missiles and tell us that there is no alternative for us. But the alternative is here, it lies with all of us who oppose warmongering and are building an anti-militarist movement for a peaceful, just, and free world.
Solidarity and sticking together!
That is why we will be marching in a large parade from Cologne city center to the „Konrad Adenauer“-Barracks on Brühler Straße on Saturday, August 30th. That is where the Bundeswehr recruitment center is located. Not only are soldiers stationed there, whom we will call on to desert, but it is also the perfect place to loudly proclaim our opposition to conscription, to recruitment for killing and dying, and to militaristic propaganda.
At our anti-military parade, we celebrate life—demonstrating, dancing, and always on the move—together with everyone who wants to escape the logic of armament, conscription, and mass death. Together, we will flow through the streets. We want to demonstrate, express our diversity and determination, and bring with us what we have to offer: solidarity and sticking together instead of fear and violence. We will also bring the appropriate paraphernalia: signs with our messages and colorful umbrellas, flyers and confetti cannons, our music, songs, and slogans, as well as better ideas, visions, and demands for what should be done with the hundreds of billions instead.
We also bring our very different stories and motivations. And despite all the differences between us, we agree on many points: in times of genocidal warfare, there can be no other place than at the side of the Palestinians and for the right to life.
We are the counter-concept to violence and obedience. We are the colorful and passionate protest against armament, against the psychological mobilization of society, and against war.
Disarm Rheinmetall, July 2025