In 1922 Käthe Kollwitz was commissioned to create the poster for the first international anti-war day (September 21, 1924). In a letter to her friend Beate Bonus-Jeep, Käthe comments on the work “the survivors” which is the image featured in the poster.
They become aware of any new terrible danger of war and want to launch a counter-propaganda program. Large posters illuminating the consequences of war are to be distributed in 14 European countries. […] You may imagine how deeply involved I have become. My initial plan was this: Women protecting their children, huddling together to form a black lump on the large white poster sheet – like animals defending their brood. But the people in Amsterdam insist on a design that shows the survivors, so this is what I am going to do. Parents, widows, blind people, surrounded by children with their anxiously quizzical, puzzled eyes and pale faces.
–Käthe Kollwitz
From: Beate Bonus Jeep, Sixty Years of Friendship with Käthe Kollwitz
Keeping tradition, War Against War is determined to end wars through peaceful expression. Using the resources on this page, anyone can spread the word and inform others about ending war, peacefully.
Kollwitz stood up to the Nazi Gestapo by creating art that challenged the narrative of those engaged in war. While Käthe passed in 1945, her message is alive and more important than ever today. You can help spread the word about her work, which is internationally recognized and held in the most celebrated collections on earth, by downloading and printing this poster and contributing to creating lasting peace for all.
Käthe Kollwitz
Below are resources for understanding the contemporary peace movement in the United States. These can be found for free by most public libraries or university libraries.
Peace Movement
- Bennett, Scott H.Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915–45 (Syracuse Univ. Press, 2003).
- Chatfield, Charles, ed. Peace Movements in America (New York: Schocken Books, 1973). ISBN 0-8052-0386-9
- Chatfield, Charles. with Robert Kleidman. The American Peace Movement: Ideals and Activism (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992). ISBN 0-8057-3852-5
- Durand, André. “Gustave Moynier and the peace societies“. In: International Review of the Red Cross (1996), no. 314, p. 532–550
- Eastman, Carolyn, “Fight Like a Man: Gender and Rhetoric in the Early Nineteenth-Century American Peace Movement”, American Nineteenth Century History 10 (Sept. 2009), 247–71.
- Giugni, Marco. Social protest and policy change: Ecology, antinuclear, and peace movements in comparative perspective (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).
- Hinsley, F. H. Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations between States (Cambridge UP, 1967) online.
- Howlett, Charles F., and Glen Zeitzer. The American Peace Movement: History and Historiography (American Historical Association, 1985).
- Jakopovich, Daniel. Revolutionary Peacemaking: Writings for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence (Democratic Thought, 2019). ISBN 978-953-55134-2-1
- Kimball, Jeffrey. “The Influence of Ideology on Interpretive Disagreement: A Report on a Survey of Diplomatic, Military and Peace Historians on the Causes of 20th Century U. S. Wars,” History Teacher 17#3 (1984) pp. 355-384 DOI: 10.2307/493146 online
- Locke, Elsie. Peace People: A History of Peace Activities in New Zealand (Christchurch, NZ: Hazard Press, 1992). ISBN 0-908790-20-1
- Marullo, Sam, and John Lofland, editors, Peace Action in the Eighties: Social Science Perspectives (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990). ISBN 0-8135-1561-0
- Moorehead, Caroline. Troublesome People: The Warriors of Pacifism (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1987).
- Peace III, Roger C. A Just and Lasting Peace: The U.S. Peace Movement from the Cold War to Desert Storm (Chicago: The Noble Press, 1991). ISBN 0-9622683-8-0
- Weitz, Eric. A World Divided: The Global Struggle for Human Rights in the Age of Nation States (Princeton University Press, 2019). online reviews
- Wittner, Lawrence S. Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933–1983 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984). ISBN 0-87722-342-4
- Zaroulis, Nancy, and Gerald Sullivan, Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam, 1963–1975 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984). ISBN 0-03-005603-9
- Zelko, Frank. Make it a green peace!: The rise of countercultural environmentalism (Oxford UP, 2013).