🇬🇧 #EasterMarch2026: Uwe Salzwedel (VaD) – "You Took Him From Me"

Uwe Salzwedel spoke for the Verein Alternatives Denken (VaD – Association for Alternative Thinking) and gave one of the most moving speeches of the Easter March in Strausberg. With a simple but profound story, he called for civil disobedience against the war machinery. The original sound is accompanied by German and English subtitles.

"You Took Him From Me"

"A little boy from a disadvantaged background, about ten years old, stands at his father's grave. A large luxury car stops, a well-accompanied man steps out, stands beside the son of the deceased father, puts his hand on his head and says: 'I'm sorry, my boy, that you lost your father in the war.' The son looks up, the tears disappear from his blue eyes, and he looks at the man and says: 'I did not lose my father. You took him from me.'"

Salzwedel commented: "Fathers are not lost, they are taken. And as long as a war pays off, as long as profit is higher than the will for peace, fathers will be taken from children, men will be taken from women, sons will be taken from mothers."

The Profit Interests Behind the War

"As long as profit rates are greater than the danger to one's own life, profit sharks will make profit. The insane thing about the story is that this rich man standing at the grave will ensure for his children and his family that they do not go to war, that they do not live in destroyed cities."

He criticised politicians who draw from the same pot as the arms industry: "As long as politicians draw from this same pot where the profit comes from, they will not stand up for peace."

Civil Disobedience Against War Readiness

Salzwedel, recalling Martin Luther King, called for civil disobedience: "It is permitted not to enter military service. It is permitted not to take up the weapon. There is a world of difference between being defensive and being war-ready."

He warned against the term war readiness (Kriegstüchtigkeit): "War readiness, in its deepest core, is already the attack. War readiness, which they now want to talk us into, is the preparation for a war."

With a look back at 1914, he concluded: "No one must ever again coin the phrase: 'If the war cannot be prevented, then we must begin now.' That sentence is wrong."

Salzwedel expressed his joy at the "colourful alliance" in Strausberg and called out: "Let us together become capable of peace instead of war-ready."

Technical Notes

The video contains the original sound of the speech with German and English subtitles. On some devices the BitChute video will open in a new tab.

#EasterMarch2026 #Peace #VaD #AlternativeThinking #UweSalzwedel #CivilDisobedience #WarReadiness #Strausberg