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 Welcome to NuclearCrisis.org!
On December 12, 1979, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) implemented the so-called Double-Track Decision: In case arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union failed, the West would station intermediate nuclear forces to provide a counterweight to the new Soviet SS-20 missiles. This momentous decision, alongside the almost simultaneous Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, directly affected international politics as well as domestic developments in Europe and North America. The world moved from an era of reduced tension to a newly heightened East-West confrontation during the "Second Cold War."
Our research project explores the discourse about nuclear weapons from three distinct but interrelated angles:
(1) It looks at the diplomatic, political, and strategic debate surrounding the nuclear armament issue. “Traditional” actors such as the political, diplomatic, and military elites carried this debate forward as did “anti-establishment” forces and societal actors.
(2) By merging an “establishment” perspective with an analysis of protest cultures, this project brings non-state actors, intellectual discourses, and culture back into international history. It also looks at manifestations of “nuclear death” in popular culture (music, film, novels) as well as in “high art.”
(3) The project transcends the traditional East/West divide in postwar European history: it looks at both sides of the Iron Curtain; it interconnects establishment and anti-establishment forces across national borders; it places them in a transatlantic and pan-European setting; it asks to what extent people envisioned themselves as part of larger transnational communities.
This research project is combined with a digital archive, which will gather and preserve materials on this important chapter of transatlantic history. It will make these materials available free of charge to scholars and teachers. It also will foster the growth of a community of scholars, teachers, and students who are engaged in teaching and learning about the nuclear crisis of the 1970s and 1980s.
For further information, please read our mission statement or download our flyer.
If you want to share your personal experience by contributing to our oral history collection or in any other way, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
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This website is a collaborative project of: It is directed by: - Philipp Gassert, University of Augsburg, Germany
- Martin Klimke, German Historical Institute, Washington, DC /
Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg
Supported by:
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