On Wednesday February 26th 2025 the US-American citizen Brian Terrell entered the prison in Wittlich, Germany. Brian Terrell is a longtime peace activist and lives on a Catholic Worker farm in Maloy, Iowa.
He is part of a group of international peace activists serving sentences stemming from actions of civil disobedience at a nuclear weapons base in Germany. The two Catholic Workers Susan Crane from Redwood City, California, and Susan van der Hijden from Amsterdam have been sentenced to a 229 and 115 days fine, the Veterans for Peace member Dennis DuVall has been sentenced to 90 days, Gerd Buentzley from Herford, Germany, has been sentenced to 90 days and Miriam Krämer from Germany has been sentenced to 30 days for repeatedly entering Büchel Air Base, Germany. Together, they hope to use their prison sentences to bear witness for a nuclear-weapon-free world.
Last year we walked a Pilgrimage for Freedom from Nuclear Execution from Büchel Airbase to the women’s prison in Rohrbach, 100 km away. (A short diary of our peace walk you find here.) At the end of the pilgrimage, both Susan’s went to jail. This year we sent Brian off into prison after vigiling at two airforce bases, the commander’s office and the prison. Our vigils were part of Global Day of Action to #CloseBases – World BEYOND War
Contact information
Prison contact for Brian in Germany is Chris Danowski, christiane.danowski@web.de, (0049 151 10726612).
If you like to contribute to their expenses you can send money to
GAAA – Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen
GLS Bank, IBAN DE57 4306 0967 8019 1512 00, BIC: GENODEM1GLS
Betreff: Vigil behind bars
Update March 12th 2025:
After two weeks of “vigil behind bars,” Brian Terrell was released from Wittlich Prison at 8:30 a.m. this morning. We are delighted to welcome him back to freedom!
He writes:
I was released this morning from the prison in Wittlich, Germany, this morning after 15 days and was met at the gate by old Catholic Worker Friends Chris and Bernd. It was interesting to be a U.S. citizen inmate in a European prison just as many Europeans are coming the realize that the United States is not the ‘reliable partner’ they thought we were! What to do when a relationship goes sour and among the common property to deal with is a stash of nuclear weapons?
After a few days in and around Dortmund I head to Amsterdam and from there fly home to Iowa next Wednesday. My time in Wittlich passed peaceably, mostly in solitude, the regime there far more human than any prison I have been in in the U.S. or abroad.
Update February 26th – pressrelease
“It’s not me who is a criminal, it’s my government that is stationing nuclear weapons of mass destruction in Büchel in violation of international law and thus making it the target of a nuclear strike. The German government is aiding and abetting this by having Bundeswehr soldiers practice using these weapons on a daily basis,” said Brian Terrell, 68, Catholic Worker from Maloy, Iowa, before entering the Wittlich prison at around 12 noon. There he will hold a vigil behind bars for 15 days. He was accompanied by 15 peace activists from Germany and the Netherlands. Five of them had previously served alternative custodial sentences for “trespassing” at Büchel Air Base. On the way to the prison, Terrell and the group held vigils at the Volkel and Büchel sites, where US nuclear weapons are stationed in Europe, to call for abolishing all nuclear weapons.”
vigil at Volkel airbase in The Netherlands
short and spontaneous vigil at the Commander’s office in Brauheck in Germany
vigil at Buechel airbase in Germany in the pouring rain
vigil in front of the prison in Wittlich, Germany
Throughout these two days of vigiling at the different military and governmental places we were greeted by a big group of police, officers, personal from the base and city officials. Even the head of the prison in Wittlich came out to greet and talk with us.
Brian Terrell states:
The German courts are no more ready than courts in the U.S. would be to hear a reasonable argument that the American nuclear bombs kept at Büchel under a NATO “nuclear sharing” agreement, ready to be loaded onto German planes to be “delivered” when so ordered, are there in violation of numerous laws, including the 1970 Nonproliferation Treaty which forbids any transfer of nuclear weapons between treaty signers, not to mention an existential threat to all life on this planet. On December 12, 2024, the court in Koblenz sent me a letter reminding me of the 900 euro fine (plus 77.5 euro costs) with the order to pay up or report to the prison at Wittlich, Germany, on February 26 to serve a 15 day sentence. I chose prison.
The world is a more dangerous place today than it was five years ago when we took bolt cutters to “de-fence” Büchel. For one thing, the old B61 nuclear bombs that had been kept ready at Büchel and at five other European bases since 1968, are being replaced now with new, more “flexible” and more “easily deployed” B61-12 bombs.
On February 23, there will be a Global Day of Action to Close Bases taking place at military sites around the world. Two days later, on the day before I turn myself in to the prison at Wittlich, I will be joining Dutch and German friends protesting again at the gates of Büchel and the NATO nuclear sharing base at Volkel, in the Netherlands. From March 3-7, while I am quietly protesting in a German jail, the Atlantic Life Community will be in the streets of New York City for the 3rd Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations. At the same time, on the other end of the country, the Pacific Life Community will be conspiring on their future actions on retreat at a monastery in St. David, Arizona. I am grateful to be part of this grand movement.
Why is My Grandma in Prison?
Susan and Susan made a comic strip when being at JVA Rohrbach for the grandchildren of Susan C. (Click on the picture to read the whole comic strip.)
Dennis DuVall
On July 22, accompanied by his wife and friends, 82-year-old Dennis DuVall reported to Bautzen prison in Germany. The Veterans for Peace member spent 60 days in the same prison in 2023, also for actions at Büchel, where U.S. nuclear weapons are stored. The American citizen, who has lived in Germany for six years, was about to be serving a 90 day sentence for nonpayment of fines for protest actions at Büchel air base. He was being payed out though by an anonymous donor and now tries to fight being expelled from Germany. Please support by sending letters as he states:
Germany wants to deport anti-nuclear activist
On 31 October, Germany intends to expel 82-year-old US citizen Dennis DuVall, resident of Radeberg, Germany, member of Veterans For Peace and anti-nuclear activist against the US/NATO nuclear bombs stationed at the NATO base in Büchel, Germany.
The German expulsion order describes DuVall’s nuclear resistance as a ‘serious threat to security and public order’. DuVall believes that he is legally obliged to oppose the planning and preparation of a nuclear war at the NATO base in Büchel, which is a violation of international law and a crime under the Nuremberg Charter and Principles.
‘B61-12 nuclear bombs and F35 fighter planes at Büchel will bring NATO closer to war,’ warns DuVall, ’and the stationing of medium-range missiles in Germany also raises the spectre of a wider European war.’
DuVall is calling on peace and anti-war/anti-weapons groups and individuals to support his fight to keep the missiles in Germany. Write respectful letters of support to Herr Staatsminister Armin Schuster, Sächsisches Staatsministerium des Innern, 01095 Dresden, Germany .
Support Dennis’ demand to ban the US/NATO B61-12 nuclear bombs from Büchel and to stop the stationing of medium-range missiles in Germany.
Leave Dennis DuVall in Germany and throw out the American bombs!
Contact: michelle.shiloh(at)icloud.com
Court statement from Dennis DuVall:
I am here today as a United States citizen committed to removing American nuclear weapons out of Germany: “I am not to blame, but I am responsible.”
As a U.S. citizen, I am responsible for the production of hydrogen bombs in the USA: From the plutonium produced at the Hanford N-Reactor in Washington state, to purifying and machining the plutonium at Rocky Flats, Colorado, to building the hydrogen fusion secondary at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to the non-nuclear casing and electrical parts in Kansas City, Missouri, to final assembly of the bomb at the Pantex plant in Texas. New bomb plants are also being built in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Savannah River, S. Carolina.
I am back at Bautzen prison not because I am reverting back to criminal behavior, but because my civil resistance raises public awareness about a new nuclear arms race now speeding ahead with fantastically costly bombs and warplanes. The Life Extension Program for nuclear bombs and missiles will cost one trillion dollars over the next 30 years, which includes 400 B61-12 nuclear bombs ($28 Million each). At more than $100 million each, the F35 warplane program has already cost more than two trillion dollars over its lifetime.
Nuclear resistance is not criminal behavior, it is crime prevention. Nuclear resistance is stopping or preventing the crime of planning and preparing for nuclear war – a nuclear war that would kill millions of people and destroy all living things – omnicide! Nuclear resistance is stopping a mind-boggling waste of money that should be spent on human needs instead of death and destruction.
Frits ter Kuile
A good overview in German you can find here: Berliner Mahnwache für das Verbot der Atomwaffen – weltweit!
Background information
In the German book Brot und Gessetze brechen – Christlicher Antimilitarismus auf der Anklagebank, by Jakob Frühmann and Cristina Yurena Zerr, you find more about theses and connected actions.
Ordensschwestern, Großmütter, Priester oder Postangestellte, die in Militärbasen einbrechen, um gegen dort stationierte Atombomben zu protestieren und so Veränderungen globaler Gewaltverhältnisse zu fordern. Die Pflugscharbewegung wurde zum Symbol radikal christlicher und gewaltfreier Praxis. So etwa im deutschen Büchel, wo US-Atomwaffen gelagert werden, oder in Kings Bay (USA), einer Basis für UBoote mit nuklearen Sprengköpfen. An beiden Orten fanden 2018 Einbrüche statt, um mittels zivilem Ungehorsam gegen die Gewalt und Autorität des Staates Widerstand zu leisten – die Konsequenz waren Prozesse und mehrjährige Haftstrafen.
Das Buch gibt die bemerkenswerten Abschlussplädoyers der angeklagten Aktivist*innen wieder und versammelt Beiträge zur Frage von Abrüstung von unten, zur Geschichte christlich-antimilitaristischen Widerstands und zu blinden Flecken in der Linken. Es liefert in Zeiten zunehmender Aufrüstung Impulse für eine neue Friedensbewegung fernab bürgerlicher Religiosität.