Mapping the Büchel Peace Camp

Jobbe Wijnen

Although maps are often perceived as objective representations of the world, they rarely show activist campsites. Because maps have agency in how researchers, visitors or inhabitants can know, traverse and remember landscapes in the future, maps that do not show activist peace camps create incomplete perceptions and memory of their significance, and effectively erase the memory of their presence and significance as sites of cultural resistance. Maps have the power to make the obvious look more obvious, and the unexpected, the fleeting, the opposing or controversial more marginal and invisible. This why it is important that they are recorded and their presence preserved as part of the historical record. This is why activists need better maps and why archaeologists need to make these. This is a paper about a two-day improvised archaeological mapping project at the activist Peace Camp Büchel, Germany. In the following I will give a background to how I came to this project as a Dutch archaeologist, followed by a detailed impression of the camp and the military-activist landscape in which it exists.

Background to the project

I tend to call myself a contemporary archaeologist. In a narrow definition of this field, contemporary archaeology can be seen the practice of using archaeological techniques to study the very recent past. However, in a broader definition – and one that is closer to my heart – the ‘contemporary’ in this title is not so much the demarcation of the time period, but a philosophical starting point aiming to break disciplinary boundaries. It is a continuous attempt to re-stake the purpose and practice of archaeology, to include what the status quo bias regards as abject, irrelevant marginal or simply seems to have forgotten.[1] A large part of archaeological practice in the European and Anglo-American context is as a part of Cultural Resource Management (CRM). This is a government-controlled heritage practice in which archaeological heritage maps are used for the purpose of management and protection of acknowledged heritage. Although I would like to stress that I have strong faith in local governmental archaeologists, who often have a broad view of heritage and what is important for their communities, it is valid to observe that state produced heritage maps in general represent a conventional and somewhat conservative view of heritage.

However, even conservative practices change over time. The last two decades have seen a significant rise in attention to what has become known as modern conflict archeology[2], and recent military heritage’[3] or military landscape. From it an interesting tension is starting to emerge within CRM practice in the Netherlands. Former modern military structures from the Cold War (1947-1991), large in scale and built with massive amounts of concrete and steel, are entering the heritage domain and start to show up on official CRM maps. However, the far more transient, fleeting, temporary, lightly built structures of those who opposed military politics or presence do not. Even though nobody will deny that the 1960s rise of youth culture in the West was highly important in shaping our contemporary society, no peace-camp, or protest ground, not even the nationally famous ones such as Woensdrecht, have appeared on archaeological heritage maps as yet, whereas Cold War anti-aircraft watchtowers and nuclear-bomb shelters in other locations have. [4] Here I feel the urgency for archaeological activism. That the fleeting material culture of activist groups that was not built to survive the centuries, does not imply its insignificance for archaeological heritage. 

This inspired me to undertake an improvised two- day archaeological survey at Büchel Peace Camp, with which I aimed draw attention to the landscape of protest and civil resistance that emerges in response to military presence and weapons of mass destruction. I argue here, that the term ‘military landscape’, would be more accurately termed a ‘military-activist landscape’. Inspired by work of Colleen Beck (et al) at Nevada Peace Camp, Attila Dézsi of Hamburg University’s recent work at Wendland protest camp and the work of Dutch archaeologist marjolijn kok (is this not capitalized by choice, recurring in the text?) with the Occupy Movement, this is the root from which the Büchel Peace Camp map sprouted.[5]This paper will primarily address the material culture of the military-activist landscape, and not the political convictions which motivate both parties in the construction of this landscape. These convictions are important, of course, but not within the scope of this paper. More information on the motivations of activists, can be found at their public website https://buechel-atombombenfrei.jimdofree.com/. 

Mapping Büchel Peace Camp 

In the summer of 2019 I visited Büchel Peace Camp. The small, 2500 square meter camp was - located in the small Southwest corner of the B259 road from Auderath to Büchel, a small agricultural road leading to the airbase main gate (see Figure. 2.). It is not located here all year round, but only for about 20 weeks each year, from March to August since 2015. It is used as a basecamp by a diverse and changing group of international pacifist activists that protest against the presence of USA nuclear missiles on European soil. It is believed, and can nowadays be seen as an open secret[6], that nuclear missiles are indeed stored at Büchel Airbase for NATO purposes, even though officials continue to deny this fact. In a last minute decision I was offered the opportunity to join some friends, members of the Amsterdam Catholic Workersorganization, on their second annual visit to the camp. Being unconnected to both Anti-Nuclear Activist groups, and the Catholic Workers, I did not know exactly what to expect, but I did see the opportunity to conduct some recording, as described in the introduction. It was going to be an improvised archaeological survey and I realized from reading work by marjolijn kok and others, that a visiting archaeologist is essentially a guest in an activist community.[7] The customs and guidelines of the community have to be respected in order to maintain proper ethical conduct. So, I scrambled together a camera, some paper, pencils, measuring-tapes and artefact bags without knowing whether I would actually need any of these and headed towards the tiny town of Büchel in the German Eifel region. 

Never an outsider, really

When we arrived in the evening of Thursday 11th July, it was too late for a thorough briefing by the camp staff. “Blockade at six” was the only thing we were told that night and we went almost straight to bed in our hastily erected tents. At 6.10 AM the next morning my friend and I hurried from the quiet camp to the Fliegerhorst Büchel (Main Entrance) a hundred meters eastward up the road, where the ‘sit-in’ protest had already commenced. Here I had my first taste of how activism is not at all the pleasant countryside camping experience which it may seem at first glance. A dozen or so protesters had occupied the roundabout just in front of the airbase Main Entrance and some others were doing a ‘sit-in’ in front of the main gate, preventing cars from leaving and entering. , I was told by a bystander that “When people are blocking the gate, the soldiers are instructed not to open it.” The materiality of the human body itself is the tool of resistance here. The chosen time of the blockade was deliberate as this was the hour when the base personnel changed shift and hundreds of vehicles had to both leave and enter the airbase through its three entrances, the main, north and southern gates. Police officers were smoothly guiding the sometimes visibly annoyed personnel away from the roundabout to another exit, where – as we learned later – police had prevented other activists to block the gate. 

At this time I felt very much an outsider, a visitor who came here primarily to factually record what was going on. When I approached the sit-in, the outside line of the asphalt of the roundabout almost felt like a physical barrier. The difference between my ‘safe’ corner opposite the protesters, and the grassy center of the roundabout, where the activists were holding their signs, was palpable. “If we cross this line we are in, we take part, and there might be consequences”, was my perception. Only later it became clear to me that ‘in’ and ‘out’ were very much a phantasy that did not hold much substance in the eyes of the other party. For the police and military personnel I simply came from the camp, and therefore was an activist no matter what I did. 

However, for those inside the camp this is not necessarily the case as  different subgroups were visible, there were indeed people that organize protests, do sit-ins an occasionally enter the base by cutting a fence. But there are also supporters of the pacifism, who only do basic chores like cooking and cleaning. And then there are visiting friends who do not participate in the protest at all. To make things more complex, there were also several independent activist groups from quite different ideological backgrounds using the same camp simultaneously. What seems so be ‘one camp’ – in other words, what I would define as ‘one camp’ as an archaeologist – is not one camp with one cohesive group of people at all. 

The Materiality of the Camp 

After the sit-in, we all went back to the Peace Camp to have breakfast, after which I started with my recording activities. These mainly consisted of estimating distances by taking big 1 m steps and then drawing camp elements on grid paper and randomly talking to people about what I saw or did not understand. The result can be seen in Figure 2.

The center of the peace camp consisted of the main ‘Samlungs Zelt’ (meeting tent), a big white 10 by 10 m party-tent, which was used for workshops and gatherings (‘A’ on the map). It is also the place where the Catalystica Players from the USA crafted their big head puppets for peaceful theatre protest and an occasional activist, who did not bring a tent, would spend the night. I think the main tent could also be used to hold the ‘morning circle’, the daily meeting with all participants where the day program was discussed. As the weather was good that Friday after our arrival, the morning circle was held at a set of benches just outside of the main tent. After the arrival of another group - the DKP, German communist party - which did not participate in the morning circle – the benches were temporary abandoned and the morning circle was moved to the front of one of the camp staff members’ caravan. 

The main infrastructure of the Peace Camp was further determined by two kitchen tents (D and F), one larger ‘eating tent’ (C), which was also soon occupied primarily by the DKP when I was there. A small tent to the north (P) was used by an artist in residence. At the eastern end of the camp there was an area for waste collection and four ‘Dixie’ plastic toilet cabins (H) and a washing area for personal hygiene with some water taps and a cold shower (G). Water was provided through a legally installed black polyethylene waterline which brought water from a metered utility water point near the roundabout. There was no connection to the utility electricity grid, but several solar panels and a generator provided power occasionally to recharge cellphones and laptops (N). As one of the activists said: “It’s quite paradoxical that in our fight against atomic weapons, we use technology that the army would use in a field camp in Afghanistan.” Another activist said that the camp sure had become more luxurious in recent years, as the water and shower had previously not been available. 

Spread across the camp, mostly at the sides, there were four caravans and about 35 scattered small tents where most residents slept. Cars were parked randomly on the south and east side of the camp, but ‘parking’ would be one of the areas where activists and local government would meet each other head on, as illustrated later.

Flags

When I did my first tour around the Peace Camp on Friday morning, it was full of protest-signs made by the different groups. 

A recurring symbol was the rainbow-colored flag with the word ‘Peace’ in big capitals in its center, sometimes written in other languages. There were several of these flags set around the camp. The same night as my arrival, members of the German communist political party (DKP) had also arrived and used the Friday morning to add large numbers of deep red flags with hammer and sickle symbols to the campsite. I counted at least ten of these flags, but there might have been more than 20. Shortly after breakfast, other peace-activists tried to reinstate balance by adding more rainbow flags at the camps outside perimeter. It seems that here the material culture of the flags (Figure.5) signifies the different groups and also has a relationship to the power balance within the diverse activist community, who are all striving for presumably similar goals. 

The military-activist landscape

In the previous paragraph I have zoomed in and have given a description of the Peace Camp itself, the main area where the activists resided. But how does this site fit in the larger landscape around it? The dominance of the NATO Airbase in the Büchel environment is evident, just by its size. In fact, one needs a map to really understand its vastness. The fence around the base is an estimated 10 kilometers long. Before the construction of the airfield, traveling from Büchel village to the site of the Peace Camp would have taken a couple of minutes, but today the route takes a long way around the airbase fence. From a conflict archaeology point of view, it is clear that this area can be characterized as a militarized landscape or a militarized-agricultural landscape if we include the second main usage of the area. The point I will illustrate now, is that the activists’ presence effectively has transformed this military landscape into a military-activist-landscape in the last decade. 

The Peace Camp is located 130 meters from the airbase main gate. Just out of eyesight, the protesters and military personnel are always in close proximity. One might say co-inhabiting the same space. The roundabout near the main airbase gate is the central meeting point where the two worlds meet and the main location for protest. While I was there, the police and military at the main gate were constantly observing the movement of people to and from the camp. Other strategic locations around the Peace Camp where also used for observation purposes by the authorities. 

While the authorities seemed to keep a constant eye on activist activity, the opposite is also true. Due to the strategic location of the Peace Camp, the military affairs around the main gate could be easily observed by the activists. The protesters were well aware of all schedules in regular airbase activity that are visible from the outside of the fence.

As mentioned previously, the roundabout (see Figure. 6) is one of the most important areas of protest, but it is not the only site of importance. To the north of the roundabout there is a small field, called the ‘Open Air Büchel’ stage, where peace manifestations and concerts are held. This area is directly in sight of the airbase main gate. From my observation I can tell that when a music band is playing at the stage, the music can be heard across most of the airfield and in the village of Büchel.  

Another important feature in the transformation to military-activist-landscape is the ‘Friedenwiese or Freedom Meadow, near to the camp at the B259 road. On this meadow many activists and groups have erected monument-like structures to materialize their presence and commemorate their mission for a nuclear-bomb-free world (‘J’ in the top right of the map). This meadow is the only place where activist presence can be seen from the main B259 road and therefore an important site, making the camp more visible for both the civil and military communities. Some of the monuments are made of simple crudely painted cutout cardboard or plywood plates, others from metal or brick (Figure 7). One artwork was handcrafted from glazed ceramic material with little head-like figures. This was made by one of the camp’s youth groups. While some of the monuments are large, solid and heavy, like a big steel church bell in a steel H-beam frame (see Figure 8), others are as delicate as a strip of flowering plants carefully nurtured by one of the female activists. Diversity, creativity and craft are clear qualities at play at the Friedenwiese, and contrast with the straight lines of the military design of fences, barbed wire and airbase architecture. 

The airbase fence and its transformation to activist presence

So how about the material culture of the military side? As there was no legal opportunity to visit the airbase this time, I recorded the material culture of the police and military presence that I could observe from the outside and from what I had been told by the protesters. The main feature of the airbase which is visible from public road is its outside fence. This fence measures about 10 kilometers along the entire perimeter of the airbase. The original fencing[8] consisted of a standard green mesh fence with steel poles and three simple barbed wires on top. It can still be seen around the base. I was told that behind this green fence there often are rolls of concertina razor wire on the ground to improve it, but not everywhere.[9] The original main gate of the airbase was located in a recess in this green fence, some 114 m directly behind the roundabout. The recess also held the former outside-perimeter car park of the airbase. Although there is no research to prove it at this point, my guess is the rather poorly looking, easily cut, green fence has been the main type of fencing for the best of the airbase’s existence. Only in recent years a second fence was added on the outside of the green fence, consisting of what I would type as steel construction-yard type fencing, often found at urban development sites, but reinforced with concertina wire on top (Figure 9). This second fence, placed some meters outside the first one also cuts off the recess at the main gate in a straight line, creating a new temporary gate at the roundabout. The carpark was now within the inside-base-perimeter, just as two public park benches at the corner of the recess (see picture). When two non-activist elderly cyclists tried to take a rest on these benches on Saturday when the building-fence gate was momentarily open, they were sent away by the military guards. 

Between the original main gate in the recess and this new construction site fence, there also was a more solid new steel barred gate. This was erected quite recently in 2019. The total of gates between the roundabout and the inside of the base is three, and the construction of an entirely new and higher fence was in preparation. Tracks of land had already been cleared of vegetation and rubble alongside large portions of the fences. The protesters told me they had read a permit application for this new fence in a local newspaper. A running gag in the Peace Camp was therefore the ironic question why the military were building so many fences if there were no nuclear bombs to begin with, according to their official statement? Just before completion of the draft of this paper, I was sent a picture by one activist, showing a part of the new fence. The improvement – and cost – of the new structure is evident. A tough thick steel grid fence with heavy posts is bolted down upon a concrete reinforced foundation, which prevents pushing over the fence, or digging under it. The top is covered with concertina barbed wire (Figure 10). It is safe to conclude in any case that the composition of the fence was heavily influenced by the activists’ presence over the last few years, probably due to their repeating and succeeding attempts to cut through it and enter the airfield. 

The Landscape of Police Observation

Although the airfield dominates the military aspects of the landscape, it also confines the military within same boundary. On the civil side of the fence, it is the material culture of police (and the municipality) that influences the activist-military landscape and material culture, consisting mainly of police cars and vans (Figure 11), and some unmarked vehicles from which officers were continuously monitoring the airbase entrances and the protesters. During my visit there was at least one police car near the roundabout at all times during the day, and an unmarked vehicle could be seen standing near bushes at about 400 m distance south from the Peace Camp in the fields. As this is also a no-entry agricultural zone for motorized vehicles, the car remained here for several hours and no one was seen approaching or leaving it, this could have been an unmarked observation post, although this clearly qualifies as a proposition that needs more fact-checking (Figure 12). 

When a small group of activists and myself went for a short walk along the fence on Friday, we were immediately followed by two or more military cars from behind the fence. When walking on to the north edge of the base, we ended up near the northern gate and found ourselves surrounded by five stationary police vans each holding at least 4 officers equipped with binoculars and possibly one camera or telescope on a tripod, looking in our direction. We had no intention to perform any protest other than walking around the base. When we came closer and the men and women started to jump from their vans to inspect us, we had no craving to face that encounter as one of us had accidentally left her ID at her tent. So we went back. Later we learned that the police likely employed the strategy of putting all effort in keeping the northern gate open, and more or less would ignore activist activity at the other gates. This might explain the high number of police officers at the northern gate. Assuming that there probably was at least 1 police car at the southern gate, and 2 at the roundabout at the time, the total of marked police cars around the airbase counts 8 at least, and between 24 and 30 officers. This was at that time approximately half to a third of the total number of people in the Peace Camp.

When activists meet authority

One activist made me aware that I had almost missed one vital artifact in the military-activist landscape. What I will explain next is primarily based on the activist’s perception of the municipal response to its presence. During the weekend of my stay I had noticed that there was a constant hassle going on about where the protesters and visitors should park their cars. Although we parked our car on the camp site at the first evening, the next day I was eventually asked to park it three kilometers north, which I did accordingly. One by one, all activists with cars did the same and now had to use a shuttle service, provided by one of the activists. Of course, this change in parking policy obstructed the Peace Camp logistics as people’s freedom of movement was heavily impaired. 

The cause for the hassle appeared to be that one day before my arrival some municipal workers had placed an ‘entry forbidden, agricultural area-sign’ near the roundabout and next to the only road that provides access to the camp (Figure 13). I found the sign and the freshly moved, brown colored dirt around it indicated it had indeed been placed here the day before.

It is important to note that according to the one activist I spoke to, this sign had always been here, but previously it had been located some hundred meters to the west, which meant that the camp could legally be reached by car. The new location near the roundabout ensured that all visitors to the Peace Camp driving there by car or van were now formally trespassing. One activist explained this as a sign of governmental obstruction of the protest. Formally, the local government was not entitled to hinder protest, as the right to protest is fundamental to the German democratic state and the freedom of speech. However, it is likely that activist presence at the camp site does press on municipal budget. As the sign was placed here just before a new series of performances would be held at the Büchel Open Air stage, the activists’ impression was that this was a clear indication of obstruction of protest by authorities, as the lack of parking space would render access to the festivities impossible for visitors from further away. In contrast to this claim, it also has to be mentioned that no tickets were handed out by the police for illegal parking during our stay at the Peace Camp, nor during the festivities held on Saturday when several cars were parked near the stage, including my own.

Conclusion and final remarks

As I have shown, the former military landscape of Büchel airbase can today effectively be called a military-activist landscape which has evolved over the last decade. I have shown that the landscape as it appears now, cannot be understood without the activists, even though no official map today marks their presence yet. Although the fleeting material culture on the activists’ side cannot compete with the materiality of the military in scale and structure and its persistence over time, has influenced materiality and landscape significantly. 

The goal of this improvised mapping project was to help preserve the memory of the Peace Camp by mapping and by contributing to the awareness of its existence. Only days before the final draft of this paper was submitted, new information placed this work in a whole new light. One of the Dutch activists from 2019 sent me a picture, showing a signpost that explained the terrain of the Peace Camp had recently been transformed into a strip in the ‘Blüstreifen-projekt’, basically a nature development project. The meadow where the tents used to be, was plowed and flowering plants were sown to improve biodiversity with a clear notice on the signpost that trespassing was prohibited (Figure 15). This effectively prevented the 2020 edition of the Peace Camp to be erected on this spot. Whether the decision to transform this area into nature was a deliberate attempt to prevent the activists from coming back cannot be concluded at this time, but also can’t be excluded. The usage of seemingly unrelated legislation by the State, to diminish activists’ visibility and presence at camp sites, has been reported by others before.[10]

Marjolijn kok wrote in 2018 that in activist archaeology there is no time to think, you have to act now if you want to record activist activity while it is still present. Hesitate and before you can blink your eyes “all ephemeral protest is wiped away from public view and we can pretend nothing [ever] happened”.[11] At Büchel Peace Camp we archaeologists arrived at the scene just in time for once, but only barely. 

Acknowledgements

This paper and map had not been possible without the support of staff and visitors of the Büchel Peace Camp 2019 who were very generous in providing me with the opportunity to record their camp and take pictures freely. Also I like to thank Petra Rietberg and Barbara Brayshay for their comments on the manuscript.  

Author

Coming from a background in evolutionary biology, Jobbe Wijnen started his archaeological career in 2009 in CRM conflict-archaeology and contemporary archaeology. Today he is member of the standing committee of the Contemporary Historical Archaeology in Theory group (CHAT) and works as an independent archaeology and heritage consultant. Regarding conflict archaeology, Jobbe holds a position of what might be called nuanced-pacifism: the need to maintain an army is part of the deep tragedy of our human condition and the reality of today’s global political arena, as using armed force will always and inevitably cause more suffering than anything else. Archaeology can be a tool to understand this reality and help to change it. Jobbe currently lives in Wageningen, the Netherlands. 

jobbew@gmail.com

References 

[1] Beck, Colleen M, Harold Drollinger, and John Schofield 2007. Archaeology of dissent: landscape and symbolism at the Nevada Peace Camp. A fearsome heritage: diverse legacies of the Cold War:297-320; After Buchli and Lucas 2001

[2] Wijnen Kok Schute, Schriek

[3] Verkenning RCE

[4] See for example national monument No 532418, a ‘BB-Onderkomen’ bunker in the province of Utrecht. https://monumentenregister.cultureelerfgoed.nl/monumenten/532418 (last accessed 14-10-2020)

[5] Kok, M. 2013 Contemporary Archaeology or the Becoming of a Potential Threat to the State. In TAG Bournemouth; Kok, M. 2018 Remembering the Invisible; Archaeology of Modern Protest. In State of the Field Archaeology and Social Justice Conference.  Brown University; Beck et al. (2007); Dézsi, A. 2019. Historical and community archaeology at an anti nuclear protest camp site. Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Newsletter (85):5-6.

[6] Hautermans, L. 2019 "Nato-Dokument bestätigt Präsenz von Atomwaffen rund um NRW (NATO document confirms presence of nuclear weapons in Nordrhein Westfalen)." Westdeutsche Zeitung, 17-07-2019.

[7] Kok, 2018

[8] I estimate this to be the only and original fence since the opening of the base up to 2017. See https://www.flickr.com/photos/atomwaffenfrei-jetzt/34694759263/in/album-72157683373323010/) (last accessed 14-10-2020)

[9] I did not see this concertina wire myself, but see this recent video from Büchel activists https://youtu.be/AXMaQkDKuYY  (last accessed 14-10-2020).

[10] Kok, 2018

[11] Kok, 2018: 3