My first full day in the archive proved fruitful. The staff at the Archiv Grünes Gedächtnis (Green Memory Archive) were so helpful and very sympathetic to my lack of German. My best finds so far are petitions and packets of newspaper clippings sent to Green Party member of parliament Gabby Gottwald. These documents were from solidarity groups in Germany and the United States reaching out to their representatives in government, and in the case of the U.S. organizations, those of another country.
The above document is a German translation and modification of the Pledge of Resistance. After the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 many in the solidarity movement in the United States feared that the Reagan administration would soon invade Nicaragua. In response, a group, which came to be known simply as Pledge of Resistance, created a pledge promising to resist a U.S. invasion and stand in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua. The pledge soon became the rallying cry for those opposed to the Reagan administration’s aggression towards Nicaragua. The fact that the document made it to Germany, and eventually into the hands of a German member of parliament, demonstrates the transnational dimensions of revolutionary solidarity.
Andrew W. Wilson 