Petra Kelly and the German Greens

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

In the early 1980s in West Germany, a radical new political party was on the rise. Die Grünen - the Greens - championed protecting the environment, scrapping nuclear power plants and nuclear missiles, and stopping pollution. A movement as well as a party, the Greens brought together disparate groups of environmentalists, conservative farmers and youthful anti-nuclear activists. Petra Kelly, the party’s most prominent spokesperson, was a charismatic speaker who became an international name. Her life was cut short when she was killed by her partner in 1992. Sara Parkin, friend and biographer of Petra Kelly, shares her memories of the Greens’ early successes and reflects on Kelly’s legacy today. Image: Petra Kelly. Credit: Mehner/ullstein bild via Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:37.0	I'm Viv Jones. Today we're going back to the 1980s and to Cold War West Germany,
0:42.0	where a radical new political party was on the rise.
0:45.2	To Grununen, the Greens, championed protecting the environment, scrapping nuclear power plants and nuclear missiles and stopping pollution.
0:54.0	Led by the charismatic Petro-Kelli,
0:56.0	the Greens have reshaped the German political landscape.
0:59.0	The entire administration at the present
1:02.0	seemed to have the theory that a nuclear war is winnable and is possible.
1:06.5	I do not believe that such a thing can be called limited because it's going to be wiping out millions of Europeans.
1:12.6	She was a brilliant speaker and a mover of audiences
1:16.2	inside the party and outside.
1:18.4	She was described as like a white-hot heat that welded all these disparate groups together.
1:25.4	Anti-nuclear and much older, more conservative environmental protection
1:31.8	organization. So it was a really tough gig to get those
	...

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