Wachsbleiche 16, 53111 Bonn

Petra Kelly (1947 – 1992) was a politician, avowed pacifist, feminist, and a symbolic figure of the peace movement. She was a co-founder of the German party Die Grünen (The Greens) and lived in the north of Bonn in the Tannenbusch district until her death. The funeral service to mark her death took place here in the Beethovenhalle in 1992

Petra Kelly (neé Petra Karin Lehmann) was born in Günzburg (Bavaria) in 1947 and was mostly raised by her grandmother Kunigunde Birle. Her grandmother was one of her closest confidants and supported Kelly in both her political and personal endeavours.

After Petra’s father left the family when she was only seven years old, her mother met John Kelly, a United States Army officer stationed in Germany. The two married in 1959 and the family moved to the USA in the same year, where Petra Kelly’s political involvement later began. While studying Political Science in Washington D.C., she became actively engaged in the Civil Rights Movement. After her studies, she moved to Europe, worked in Brussels, and campaigned for peace, human rights, equal rights, and ecological preservation, among others. Through her commitment to peace, Petra Kelly met her future partner Gert Bastian, a former major general, at a panel discussion in 1980. Together, Kelly and Bastian were regarded as symbolic figures of the German peace movement. At one of the large peace demonstrations in Bonn’s Hofgarten (→ Hofgarten) in 1981, Kelly gave a speech against nuclear weapons and nuclear armament. In this speech, she called for the resignation of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who was in favour of stationing nuclear weapons in Germany.

For her many years of commitment to peace, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize.

Her commitment also included supporting the citizens’ movement in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Parts of the movement joined the West German Greens after reunification. This gave rise to today’s Bündnis 90/Die Grünen party (Alliance 90/The Greens). The party and Petra Kelly entered the Bundestag (German Federal Parliament) in 1982 – her political peak. Furthermore, Petra Kelly sought to draw attention to sexism within the so-called “men’s republic”.

Kelly spent the last years of her life more quietly, as she was not re-elected at the 1990 party conference. Her life came to a violent and tragic end in October 1992 when she was only 44 years old. Gert Bastian shot Petra Kelly as she slept next to him and then proceeded to take his own life. The funeral service took place on the 31^st of October 1992 with mourners from all around the world in the Beethovenhalle in Bonn. The Tagesthemen, one of Germany’s main daily television news magazines, announced: “Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian are dead. And suddenly, the whole of Bonn – no, the whole of Germany – is shaken.

“Start where you are, don’t wait for better circumstances. They will come automatically the moment you start.” – Petra Kelly

On a further note: In 1989, together with peace researcher Theodor Ebert and others, Kelly founded the Bund für Soziale Verteidigung e. V. (Federation of Social Defense), which still exists today, and was also its founding board member

Rhine promenade Beuel · Rheinaustr. / Corner of Friedrich-Breuer-Str.

The Hiroshima-Memorial was erected in memory of the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on the 6th of August 1945. It is located on the bank of the Rhine in Beuel, near the Kennedy Bridge, and was opened in 2011 by the Peace Initiative Beuel along with other groups and individuals. It replaced and upgraded the more inconspicuous memorial stone which stood at the same location from 1985

On the 6^th of August 1945 at 8 a.m., 15 minutes and 17 seconds local time, the first US atomic bomb called “Little Boy” was dropped over Hiroshima from an altitude of 9,467 metres. The bomb exploded 599 metres above the Aioi Bridge in the city centre.

Three days later, on the 9^th of August 1945 at 11 a.m. and 2 minutes local time, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Due to its shape, this bomb was called “Fat Man”.

A total of around 110,000 people died immediately and over 100,000 more died by the end of 1945 as a result of nuclear radiation poisoning. The survivors – known as hibakusha – are still suffering the long-term effects to this day.

These two bombings are the only uses of nuclear weapons in a war to date. All around the world people are committed to ensuring that they remain the last. But even in 2024, there are still around 12,500 nuclear weapons in the world, 3,800 of which are immediately operational. A glimpse of hope on the way to a world free of nuclear weapons is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

This treaty was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2017 and came into force on the 22^nd of January 2021. So far 93 states have signed this treaty (as of January 2024). Hibakusha Setsuko Thurlow powerfully voiced the hope for a world without nuclear weapons when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in 2017: “To all in this hall and all listening around the world, I repeat those words that I heard called to me in the ruins of Hiroshima: ‘Don’t give up! Keep pushing! See the light? Crawl towards it’.”

The memorial in Beuel is intended to serve as a constant reminder to the people of Bonn to stand up for the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Since 1986, every year on the 6^th of August, the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima are remembered.

Additionally, on Hiroshima Remembrance Day in August 2020, the city of Bonn signalled a commitment to peace at Bonn’s Rheinaue near the Japanese garden: The seed of the Muku tree planted there comes from trees from the so-called Hiroshima death zone and was entrusted to Bonn by the Mayors for Peace network (→ Old Town Hall).

“Peace to all peoples. Abolish nuclear weapons worldwide.” – Inscription on the memorial