Youth against War (JgK), a German-wide campaign of school students, students and apprentices, which was initiated by members of Socialist Alternative (SAV, the German CWI section) and International Resistance (the German section of International Socialist Resistance), brought out more than 150,000 school students on March 20.

Iraq

150,000 on school students’ strike

In a magnificent show of anger against Bush’s war, school students stopped their lessons and took to the streets. In some cities headmasters tried to lock them into the schools. This prompted youth to shout "freedom for the political prisoners". In other cases, teachers joined in the strike and took their whole classes to go to the demos.

JgK speakers on many occasions called on the trade unions and workers to follow their example and take strike action against the war on Iraq.

In Hamburg JgK co-organised a half-hour stoppage of work by apprentices in the defence company Airbus. Hospital workers in some southern German cities also stopped work for 30 minutes against the war.

One of the biggest school student demonstrations took place in Berlin with 70,000 on the march. Stuttgart followed with 20,000 in the second school strike within a month. Bremen saw 13,000 while Kassel, Cologne and Saarbrücken saw 10,000 each on their demos. In Aachen there were 4,000. From many other cities we do not have detailed reports yet but demos and strikes took place in Siegen, Dueren, Tübingen, Nuremberg, Moenchengladbach and other cities.

More reports from Germany to follow.

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