---
title: '"STOP Raketenbeschluß!": child with a placard at a youth peace rally, Suhl'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-suhl-youth-peace-manifestation-stop-sign-1983/
description: 'A small girl in a crowd of young people holds a printed placard: ''STOP'', a vertical line reading ''Weg mit dem ... Raketenbeschluß!'' (away with the ...…'
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[!["STOP Raketenbeschluß!": child with a placard at a youth peace rally, Suhl](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-suhl-youth-peace-manifestation-stop-sign-1983.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-suhl-youth-peace-manifestation-stop-sign-1983.jpg)

# "STOP Raketenbeschluß!": child with a placard at a youth peace rally, Suhl

A small girl in a crowd of young people holds a printed placard: 'STOP', a vertical line reading 'Weg mit dem ... Raketenbeschluß!' (away with the ... missile decision), and a drawing of a black missile whose nose is a fanged head beside a white star. The fanged-missile drawing gives the danger a monster's face, and the agency caption offers a count of 25,000 young people in place of a stated reason.

- **Date:** May 20, 1983
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** ADN-Zentralbild (GDR state news agency), photographer Helmut Schaar; placard maker and rally organiser not named in the record
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [East Germany](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=east-germany)
- **Medium:** [Photograph](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=photograph)
- **Issuer type:** [Mixed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=mixed)
- **Regime:** [German Democratic Republic](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=german-democratic-republic)
- **Leader:** [Erich Honecker](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=erich-honecker)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [Euromissile Crisis](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=euromissile-crisis)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Bandwagon](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/bandwagon/)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 183-1983-0520-018, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1983-0520-018%2C_Suhl%2C_Friedensdemonstration.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY-SA 3.0 de (Bundesarchiv release via Wikimedia Commons; file page states licence and attribution) Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1983-0520-018 / Schaar, Helmut / CC-BY-SA 3.0

## Text on the object

Original (German) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
STOP

[vertical line, read from bottom to top:]
Weg mit dem [hidden by the child's hand] Raketenbeschluß!
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
STOP

[vertical line, read from bottom to top:]
Away with the [hidden by the child's hand] missile decision!
```

Read from the committed image and a magnified crop of the placard. The vertical line runs up the left edge of the sign; a word or more between 'dem' and 'Raketenbeschluß' is covered by the child's hand and is not supplied here.

[← "Na atoomreagan geen zonneschijn": banner at a Dutch anti-nuclear demonstration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/na-atoomreagan-banner-1982/) ["Frontul Democrației și Unității Socialiste - cel mai larg organism politic": Romanian wall chart →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/romanian-front-of-democracy-and-socialist-unity-1985/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (Qing China · 1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (United Kingdom · Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Venezuela · Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (Qing China · 1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (Spain · 1900 · Fear appeal)