PEACETREATIES.NET | The Initiative

WHO IS BEHIND PECEATREATIES.NET?

Holger Güssefeld, Hamburg, who brought along the concept from his time at PEACE BIRD and has now refined it to the current status with his product development company Somethink.
Josef Schewe, Hamburg, who as graphic artist and illustrator has designed the treaty and the logo.
Frank Stahmer, Hamburg, who as a child had joined Peace Birds and concluded peace treaties with children from all over the world already then.
Walter Kasanmascheff, Höchstadt, who set up the organisation GODPARENTSHOOD FOR PEACE and now primarily motivates schools to participate.
A handful of students from the University of Lüneburg who advance the project together with their professor.
And many honorary helpers who spread the concept, establish contacts, translate texts for free and much more.

The first personal peace treaties were concluded by children.

Holger Güssefeld, the initiator of PEACETREATIES.NET, had managed the PEACE BIRD initiative in the 1980s. Using the slogan "A letter to both" children all over the world were invited to write a letter to the presidents of the USSR and the USA and to express their concern in view of the tensions of the Cold War therein. More than 250,000 letters were written by children from more than 20 countries. Many of these children got to know each other, established own peace clubs, prepared exhibitions of the letters, organised part of the public relations work themselves, and some even flew to Reagan's and Gorbatchov's summit in Washington to present the letters.

Peace became a very personal matter in the children's life. They met, made friends and did not care from which countries they came or whether their countries were in conflict with each other. As a symbol of their friendship the children already then concluded their own symbolic peace treaties.