This event will be in German:

Deserters do not want to kill; they do not want to die: they refuse to participate in war. Rolf Cantzen shows how the will to survive and the power of conscience can lead to extreme decisions, and how military systems of repression seek to prevent them.

Desertion – a courageous act of resistance or a betrayal of the community? In times of war, deserters are often portrayed as “cowards” or shirkers, as people who evade their duties. But what drives someone to refuse military service, withdraw their loyalty from the state and the armed forces, and flee? Which religious convictions and political or humanist ideals are decisive? And what role does the spontaneous assertion of one’s own agency play – simply deciding not to take part any longer?

The consequences deserters face for their decision are usually severe: social ostracism, but also imprisonment and death sentences. In Germany, deserters remained stigmatized for a long time after the Second World War, while the judges and prosecutors who had sentenced them were able to continue their careers in the judiciary and politics. It was not until 2009 that the convictions handed down against deserters during the Nazi era were fully overturned.

In his book, Rolf Cantzen examines the decisions underlying desertion as well as the authorities’ responses to them. He traces a broad historical arc from the Roman Empire and the Nazi era to the war in Ukraine.

**Rolf Cantzen**
Born in 1955 in the Emsland region of Germany, Cantzen studied political science, philosophy, German literature, and sociology in Hanover and Berlin. He has published several non-fiction books, novels, and collections of stories, and has written numerous radio features. In 2024, he received the Alternative Media Prize in the History category for *Lange Nacht der Deserteure* (“The Long Night of the Deserters”).

**Deserteure – Die Geschichte von Gewissen, Widerstand und Flucht**
*Deserters – The History of Conscience, Resistance, and Escape*
2025, zu Klampen Verlag, Springe. ISBN 978-3-98737-030-4. 203 pp., €24.