When the government led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (CDU) unveils plans in 1957 to arm the Bundeswehr – the Federal Armed Forces established two years earlier – with nuclear weapons, a civil society protest movement is formed. In the spring of 1958, an alliance of peace groups, trade unions, Social Democrats and other initiatives calls for demonstrations in numerous cities. Schmidt, the Bundestag member for Barmbek and a defence expert, speaks in Dulsberg on 15 April at a rally with the slogan »No to nuclear missiles«. Two days later, more than 150,000 people take to the central city streets; at Rathausmarkt square, Mayor Max Brauer (SPD) warns against »waging war to the point of self-annihilation«.