BERLIN REPORTER JULIA GREENHAM-COMMON

FOR FOUR DECADES they marched, they protested, they even camped outside military bases, devoted to one thing, the elimination of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth. And then they vanished.

These were the anti-nuclear protesters, people who cried out against the greatest threat facing mankind – nuclear war.

Before climate change, before carbon dioxide emissions, before all that we fear today, nuclear annihilation was the fear of the day for millions.

There were two superpowers facing off, and if they ever went to war then it was bye bye life as we knew it.

Then one of the superpowers went away.

And with it went the anti-nuclear protests.

Suddenly the world was safer.

Except the nuclear weapons never went away. In fact, they proliferated. More countries got hold of them, countries with far less self-control than the Soviet Union, or the United States.

Now, one nuclear power is at war with a country being supported by three nuclear powers, and yet the anti-nuclear protesters are nowhere to be seen. Why is that?

How did the greatest threat to mankind suddenly become less threatening, more tolerable, insignificant even? What happened to the end of the world we were all promised?

It hasn’t gone away, you know.