Biography
Elmer Maas was a musician, music teacher, and Catholic peace activist who joined the Plowshares Eight at the GE plant in King of Prussia in September 1980 and remained part of the Plowshares movement for the rest of his life, participating in additional actions and supporting prisoners of conscience. He died in December 2002 at age 67.
On September 9, 1980, eight Catholic peace activists — Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Carl Kabat, Anne Montgomery RSCJ, Molly Rush, Elmer Maas, John Schuchardt, and Dean Hammer — entered the General Electric Re-entry Systems Division plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where Mark 12A nuclear warhead nose cones were manufactured. They hammered on two of the nose cones and poured their own blood on documents, in a literal enactment of the prophet Isaiah's image of beating swords into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4). They were arrested at the scene and went to trial in Norristown the following year. Convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and criminal mischief, they were sentenced in 1981 to terms of 3 to 10 years; the case was on appeal for ten years before they were resentenced in 1990 to time served (just over a year). The action launched the modern Plowshares movement, which has carried out more than 100 symbolic disarmament actions worldwide since.
Omitted Thames River case
Added September 4–5, 1989 overnight custody and a separate sixty-day sentence dated March 6, 1990. Later custody endpoints remain unknown. The April 10, 1990 eyewitness report identifies Maas as already serving a different sentence, not continuous 1980–1990 imprisonment.
Sources: Laffin's participant chronology; Jim Wallis, A Day in Court.
Plowshares Eight date correction
April 10, 1990 was resentencing, not a verified release after continuous confinement from 1980. The erroneous April 9 release and 3,500-day total were removed. Arrest and initial custody are dated September 9, 1980. Maas was serving a different sentence at resentencing; his release from the original case remains unknown.
Sources: UPI, April 10, 1990; Jim Wallis's eyewitness account.
Plowshares Number Four custody reconstruction
The original January 1983 report names all seven and dates the action and arrest to November 14, 1982. It reports December 22 release on a promise to appear, after initial imprisonment. This 38-day detention is separate from the later sentence, so time outside prison is excluded.
The May 20, 1983 disposition was one year. A separate record preserves that sentence without equating sentence length with time actually served or copying the initial arrest into later custody.
Autumn release forecasts in issue 19 are likewise not actual release evidence.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister 14, January 14, 1983, pages 3–4; issue 17, June 6, 1983, page 5; issue 18, July 7, 1983, printed page 6; Art Laffin participant chronology.
Separate April 14, 1981 Hartford protest detention
The May 9, 1981 support newsletter, page 4, names Elmer Maas among eight activists arrested at the United Technologies stockholders meeting in Hartford on April 14, 1981. It reports processing, fingerprints and photographs at Hartford Police Station, followed by release: six on recognizance and the other two within two hours after bail or identification was provided. It does not identify which two faced those conditions. The original breach-of-peace charge became disorderly conduct at arraignment; May 7 was a scheduled pretrial hearing. This distinct brief detention is not merged into the later Trident Nein custody or earlier Plowshares Eight prosecution. No new short-stay case, sentence-service claim or counter is created.
Original July 28, 1981 sentence and immediate remand
The September 19, 1981 newsletter, original page 3, reports Dean Hammer and Elmer Maas each sentenced July 28 to one and a half to five years plus five years probation, with all eight Plowshares defendants immediately jailed. Hammer was released later, but no exact discharge is given; Maas remained jailed at Graterford when reported. The 1990 time-served resentencing must not be mistaken for the original admission or physical release. This source does not establish either man’s complete actual custody duration.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 7, September 19, 1981, original pages 1–4
The original July 28, 1981 sentencing report on page 3 reads five years probation for Dean Hammer, Elmer Maas and Anne Montgomery. A prior six-year transcription for Maas has been corrected. Maas was still at Graterford at publication; no actual release day or continuous 1980–1990 custody is established.
Nepstad’s study reports that Maas spent seventeen and a half months in jail in the Plowshares Eight case. It does not identify the physical release date or divide that duration into distinct custody intervals.
The study identifies James Buckingham as the April 1990 resentencing judge and records time served plus twenty-three months’ probation.
