The “Women for Peace” (East)
Origin
Women for Peace (East) was part of the independent, nongovernmental peace movement in the GDR that arose in the late 1970s in contradistinction to official peace policy of the SED. It was independent and nongovernmental because according to official policy, the GDR was the epitome of a ‘peace state’ (Friedensstaat) and the vehicle for the real peace movement which was thus to be found in its state organizations.
The Women for Peace groups in the GDR arose at approximately the same time as their counterparts in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). They made reference to the latter, but formed in response to developments in their own political system.1 The specific occasion was the ratification on March 25, 1982, by the Volkskammer (People’s Chamber) of a law that allowed for conscripting women into active military service if needed for defense. Protests against this law initially took the form of spontaneous objections formulated by individual women in letters and 'Eingaben' (petitions) to party leaders. Receiving little response from the state, some women came together to write a joint petition, which they sent to State Council Chairman Erich Honecker on October 12, 1982.2 It had around 150 signatures—a conspicuously large number given the conditions in the GDR at the time.
The signatories explained that they viewed “military service for women not as an expression of their equal rights but rather as inconsistent with being women.” They also called for a “legally grounded option for refusal.”.3 Petitions (Eingaben) were the only legal means of lodging an appeal against state measures. In response, some of the women were summoned to interrogations by the Ministry of State Security (MfS or Stasi), threatened, and intimidated.4 A few were even detained in Berlin (Bärbel Bohley and Ulrike Poppe) and Halle (Katrin Eigenfeld), which triggered protests in the GDR and by the West European peace movement. In the face of public pressure, the GDR government decided to release the peace women.5
The women did not set out to form a group or a women’s group. Instead, their joint actions were what led to the decision to form groups, first in Berlin, shortly thereafter in Halle, and later also in other parts of the GDR. Individual women came together in part because increasing levels of state repression fostered a closer degree of collaboration, but also because they discovered that all-female groups could discuss other topics and communicate in different ways than the mixed-gender oppositional groups many of them had been active in previously. The Women for Peace groups thus assumed an important social function and played a major role in how in their members examined and analyzed their experiences as women. 6
Actions
Most of the large-scale public actions were held between 1982 and 1985 7 Their specific forms included petitions, signature collections, church services with an emphasis on prayer and protestation (Bitt- und Klagegottesdienste), and involvement in peace workshops. Hundreds of women could be mobilized to attend these events 8
The 'Politische Nachtgebete für Frauen' (Political Night Prayers for Women) were among the best-known actions. They were launched by the Berlin group in early 1984 with the slogan Kommt laßt uns klagen, es ist an der Zeit, wir müssen schreien, sonst hört man uns nicht (Come let us protest, the time has come, we need to cry out, for otherwise our voices will not be heard). More services followed, enabling even more women to be mobilized. Held under the auspices of the Protestant Church, they created a semipublic space in which concerns could be openly voiced and discussed. Recourse to a protestation or lament-based type of church service (Klagegottesdienst) drew in part on political considerations, because statements expressed in prayer could not be grounds for criminal prosecution in the GDR.9
Women for Peace (East) always viewed itself as part of the international women’s peace movements. It had personal contacts to Women for Peace (West), for example, as well as to women in Scandinavia and in the UK’s European Nuclear Disarmament (END) movement. It was also active across geopolitical blocs. In November 1983, it contributed to an appeal by the West German Green Party to West German parliamentarians to reject the stationing of missiles. In September 1984, it signed a greeting to the women’s peace conference in Northern Ireland. And in 1985, it joined Italy’s Women for Peace in writing an open letter at the start of the Geneva Summit. 10
Networks
The Women for Peace groups in the GDR were in contact with each other from the start, not least of all because many of their members had already met in the independent peace movement or via other oppositional activities. The groups also grew out of existing networks. With the launch of countrywide gatherings in 1984, they had a regular forum for communication. The first of these gatherings was organized by the Halle group and held on September 14-15, 1984. They were then held annually: in Berlin in 1985, Leipzig in 1986, Magdeburg in 1987, Karl-Marx-Stadt (today Chemnitz) in 1988,and Jena in 1989. The aim was to establish a Women for Peace movement specific to the GDR.11 In the mid-1980s, feminist and lesbian groups began playing a greater role in these networking meetings, and a small independent women’s movement began to emerge..12
Political Opposition versus Feminism
This expansion was not free of conflict. There was always a fault line at the networking meetings between feminist groups on the one hand and those that viewed themselves primarily as ‘political’ on the other. While the former focused on women’s issues and criticizing patriarchal structures, the latter prioritized political opposition and considered women’s concerns secondary. The majority of Women for Peace members, especially in Berlin and Halle, saw themselves first and foremost as part of the peace movement and only then as women’s groups. 13 They considered the women’s question important, but not “truly political.”14 By contrast, Women for Peace groups founded later (in Leipzig, Magdeburg, and Jena) were much more focused on women’s issues. They therefore continued to attend the countrywide gatherings or even initiated them, while the more political Women for Peace groups increasingly withdrew from these now feminism-oriented gatherings.
In terms of the importance attached to feminist matters, Women for Peace (East) was very heterogeneous in nature. Its members in general were also quite nonhomogeneous, comprising Marxists, lesbian feminists, and strongly Church-affiliated women theologians. With widely differing underlying motivations, the lowest common denominator consisted of opposition to the state system 15 Women for Peace therefore initiated the rise of an independent peace movement in the GDR—not least of all by creating a means of networking—although constituting only a small part of the overall movement.
Within the GDR’s landscape of movements, Women for Peace (East) assumed the role of a bridge organization by virtue of being equally connected to the (mixed-gender) peace and opposition movement and the women’s movement. Its members were active in the (mixed-gender) ‘Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte’ (Initiative for Peace and Human Rights) founded in early 1986, for instance, as well as in lesbian and feminist groups.16
Co-Initiators of Autumn 1989 Civil Rights Movements
As of the mid-1980s, when the peace movement subsided and the GDR’s independent women’s movement gathered momentum, Women for Peace (East) members began to diverge in their organizational activities. Some were more at home in the independent women’s movement, while others turned their political energies to opposing the regime. Many were co-initiators of mixed-gender groups in the various civil rights movements of autumn 1989 and were often at the heart of the action. Bärbel Bohley, Katrin Eigenfeld, Jutta Seidel, Erika Drees, and Katja Havemann, for example, were initial signatories of the founding proclamation for the ‘Neues Forum’ (New Forum), and Ulrike Poppe was a co-founder of ‘Demokratie Jetzt’ (Democracy Now). A smaller contingent from the Women for Peace groups, especially from the south of the GDR, were among the co-founders of the ‘Unabhängigen Frauenverband’ (Independent Women’s Association, UFV).
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Footnotes
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1
Kukutz, Irena: Die Bewegung ‘Frauen für den Frieden’ als Teil der unabhängigen Friedensbewegung der DDR, in: Materialien zur Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland”, Frankfurt a. M. 1995, 1291.
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2
Ibid., 1298.
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3
Bildungswerk für Demokratie und Umweltschutz (Hg.): Genau hingesehen. Nie geschwiegen. Sofort widersprochen. Gleich gehandelt. Dokumente aus dem Gewebe der Heuchelei 1982 1989. Widerstand autonomer Frauen in Berlin Ost und West, Berlin 1989.
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4
Sengespeick-Roos, Christa: Das ganz Normale tun. Widerstandsräume in der DDR-Kirche, Berlin 1997, 30.
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5
Kukutz: Die Bewegung ‘Frauen für den Frieden’, 1310.
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6
Miethe, Ingrid: Frauen in der DDR-Opposition. Lebens- und kollektivgeschichtliche Verläufe in einer Frauenfriedensgruppe, in: Forschung Politikwissenschaft, Vol. 36, 1999; Kenawi, Samirah: Frauengruppen in der DDR der 80er Jahre. Eine Dokumentation, Berlin 1995; Kukutz: „Die Bewegung ‚Frauen für den Frieden‘“, 1303.
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7
Neubert, Ehrhart: Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949–1989, Bonn 1997. Sengespeick-Roos, Christa: Das ganz Normale tun. Widerstandsräume in der DDR-Kirche, Berlin 1997, 495 ff and 579 ff.
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8
Ibid., 581.
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9
Sengespeick-Roos: Das ganz Normale tun, 31 ff.
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10
Kukutz: „Die Bewegung ‚Frauen für den Frieden‘“, here 1307, 1316 und 1320.
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11
Kenawi: Frauengruppen in der DDR, 23.
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12
Ibid., 30 f.; Hampele-Ulrich, Anne: Der Unabhängige Frauenverband. Ein frauenpolitisches Experiment im deutschen Vereinigungsprozeß, in: Berliner Debatte Initial, Berlin 2000.
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13
Kukutz: „Die Bewegung ‚Frauen für den Frieden‘“, 1333.
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14
Miethe: Frauen in der DDR-Opposition, 95 f.
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15
Ibid.
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16
Templin, Wolfgang / Weißhuhn, Reinhard: Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte, in: Müller-Enbergs, Helmut et al. (Ed.): Von der Illegalität ins Parlament. Werdegang und Konzepte der neuen Bürgerbewegungen, Berlin 1992, 57; Kenawi: Frauengruppen in der DDR.
Selected publications
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Kukutz, Irena: „Die Bewegung ,Frauen für den Frieden‘ als Teil der unabhängigen Friedensbewegung der DDR“, in: Deutscher Bundestag (Hg.): Materialien zur Enquete-Kommission „Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland“, Frankfurt a.M./Baden-Baden 1995, S. 1285–1408.
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Neubert, Ehrhart: Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949–1989, Bonn 1997.
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Sengespeick-Roos, Christa: Das ganz Normale tun. Widerstandsräume in der DDR-Kirche, Berlin 1997.
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Templin, Wolfgang / Weißhuhn, Reinhard: Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte, in: Müller-Enbergs, Helmut et al. (Hg.): Von der Illegalität ins Parlament. Werdegang und Konzepte der neuen Bürgerbewegungen, Berlin 1992, S. 148–165.
