Coal, chemical industry … boundary environmental destruction

We went on holiday in the Jizera Mountains in 1981. The Jizera Mountains and the Ore Mountains were very close to each other, with huge areas of completely dead forest. And in Leipzig: several small rivers were black sewers with white foam crowns. At some point I couldn’t stand that anymore and asked myself: Will your children ask if you’ve done anything about it? And that was one reason why I worked as a graduate engineer in water management research. And also that I was very active in the church’s “Environmental Protection” working group – here in Leipzig under the umbrella of the youth ministry. […]

Active action for our environment was a priority, such as the action of our working group in the Leipzig area, such as the Pleiße memorial march in 1988. It was about the state of the rivers, using the Pleiße as an example. I also actively supported actions that had been launched in Dresden – together with the Christian environmental seminar Rötha “One Mark for Espenhain” in 1987. I collected a lot of signatures, or rather the “One-Mark-Contribution”. That was the joke: collecting signatures was forbidden in the GDR, so you could be punished. So it became a fundraising campaign – and everyone gave a mark with their signature for the reconstruction of the brown coal plant in Espenhain. The Espenhain brown coal plant had an enormous impact on the air quality in the area. This campaign also made it very clear how stressful the situation was for the population: some were immediately ready to sign. I collected the “One Mark for Espenhain” after church services – also from my colleagues or in the house where we lived. And of course there were some who said “Oh no, I’m not going to do that at all”, others were hesitant, the woman signed, but the man said “No, I’d rather not”. It was a mirror image: almost all of them complained, but then they were still far from actually taking small, concrete steps. … of course, someone could find out that I signed it, which would put me at a disadvantage … at work or somewhere. […]

For example, on October 9, 1989: We distributed a “No violence” appeal. It was an appeal from the three working groups, and the environmental protection working group was also involved. The use of violence was to be avoided at all costs. There were also Stasi people there – often recognizable by their outfits and their facial expressions or stature – and I gave them the no violence appeal too. They then took me to the police station for a short time. And there I had to somehow make it clear that I was fundamentally against all violence – not just against the violence of the state, but also “against the violence of the demonstrators”. […]