Chapter five analyses the expansion of environmental protest after Chernobyl in 1986. The environmental movement became more public in eastern Europe in general, and the GDR in particular. Bolstered by western support, unrest grew swiftly in an uncertain political context. The chapter explores East German reactions to Chernobyl and new challenges for the movement. The Stasi’s efforts to sow discord among uneasily allied environmentalists succeeded in curbing their potential impact. Yet the relative openness in Poland permitted outrage over Chernobyl and further fueled discussion of other environmental problems, making it an ideal location for exchange across borders within the region. Finally, the chapter turns to deepened West German interactions with eastern European pollution and protest, teasing out moments of cooperation and misunderstanding. Responses to Chernobyl reshaped environmental movements, anti-communist rhetoric, and connections. Nevertheless, the nuclear disaster and its fallout undermined a system that was already on shaky ground.

When Monika Maron published Flight of Ashes in 1981, she shocked readers with stark images of Bitterfeld, one of Europe’s most polluted cities in the heart of the East German Chemical Triangle. Considered the first book about environmental degradation in East Germany (German Democratic Republic, GDR), Maron had to publish the novel abroad in West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany, FRG). The pollution exposed the environmental devastation of Soviet-style economies: “And these fumes could serve as road signs. Please go straight ahead to the ammonia, then turn left at the nitric acid. When you feel a stabbing pain in your throat and bronchial tubes, turn around and call a doctor, that was sulfur dioxide.”1 Maron’s work not only graphically portrays the pollution but also illustrates the GDR’s unique position between eastern and western Europe during the Cold War. A West German press published the novel for a West German audience, revealing the conditions in Bitterfeld as well as conveying the uncomfortable feeling of constant secret police, or Stasi, surveillance. Moreover, East Germans clamored to have copies of the book smuggled into the GDR, underscoring the connection between the two Germanys.

Chapter four emphasizes the GDR’s position as an ecological link between east and west as well as an environmental hazard to its neighbors. Moving geographically from west to east, this chapter traces the entangled evolution of policies among the GDR and its neighbors in addition to protest within the GDR. Growing dismay over transboundary pollution redoubled West German efforts to negotiate with the GDR. Moreover, frustration over pollution and the classification of data in the GDR come from both official channels and Church-based circles. Resentment over worsening conditions emerged across the country and from an array of individuals. Lastly, environmental protest reawakened in Poland as the communist party embraced Soviet reforms after 1985, making it an obvious node for activism in the Soviet bloc. These phenomena put pressure on the GDR. Denunciations of pollution heightened a sense of crisis that defied political divisions and revealed ecological interdependence.

Chapter one investigates how the SED used nature conservation and environmental protection to strengthen its socialist state, domestically and internationally. The chapter traces communist economic and nature conservation practices after the Second World War and the problems they generated. The GDR claimed science and technology would forge a rational, technocratic future that both employed and protected nature in the service of socialism and the East Germans. This chapter situates the SED’s actions in the context of an environmental awareness emerging on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The SED harnessed the popular topic of the environment to leverage its position at a moment when questions about consumption and the future gripped leaders and citizens around the world. The GDR merged German traditions and Soviet-style communism in an attempt to balance the needs of the economy with a deepening commitment to environment protection.

Chapter six interrogates the place of the environment and environmental movements in the end of communism and then in the double transitions to democracy and capitalism. First, the chapter charts the end of communism in Poland—where the dismantling of the Soviet bloc began—and considers how the environment fit into these transformations there and across eastern Europe. Next, the chapter shifts to the GDR, demonstrating the environment’s position as a source of protest and then mutually agreed upon tenet of unification. Participation in that environmental decision-making was uneven, however, often minimizing earlier activists as West German influence waned. The spread of environmental consciousness destabilized communism, but capitalism and democracy introduced powerful new actors which diminished the old structures that had shaped the environmental movement in the 1980s.

This book has argued that environmentalism in the GDR bridged the Iron Curtain and expands our understanding of the “greening” of postwar central Europe. Environmental consciousness started as a response to a variety of domestic, regional, and international impulses, and created circuits of environmental knowledge that transcended political borders to the east and west. East German environmentalisms neither simply borrowed from western, liberal democracies nor evolved in isolation from them. Moreover, environmentalisms in the GDR reacted to the Soviet-style communism in which they emerged and in relation to neighboring socialist states. The circuits of environmental knowledge that emerged thus drew on a multitude of influences, including Cold War political and economic concerns, Christian texts, Soviet rhetoric, and eastern European dissidents, to advocate for better protection. Within the GDR, commonalities and interactions between officials and Church-based or independent activists also break down the divisions between “state” and “society,” revealing a more nuanced understanding of power and negotiation in the GDR. When the SED failed to fulfill its own environmental promises, critics questioned not only environmental policy but the political system as a whole.

Chapter two traces the SED’s institutionalization of environmental protection and the party’s conviction that socialism provided solutions to pollution. The SED succeeded in creating a more environmentally minded population and, at least initially, tried to address concerns within existing structures. The SED used mass social campaigns to unite East Germans around the issue of environmentalism and practiced protection through policy and negotiating petitions. The GDR simultaneously reached out to other socialist countries to build coalitions around its brand of environmentalism in contrast to the one taking off in western Europe. This positioning intentionally placed the GDR in the middle of a regional and global phenomenon that spanned the Iron Curtain. Despite minor improvements, however, the discrepancy between rhetoric and lived reality produced a politically untenable situation. The SED relied on the Stasi to police the population, and ultimately opted to classify all environmental data in 1982.

Chapter three analyzes how non-party or state actors countered official environmental claims, developed alternative narratives, and challenged authority. In the GDR, Church-based environmentalism evolved on the fringes of society and in a transnational context. Environmental engagement, its impetuses, and its forms led to a critique with theological underpinnings as well as practical frustration about degradation. Church-based activists fostered contacts with independent actors to the east and west, establishing networks across central Europe. In the FRG, the environmental movement became formalized in the Green Party, which underscored the SED’s inability to adapt. In the Soviet bloc, Poland modeled a less repressive attitude toward society that opened opportunities for independent actors, especially Solidarność, which the SED feared would undermine the entire bloc’s security. The SED increasingly distrusted neighboring countries and the potential impact of their reforms at home. The GDR’s position as hinge between east and west became a liability for domestic stability.