Conclusion

Summary

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.