In the night of November 25, 1987, the secret police of the GDR stormed the basement containing the printing machines. It wanted to catch members of the opposition in the act – while producing the magazine Grenzfall, in English Border Case, which was critical towards the regime. The plan, however, failed and there was no sign of the forbidden newspaper. Nevertheless, the secret policemen arrested seven people in the house of the Zionskirche community, one of whom was just 14 years old.
The community centre of the Zionskirche was an important place of shelter for opponents of the regime in the GDR. Here, a handful of opposition members founded the Umweltbibliothek, in English environmental library, in autumn of 1986. They were concerned about the enormous ecological problems in the country as well as about issues regarding human rights. The community centre and church became the meeting places of the group. In two rooms in the basement they collected underground literature and information from the Federal Republic. Using shaky machines, the opposition members printed their own journal, the Umweltblätter. In the journal’s issues, they reported about ecology, resistance and repression, also in communist Poland and Hungary. Members of human rights and peace groups from all across the GDR visited the Umweltbibliothek.
After the arrests, members of the Umweltbibliothek held the first vigil in the GDR in the Zionskirche. The opposition members held out day and night in the church, wrote down their demands on banners and read out the newest developments. Citizens of East Berlin came and supported the protest by bringing food. A contact phone was installed which collected news and reactions to the arrests. It paid off that the Umweltbibliothek had good ties to West German journalists. Via the western media, many people in the GDR heard about the opposition movement for the first time. In the GDR and abroad, politicians and famous people protested against the arrests. Three days later all of the arrested were free again.
The event in the Umweltbibliothek was a significant defeat for the GDR regime. Until then, the state had arrested unwelcome protesters and opposition members or had deported them to the West. In view of the broad attention and critique towards such repressive measures, however, the dissenting voices could no longer be repressed so easily. The regime had no choice but to tolerate its opponents – an important step in the strengthening of the GDR opposition and a crack in the power façade of the SED dictatorship.
