Beate Ißmer

The turnaround started much earlier. It started with the fact that air pollution was weighing more and more heavily on people and environmental groups were forming and they didn’t know where to go. And the churches in the GDR were open enough at the time and opened their premises – so that such groups could meet “under the roof of the church”. It wasn’t right for everyone who had something to say in the church. As a young congregation, we had already done some convincing work before 1989 and informed our teacher and pastor that, if we take the creation accounts seriously, the preservation of creation is a central task. So also the opening of the church to non-church groups. On the one hand, I am proud of the churches in the GDR. On the other hand, I know that not everything was so easy and self-evident.

I was always involved in discussions at the church congresses and also in small church meetings and prayed a lot, but there are still women in Leipzig today who would have had more to say. Yes. And overall, of course, I’m glad that we had the reunification. I’m very happy that it was peaceful. And I still expect the reunification to continue.

*Read more: * in Unter dem Dach der Kirche
The entire interview plus photo collection will be available in the Open Feminist Democracy Archive | OfemDA, which is currently being created. See here