Carola Stabe

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Carola Stabe (* 1955 in Templin ) is a former GDR civil rights activist, founder and leader of the environmental group ARGUS in Potsdam . She initiated the GDR-wide networking of environmental groups under the umbrella of the Kulturbund der GDR , from which the Green League emerged .

Life

Carola Stabe was born in Templin in 1955 and grew up in Uckermark and Mecklenburg. Her father, Siegfried Stabe, interned by the Soviets as a youth after 1945, was later a SED member, school director and member of the People's Chamber. In 1975, while studying history and Russian at the Humboldt University in Berlin , she was briefly arrested for a publication about the Gulags . From 1977 she worked as a teacher in Potsdam.

In April 1988 the group ARGUS (Working Group for Environmental Protection and Urban Design) was founded on her initiative. She led the group until December 1989. In the summer of 1988, after meeting Michael Heinroth from the green-ecological network Arche , she began building a network of environmental groups in the GDR cultural association. In April 1988, together with Matthias Platzeck and other members of the ARGUS group in Potsdam, she organized the first GDR-wide meeting of environmental groups in the Kulturbund.

In June 1989, with the help of Wieland Eschenburg and Matthias Platzeck, she organized the 1st Potsdamer Pfingstbergfest, which, according to estimates by the State Security Service, attracted 3,000 visitors from all over the GDR. During the festival, opposition groups from all parts of the GDR distributed information material. With a poster created by the graphic artist Bob Bahra and an information sheet about the demolition of the area in the historic city center planned by the SED leadership, resistance to this project was formed. As a result of her active role in the Whitsun Mountain Festival and in the organization of events critical of the system, Carola Stabe was removed from school service in July 1989 for “counter-revolutionary activity”.

On October 7, 1989, she and Matthias Platzeck organized the second GDR-wide meeting, to which 124 representatives of environmental groups came to Potsdam at the invitation of ARGUS in the Kulturbund. The meeting could not be banned by the SED leadership, as it was announced by Carola Stabe as a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the GDR. On the evening of October 7, the representatives of the environmental groups signed a declaration in which they urged a process of change in the GDR. The statement was forwarded to the press in East Berlin and West Berlin. At the meeting on October 7th, a small group of members of the opposition around Carola Stabe and Matthias Platzeck began planning for an environmental organization independent of the Kulturbund. During the Brodowin talks in October 89, a first draft of the call for a “Green League” was drawn up by Carola Stabe with Ernst Dörfler , Matthias Platzeck, and Bernd Haack. On November 15, 1989, the 1st Potsdam Environment Night was organized by Carola Stabe, Matthias Platzeck and members of the ARGUS group in the Karl Liebknecht Stadium in Potsdam and the call for founding was published in the presence of 3000 participants.

Talks about the planned establishment of a Green Party in the GDR have been taking place since mid-October 1989, in which Carola Stabe took part. On November 24th in Berlin she became a founding member of the GDR Green Party alongside Carlo Jordan , Vollrad Kuhn , Judith Demba , Christine Weiske , Gerd Klötzer and Henry Schramm, but also worked on the Spokesman's Council of the Green League to strengthen cooperation between the two groups. On December 5, 1989 she took part in the occupation of the district headquarters of the State Security Service of the GDR in Potsdam and on the same day founded the People's Control Council with Manfred Kruczek, Detlef Kaminski, Annette Flade and Rainer Speer, which facilitates the transition to a democratic order Potsdam organized.

At the central round table in Berlin she represented the Green League in the working group “Foreigner Issues” and represented the Green League at the round table in the Potsdam district. She took part in the organization of the founding congress of the Green League in Buna and the founding party conference of the Green Party in Halle. Henry Schramm, who was later exposed as an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security , publicly expressed the suspicion at the founding party congress that Carola Stabe would work for the State Security Service and thus prevented her election to the federal executive committee.

From December 7th to April 30th, 1990 she headed the office of the Green League in the House of Democracy in Potsdam and then moved to the Berlin House of Democracy at Friedrichstrasse 165. From May 1990 to July 1992 she was federal manager of the Green League e. V. It supported the establishment of environmental centers in all 14 GDR district towns, implemented projects to set up an environmental advisory service, and from 1991 worked in the Federal Government's preparatory group for the Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil. She became a founding member or advisory board member of associations and foundations such as the "House of Democracy" eV, the foundation for democratic decision-making processes and the foundation for democratic youth .

From September 1994 she was rehabilitated politically and professionally and implemented projects against right-wing extremism, for democratic participation and to deal with the history of the GDR in her work at the RAA-Brandenburg and the SPI-Brandenburg Foundation. In 2005, she and Bob Bahra founded the “Forum for a critical discussion of GDR history”. Since 2006 she has been working with Stefan Roloff on the production of film and art projects on the history of the GDR. In 2011 Carola Stabe founded the community of persecuted people of the GDR system with Bob Bahra, Sibylle Schönemann and Birgit Willschütz.

literature

  • Reinhard Meinel / Thomas Wernicke: With Chekist greetings - reports of the district administration for state security Potsdam 1990, Verlag Edition Babelturm, ISBN 978-3910168060 .
  • Gisela Rüdiger, Gudrun Rogal: The 111 days of the Potsdam citizens' committee “Council of People's Control” Brandenburg State Center for Political Education, 2009, ISBN 3-932502-56-6 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rod, Carola
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German GDR civil rights activist and environmental activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Templin