Jutta Seidel (civil rights activist)

Jutta Seidel (born October 27, 1950 in Brandenburg an der Havel , Brandenburg ) is a German dentist and civil rights activist . She belonged to the GDR opposition in the 1980s. In 1982 she was co-founder of “ Women for Peace ” and in 1989 of the New Forum .

Live and act

Jutta Seidel, née Seeger, trained as a nurse parallel to her Abitur and studied dentistry in Berlin. Here she was active in the Protestant student community. She has been married to the doctor Eberhard Seidel since 1975.

In 1982 she co-founded the independent network “Women for Peace”. In 1984 she and her husband were co-founders of the “Doctors for Peace” working group, which saw itself as an independent counterpart to the SED-owned GDR section of the IPPNW and presented itself at the peace workshops in the Erlöserkirche in Berlin-Rummelsburg . The Ministry of State Security interrogated the end of 1983 because of their activities in the peace women and led against them a criminal investigation on suspicion of treasonable messaging and the Operational procedure "Crusaders". In 1989 she was one of the initiators of the New Forum and, together with Bärbel Bohley , with whom she had been working since the joint activities with the “Women for Peace”, applied for the official approval of this citizens' movement. Through her neighbor, the actress Jutta Wachowiak , she encouraged the artists of the Deutsches Theater to organize the big protest demonstration on November 4, 1989 in East Berlin . In 1990 she worked alongside her work as a dentist in the Security Group of the Central Round Table. From 1991 to 1992 she was a board member of the all-German IPPNW.

Awards

• May 26, 2000 National Prize of the German National Foundation as the first signatory of the call to found the New Forum

literature

• Almut Ilsen , Ruth Leiserowitz (Ed.): Be loud! The women for peace in East Berlin. Ch.links, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-96289-065-0 .
• Ulrike Poppe : Women for Peace. In: Hans-Joachim Veen (Hrsg.): Lexicon of opposition and resistance in the SED dictatorship. Propylaea, Berlin / Munich 2000, ISBN 3-549-07125-6 , pp. 135-137.
• Irena Kukutz : Chronicle of the Citizens Movement New Forum 1989–1990. published by the Robert Havemann Society e. V., Basisdruck-Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86163-065-4 .
• Ehrhart Neubert : History of the opposition in the GDR 1949–1989 . Federal Agency for Civic Education , Berlin 1998.
• German National Foundation : Civil courage yesterday and today. The National Prize 2000. A documentation with contributions by Helmut Schmidt, Richard Schröder, Charles Maier and Jens Reich. Hamburg 2000.
• Patrick Bauer: The dream is over. But we will give everything to make it a reality. November 4th 1989 and its history. Rowohlt Buchverlag, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-498001513 .

Web links

• Opposition biography on revolution89.de
• Short biography on jugendopposition.de
• Short biography on ddr89.de
• Short biography on Chronicle of the Wende
• Deutsches Historisches Museum: Neues Forum (with text of the call for founding )
• Robert Havemann Society : On the founding history of the New Forum
• First signatory
• Departure 89 - NEW FORUM
• Eberhard and Jutta Seidel
• Eberhard and Jutta Seidel
• Faith.Love.Revolution: Contemporary witness interview series on 30 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall: Part 4 - Jutta Seidel
• Board member of the all-German IPPNW
• on Jutta Seidel's call for a demonstration