Nature conservation in the GDR

The Müritz National Park was set up after many years of preparatory work in the last few months of the existence of the GDR; here: The Käbelicksee

NSG sign in the GDR

LSG shield in the GDR

On the one hand, nature conservation in the GDR was linked to the history of nature conservation in Germany , but on the other hand, it distanced itself from the aesthetic exaggeration and the folkish-racist emphasis on nature and landscape during the National Socialist period . In practical work, the tasks initially remained the same, the model continued to be the protection of natural monuments , (small) nature reserves and parts of the landscape ( landscape protection areas ). Among other things, environmental protection suffered from the fact that a lot was the responsibility of volunteers , that the energy supply from lignite , theLignite chemistry , the mining of uranium by bismuth had priority and that violations of nature conservation law were only considered an administrative offence . Despite the environmental damage that was visible everywhere, there was hardly any discussion in the state-controlled media.

Sovereign nature conservation in the GDR can be divided into five phases, which can be differentiated according to the applicable legal situation: First, the legal basis was the Reich Nature Conservation Act of 1935, which was still in force; from 1954 there was a separate nature conservation law; from 1970 there was the State Culture Act; from 1982 the order for obtaining or processing and for the protection of information about the state of the natural environment in the GDR applied ; a fifth phase is the transitional period from 1989 to German unity.

1945 to 1954

Continuity and change in the shadow of the Reich Nature Conservation Act

After the end of the Second World War on May 8, 1945, the Reich Nature Conservation Act (RNG) of June 26, 1935 and the ordinances (VO) for the implementation of the RNG of October 31, 1935, the VO for protection , applied in the then Soviet occupation zone (SBZ). of wild plants and non-huntable wild animals (Nature Conservation Ordinance) of March 18, 1936. The law was not considered politically charged. Even after the founding of the GDR on October 7, 1949, the RNG was valid as state law until 1952 and after the regional and administrative reform of 1952 formally until 1954. In fact, the law signed by the “Führer and Reich Chancellor” Adolf Hitler and the “Reichsforstmeister” Hermann Göring was rarely recognized locally.

The RNG had regulated nature conservation in the landscape "free" from settlement (outside). It contained the objects of protection “natural monuments” and “nature protection areas” (including the new “Reichsnaturreservate areas”), “other parts of the landscape in the open air”, “ protection of species ” and “general protection of the landscape ” (RNG §§ 5, 19 and 20). The need for protection of objects and areas was based on the criteria of rarity, beauty, ornamental or ornamental value, uniqueness and interest in science, local history, folklore and history (RNG §§ 1 to 5). On the basis of the RNG, nature protection areas were usually selected that were considered to be of little economic interest and at the same time as natural, original, unique, rare or beautiful. The parts of the landscape protected according to RNG became the forerunners of many later landscape protection areas. The “old idea” of the “state parks” lived on in the newly defined “Reichs nature reserves”. However, as with the “ Schorfheide ” national nature reserve, they were purposefully misused for hunting purposes.

According to the RNG, there should be a hierarchical structure of authorities. In §§ 7-9 of the RNG, a nationwide uniform three-tier structure of the nature conservation organization was prescribed. The highest nature conservation authority was the "Reichsforstmeister", higher nature conservation authorities the district presidents and lower nature conservation authorities the district administrators or mayors of the district-free cities. Nature conservation agencies were legally anchored as advisory institutions: Reich Agency for Nature Conservation, district nature conservation agencies, district nature conservation agencies. The members of these bodies work on a voluntary basis. The Reich Nature Conservation Act of June 26, 1935 essentially adopted the organizational model that had existed since the establishment of the State Office for the Preservation of Natural Monuments in Prussia (1906).

By May 1945, however, no corresponding full-time nature conservation apparatus had been set up alongside voluntary nature conservation. Nature conservation practice was essentially the same as before 1935 on a voluntary basis with the transfer of the Prussian organizational model to the entire German Reich and, as a result, the establishment of nature conservation offices at all administrative levels. At the central level, the Reich Agency for Nature Conservation functioned as a scientific institution with advisory functions.

There was no supreme nature conservation authority in the Soviet occupation zone. Responsibility was not uniformly regulated at state level, nature conservation was sometimes “docked” with the forestry departments in the ministries for land and forest, sometimes with the ministry for popular education . In many places, although not immediately everywhere, there were again district, district and state nature conservation officers, but despite the provisions of the RNG still in force, there were no longer any nature conservation offices in which, according to the RNG, an average of eight to ten experts should work on an honorary basis.

After the founding of the GDR (October 7, 1949), some new nature conservation legislation was enacted, such as several ordinances and resolutions for the protection of bees in 1951.

The administrative reform of 1952 led to the dissolution of the five states and the associated state administrations, including the state offices for nature conservation, and the introduction of 15 district administrations. The number of districts became far larger, but the administrative areas smaller. Throughout 1951, conservation files were being “dissected” everywhere and handed over to the new administrative units.

The consequences of the reform included considerable ambiguity about who is responsible for nature conservation. A work instruction from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the GDR "on the implementation of nature conservation tasks" that was issued to all district councils on September 27, 1952 should bring clarity . This confirmed the continuation of the nature conservation ordinance of March 18, 1936 (“until the enactment of a law regulating the individual issues”) and clarified responsibility for nature conservation. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry became the highest authority for nature conservation, the forest authorities in the district councils became the middle ones, and the departments responsible for land and forests in the district councils became the lower ones . The German Academy of Agricultural Sciences (DAL) , founded on October 17, 1951 in Berlin, was named as the nature conservation advisory institution . On November 12, 1952, another directive was issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry "on the implementation of nature conservation tasks" with a list of animal and plant species that were placed under protection. With the next work instruction from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry "on the implementation of nature conservation tasks" dated January 28, 1953, the district and district nature conservation officers were finally re-appointed by the districts, who submitted corresponding lists of names to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The founding of the GDR in 1949 also resulted in changes in the association system, which was formative in nature conservation (and homeland protection) until the end of the war. With the “Regulation for the transfer of folk art groups and folk-educational associations into the existing democratic mass organizations” of January 12, 1949, the association system was finally abolished. Existing homeland and nature conservation groups were affiliated with the Kulturbund for the democratic renewal of Germany , under the umbrella of which a hierarchically structured semi-governmental and controlled section “Nature and Homeland Friends” was created in the years that followed.

The officers in the districts usually began their work by re-recording the natural monument books and the nature conservation areas and parts of the landscape that were secured until 1945. Participation of nature conservation in other sectoral plans or measures, as prescribed by § 20 RNG, only took place in exceptional cases, mostly only when existing protected objects were affected. Overall, nature conservation experienced little acceptance during this period. The focus was on dealing with the consequences of World War II, i.e. the reconstruction of the towns and villages with their infrastructure, the accommodation of approx. 4.3 million refugees, expellees and resettlers from the former German eastern territories , the solution of the food problems, Reconstruction of the administrative structures with associated personnel problems and the change in the ownership system, the associated law and the organization ( land reform 1945 , waves of socialization in trade and industry).

A reappraisal of the history of nature conservation and landscape management under fascism did not take place. As in three western zones , there was continuity in terms of personnel and, in some cases, ideals in nature conservation in the SBZ . Numerous nature conservation officers had been members of the NSDAP until the end of the war and were able to exercise their honorary posts again – usually after a “probationary period” of several years. Almost all of these officers had been followers of the Nazis. Those burdened beyond mere membership had already left the SBZ for West Germany .

Landscape diagnosis and landscape design

The "Landscape Diagnosis of the GDR" was a research project led by the landscape architect Reinhold Lingner , head of the landscape department at the Institute for Civil Engineering at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin , and his colleague Frank Erich Carl. The landscape diagnosis was carried out in 1950 and ended in 1952 after an interruption. It was not directly related to nature conservation, but in terms of the history of the discipline it formed a starting point for later research and planning approaches in nature conservation. Based on the new social foundations in the GDR, in particular the central state planning and the factual state control over land, landscape analysis and planning should be tried out on a large scale. With the help of the landscape diagnosis, more than 90 mappers, who were divided into five working groups according to the still existing federal (state) structure of the GDR, surveyed the most important damage to the landscape in the states of the GDR:

• Cultivated areas deprived of wood protection to an extreme or advanced extent,
• extreme cultivation soil destruction by mining,
• extreme disturbances of the water balance and
• extreme landscape damage caused by smoke, dust and exhaust fumes from industry.

The determination of forest monocultures , clear-cutting, damage in farmer's forests, the determination of climatic disturbances caused by technical structures and the peat -cutting areas that arose from the need after the end of the war in 1945 were also planned for a follow -up order.

The landscape diagnosis should provide the data basis for subsequent large-scale landscape design measures. The hopes of the protagonists in this regard were ultimately not fulfilled, and the research work was stopped on August 14, 1950 after concerns that it endangered state security, since there was no guarantee that the extensive information would be used "only for the purposes of construction". It was thanks to Lingner's commitment that at least the basic order could be fulfilled in 1952.

Nevertheless, there were initially comprehensive approaches to hedge protection and the cultivation of floor wood and far-reaching organizational ideas and action plans for land management. As early as 1949, the Ministry of Land and Forestry of the GDR set up a committee for field protection landscape design with around 60 members, which included numerous landscape architects , including some who had belonged to the "landscape lawyers" of the Todt organization before 1945 . On August 29, 1950, the MLF of the GDR issued an instruction to "organize and implement a planned field-protecting landscape design for the purpose of securing and increasing agricultural yields per hectare" in implementation of Section 30 of the "Law on Measures to Achieve Peaceful Hectare Yields" of February 8 1950. And on February 12, 1951, a central government committee for landscape conservation was founded at the main forestry department of the MLF of the GDR. In the founding protocol, item 2 on the agenda mentioned the "planning and project planning of a 5-year and possibly 20-year plan for landscape design" ("general landscape plan"), which was to apply to the entire GDR. In the course of 1951, committees for landscape conservation were set up in all states and in numerous districts to prepare the associated framework projects. It was planned to set up such committees throughout the GDR. However, the approaches for a “general landscape plan” for the entire GDR were not consistently developed.

The ordinance of the Council of Ministers for the protection of copses and hedges issued on October 29, 1953 in connection with erosion problems and the 1st implementation regulation for this ordinance should be placed in connection with the approaches described. The regulations were of great importance insofar as they regulated the recording of all bushes, wood residues, hedges, small groves, groves and groups of trees that were outside of built-up areas and were smaller than 10 hectares. The resulting list had to be sent to the respective district nature conservation officer (BNB), who forwarded it to the relevant branch of the Institute for State Research and Nature Conservation (ILN), founded in 1953.

Only a few sample plans came out of the landscape diagnosis, for example in the Huy - Hakel area in the foothills of the Harz Mountains and in the Leipzig area. The methodological approaches and survey results of the landscape diagnosis have also flowed into work to restore the large-scale post- mining landscapes in the border triangle of Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt and in Lower Lusatia. The investigations of the landscape diagnosis were then later used to support attempts to create a cross-border Elbe Sandstone Mountains National Park and for "general development plans", e.g. B. for the district of Erfurt. The more than 900 maps developed as part of the "landscape diagnosis" and the log books are now stored in the archive of the Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS) Erkner near Berlin.

1954 to 1970

New nature conservation law and reorganization of nature conservation work

A new nature conservation law had already been in preparation since 1952, which was to replace the RNG. The RNG was then replaced in the GDR by the "Law on the Preservation and Care of Native Nature (Nature Conservation Law)" of August 4, 1954. It had a significant impact on nature conservation work for more than a decade and a half. The Nature Conservation Act of 1954 leaned heavily on the RNG in its paragraphs on NSG, ND, protected animals and plants, nature conservation administration, nature conservation officers, rules of protection and penal provisions.

Overall, it contained more traditional, higher-level objectives committed to conservation of nature, but already in its preamble specifically emphasized the scientific aspect of nature conservation in addition to the ethical principles. In contrast to the RNG, the protected areas were now selected from a scientific point of view with a view to documenting representative sections of the country's entire natural heritage. The scope of application of the law was extended to the entire area, i.e. to the unpopulated as well as the populated area; its effect, however, remained essentially limited to the "open landscape" and primarily to the protected areas and protected objects.

In addition to the protected objects natural monuments, nature conservation areas (NSG) and selected animal and plant species taken over from the RNG, the landscape conservation areas (LSG) and also already area natural monuments (FND) up to 1 ha in size have been added. The category of national nature reserves was quietly buried.

The conservationist Reimar Gilsenbach

The category “national parks” was not included in the law. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, well-known personalities such as Kurt and Erna Kretschmann , Reimar Gilsenbach , Erich Hobusch and others made (unsuccessful) efforts to have this protected area category included and the Müritz and Saxon Switzerland National Parks designated . There was already a proposal to designate a nature park (Märkische Schweiz).

The protection of rare plants has also been reorganized. The RNG had divided into three degrees and three lists of full protection, partial protection and collective protection. In the case of the partially protected species, only the subterranean parts of the plant (e.g. bulbs) and the leaf rosettes were protected. The total number of protected species on the territory of the GDR was 93, of which 35 were fully protected and 15 were partially protected. For 43 species, collection for commercial purposes was prohibited. "There were probably only a few nature conservationists who knew their way around here." This complexity was abolished in the GDR's nature conservation law; all species to be protected – now 108 – were fully protected from now on.

With a view to the organization of nature conservation, the term "nature conservation office" was also de jure dropped in the GDR's nature conservation law in relation to the RNG in the case of voluntary nature conservation work. As a result, the independent expert advice previously anchored in Section 8 RNG and Section 3 of the DVO on the RNG was no longer applicable. According to the RNG, the nature conservation agencies, as advisory bodies, were not part of the nature conservation authorities.

Otherwise, the organizational model was adopted from the RNG. Nature conservation was assigned to the Ministry of Land and Forestry, later Agriculture, Forestry and Food Industry and the subordinate authorities in the districts and districts. The first full-time positions were set up there – usually in the form of a staff position – with nature conservation being just one of several areas of responsibility for the responsible employee. Nature conservation was also always of secondary importance, for example in comparison with the area of ​​hunting. The staffing of the nature conservation administration was insufficient and complaints were made about this in many places.

In addition to the legally required voluntary nature conservation officers, there were voluntary nature conservation helpers in numerous circles as early as the 1950s, who in some circles formed a nature conservation watch that was not legally provided for. In 1959/1962, around 3,700 nature conservation workers were counted throughout the GDR, but their rights and duties were not (yet) regulated in the 1954 Nature Conservation Act.

For the work of the honorary nature conservation officers, regulations were made with the implementation regulations (DB) for the nature conservation law. The 1st DB of February 15, 1955 stipulated that the officers were to be provided with photo identification, with which they received extended sovereign powers. In addition to the right of entry that already existed under the RNG, there was also the right to determine the personal details of "sinners" and to secure stolen goods such as bird eggs or skins and thieves' tools such as traps or lime sticks. The 2nd DB of October 1955 regulated the material compensation for the work of the district and district officers for nature conservation.

The Institute for State Research and Nature Conservation (later: Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation) provided scientific support, advice and guidance to the volunteers. The Institute and the nature conservation officers filled the gap that arose due to the lack of nature conservation offices and the under-resourced state nature conservation administration to the best of their ability.

In addition to the legal provisions mentioned, numerous other provisions were made in the 1950s and 1960s aimed at the "rational exploitation" and "reproduction" of natural resources (including ecological requirements). In the nature conservation practice of the 1950s and 1960s, the following tasks were in the foreground:

The Conservation Owl

• repeated processing of the lists of natural monuments of the districts, registration of existing natural monuments and participation in securing new ones;
• Marking of nature conservation objects with the "nature conservation owl";
• Participation in regulations on the scope and type of management and construction of buildings in protected areas;
• Review of landscape-changing measures in site approval procedures outside of built-up areas;
• inventories and efforts to maintain the manor parks;
• Participation in the biogeographical mapping of selected animal and plant species, in connection with which the first "red lists" of endangered species were prepared;
• systematic selection, designation and signage of new NSG and LSG, development of treatment guidelines and landscape conservation plans;
• Participation in measures to protect the landscape (this included the large-scale poplar cultivation program outside the forest) and participation in complex meliorations ;
• Public relations work through lectures and excursions as well as the design of exhibitions, nature trails , hiking trails and natural history collections.

A new form of public relations from 1957 was the "Nature Conservation Weeks", which were tested in 1956 in the Potsdam and Karl-Marx-Stadt districts and later carried out together with a "Forest Week" throughout the GDR with centrally specified nature conservation topics. From 1966 the tradition of the landscape days began, events lasting several days in which the development problems of the large recreation areas were initially the subject of lectures and discussions. The first landscape day took place in Neubrandenburg in 1966 and dealt with the "Müritz lake area". This is where the idea of ​​national parks was last publicly championed.

System of nature and landscape protection areas

A collectively perceived task of nature conservation was the systematic selection, designation and signage of new NSGs. Following the ideal further development associated with the Nature Conservation Act, a scientific system of NSG has now been identified. From 1972, a five-volume "Manual of Nature Protection Areas" of the GDR was published successively by the ILN.

Treatment guidelines for NSG were already being developed in the 1960s. They reflected the need for care and, to some extent, also the need for development in NSG and thus the realization that desired states could only be achieved through the expenditure of care work. This was also new in terms of the history of ideas in nature conservation. The guidelines were a substitute for individual ordinances and could be easily adapted to changes as needed.

Section 1 of the 1st implementation provision of the Nature Conservation Act opened up the possibility of restricting the designation of nature conservation areas to key scientific tasks such as the creation of a basis for the development of site-appropriate forestry ("forest protection areas") or refuges for animal species or animal communities ("animal protection areas"). On this basis, a systematic approach was taken to designating protected areas. In the years that followed, a system of forest protection areas, water protection areas and a system of animal protection areas emerged.

The system of forest protection areas, which early (and unconsciously) reflected the idea of ​​process protection, was based on Herbert Hesmer's (Eberswalde) demand for the designation of "natural forest cells", supported by Kurt Hueck with the demand for "more forest protection areas". .

The new protection area category "landscape protection area" was not, as in the Reich Nature Conservation Act, understood as a "protected part of the landscape" with slightly different provisions than a nature reserve that was not quite as valuable, but was given a task aimed at recreation and the creation of recreational opportunities. As early as the late 1950s, the problems resulting from local and weekend recreation were growing, supported by government measures such as the introduction of the five-day work week every other week (1966). After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the pressure of those seeking relaxation on the forests, lake shores and the Baltic Sea coasts increased by leaps and bounds in the large recreation areas. Here the nature conservation grew to growing tasks.

A systematic approach was also taken to removing and securing LSG. Parts of the landscape that were formerly protected by RNG were included in the LSG. In the 1960s, the development of landscape maintenance plans began for LSG. This, too, was a new nature conservation instrument for which landscape architects such as Werner Bauch , Walter Funcke and Harald Linke had been developing ideas since the early 1960s. Content-related ideas about landscape conservation plans also date from this time, which were published by the head of the ILN branch office in Potsdam, Karl Heinz Großer, among others. Landscape planning concerns were primarily also taken care of in the design offices for area, town and village planning (later: offices for territorial planning) in the districts.

Institute for State Research and Nature Conservation (ILN)

With effect from April 1, 1953, the Institute for Regional Research and Nature Conservation (ILN) based in Halle (Saale) was established in the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences (DAL) with five working groups that were responsible for the areas of the former federal states, founded. In terms of its tasks, the ILN entered into the tradition of the former State Office for the Preservation of Natural Monuments in Prussia and the Reich Office for Nature Conservation. The ILN was founded shortly before the nature conservation law was passed. Both the allocation of tasks associated with the founding of the ILN and the nature conservation law of the GDR meant a specific further development of German nature conservation tradition. In the founding document, three areas of responsibility were described for the ILN:

1. Carrying out regional country studies from a biological, biogeographical and locational perspective;
2. Research into objects managed by nature conservation and scientific advice on nature conservation work in the German Democratic Republic;
3. Collection of all previously published documents and maps on the individual landscapes of the German Democratic Republic.

In the range of tasks assigned to the ILN, systematic landscape-related research, initially focused on objects worthy of protection or protected, and then increasingly on the agricultural and forest landscapes and post - mining landscapes in the GDR, clearly came to the fore. This dedicated research assignment, which not only included the organization and coordination of nature conservation research, but also our own research activities, was something new in the history of the central nature conservation institutions in Germany.

The first director of the ILN was the Halle university professor Hermann Meusel , a botanist who held part-time positions. Meusel remained ILN director until 1963, and was then followed by Ludwig Bauer (until 1974) and Hugo Weinitschke (until 1991) as full-time directors of the facility.

Also in 1953, the first branches were established in Halle (initially based in the "headquarters", from 1983 in Dessau ), Potsdam (for the Brandenburg districts) and Jena (for the Thuringian districts), followed by others in Greifswald and Dresden (for the Thuringian districts) in 1954 the Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian and Saxon districts) followed. Each of the branches carried out scientific priority programs in addition to advisory and coordinating tasks. In the beginning there was only one part-time manager and one or two scientific employees and a secretary for each branch. The leaders were in Halle H. Bohnstedt, in Potsdam WR Müller-Stoll , in Jena J.-H. Schultze, in Dresden KHC Jordan and in Greifswald T. Hurtig, the professors taught at the universities of the seat cities.

Full-time managers were then later employed in the branches as in the head office. The Jena working group was taken over by Ernst Niemann in 1963, who was succeeded by Walter Hiekel in 1978. The Dresden working group was taken over by Hans Schiemenz in 1959, followed by Rolf Steffens in 1985. From 1963, the Halle working group was headed by Hugo Weinitschke, who was succeeded in 1968 by Peter Hentschel. In 1962, Karl Heinz Großer assumed leadership of the Potsdam working group, followed by Lutz Reichhoff in 1986 and Matthias Hille in 1988. Head of the Greifswald working group was Harry Schmidt from 1963, followed in 1970 by Gerhard Klafs.

The individual branches published regional nature conservation magazines for their area together with the respective district councils, in which practical questions of nature conservation in particular were dealt with and both state and voluntary nature conservation could publish side by side. In 1958 the first issue of "Nature conservation work in Mecklenburg" was published, from 1959 "Nature conservation and natural history research in Saxony", from 1963 "Nature conservation work and natural history research in the districts of Halle and Magdeburg", 1964 "Landscape conservation and nature conservation in Thuringia" and 1965 " Nature conservation work in Berlin and Brandenburg”. In addition, since 1961 the “Archive for Nature Conservation and Landscape Research” was published under the editorship of the ILN and the publishers of the DAL/AdL, which was more focused on scientific questions and contributions.

Diverse professional and institutional relationships developed with neighboring socialist countries. The ILN was only able to cultivate fruitful international cooperation that went beyond this after 1970 on the basis of corresponding legal provisions (Nature Conservation Ordinance of 1970).

Biological stations were opened or reopened in the German Democratic Republic from the mid-1950s. From the mid-1960s there were the following biological stations in addition to the ILN and its branches or working groups, e.g. T. were assigned to the ILN and in which scientists and volunteers devoted themselves to applied ecological research:

1. the bird sanctuary in Seebach (district of Mühlhausen/Thuringia), whose main tasks were in the field of applied ornithology;
2. the bird sanctuary in Steckby (Zerbst district/Saxony-Anhalt);
3. the ornithological station in Neschwitz (Saxony), whose work focused on faunistic and ecological investigations in the Bautzen "field landscape" and in the Lusatian pond and heath forest area;
4. the Biological Station in Serrahn (Mecklenburg), which mainly dealt with questions of applied ornithology and under which hydrological investigations have also been carried out since the 1960s and principles for the care of near-natural forest biogeocenoses have been worked on;
5. the Biological Research Institute Hiddensee , whose main focus was the biological research of the southern Baltic Sea coast, especially the Bodden landscape. The ornithological department of the research institute was the center for bird ringing in the GDR. It was thus the control center for all investigations into bird migration and the biology of birds.
6. the bird protection island of Langenwerder (between the island of Poel and the Wustrow peninsula), on which phytogeographical, meteorological and coastal morphological data were collected;
7. the Müritzhof branch of the Institute for Forest Protection and Hunting of the Technical University of Dresden in Tharandt with the main focus of faunistic-ecological investigations in the Müritz Lakes area;
8. the Biological Station Fauler Ort (also near the NSG "Oufer der Müritz") of the Zoological Institute of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, which primarily served as a residence for biology students;
9. the station of the research center for limnology Jena-Lobeda at the Stechlinsee near Rheinsberg, whose employees investigated the ecological consequences of using the waters around Rheinsberg as cooling water suppliers for the Rheinsberg nuclear power plant;
10. the hydrobiological laboratory in Neunzehnhain (Marienberg district/Saxony), which was used for research and teaching in the field of drinking water biology;
11. the Dölzig station with its Finsterwalde branch, which was assigned to the ILN in 1967 and whose analysis focus was on the problems of recultivating opencast lignite mines.

As early as 1956, under the umbrella of the ILN in Halle, a "Working group for the protection of animals threatened with extinction" (AKSAT) was founded and a new educational institution was the Central Teaching Center for Nature Conservation in Müritzhof from September 14, 1954, in which many thousands of animals were taught until 1990 voluntary nature conservation workers have received further training. The training facility was opened by Kurt and Erna Kretschmann and managed until 1960. Wilhelm Linke followed as director until 1975 and then Dieter Martin until 1990. In 1956, the school was included in the ordinary state budget and assigned to the ILN in 1966. In most biological stations and in Müritzhof only one or two scientific and an average of two technical employees worked.

1970 to 1982

Beacon of Hope “Socialist State Culture”

As early as the 1960s - in line with economic development - the range of nature conservation tasks had expanded to include questions of environmental protection, ie combating noise , keeping water and air clean, protecting the soil from erosion, waste disposal and, as a result of the transition to industrial Large-scale agriculture through the LPGs , problems of the design and development of the agricultural cultural landscape as a whole. This almost inevitably resulted in demands for a comprehensive law that would not only regulate questions of nature conservation, but also environmental protection. The term regional culture was removed from its traditional agricultural context and expanded to include environmental protection. From then on, “socialist state culture” also became a synonym for “environmental policy”. State culture now included the "social measures for sensible use and effective protection of the environment (environmental protection) by connecting production tasks with ecological, cultural-social and aesthetic requirements". In the Federal Republic of Germany, "state culture" traditionally remained a generic term for measures for soil conservation, soil improvement, new land reclamation and land consolidation.

As early as 1963, proposals for a new law were submitted at the instigation of the Central Commission for Nature and Homeland of the Kulturbund, which was intended to replace the 1954 Nature Conservation Act. In the same year, these proposals were adopted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as “Principles of Socialist Regional Culture in the GDR” and declared a binding supplement to the Nature Conservation Act. That was the legal preliminary stage for the State Culture Act of 1970. Work on this new law has continued since 1968. Under the leadership of the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic , Werner Titel , who was one of the advocates of the "New Economic System of Management and Planning" (NÖSLP) and was recognized by nature conservationists as an expert interested in nature conservation and environmental protection, had a Group of representatives of the friends of nature and homeland, the ILN and relevant universities analyzed the "regional cultural situation" in 1968 and worked out a prognosis "about the development of the socialist regional culture and its specific tasks".

In 1969, a "Standing Working Group on Socialist State Culture", also headed by Titel, was set up, which drew up the draft for a state culture law with the significant participation of legal scholar Ellenor Oehler. On May 14, 1970, the People's Chamber not only passed the State Culture Act, which replaced the 1954 Nature Conservation Act. At the same time, several implementing regulations (DVO) were issued for this law. These were the 1st DVO (protection and care of flora and fauna and scenic beauties - nature conservation ordinance), the 2nd DVO (development, care and development of the landscape for recreation), the 3rd DVO (cleaning of the cities and communities and recycling of municipal waste) and the 4th DVO (protection from noise). The State Culture Act was preceded by the anchoring of nature and environmental protection as a state task in Article 15 of the GDR constitution of 1968. According to today's interpretation, the constitutional article included environmental protection and environmental design as a state task or state objective.

State Culture Act

As a "complex framework law", the State Culture Act contained regulations on the "basic objectives and principles" as well as the basic regulations on the sub-areas of nature conservation/landscape management, soil, forests, water bodies, air, waste products and noise. Existing special laws on sub-areas as well as legal provisions issued or to be issued as implementing regulations for the State Culture Act served to implement and specify the framework law. In this respect, the GDR enacted one of the most progressive environmental legislations of its time, after Sweden.

In the State Culture Act, the protective goals and objects of nature conservation, which until then legally (and thus bound to tradition) had to deal primarily with living nature, animal and plant species and their habitats, were now also extended to inanimate nature, expanded to include the new protected goods of soil, water, air and tranquility (via noise protection) (§ 10 LKG). The catalog of action goals has also been expanded. Nature conservation was thus completely resolved from a conservative, backward-looking perspective.

The strategy of nature conservation integrated into land use received a formal legal basis through the State Culture Act. The term "multiple use of the landscape" was understood as a "principle of socialist national culture". Within the framework of the “socialist national culture”, nature conservation concerns should in principle have the same priority as other usage interests and be coordinated with them. However, as the following years would show, other concerns such as agriculture, settlements or industry were given priority.

While the Nature Conservation Act still contained a number of clear do's and don'ts in relation to the objects to be protected, even if their implementation was becoming increasingly difficult in some areas, the State Culture Act mainly contained objectives for the people's representatives, state bodies, social organizations, companies and individual citizens Enforcement of national cultural demands. The instruments that were made available to special nature conservation and landscape management with the State Culture Act in the section “Design and maintenance of the landscape and protection of native nature” related on the one hand to regulations on species protection and on the other to regulations on types of protected areas.

implementing regulations

For nature conservation practice, the State Culture Act was less important than the 1st DVO (protection and care of flora and fauna and scenic beauties - nature conservation ordinance) and the 2nd DVO (development, care and development of the landscape for recreation) and the "Technical Norms , Quality Regulations and Terms of Delivery" (TGL) or the "Departmental Standards" are of decisive importance.

The 1st DVO (Nature Conservation Ordinance) of May 14, 1970 largely adhered to the structure and content of the Nature Conservation Act of 1954. However, there are also significant differences:

Group of visitors in the Vessertal-Thuringian Forest biosphere reserve

• The term "nature conservation body" was abolished and the passage in question was renamed "nature conservation management". Local councils were given blanket responsibility for conservation. They could appoint council members to carry out nature conservation tasks. Arguably not without reason, this regulation was seen as an attempt to further disorganize and downgrade the importance of nature conservation. However, the terms district or district nature conservation administration had become so firmly established in practice that they were mostly retained. In some cases, a flood of petitions to the council chairman forced the appointment of a council member for matters of nature conservation or socialist national culture.
• The obligation to tolerate, which was still stringently formulated in the Nature Conservation Act (“Protective measures [...] must be tolerated by the owners or legal entities. The measures can be enforced with police coercion [… and] do not justify any claims for compensation”) became an “obligation to support”, which the Owners and legal entities were required to “ensure that their use conforms to the measures specified in the treatment guidelines or landscape management plans”.
• The penalties for violations of nature conservation regulations have changed. While severe penalties threatened under the Nature Conservation Act, violations under the 1st DVO were only punished as administrative offenses and with a maximum fine of 200 marks.
• In connection with international agreements, in particular the Ramsar Agreement on Wetlands of 1971, which came into force in 1975 and to which the GDR acceded with a Council of Ministers decision in 1978, the existing types of protected areas were added to the protected area types Wetlands of International Importance (FIB) and Wetlands of National Importance (FNB) and Biosphere Reserves (BR). In 1979 the biosphere reserve of Steckby-Lödderitz and the biosphere reserve of Vessertal-Thuringian Forest were recognized by UNESCO and the biosphere reserve of the Middle Elbe was designated . The LKG did not provide for national parks and nature parks.

The organization of nature conservation in accordance with the Nature Conservation Act of 1954 was retained, with the aforementioned easing of the obligation to designate responsibilities, particularly at district level. In principle, nothing has changed in terms of the completely inadequate full-time staffing. The establishment of nature conservation stations was new, especially in the districts of Neubrandenburg and Potsdam, and later also in others. As a result, there were more full-time nature conservation workers there. The status of the honorary nature conservation officers remained basically unchanged. With the 1st DVO, the status of nature conservation worker was officially introduced for the first time. The nature conservation officers and helpers received a pass and the same sovereign powers to carry out their work. They were granted a kind of control right. However, while the Nature Conservation Act of 1954 still stated that they "have to ensure [...] that the nature conservation orders are followed", from 1970 they only had to "help to enforce the legal provisions in the field of nature conservation".

officers and institutions

In addition to the KNB and their often active deputies, a circle of nature conservation helpers and special officers were active on a voluntary basis in the 227 districts of the GDR (+ East Berlin). In 1982 there were around 12,000 nature conservation workers in the GDR (= ~ 53/district). The numbers of active nature conservation workers ranged between 20 and 40 employees per district. In “active circles” there were sometimes over 100 nature conservation workers. In addition to the honorary nature conservation officers and helpers, there were other active people who were involved in nature conservation on a voluntary basis: the district officers for waterfowl research (work regulations of November 27, 1970), for species protection, for bird ringing and the appointed members of the nature and homeland friends in the Kulturbund (head of central, district or district-related specialist committees, specialist groups or working groups). Volunteer work was supported, in some cases generously, by making it a part-time job, which helped to mask the serious shortage of staff in the state conservation administration (“Management of Conservation”).

In 1972 the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Water Management was established. Subordinate institutions were created such as: State Environmental Inspectorate and Center for Environmental Design, environmental inspections in the districts and standing commissions for environmental protection, water management and recreation at the district and district assemblies. In addition, voluntary working groups "socialist regional culture" were founded in the district councils with the involvement of representatives of nature conservation.

From the early 1980s, reflecting growing environmental problems, the number of environmental protection officers in companies increased. "Permanent working groups on socialist regional culture" and/or "permanent commissions for environmental protection, water management, recreation" were set up in the councils of the districts and, in some cases, the councils of the districts. In some state forestry companies, for example in the districts of Suhl and Magdeburg, employees were hired for "socialist regional culture".

The strategy of nature conservation integrated into land use was only given a formal legal basis by the State Culture Act. The hope of integrating landscape planning into territorial planning (overall spatial planning) - not just in relation to LSG and NSG, but across the board - remained unfulfilled. Overall, the position of nature conservation has been weakened – especially in relation to agriculture . On the nature conservation side, the progress in the LKG and the associated DVO was in the explicit moving away from purely conservational nature conservation; the goals of “maintenance”, “development” and “planning” of the landscape were expressed in the development of treatment guidelines for nature reserves and landscape maintenance plans for landscape conservation areas. Otherwise there were no significant innovations that could have done justice to the extended list of goals and tasks of the "socialist national culture".

Like the Nature Conservation Act of 1954, the State Culture Act of 1970 related to the entire populated and uninhabited area, but its effect remained largely limited to the uninhabited area and in particular the protected areas and objects.

Socialist intensification in agriculture and forestry

As early as the 1950s, conservationists had to deal with demands for a comprehensive increase in agricultural production . It was propagated that meadows and pastures should be plowed up to gain additional arable land. At that time, the demand for the preservation or even expansion of grassland areas appeared to be backward. In the 1960s, the problems that arose for nature conservation from the intensification of land use, including grassland use, through amelioration and fertilization increased. The complete collectivization of agricultural production, which was implemented throughout the GDR by 1960 and was aimed at industrializing agriculture and revolutionizing social conditions in the villages, increased the pressure to use the agricultural landscape. During this time, the large-scale drainage projects in the context of youth objects in the large wetlands and moors such as the Friedländer Große Wiese in Western Pomerania or the Wische in the Altmark also led to extensive changes in the agricultural landscape of the GDR .

Fundamental changes in the agricultural landscape only came with the "socialist intensification". The decisions of the VI. The 1963 SED Party Congress and the 7th SED Party Congress in 1967 contributed to the intensification of land use. At the 7th Party Congress of the SED in 1967, the slogan was “socialist intensification” with an attempt to accelerate and intensify the application of scientific and technical knowledge. In connection with the slogan "overtake without catching up" it was intended to be an instrument for the implementation of the "Economic System of Socialism" (ÖSS), with which this stage of the NÖSLP was described.

Excessive goals were set in exemplary or prestige projects, which did not only concern large-scale grassland improvement. Under the keywords "complex melioration", "field melioration", "relief melioration" and finally "field reorganization", work was carried out towards a radical reorganization of the agricultural landscape in favor of industrial production methods with irrigation of the arable land and large-scale systems for "animal production". "General improvement plans" classified as confidential official matters were systematically implemented. The measures were initiated and implemented by the SED party leaders at higher levels, often against the resistance of the affected companies, because this development met with little acceptance among many farmers because the development led to the dissolution of the connection between village and countryside and to an increasing Alienation of the " working people " in agriculture from the natural basis of production.

Fighting Colorado potato beetle from the air in the district of Dresden, 1964

Article 15, paragraph 2 of the GDR constitution of 1968 was a "kneeling" to the agricultural lobby. Nature conservation was anchored in the constitution; however, the section in Article 26 of the 1949 constitution, which states that agricultural yield security is also guaranteed by landscape design and care, no longer appears in the new version. Increasing supply requirements for agriculture, which had to be met with a decreasing proportion of agricultural land in the total area and with air pollution reducing yields, forced a continuous increase in production, for which not only the operational and land use structures were completely changed, but increasingly agrochemicals, which were produced by application technology (including agricultural aviation ) were applied, and heavy cultivation technology was used and complex regulations of the soil water balance were carried out. Nutrient and pesticide inputs into the ground and surface water as well as increasing soil erosion and compaction were the consequences of this intensified use. Additional pollution of the water and air emanated from the large animal husbandry facilities. The “Environmental Report of the GDR” published in 1990 gives the following example of the high use of pesticides: “For example, the pre-sowing herbicide Bi3411 currently uses 18 to 27 kg/ha of active substance. Active ingredient quantities of 125-250 g/ha are common internationally".

The "socialist intensification" did not stop at forestry either. In the second half of the 1950s, the accelerated industrialization in the GDR and better earning opportunities in other sectors led to an increased migration of employees from the forestry sector. There was a noticeable shortage of workers. At the time, the resulting pressure to rationalize led to the replacement of the labour-intensive "stockpile forestry" by the phase of "site-appropriate forestry", which began with a decree of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of October 18, 1961 on "Principles for the silvicultural treatment of forests in the German Democratic Republic” was initiated. This short phase was a peak in site-specific silviculture, in which stock maintenance continued to play an important role.

As in agriculture, the influence of the member of the Central Committee of the SED, Gerhard Grüneberg , made itself felt in the forestry sector from 1967 and the X. German Farmers' Congress in 1967. The emphasis was now placed on the use of large equipment, which not only led to a renewed dominance of clear-cutting, but to ever larger clear-cuttings. Under these conditions, the production of raw wood took the place of silviculture. Since 1970/71, forestry has been fully included in central economic planning. Special technology complexes were set up for its use, and forestry gradually took a back seat. “Use and economy practically determined action in the forest, combined with pronounced dirigisme. District and head foresters were essentially only enforcement bodies.

Increasing and larger clear-cuts (up to 30 hectares in size), which inevitably resulted in chemization and mechanization as well as the cultivation of pine and spruce in monocultures, severe restrictions on the cultivation of deciduous trees and also increasing game stocks due to the upgrading of hunting to a part of the " developed social system of socialism" and the associated higher target populations of red deer, fallow deer and roe deer are some of the characteristics of this phase of socialist intensification in forestry, especially in the 1970s.

The "socialist intensification" had an effect until well into the 1970s, particularly in agriculture and forestry, and dominated - in addition to opencast lignite mining - the everyday problems of nature conservation, which could hardly make itself heard with its concerns and warnings.

Oil shock and brown coal renaissance

Chimneys in what was then Karl-Marx-Stadt

The "renaissance" of lignite , which was a consequence of the " oil shock ", ie the drastic increase in the price of crude oil by OPEC in 1973, but also the increase in the price of other raw materials that the GDR had to import, became a serious problem for nature conservation. By 1974, the price of crude oil had increased fivefold. This development continued in 1975-1980. From $1.80 a barrel in 1970 it rose to $17.26 a barrel in 1979. In 1979/80 the price doubled again to $32-34 per barrel.

The strategy of the SED leadership was to replace oil with lignite. Significant investments were made for the necessary conversion measures, which were lacking elsewhere for maintenance and modernization measures. Ambitious consumption-oriented programs such as the housing program contributed to the fact that the investment rate fell, thereby accelerating the wear and tear in industry and, incidentally, led to the reduction in the importance of environmental protection in annual and 5-year plans. The district of Cottbus shows the consequences of the renaissance of lignite for nature conservation : The district of Cottbus in the GDR had already developed into a coal and energy district since the development of a coal and energy program for the GDR in 1957. 45% of the GDR's industrially recoverable lignite reserves were stored in the eastern part of the district. In the 1980s, around 79,000 people, who accounted for 49.5% of the industrial workforce, worked in the three brown coal plants VE Braunkohlenkombinat Senftenberg, VE Kombinat Cottbus and VEB Schwarze Pumpe Lauchhammer . In 1992, 37,000 people were still making a living “from coal”. At the beginning of the 1980s, the SED and state leadership decided to significantly expand open-cast lignite mining. The production volume in the district of Cottbus should increase from 148.9 million t in 1980 to 200 million t in 1990 and remain at this level for "decades". The district council of Cottbus placed 45 lignite deposits with an area of ​​172,000 hectares under protection (mining protection areas). That was 21% of the total area of ​​the district. In 1980, 11 open-cast mines were in operation, and by 1989, six more had started coal production, five - according to the plan - were to be closed due to depletion. In the year 2000, 21 opencast mines should have started operation. 300 settlements (communities, districts and residential areas) would have been affected by opencast lignite mining.

In the lignite opencast mining areas, nature conservation was more or less lost. Devastation, lowering of the groundwater table, changes in relief and increasing environmental pollution through air and water pollution as well as overburden dumps were the consequences of open-cast lignite mining. If the excavation plans were fully implemented, 12 nature reserves (NSG) with an area of ​​1,044 ha, 14 landscape protection areas for the most part and 17 parks with 129 ha would have been excavated. In addition, 16 nature reserves and 32 parks would have been affected by groundwater withdrawal for a long time.

The Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation and its volunteer staff were only left with the task of intensifying inventory and process investigations in the NSG for documentation purposes where mining was actually taking place and trying to "relocate" selected animal and plant populations to alternative biotopes.

In April 1989, the ILN presented a "concept for the development of nature conservation work in the district of Weißwasser under the expansion of brown coal mining from 1988 (part of the complex-territorial spatial study Weißwasser)". It contained gloomy prospects for the future of nature conservation: 62% of the district of Weißwasser would have been devastated by the expansion of brown coal mining. For about 90% of the district area, a lowering of the groundwater level and for a number of nature conservation objects an increase in immission-related damage was expected. As much information as possible should be collected in the protected areas threatened by loss in order to document the former protective value. Furthermore, among other things, genetic resources should be secured and attempts should be made to settle certain animal and plant species on other sites.

1982 to 1989

Environmental problems - characteristics of the decline of GDR society

Chemical Combine Bitterfeld (1988)

The renaissance of lignite, the consequences of its use in the chemical industry, the increasing wear and tear of production facilities, the use of lignite as heating fuel and the ongoing intensification of agricultural and forestry land use led to catastrophic environmental conditions in the 1980s, especially in "Central Germany". industrial area.

At the end of the 1980s, the energy source structure of the GDR was based on 70% lignite, 12% crude oil and 10% natural gas. With 233 GJ per inhabitant, it had the highest gross inland consumption of energy in the world after Canada , the USA, the Scandinavian countries and Luxembourg. With an annual output of around 2.2 million t of dust and 5.2 million t of sulfur dioxide per unit area, based on these pollutants, the GDR had the highest levels of pollution of all European countries. The main cause of the high SO ₂ and dust emissions in industry was the coal and energy sectors with 58% SO ₂ and 41% dust, and the chemical sector with 12% SO _{2 and dust each.} The immission loads are concentrated in the districts of Cottbus, Frankfurt/Oder , Halle , Karl-Marx-Stadt and Leipzig .

In many cases, the technical and technological work in the “ central German industrial area ” at the end of the 1980s was at the pre-war level. More than half of the systems in the large chemical plants in the Halle/Leipzig area, such as the Leuna and Buna plants , were more than 20 years old in 1990. One of the consequences was that a large part of the workforce had to be used for repair work. Prisoners and conscientious objectors, so-called “ construction soldiers ”, were also used for such work, sometimes in particularly endangered areas.

Opencast lignite mining and the chemical industry, including production lines (e.g. carbide production), which had been discontinued in other countries for economic and ecological reasons, were responsible for the greatest contribution to environmental pollution and land use in the industrial problem regions of the GDR. The partly ailing companies were a hotbed of health problems, work accidents , environmental hazards and also state surveillance. In 1989, a total of 54.3% of the forests in the GDR were damaged, 16.4% of the forests were severely or moderately damaged, 37.9% slightly damaged. For the period between 1987 and 1989, the GDR's environmental report found an increase in damaged forest areas from 31.7% to 54.3%. The low natural water supply in the GDR required high expenditures to ensure the usability of the water resources as the basis for a high-quality and stable water supply for the population, industry and agriculture and to protect the water in cross-border watercourses and in the Baltic Sea . In 1990, the condition of the main watercourses in the GDR was characterized by the fact that only 20% of the classified river sections could be used for drinking water production using normal treatment technologies. 35% could only be treated with complicated and economically very expensive technologies and 45% could no longer be used for drinking water production. In the early 1990s, 67% of industrial wastewater requiring treatment was treated in wastewater treatment plants. In the municipal sector, 85% of the waste water was treated. 14% of the wastewater discharged into the water bodies was untreated. 36% of the treated waste water was treated mechanically and 52% mechanically and biologically. A phosphate elimination took place at 14% of the total amount of waste water. The sewage systems and pipes were largely in a condition worthy of rehabilitation. Around 26,000 km of the existing 36,000 km of sewage pipes were severely damaged. More than half of the organic pollutant load was discharged into the water without treatment. In 1988, 91.3 million t (1980 it was 80 million t) of solid industrial waste and secondary raw materials accumulated in the GDR. Of this, 39.9% (in 1980 it was 36.4%) was recycled. Part of the remaining 60.1% was intended to be returned to the economic cycle because of foreseeable recycling options and was therefore selectively landfilled, while a considerable amount of unusable waste products was released into the environment directly or via intermediate stages. In 1989, about 3.5 million t of solid municipal waste accumulated, 2.9 million t of which was household waste. In 1989 there was no complete overview of the number and condition of the landfills and landfill sites used for industrial waste and municipal waste. According to a survey from 1988, there were at least 13,000 landfill sites, of which around 2,000 were landfills for industrial waste and around 11,000 were landfill sites for municipal waste. 87% of the investment measures for waste disposal were aimed at creating or expanding capacities for the harmless disposal of industrial waste products. They thus served to secure the production process, especially in the energy sector, in the chemical industry and in mining. Municipal waste was largely decentralized and, for the most part, dumped “wildly”. Of the approx. 11,000 sites for the disposal of municipal waste, only 120 had the status of an organized landfill, a further 1,000 were considered controlled and the rest laid out and operated as "wild".

Top secret environment and oppositional environmental movement

In view of this emerging situation, which was only assessed in 1990 in the "Environmental Report of the GDR", environmental data became an "explosive commodity" for the GDR government. On November 16, 1982, the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the GDR issued the "Order for the acquisition or processing and protection of information about the state of the natural environment in the GDR" under number 02-67/I.2/82, with the data were sealed off from the environment . This order was supplemented on April 27, 1983 by a second one. These orders were a reflection of political paralysis and a lack of willingness to engage in dialogue on the part of the SED leadership.

Under these conditions, an oppositional or autonomous environmental movement grew. A first autonomous environmental group was formed in 1979 from "tree planting campaigns" by church youth groups in Schwerin. From the beginning of 1981, the Schwerin group around Jörn Mothes and Nikolaus Voss launched annual ecology seminars (Schwerin Winter Seminars), which until 1983 were the most important podium for the organizational networking of the environmental movement. The church was almost the only space where an independent ecology movement could emerge. The Church Research Center in Wittenberg , which published the first issue of the journal “Letters for Orientation in the Man-Earth Conflict” in 1981, then became an organizational center of the movement. Since 1983 there have been annual meetings of representatives of church environmental groups in the church research center on the initiative of the church. On September 2, 1986, an “ environmental library ” was founded in the vicinity of the Zionsgemeinde in Berlin on the initiative of members of a previously existing peace and environmental group in the parish and faith community in Berlin-Lichtenberg, which in the same year published the first issue of the “Umweltblätter ' issued. Between 1985 and 1989, the independent environmental groups comprised around 60 to 65 groups with 550 to 850 people. In 1988 they networked to form the "Network Arche" and then in 1990 to form the "Green League".

The focal points of the work of these groups included regional protest actions, particularly in the area of ​​"coal, chemicals, dying forests, motorway construction, waste, uranium, nuclear power plants and LPG". The growth of the environmental groups corresponded to the lack of integrative power, for example of the Kulturbund. The "Society for Nature and the Environment" founded there on May 27, 1980 was not only intended to provide a home for nature conservationists, but also for environmentalists who dealt in particular with urban-industrial environmental problems and gathered in working groups or urban ecology interest groups. In 1987, a Kulturbund statistic counted 380 urban ecology groups with 7,000 members. However, the Kulturbund did not fulfill this homestead function for these groups.

The environmental problems described and the work of the autonomous environmental movement and the critical environmental groups in the Kulturbund contributed to the fact that in 1989 "healthy environment" took a top position in the value scale of the citizens of the GDR. The nature conservation organization in the GDR was not up to the growing environmental and nature conservation problems. The general staff shortage in the nature conservation administration continued in the 1980s. Without the work of the volunteers in nature conservation, nothing would have happened.

1989 to 1990

Late adaptation strategies

Even before the cataclysmic events in October and November 1989, an amended nature conservation ordinance to the State Culture Act was issued on May 18, 1989 entitled "Protection and care of flora and fauna and scenic beauty", which came into force on June 19, 1989 and some brought improvements in nature conservation instruments. It was the result of efforts in the Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation to develop a new nature conservation strategy.

In principle, it was possible up until then with the conventional concept of nature conservation and the associated goals and tasks to campaign for the interests of nature conservation in the entire landscape, but the work of ILN, honorary and voluntary nature conservationists and scientists in cooperating institutions had has so far primarily dealt with the protected (or to be protected) objects and areas and research in area natural monuments (FND), nature protection areas (NSG) and landscape protection areas (LSG). The successes of nature conservation were mainly limited to such "islands" in the landscape, with the FND and NSG being in the foreground of interest. The system of the NSG was already considered complete at the beginning of the 1970s. The areas protected by this took up approx. 0.9% of the total area and did not correspond to the conditions of the prevailing industrial land use. The “island nature conservation” reached its limits precisely where there were all signs of intensification in agriculture and forestry or of the promotion of lignite mining or where – in marginally productive locations – parts of the landscape were taken out of agricultural use. The problem of endangering biodiversity , and thus the loss of crop species , and the need to protect crop species was well known, but this was not reflected in nature conservation practice.

As early as 1976, at a conference in Wesenberg/Mecklenburg, 25 management members of the ZFA and the BFA Botany in the Kulturbund demanded a changed nature conservation concept that should correspond to industrial agricultural land use.

In 1987, employees of the ILN published ideas that had been prepared for years for a conceptual redefinition and strategic reorientation of nature conservation as well as a more precise delimitation of the goals and tasks of nature conservation compared to environmental protection and landscape design/landscape care. Starting from the concept of resources, they divided natural resources into inexhaustible and exhaustible, the latter into recoverable (soil, biomass, ecosystems, landscapes) and non-recoverable, and the non-recoverable into development-passive (fossil fuels, ores, mineral raw materials) and development-active (diversity of species and forms). of organisms, genetic diversity of populations). From this they derived strategic and tactical reorientations of nature conservation.

In the new nature conservation ordinance of May 18, 1989, the term "species and form diversity of organisms" was used. The amendment brought with it a significant improvement in the legal basis for species and biotope protection: § 11 (2) DVO introduced the concept of total reserves and meant an expansion of process protection; Section 12 introduced the legal category of biosphere reserves; § 13 that of protected wetlands; Section 14 allowed for the designation of sanctuaries for endangered species; § 15 summarized the FND as an independent category and expanded the possible protection area from 3 to 5 ha; §§ 20 and 21 took up the concept of the Red List and regulated the protection of the locations of protected plants and the habitats of protected animals; Section 22 basically regulated the designation of other protected organisms (e.g. fungi) and Section 24 introduced the ecologically significant areas (protected biotopes ). According to §§ 15 and 24, numerous small areas throughout the GDR were temporarily secured during the "Wende", i.e. still in 1989.

The amended DVO would not have led to the lack of full-time employees being remedied. However, volunteering has increased. Thus, § 6 provided for the inclusion of citizens in nature conservation work. Also new was the possibility of appointing advisory councils for nature conservation (§ 7), whereby the nature conservation offices once abolished with the Nature Conservation Act of 1954 experienced a rebirth.

The national park program of the GDR

After the inner-German border was surprisingly opened on November 9, 1989, nature conservation came under the “Government of National Responsibility” under Prime Minister Hans Modrow , which ruled from November 18, 1989 until the early elections on March 18, 1990 Time in which "milestones" were set and, among other things, the basics of the national park program of the GDR were worked out. The idea for the national park program for the entire GDR, with which landscapes should be preserved and developed on a large scale, developed in various places, including Waren an der Müritz (Knapp 2012: 53), where a citizens' initiative for the dissolution of the state hunting area on the Müritz had formed. As early as December 18, 1989, the People's Chamber, the Prime Minister and the Round Table of the GDR had received a letter from the Müritz initiative, which detailed the work steps for the realization of a national park on the Müritz and a national park program for landscapes that are particularly worthy of protection in the following regions: Southeast Rügen , Darß-Zingst-Hiddensee, Müritz area, Spreewald, Middle Elbe area, Elbe Sandstone Mountains, Eichsfeld, Rhön. This meant that eight of the 14 areas later secured in the unification agreement had already been named.

On January 1, 1990, the Ministry for Nature Conservation, Environmental Protection and Water Management of the GDR (MNUW) was founded and on January 15, 1990 Michael Succow was appointed Deputy Minister responsible for resource protection and land use planning. Until March 1990, Succow brought in Rolf Caspar, the former secretary of the central board of the GNU in Berlin, Hans Dieter Knapp (freelance botanist) and Matthias Freude from the Humboldt University in Berlin with Lutz Reichhoff (ILN Dessau and deputy director of the ILN) as well Wolfgang Böhnert/ILN Dresden and Lebrecht Jeschke/ILN Greifswald introduced some leading ILN employees to the nature conservation department of the new ministry.

On January 27th and 28th, 1990, nature conservationists from both German states met in Berlin for a major nature conservation conference. The contacts that were more or less broken off after the Wall was built in 1961 had already been intensively re-established in the weeks before. Corresponding to the decline of the Society for Nature and the Environment in the Kulturbund, which took place between November and March 1990, the “Green League”, a network of independent local environmental groups, and the “ Nature Conservation Association of the GDR ” (on 18 March 1990) were founded in the GDR March 1990), a split from the GNU, as new associations, on the other hand there were more and more offshoots of environmental organizations in the Federal Republic such as BUND , WWF and Greenpeace .

On December 7, 1989, the “Central Round Table” of the GDR met for the first time. Up to the last session on March 12, 1990, there were 16 meetings of the "Central Round Table". The "round tables", which also existed at the local level, had become "new forms of representation and legitimation" that tried to fill the power vacuum that had arisen as a result of the collapse of the rule of the SED and its bloc parties. The Central Round Table also included an “Ecological Reconstruction” working group, which as a result of its work on March 5, 1990 submitted a “Concept for the Incorporation of Ecological Principles into the Shaping of Social and Economic Development”. On April 4, 1990, the Central Round Table presented a constitution for a democratic, independent, welfare state and ecologically oriented GDR. At this point in time, the political revolution in the GDR had already ignored such reform positions. The only task left to the Round Table was to organize the first free elections in the GDR, which were brought forward from May 1990 to March 18, 1990.

In addition to the "Central Round Table" there was also the "Central Green Table of the GDR", which was brought into being by the MNUW and met for the first time on January 24, 1990. The national park program was one of the topics for discussion. The Green Round Table met again on February 21, 1990, but was dissolved after the March 18 elections. At the beginning of February 1990, Hans Dieter Knapp formed a "National Park Committee" in the MNUW, which included representatives of the support groups or administrations of the large protected areas in the process of being created, in addition to employees of the ministry. Initially, the committee met once a month, but in the summer of 1990 it met much more frequently.

At the end of January 1990, a first version of the national park program was available. Succow presented it with the proposed categories "National Park", "Biosphere Reserve" and "Nature Park" - the latter a modification of the category "Nature Park" anchored in the Federal Nature Conservation Act - emphasizing the protective purpose - to the Central Round Table of the GDR at its meeting on February 5, 1990 . He unanimously endorsed it and asked the government to make the necessary funds available at short notice.

In mid-February, the MNUW issued a first decree aimed at strengthening state nature conservation and leading to the establishment of a functioning nature conservation administration in the counties and districts of the GDR. A total of around 1,000 new jobs were created in nature conservation, mostly occupied by people who had previously been involved in nature conservation in their free time and now have the human resources to implement the national park program and nature conservation in general in the GDR and later in the five new federal states formed.

In March, the ministry succeeded in closing all "industrial animal production plants" for environmental reasons - except for one in Ferdinandshof/West Pomerania. The notable measures of nature conservation in this short phase of the Modrow government include the founding of the International Nature Conservation Academy in the nature reserve Insel Vilm , which previously served as a recreational facility for the GDR government. This founding already took place in consultation with the Federal Republic of Germany's Ministry of the Environment.

On March 16, 1990, the GDR Council of Ministers finally approved a draft resolution for the national park program that provided for six biosphere reserves, five national parks, twelve nature conservation parks and their temporary protection as landscape conservation areas of central importance. On the basis of this decision, development staffs with 20 employees were formed in the planned areas and 6.55 million marks were planned for the current year 1990.

Environmental union and safeguarding the “silverware of German unity”

Documentation of a school class in Jena on environmental pollution, 1990

The government headed by Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière that emerged from the Volkskammer elections in 1990 took over the mandate from the previous government and continued work on the national park program, which was at the heart of nature conservation work alongside the consolidation of the state nature conservation administration. On April 12, 1990, the MNUW was renamed the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Energy and Nuclear Safety (MUNER), based on the name in the Federal Republic of Germany, with Karl-Hermann Steinberg as Minister. Succow initially remained responsible for his previous area of ​​responsibility, but left the ministry on May 15, 1990 (on the reasons Rösler 1998: 571–574). Meanwhile, work on the national park program continued. During a consultation on June 25, 1990 at the MUNER in Bonn, the Federal Republic of Germany organized support for the national park program within the framework of sponsorships.

On June 29, 1990, the GDR and FRG signed the environmental framework law, which came into force on July 1, 1990 with the monetary union . This meant that the Federal Nature Conservation Act also applied to a large extent in the GDR. The national park program benefited from the fact that the state cultural law of the GDR continued to apply at state level. The environmental framework law, essentially drawn up by nature conservation lawyers from Germany, was formulated with a view to realizing this program, with the lawyer Arnulf Müller-Helmbrecht, delegated to MUNER from the Bonn Ministry of the Environment in mid-May 1990, playing a key role.

When the accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic was set for October 3, 1990 on August 20, 1990 , all regulations for the areas to be secured had to be completed before this date. Since this did not happen by August 31, 1990, when the unification treaty between the GDR and the FRG was signed, the national park program is not included there.

A few days before the unification of the two German states on October 3, 1990, at the last meeting of the Council of Ministers on September 12, 1990, six biosphere reserves, five national parks and three nature parks were finally secured under GDR law as part of the national park program. 12 other areas were temporarily secured. This put 4,882 square kilometers of landscape under protection, which was almost 5 percent of the territory of the GDR.

On September 18, 1990, Wolfgang Schäuble for the Federal Republic of Germany and Günther Krause for the German Democratic Republic signed an "additional agreement" to the Unification Treaty of August 31, 1990, which confirmed the 14 regulations on the national park program passed by the Council of Ministers. The other 12 areas have been provisionally approved for a period of two years. Within ten months, more area was secured for nature conservation in Germany than in the previous 100 years of state conservation.

The history of the GDR ended on October 3, 1990, but not the history of GDR nature conservation institutions, because the Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation (ILN), founded in 1953, was only closed on December 31, 1991 after it had been evaluated by the Science Council in May 1991 would. The central nature conservation research institution of the GDR thus existed in unified Germany for almost 15 months.

In the ILN, the last defenses of research reports had already taken place in 1989. In the first half of 1990, all research topics had been discontinued. The employees of the research groups are now involved in the work to prepare the designation of national parks, biosphere reserves and nature conservation parks as part of the national park program. In September 1990, the ILN was still divided into 8 working groups, 2 departments, 2 biological stations, a teaching facility and a branch in Specker Horst.

In the new federal states in East Germany, the development of the state offices for the environment and nature conservation (with different names) had started, with the significant participation of employees of the former ILN branches. By May 1991, the five branches of the ILN were transferred to the respective state offices for environmental protection and nature conservation or to the nature conservation departments there. However, for the previous ILN employees who remained active in official nature conservation, the nature of their work changed fundamentally, since from then on they no longer did research, but only had to do administrative work.

Ratings for nature conservation in the GDR

The achievements of nature conservation in the GDR are assessed differently. Lutz Reichhoff, who played a key role in this area in various functions, comments: "The GDR nature conservation was a state (legal, political) controlled, scientifically supported and largely voluntary activity. He was assigned the social niche that was filled by the volunteers (both the GNU as an association level and the representatives and helpers). The nature conservation work could only be done with constant encouragement from the extremely understaffed and often demotivated government agencies, without overlooking the fact that there were committed people here too. […] GDR nature conservation lacked professionalism in administration, planning and volunteer work. The legal instruments for nature conservation hardly developed. Impulses only arose from international work (MAB, waterfowl protection). […] The organizational structure of the administrations was absolutely underdeveloped. Naturally, this created gaps for the volunteers to fill. However, this was by no means a modern, advanced form of nature conservation work. […] Overall, the enforcement of nature conservation law was not secured by the rule of law, so that it was determined by arbitrariness, lack of enforcement, very subjective evaluation and weighting, personal influence and the 'temporal-spatial' constellations of the people involved. Despite all this, under the given conditions, intensive nature conservation work was carried out, mainly on a voluntary basis, but also by state employees, which produced remarkable results. The practical orientation was characteristic. Since there were no property rights barriers, measures could be easily implemented. They even received government support. The honorary officers and helpers were promoted and supported within the framework of political guidelines. As a result of this work, secured protected areas, preserved populations of species, practical experience and a specific understanding of nature conservation could be transferred to the Federal Republic. However, this work can hardly be continued directly due to the changed social framework (property law, nature conservation law, administrative law, labor law).”

Geographically, nature conservation activities were concentrated on the "rural areas" of the GDR and, above all, on the protected objects and areas. His successes were limited to nature reserves, natural monuments, area natural monuments, landscape protection areas (recreational areas) and preserved populations of species. There was powerlessness in the face of "industrial" agriculture, forestry and fishing, as well as in relation to problems in the (other) industrial focus areas (lignite mining, lignite chemistry, uranium mining) and in relation to urban-industrial environmental problems such as protection of open spaces, air pollution, waste and sewage disposal or - cleaning, noise pollution, etc., although the problems were known and caused constant conflicts on site.

literature

• Horst Barthel: Environmental policy in both German states . Issues on GDR history No. 69, Helle Panke, Berlin 2001
• Hermann Behrens, Jens Hoffmann (ed.): Nature conservation in the GDR - an overview. In: this.: Nature Conservation History(s). Life paths between the Baltic Sea coast and the Ore Mountains. Steffen, Friedland 2013, ISBN 978-3-942477-64-2 , pp. 508–544.
• Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development eV (ed.): Environmental protection in the GDR: Analysis and eyewitness reports. , edited by Hermann Behrens and Jens Hoffmann, Oekom, Munich, ISBN 978-3-86581-059-5 (3 volumes).
• Hermann Behrens 2010: Nature conservation history and nature conservation officers in Berlin and Brandenburg. [Encyclopedia of Nature Conservation Officers, Volume 3]
• Federal Archives (Barch), inventory DK 1, 3759, file protection of rare bird species, pp. 27-30.
• Barch, DK 1, 10290, Activities of the Department of Regional Culture and Nature Conservation, Volume 1, with a list of the then approx. 200 KNB and BNB, pp. 261-294.
• Hermann Behrens 2010: 1990-2010 - The end of the "Society for Nature and Environment in the Cultural Association of the GDR" (GNU) - A contemporary witness report. Study Archives Environmental History 15 : 39–72. (PDF file; 9.6 MB)
• Hermann Behrens 2011: The Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation (ILN) Halle (S.) and the German history of nature conservation - On the settlement of the central nature conservation research institute of the GDR in 1991. VIEWPOINTS 5. Texts from the IUGR e. V., Neubrandenburg. (PDF file; 4.5 MB)
• Michael Beleites 2007: The independent environmental movement of the GDR. In: Environmental protection in the GDR - analyzes and eyewitness reports. Volume 3: Professional, honorary and voluntary environmental protection. Munich: 179–224 .
• Federal Agency for Civic Education 2013 ( Memento of February 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), originally accessed on February 7, 2013.
• Hans-Werner Frohn 2006: Nature conservation makes state - state makes nature conservation. From the State Office for the Preservation of Natural Monuments in Prussia to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation 1906 to 2006 - a history of institutions. In: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (ed.); Frohn, H.-W. & Schmoll, F. (Edit.): Nature and State. State nature conservation in Germany 1906-2006. Nature Conservation and Biological Diversity 35. Bonn-Bad Godesberg: 85–342.
• Hans-Peter Gensichen 1994: The environmental commitment in the Protestant churches in the GDR. In: Behrens, H. & Paucke, H.: Environmental history: science and practice. Marburg: 65-83.
• Karl Heinz Großer 1967: Landscape studies perspectives on the development of care plans for landscape protection areas. Nature conservation work in Berlin and Brandenburg 3 (1): 39-52.
• Herbert Hesmer 1934: Natural forest cells. Der Deutscher Forstwirt 16(13): 133-134 and 16(14): 141-143.
• Olaf Hiller (ed.) 2002: The landscape diagnosis of the GDR. Contemporary history and impact of a research project from the founding phase of the GDR. Materials on the history of garden art. Berlin.
• Kurt Hueck 1937: More forest protection areas! Yearbook Nature Conservation 1937: 1–32. Berlin.
• Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development e. V. (Hg.) 1998: Nature conservation in the new federal states - a review, 2 half-volumes, Forum Wissenschaft Studien 45/1 and 45/2, BdWi Verlag Marburg 1998, 2nd, revised. Edition, Berlin 2001.
• Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development e. V. (Hg.) 1999: Landscape and planning in the new federal states - retrospective. Berlin.
• Institute for Environmental Protection (Hg.) 1990: Environmental Report of the GDR. Information on the analysis of the environmental conditions in the GDR and on further measures. Berlin.
• Max Militzer 1956: Protected native plants. Leipzig, Jena.
• Albrecht Milnik, A., Heyde, V. & Schult, R. 1998: Responsible for the forest. The history of forestry in the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR. Published by the Brandenburg Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry. Potsdam.
• Arnulf Müller-Helmbrecht 1998: Final sprint - the national park program in a race against time. In: Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development e. V. (ed.): Nature conservation in the new federal states – a review. 2 half volumes. marburg Volume 2: 597-608.
• Ulrich Petschow, Meyerhoff, J. & Thomasberger, C. 1990: Environmental Report GDR. Balance of the destruction - costs of the remediation - strategies for the ecological conversion. Frankfurt/M.
• Lutz Reichhoff and Wolfgang Böhnert 1987: Current aspects of nature conservation. Archives of Conservation and Landscape Management 27(3): 139–160.
• Lutz Reichhoff and Uwe Wegener 2011: ILN - Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation Halle - Research history of the first German nature conservation institute. Published by the Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development e. V Friedland.
• Jörg Roesler 2012: History of the GDR. Cologne.
• Markus Rösler, Elisabeth Schwab, Markus Lambrecht 1990: Nature conservation in the GDR, Oeconomica-Verlag Bonn, 305 p.
• Markus Rösler 1998: The national park program of the GDR. In: Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development e. V. (ed.): Nature conservation in the new federal states – a review. 2 half volumes. marburg Volume 2: 561-596.
• J. Vesting 2003: With the courage to take healthy risks. The working conditions of prisoners and construction soldiers in the companies of the region Bitterfeld, Buna and Leuna with special consideration of the VEB chemical combine Bitterfeld, contributions in kind 30, ed. by the State Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR in Saxony-Anhalt. Magdeburg.
• Uwe Wegener 1998: Without them, nothing would have moved - to the work of the voluntary nature conservation helpers. In: Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development e. V. (ed.): Nature conservation in the new federal states – a review. Marburg: 89-108.
• Hugo Weinitschke 1980: Nature conservation yesterday - today - tomorrow. Leipzig, Jena, Berlin.
• Siegfried Wenzel 1998: plan and reality. On the GDR economy. Documentation and memories, St. Catherine.
• H. Wittig 1982: Tasks of the Society for Nature and the Environment in the Cultural Association of the GDR under the conditions of increased performance requirements for the coal and energy industry in the Cottbus district. Nature and landscape in the district of Cottbus. SH. Cottbus.
• Irmela Wübbe 1999: Landscape planning in the GDR. In: Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development e. V. (Hg.): Landscape and planning in the new federal states - retrospective. Berlin: 33-56.
• Sascha Ohlenforst: Environmental Law in the GDR: The State Culture Law as a Means of Recognition under International Law? In: Nature and Law 2019, pp. 530–537.
• Law on the systematic organization of socialist state culture (state culture law) GDR Part 1 No. 12, p. 67.

web links

• Institute for environmental history and regional development at the Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences
• Foundation for Conservation History

itemizations

1. ↑ Andreas Dix: After the end of the 'thousand years': landscape planning in the Soviet occupation zone and early GDR. In: Joachim Radkau , Frank Uekötter (ed.): Nature Conservation and National Socialism, Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt/New York 2003, p. 359 f.
2. ↑ Behrens and Hoffmann: Nature conservation in the GDR - an overview, 2013, p. 488
3. ↑ Bundesarchiv (Barch), inventory DK 1, 3759, file protection of rare bird species, pp. 27-30
4. ↑ Cf. Barch, DK 1, 10290, Activities of the Department of Regional Culture and Nature Conservation, Volume 1, with a list of the then approx. 200 KNB and BNB, pp. 261-294
5. ↑ Behrens: Nature conservation history and nature conservation officers in Berlin and Brandenburg, 2010, pp. 128-136
6. ↑ Hiller: The landscape diagnosis of the GDR, 2002, p. 86 and 92
7. ↑ Wübbe: Landscape planning in the GDR, 1999, pp. 33-56.
8. ↑ Law on the Preservation and Care of Native Nature (Nature Conservation Law) of August 4, 1954, Legal Gazette of the GDR, p. 695
9. ↑ Kurt and Erna Kretschmann. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
10. ↑ Reimar Gilsenbach. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
11. ^ Erich Hobusch. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
12. ↑ Militzer: Protected native plants, 1956, p. 16
13. ↑ Oehler: On the development of environmental law, 2007, pp. 99-128
14. ↑ Hesmer: Natural forest cells, 1934, pp. 133-134 and pp. 141-143
15. ↑ Hueck: More forest protection areas, 1937, pp. 1-32
16. ↑ Karl Heinz Großer. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
17. ↑ Großer: Landscape perspectives for the development of care plans for landscape protection areas, 1967, pp. 39-52
18. ↑ Reichhoff and Wegener: ILN - Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation Halle - Research History of the First German Nature Conservation Institute, 2011.
19. ↑ Ludwig Bauer. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
20. ↑ Lutz Reichhoff. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
21. ^ Gerhard Klafs. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
22. ↑ Dieter Martin. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
23. ↑ Law on the systematic organization of socialist state culture (state culture law) GDR Part 1 No. 12, p. 67
24. ↑ Sascha Ohlenforst: Environmental law in the GDR: The state culture law as a means of international recognition? In: Nature and Law 2019 . Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg 2019, p. 530-537 .
25. ↑ Weinitschke: Nature conservation yesterday - today - tomorrow. 1980, p. 78 f
26. ↑ Wegener: Without them nothing would have moved - on the work of the voluntary nature conservation helpers, 1998, p. 93
27. ↑ Behrens and Hoffmann: Organization of environmental protection, 2007, pp. 41-47
28. ↑ Institute for Environmental Protection 1990, p. 44
29. ↑ Milnik, Heyde and Schult: In responsibility for the forest, 1998, p. 212
30. ↑ Wenzel: Plan and Reality, 1998, p. 67 and Roesler: History of the GDR, 2012, p. 78
31. ↑ Green pencil 10 (5): 36.
32. ↑ Wittig: Tasks of the Society for Nature and the Environment in the Cultural Association of the GDR under the conditions of increased performance requirements for the coal and energy industry in the Cottbus district, 1982, pp. 4-17
33. ↑ Vesting: With the courage to take healthy risks, 2003.
34. ↑ Petschow, Meyerhoff and Thomasberger: Environmental Report GDR, 1990
35. ↑ The secret of the environment and the oppositional environmental movement. Phase 1982 to 1990. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Institute for Environmental History and Regional Development eV, accessed November 17, 2021 . 
36. ↑ Beleites: The independent environmental movement in the GDR, 2007, pp. 179-224 and Gensichen: The environmental commitment in the Protestant churches in the GDR, 1994, pp. 65-83
37. ↑ Beleites: The independent environmental movement of the GDR, 2007: 187
38. ↑ Reichhoff and Böhnert: Current aspects of nature conservation, 1987, pp. 139-160
39. ↑ Rösler: The National Park Program of the GDR, 1998, pp. 561-596
40. ↑ Hans Dieter Knapp. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
41. ↑ Lebrecht Jeschke. In: Nature Conservation History of East Germany. Retrieved October 15, 2014 . 
42. ↑ Behrens: 1990-2010 - The end of the "Society for Nature and the Environment in the Cultural Association of the GDR" (GNU), 2010, pp. 39-72
43. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education 2013
44. ↑ Rösler: The national park program of the GDR, 1998, p. 577 and Müller-Helmbrecht: Endspurt - the national park program in a race against time, 1998, pp. 597-608
45. ↑ Nick Reimer: National park program of the GDR government: nature conservation at the last minute . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 14, 2020, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed September 20, 2020]).
46. ↑ Behrens: The Institute for Landscape Research and Nature Conservation (ILN) Halle (S.) and the German history of nature conservation, 2011
47. ↑ Quoted from Behrens and Hoffmann: Naturschutzgeschichte(n), 2013, p. 544 f