Uwe Bastian

Uwe Bastian in 2017

Uwe Bastian (* 1957 in Großenhain / Saxony) is a German sociologist and publicist . In the GDR he was active in the opposition . Today, socio-economic transformation processes are the focus of his scientific research.

Life

Bastian graduated from high school in Grossenhain in 1976 . While at school he rejected a Stasi attempt to recruit an unofficial employee . He was denied a place at university because of political dissidence and was officially recognized as a persecuted student in 1996.

In 1976 he was called up for basic military service , his last rank was a soldier. From 1978 to 1979 he attended evening school with a qualification as a professional driver and worked as such in Dresden and Großenhain until 1984 . In Dresden he was active in the environmental and peace movement. In 1982 a leaflet campaign started in East Berlin and Dresden against further militarization and the new military service law in the GDR.

In 1984 he moved to Berlin and worked in various opposition groups. He took part in the 1st ecology seminar in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde in 1984. A meeting also followed in Steken (ČSSR) in July 1985. This is where opponents of the war from East and West met in the spirit of a non-bloc, non-state peace movement. Bastian had drafted a discussion paper on this, which was distributed in East Berlin and in other cities of the GDR as well as in West Berlin and the Netherlands . After treason, the Stasi opened the "draft" operational procedure against Bastian and his comrades. Bastian was banned from working , his family and the circle of friends were the target of so-called disintegration measures by the Stasi.

From 1983 to 1988 he completed a long-distance engineering course in mechanical engineering with a degree in engineering (FH). From 1984 to 1985 he worked as a material planner and technologist at VEB Metallmöbel Berlin. From 1986 to 1991 he was employed as an engineer in the VEB Berliner Elevator and Escalator Construction and completed a distance learning course in Roßwein . In 1985, the SED and Stasi imposed a career ban on all areas of the economy with regard to management activities and this was maintained until the end of the SED dictatorship. Bastian is therefore recognized as a politically persecuted person under the Professional and Administrative Rehabilitation Act .

He was involved in the environmental library and was co-editor of the opposition newspaper Umweltblätter . The MfS identified and archived its activities for illegal dissemination of conceptual discussion papers on issues of social constitution, ecology, military service issues and the use of atomic energy.

In 1986 he was a co-signer of the party convention of the Berlin human rights group Initiative for Peace and Human Rights . For this reason and because of alleged Trotskyist positions, he was expelled from the largely state-compliant opposition group "Gegenstimmen". On May 21, 1986, Bastian published a contribution to the discussion about the political background to the petition in the Frankfurter Rundschau . He called for democratization in the GDR. Bastian also wanted to ensure that in the event of his arrest by the Stasi, a conceptual paper was deposited in the western media that should secure international attention for him. The Stasi refrained from the actually intended detention. However, he was arrested several times and subjected to hours of interrogation in the "Magdalena" (remand prison of the MfS district administration in Berlin) .

Bastian tried to build an independent left opposition that would question the old balance of power and create a kind of democratic socialism (Bastian: " Socialism is impossible without freedom "). He regards the social conditions at that time as those of a totalitarian state capitalist dictatorship, the GDR as a large cage with increased exploitation. He is of the opinion that conditions in the old Federal Republic were more socialist than those in the GDR.

In 1987, while he was still studying distance learning, Bastian worked out a concept for an “alternative energy industry” based on renewable energies. This lecture was printed in the environmental library of the East Berlin Zionsgemeinde and from there distributed throughout the GDR as samizdat .

In 1989 he participated in the formation of the “Initiative for Independent Trade Unions” IUG together with Renate Hürtgen, Joachim Hürtgen, Achim Stange and others. Based on the model of the Polish Solidarność , an independent interest group for workers and employees was to be established in the GDR.

From 1992 to 1996 Bastian worked in the SED State Research Association at the Free University of Berlin and published various publications in the context of coming to terms with the SED dictatorship.

At the same time he studied economics at the FHTW Berlin and was admitted to the FU for doctoral studies in sociology in 1998. He completed his doctorate in 2003 with the defense of his dissertation entitled Socio-Economic Transformations in Rural Areas in the New Federal States . Reviewers were Bernd Rabehl and Klaus Schroeder .

From 1997 to 2003 he was in the counseling service for those affected at the Bürgerbüro e. V. to deal with consequential damage caused by the SED dictatorship . Here he worked with Hildigund Neubert on a research paper on the subject of forced labor of political prisoners of the SED state.

In 2012, Bastian worked on a report with Helmut Klüter at the Geographical Section of the University of Greifswald , which was awarded on behalf of the Landtag Brandenburg's commission of inquiry on the topic: Current structures and development trends in Brandenburg agriculture in a country comparison .

Bastian has lived in Western Pomerania since 2004 and was in the meantime a member of the pirate party .

Publications

• Alternative energy industry in the GDR. Socio-economic prerequisites for the transition to solar energy use. In: context. 1987, ISSN  0863-2561 ( Samizdat magazine).
• with Torsten Metelka (Ed.): Everything is on top of the underground; one-man-free… Selected articles from the journal Context 1–7 (= Edition Context ). Context-Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-86161-002-7 .
• Decomposition measures of the state security using the example of the operational process 'draft'. The State Security against independent left-wing political approaches in the GDR (= working papers of the SED State Research Association at the Free University of Berlin. No. 8/1993), DNB 940460068 .
• "On to the last battle ..." Documentation about the preparations of the MfS for the collapse of the GDR economy (= working papers of the research association SED-Staat at the Free University of Berlin. No. 9/1994). 2., ext. Version, OCLC 917413126 .
• Greenpeace in the invisible visor of the MfS. Commented documentation on the exploitation and combating of the environmental protection organization Greenpeace and West Berlin alternative groups by the State Security of the GDR (= working papers of the SED State Research Association at the Free University of Berlin. No. 16/1995), DNB 94420998X (incorrectly referred to as vol. 15 of the series of publications ).
• Greenpeace in the GDR. Edition Ost, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-929161-51-6 .
• with Hildigund Neubert : Shamelessly exploited. The system of forced labor for political prisoners of the SED state. Bürgerbüro e. V., Berlin 2003, DNB 970199368 .
• Socio-economic transformations in the rural areas of the new federal states. Dissertation, Free University of Berlin, 2003, urn : nbn: de: kobv: 188-2003002080 .
• The development of storage media as secondary energy sources to ensure a stable energy supply. Contribution to the European conference "Climate change and ecological restructuring of industrial society", organized by the European Information Center in the Thuringian State Chancellery, published by the EIZ 2011.
• with Helmut Klüter: Current structures and development tendencies in Brandenburg agriculture in a country comparison. Expert opinion on behalf of the Enquetekommission of the Landtag Brandenburg, Greifswald 2012 ( PDF; 12.5 MB ).

literature

• Ehrhart Neubert : History of the opposition in the GDR 1949–1989 (= research on GDR society ). Berlin 1997; 2., through and exp. Ed., Ibid. 1998, ISBN 3-86153-163-1 (Zugl .: Berlin, Freie Univ., Modified diss., 1997).
• Hans-Joachim Veen et al. (Hrsg.): Lexicon opposition and resistance in the SED dictatorship. Edited on behalf of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Propylaea, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-549-07125-6 .

Web links

• Working papers research association SED state, various working papers ( list )
• Uwe Bastian, Stephan Bickhardt, Michael Bohley, B. Bohley, K. Eigenfeld a. a .: [Initiative Peace and Human Rights] to the XI. SED party congress (Berlin, April 2, 1986) ( archive evidence )
• various writings in the Havemann archive ( sources )
• Short biography on the website of the archive of the GDR opposition, ddr89.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ rehabilitation certificate by the Saxon State Office, Rehabilitation Authority, on 12 September 2002, AZ 97/72/176456.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Uwe Bastian. In: ddr89.de, accessed on September 19, 2017.
3. ↑ State Office for Health and Social Affairs Berlin: Rehabilitation certificate dated June 3, 1998.
4. ↑ Uwe Bastian: Democracy and Socialism. Literally. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. May 21, 1986.
5. ^ Uwe Bastian: Alternative energy economy in the GDR . Ed .: Context. 1987, ISSN  0863-2561 .
6. ↑ Uwe Bastian, Stephan Bickhardt, Michael Bohley, B. Bohley, K. Eigenfeld a. a .: [Initiative Peace and Human Rights] to the XI. SED party conference (Berlin, April 2, 1986). In: havemann-gesellschaft.de. 1986, accessed on September 16, 2017 (archive records of the party congress entry). 
7. ↑ Various publications. In: dnb.de, accessed on September 18, 2017.
8. ^ Uwe Bastian: Socio-economic transformations in the rural areas of the new federal states. Dissertation . 2003, urn : nbn: de: kobv: 188-2003002080 .
9. ↑ Uwe Bastian, Hildegund Neubert: Shamelessly exploited . The system of forced labor for political prisoners of the SED state. Ed .: Bürgerbüro e. V. Berlin, Association for the processing of consequential damage caused by the SED dictatorship. Berlin 2003, DNB  970199368 .
10. ↑ Helmut Klüter, Uwe Bastian: Current structures and development tendencies in Brandenburg agriculture in a country comparison. Assessment. (PDF; 12.5 MB) In: landtag.brandenburg.de. University of Greifswald, 2012, accessed on September 15, 2017 . 
11. ↑ https://www.ostsee-zeitung.de/amp/news/Vorpommern/Usedom/Umgang-mit-Pegida-Uwe-Bastian-kehrt-Piratenpartei-den-Ruecken