Rainer Eppelmann

"The first conscious memories originate from a later time. It was in 1953. At that point, I have to confess, I would not yet be able to formulate it in the following words: it was when I turned from citizen to serf. It was on 17 June, 1953. My father came home and told us that the working people of the GDR as well as in Berlin, where we lived, went on strike and were standing in the streets. He himself did not get involved in the strike. I assume that he looked on from an apparently safe distance and then came home and told us that Soviet tanks opened fire at the unarmed strikers and that some also got injured and even killed. I can still remember that a day or two later, a Soviet tank rolled down the Pankow Maximilian street where we lived, with opened lid and a Soviet soldier or officer sticking out his head. On the opposite side of the street, on the balcony, there was an elderly couple and cheered on this tank and the crew. I was 10 years old by then and I asked myself in my amazement, how can you cheer on people, or rather monsters that shoot at the defenseless. Today I know that it was even worse. They shot at people who had claimed a right granted to them by the Constitution of the GDR. And that's where my bitter but realistic designation comes from: perceived citizens who would think turned into serfs."

"Finally, I may tell you, that the happiness of my life and of my biography in terms of this historical-political dimension, was not that I was only a suffering human being, a surprised-suffering man on 13 August, 1961, but also a happy and an active person on 9 November, 1989. I was not intentionally a citizen, but only until 17 June, 1953, whereupon I was made a subject by those who had promised us paradise. On August 13, 1961, I was made a serf, and not even as such I was allowed to move where I wanted. We became whisperers and at some point we realized that hope is not the belief that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. And I'm very happy and very grateful to find it has turned out well. Sacrifice is not a word that sits with me."

"Yes, then they came for me immediately. I refused military service and was thus drafted to the construction soldiers ('Bausoldaten'). The reasons that I had were several. First of all - and I didn't put this one quite openly to them although it was a major reason for me - I would not defend a regime like the Communist regime, that had locked me up, that had blocked my training, that had prevented me from choosing the career path I wanted and that had separated my family. I would not and I could not defend such a regime. In addition - and that was my main argument - I had arguments that were based on my religiosity. That's what I said, that already as a child and adolescent, I came to understand that it is not the cause of man to take the life of another human being, to kill a man. And the third argument had to do with my education. And as I recall it now it doesn't matter whether the service would be in the east or west, at this point. It dawned on me that ordinary people had committed abominable acts in the period 1933-1945. And when you asked then why they did it, they would say that they acted on orders. They claimed that they simply had to obey the orders, that they had been sworn to obey orders. In principle it was like this. Not every individual order, as they were no longer even being asked in each and every case. But they were basically sworn to obedience. And by this I mean absolute obedience. Those who refused to obey orders - and yes there had been thousands of cases - were executed by the Nazis in martial law. The Bundeswehr has interestingly learned from this experience. The principle of obedience is still valid today in the Bundeswehr, but with the restriction that if you get an order that goes against human rights and human dignity, you not only have the right to refuse but it is even your duty to refuse. And you have to even call the one who has given you that order. It's not always quite easy, in some specific cases or in an extreme situation when you have to refuse face to face to your superiors - when you have to tell him 'no, I'm not doing this'. It may possibly even result in a court hearing. But in the GDR it was unconditional obedience. And should there be such a case - although it is actually totally inconceivable that in a socialist army, you would get an order violating human rights and human dignity - then you would be given the right to complain afterwards. That's when I told them, considering the experience of Auschwitz; I'm not prepared to take such an oath, to promise that I'll do whatever you say. This resulted in my jailing for 8 months for a number of acts of insubordination. I served my term in the former military prison in Ueckermünde on Oderhaff. It was an extension of a civil jail, because it was not yet set up to also deal with army offenders. The great military prison in Schwedt was only built later on. I didn't get to experience it anymore. After having served my eight months in jail, I got picked up again from jail and got assigned to my unit by a sergeant and then I served a year and a half as a Bausoldat without having to be sworn anymore."

"It was, if you want, the first time when I had flown my flag or when I had shown my face. Of course I was aware of it. I had by then suffered already for seven years as a subject. With a different career path than the one I had originally dreamed of forced upon me. In the meanwhile, I was also in jail for some time. As the subsequent rehabilitation has shown, I was imprisoned for reasons of conscience. So I had not committed a crime in the truest sense of the word. All of this had certainly not fostered my love for society and those who represented this society. And now something that instilled great hope and inspiration in me and others happened suddenly - not in another world, but only a few hundred kilometers away. This made us think: 'perhaps the so-called socialist German Democratic Republic does not necessarily have to be as it is now. There can be reform from above'. Of course this inspired us with hope. Even if the developments in the two countries would not be quite identical, at least the developments in Czechoslovakia - if successful - would inspire the Poles and the GDR citizens. Despite the bad experience we had with June 17, 1953, with the revolt of the people against the government. I went together with a friend to the Czech Embassy, when the Soviet and other soldiers marched in or moved in with their tanks, and we formulated a declaration of solidarity there. My friend put his name under the text and I - as I am sometimes a bit cheeky, but also helpful - put down not only my name, but also my address, because I wanted to make it a bit easier for them. There was a member of the German People's Police guarding the door, but surprisingly he let us in and afterwards he also let us out without demanding to hear from us what we did in there. And since then nobody has ever bothered me because of my solidarity declaration, amazingly enough. I've neither found anything about this in my Stasi file, when I was reading through its pages later on. Thus, I figure that the book or the list of the signatories did not come into wrong hands. I have no idea whether they eventually destroyed it or what they have done with it, no idea. But I know that they prosecuted other people - GDR citizens - for this. For us this was not the case. So I can say only of the very narrowest circle of our community that we talked about these things, of course. We were unanimously positive about what happened in 1968 in Czechoslovakia, what the people there had done. It moved us deeply. So, in any case, the events in Hungary in 1956 and Prague in 1968 were emotionally much more moving for us than what happened, for example, in West Berlin. I'm not speaking from the position of an internationalist, but because I had the impression that what happened in 1956 or 1968 had much more to do with our own life than the other things."