Peace and protest :

Abstract

The German Democratic Republic fell in 1989. The inevitability of the fall and the years of instability within the GDR have been widely debated. The State external policy of Peace provided a rallying point and common nomenclature for the GDR regime and Churches to create a symbiotic relationship; while providing a domestic point for internal complaint and a call for reform within socialism. The result of the 1989 upheaval, was not simply an inevitable result of long run instability among the GDR, but rather gradual instability caused by an aging leadership and the lack of SED policy to come to terms with the hypocrisy of its peace movement, centered around the Church within socialism as a place for the growing opposition of the 1980s to rally and provided the space necessary for the 1989 upheaval.