Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2021
Chapter two traces the SED’s institutionalization of environmental protection and the party’s conviction that socialism provided solutions to pollution. The SED succeeded in creating a more environmentally minded population and, at least initially, tried to address concerns within existing structures. The SED used mass social campaigns to unite East Germans around the issue of environmentalism and practiced protection through policy and negotiating petitions. The GDR simultaneously reached out to other socialist countries to build coalitions around its brand of environmentalism in contrast to the one taking off in western Europe. This positioning intentionally placed the GDR in the middle of a regional and global phenomenon that spanned the Iron Curtain. Despite minor improvements, however, the discrepancy between rhetoric and lived reality produced a politically untenable situation. The SED relied on the Stasi to police the population, and ultimately opted to classify all environmental data in 1982.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.