Rhetoric Versus Activism: Autonomous and Party-Affiliated Women’s Organizations in East Germany

This paper gives an insight into the functioning of the one party-affiliated women’s group, the Democratic Women’s Federation of Germany (Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands) that existed in the GDR and several autonomous women’s groups that emerged in the 1980s, at a time when the East German state became increasingly restrictive. These autonomous groups include Women for Peace (Frauen für den Frieden), lilo (Lila Offensive), Independent Women’s Movement of the GDR (Unabhängiger Frauenbund der DDR) and SOFI (Socialist Women’s Initiative [Sozialistische Fraueninitiative]). Some of these autonomous movements initially met within church circles believing to be safe from the Stasi. The key purpose of this paper is to illustrate the different levels of activism versus the official state propagated rhetoric of women’s rights and women’s emancipation. The DFD, following very active initial years after the foundation of the German Democratic Republic until the early 1960s when retreating to a rhetorical activism at the hands of the communist party, turned into a party controlled welfare organization believing to speak for all East German women. The autonomous groups rose at the same time as a general movement for the betterment of the socialist society during the 1980s. Their primary concerns were not women’s issues as shown, for instance by, Women for Peace whose chief concerns were the cold war, a draft for women and the abolition of guns as toys for children. Within these autonomous groups exchange with West German women’s groups existed until the Stasi successfully infiltrated and destroyed the groups ideologically. The rhetoric and activism of women’s emancipation appears to be far apart in communist state societies as shown on the example of various women’s organizations in East Germany.