"At a meeting with the environmental group “Freunde der Gesellschaft für Natur und Umwelt”, I spoke about Mikhail Gorbachev’s new environmental protection legislation, which I had learned about at the House of Soviet Science and Culture. Shortly afterwards, I received a call from my family doctor informing me that I would certainly soon be locked up for having done so. This shows how quickly critical comments spread in the autumn of 1989. I went into hiding for a few days until a friend of mine, who was in the district leadership of the SED, gave me the all-clear.
When I returned to Zeuthen in September, I organised a meeting at my house together with my friend and comrade Frank Rauhut (a surgeon at Königs Wusterhausen hospital) with the intention of discussing the situation with three or four families. They were to bring along their children as well as some cake. As it turned out, 80 people turned up – with no children and no cake. Five Evangelical parsons were among those present. There could certainly be no more talk of discretion. Out in the garden, we had to place planks on beer crates. Everyone made fantastic proposals on how to improve the GDR. The next day, I travelled to Berlin and presented them to Bärbel Bohley, one of the initiators of the New Forum. She had also given me the lists, which I was now returning to her with the signatures of the new members from Zeuthen.
Some time later, we discovered our meeting in the book 'Mit tschekistischem Gruß', a compilation and selection of documents from the archives of the Potsdam District Administration for State Security. The book contains many reports on founding meetings that were under Stasi surveillance.
This photograph was taken the day after we held our founding meeting and documents the place where this historical event occurred."
Joachim Stoff (Zeuthen, District of Potdsam, now in Land Brandenburg; born 1930)
(2 rankings) 
