Construction soldier
A construction soldier (
History
Background
Before the construction of the
Creation
On 24 January 1962, East Germany introduced conscription, with all males aged 18 to 60 required to serve 18-months in the
Service conditions
The Bausoldaten or "construction soldiers" wore uniforms, lived in
Service in the Baueinheiten, although legal, was deliberately
Dissolution
In the 1980s, the gradual decline of the GDR led to increasing resistance to mandatory military service, even in the Baueinheiten, from the growing pacifist movement and opposition to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Many serving Bausoldaten belonged to the opposition movement, while the youth in East Germany began to increasingly demand for an alternative civilian service.
On 1 January 1990, the Baueinheiten were dissolved and 1,500 construction soldiers released, while the remaining members were released from the NVA at the beginning of October 1990, days before the GDR's dissolution and German reunification. The dissolution of the Baueinheiten was a deliberate political act under the government Lothar de Maizière, the only non-SED and democratically elected prime minister of the GDR, occurring just over a month after the Fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.
Notable former construction soldiers
- Rudolf Albrecht – Protestant minister and representative of the Church's peace movement in the GDR
- Andreas Amende Member of the Bundestag
- Christfried Berger – Protestant theologian in the GDR in the field of ecumenism
- Wolfgang Birthler – veterinarian; Brandenburg State Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Spatial Planning (1999-2004)
- BStU, the federal agency of Germany that preserves and protects the archives and investigates the past actions of the former Stasi
- Harald Bretschneider – Protestant minister and representatives of the ecclesiastical peace, environmental and human rights movement in the GDR
- Stephan Dorgerloh – theologian and politician, Saxony-Anhalt State Minister of Education
- Bernd Eisenfeld – historian and GDR opposition figure
- Rainer Eppelmann – minister and politician (the only Minister of the Ministry of Disarmament and Defense of the GDR)
- Gunter Fritsch – politician; Brandenburg State Minister of Food, Agriculture and Forestry. President of the Brandenburg State Parliament
- Andreas Grapatin – politician, member of the Saxony State Parliament
- Frank Hempel – politician
- Ralf Hirsch – GDR dissident and human rights activist
- Günter Holwas – blues musician
- Johann-Georg Jaeger – politician (Alliance '90 / The Greens), MP
- Karl-August Kamilli – politician, Deputy Chairman of the SPD
- John Kimme – lawyer
- Thomas Kretschmer – civil rights activist and a political prisoner in East Germany
- Hendrik Liersch – publisher of the Corvinus Press
- Heiko Lietz – civil rights activist, former politician (New Forum, Alliance '90 / The Greens)
- Frank-Wolf Matthies – writer
- Gerhard Miesterfeldt – politician, Vice President of the State Parliament of Saxony-Anhalt
- Martin Morgner – poet, playwright and historian
- Andreas Otto – politician (The Greens)
- Bert Papenfuß-Gorek– poet
- Gerd Poppe – physicist, civil rights activist and politician; Human Rights Commissioner of the Federal Government (1998–2003)
- Jürgen Rennert – writer
- Frank Richter – theologian, founder of the Group of 20 in Dresden, director of the Saxon State Agency for Civic Education
- Gerhard Schöne – songwriter
- Reinhard Schult – civil and political activist and leader
- Werner Schulz– civil rights activist and politician, Member of the Bundestag
- Georg Seidel – playwright
- Wolfgang Tiefensee – 1998–2005 Lord Mayor of Leipzig ; 2005–2009 Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Development
- Mathias Tietke – journalist and author
- Rudolf Tschäpe – astrophysicist and civil rights activist
- Nicholas Voss – political official
- Gunter Weißgerber – politician
- Ingo Zimmermann – journalist and art historian