From 1982 onwards, Eppelmann was active in organising and supporting a great many activities of church peace and human rights groups. He was elected to the continuation committee of the annual meeting of the church peace group “Frieden konkret”. Starting with the drafting of the Berlin Appeal, Eppelmann was also active in organising and supporting contacts and exchange among church congregations in both the West and the East. In addition, he was in touch with the West German Green party. All the while, he continued to his work within his own congregation. He would often integrate readings or artists’ exhibitions into church events. In 1983, he signed a “personal peace treaty” with Mient Jan Faber from the Dutch peace organisation Inter-church Peace Council (Interkerkelijk Vredesberaad, IKV). The Samaritan congregation subsequently entered into several peace treaties with church congregations from NATO countries.

Eppelmann began to keep the West German Greens at a certain distance in November of 1983, after a premature party press conference scuppered a joint peace demonstration the deployment of US and Soviet medium range missiles on West and East German territories. The jointly planned action, involving both countries, was supposed to take place on 4 November 1983, but the East Germans activists were arrested on their way to the demonstration.

The Church came under severe pressure from the SED and State Security due to the activities Eppelmann instigated – for instance, the distribution by the Samaritan congregation of around 500 copies of an information sheet throughout the GDR – and his presence in the Western media. The Church informed Eppelmann that he would be arrested and prosecuted unless he left the country voluntarily. Eppelmann refused to leave. The threatened trial did not take place, but the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS) did resort to overt social/psychological “decomposition” measures (Zersetzung). For instance, it spread rumours in his congregation about Eppelmann's wife was having an affair.

By the 1980s, Eppelmann had contacts with the long-established West German political parties, as well. He attended events hosted by the federal chancellor on several occasions at the invitation of Stefan Schwarz of Rhineland Palatinate chapter of the CDU/CSU’s Young Union. He also took advantage of an acquaintance with the SPD’s Jürgen Schmude to inquire as to the views of the West German SPD leadership on the idea of re-founding the SPD in the GDR. He never got an answer. Ultimately, the explanation for the reluctance on the part of the SED and the MfS to revoke Eppelmann’s citizenship or prosecute him lay in his relations with West German political parties and strong ties with his congregation and the Evangelical Church. Looking through his own Stasi file after the collapse of the GDR, Eppelmann found a note saying that “a degree of political backing and support by some of the FRG's highest ranking politicians that should not be underestimated” was partly responsible for how difficult it was to undermine his position.

Some GDR opposition figures took a negative view of the contacts that protected Eppelmann and were made particularly uneasy by his contacts with the CDU in West Germany. This criticism grew more widespread in the autumn of 1989 when Eppelmann co-founded the group Democratic Awakening (Demokratischer Aufbruch, DA). This group was part of the Alliance for Germany (Allianz für Deutschland – DA, CDU and DSU), which won the majority of the votes in the GDR's first free elections, in March of 1990. After Eppelmann was appointed Minister for Disarmament and Defence in de Maizière’s cabinet, an unknown person painted the words “Eppelmann is driving us into NATO” on the parish hall of the Samaritan congregation. Earlier, Eppelmann had been one of the negotiators at the Central Round Table and had served, together with other human rights activists, as a minister without portfolio in the Modrow cabinet.

After reunification, Rainer Eppelmann represented the CDU in the German Bundestag from October 1990 until September 2005. 1992–1994, he chaired the Bundestag's Commission of Inquiry for the Assessment of History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany. He also chaired its successor, the Commission of Inquiry on Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unity (1994–98). These two commissions made substantial contributions towards the understanding and recognition of the history of Communist dictatorship in Germany and commanded a great deal of attention, both in Germany and internationally. Eppelmann also served from 1994–2001 as federal chair of the CDU association Christian Democratic Workers' Association; he is still an honorary chairman of that body today. He has also chaired the governing body of the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany since it was founded in 1998.

Martin Jander
Translated from the German by Alison Borrowman
Last updated: 08/16