March 10, 2020
March 10 marks the 30th anniversary of the official founding of the first and today almost only East German socio-ecological environmental institute UfU. What officially began in Berlin in the presence of 200 environmental scientists and environmental activists in the Congress Hall of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the GDR had already been prepared many months in advance. Dr. Christof Tannert, one of the initiators of the UfU, gave an interview to the Liberal-Demokratische Zeitung Deutschlands – the LDZ – in December 1989 about the imminent founding of the UFU. He was asked about the future structure and replied:
“The institute does not have a centralized structure. There is no single building where only specialists do research, but various facilities where scientists and lay people work together. There will be expert groups to evaluate existing environmental data, networks supervised by scientists, contact offices for organizational work for the measuring networks and for public relations work. It is expected that Jena, Halle, Dresden and Berlin will also set up their own laboratory projects or contact offices .” A board was elected in Berlin on March 10, 1990 and discussions began on a statute. Cooperation with the IÖW, the IZT and the Ökoinstitut was agreed quickly and without any problems. As early as 1990, the IÖW (Ulrich Petschow) published the study “Umweltreport DDR – Bilanz der Zerstörung und Kosten der Sanierung” (Environmental Report GDR – Balance of Destruction and Costs of Remediation) together with the then UfU employee and economist Dr. Dietmar Lucht, published by Fischer-Verlag. The study “Energy Policy Principles for the Environmental Union with the GDR” was published with the Öko-Institut in 1990. Felix Christian Matthes, later of the Öko-Institut, was responsible at the time as a UfU employee and head of the energy department for writing this highly regarded study. These two studies also set standards for the still young institute. On March 10, 1990, UfU already had 500 paying supporting members who, in accordance with the statutes, donated 1% of their monthly salary to UfU for independent environmental research. This was also thanks to the altruistic newspapers and magazines of the time, which readily printed appeals for donations from the young institute. For example, the Junge Welt on May 18, 1990, and the Neue Deutschland also reported on UfU. In mid-1991, 300 members were still loyal to UfU; today there are 180 members, many of whom are still from the founding period. Today, UfU is an institute with currently 37 employees at the two locations in Berlin and Halle as well as a project office in Hanoi, which works on and is responsible for around 60 mainly externally funded projects every year and organizes around 30 events (workshops, seminars, conferences, symposia, congresses, etc.). In terms of projects, the Institute currently completes in one year what it achieved in total between 1990 and 2000. It remains relevant to be aware of the beginning of UfU. Dr. Reinhard Piechocki, another founder, stated in an interview that one of UfU’s goals was to help end the immaturity of the population in terms of environmental knowledge. In 2020, UfU completed the first evaluation (study) of the Federal Environmental Information Act as a research project. This will emphasize the great benefits of the right to environmental information. This is exactly what the founders of UfU had in mind. In this respect, there are still links to the origins of the institute. In this respect, Christof Tannert’s wish cannot yet be fulfilled. He said in December 1989: “For me, the best goal of our institute is to become superfluous.”
Dr. Michael Zschiesche
