ENTANGLED ECOLOGIES 159
There was no general divergence on the level of environmental policy
between GDR and FRG until 1979, when the prime minister of Lower
Saxony, Ernst Albrecht, decided to cancel a reprocessing facility in Gor-
leben in response to hefty protests. It was the fi rst decision of a West
German politician that would have been inconceivable in the GDR. The
gap widened over the 1980s, which became the environmental decade
par excellence in the Federal Republic. It was during this decade that
the self-perception and the global image of Germany as the model green
country emerged. The dynamism in civil society was the driving force
behind this development, which is a point that will be discussed in more
detail in the next section. What needs to be emphasized here, however, is
the sharp contrast to what was happening on the other side of the Wall at
the time because the SED regime was dragging its feet on environmental
issues. The decision of the Council of Ministers to declare all environ-
mental data to be state secrets was the environmental policy equivalent
to declaring bankruptcy.^52 By the end of the 1980s, the GDR was the
“largest air polluter in Europe in terms of its size and population” due to
its reliance on lignite coal.^53
It all came down to a striking ideological inversion. The Federal Re-
public moved from a loosely regulated economy during the miracle years
toward a comprehensive system of environmental controls that eventu-
ally covered virtually every aspect of industrial pollution. In contrast, the
GDR went from comprehensive state planning to a laissez-faire approach
to environmental issues, where the quest for hard currency trumped ev-
erything else. In other words, in West Germany capitalism was reined in
to a remarkable degree under a green banner, while the GDR adopted
a kind of ecological dog-eat-dog capitalism, where every environmental
sacrifi ce was acceptable as long as it off ered another breath of life for
socialism. For anyone who sought to criticize the environmental toll of
short-term maximization of profi ts, the late GDR provided far more fod-
der than contemporary West German capitalism.
The most dramatic event in GDR environmental policy came after the
demise of SED rule. Literally with its last dying breath, the GDR’s Council
of Ministers decided to create fi ve national parks, six biosphere reserves,
and three nature parks, eff ectively placing no less than 4 percent of the
country’s land under protection.^54 East Germany also stuck to its iconic
sign for nature reserves, a friendly-looking owl (West Germany had a fl y-
ing eagle, which smacked of an act of state). But other than that, West
German environmental law, institutions, and routines were just mapped
onto the East, the common pattern in the wake of reunifi cation. It looked
like a matter of common sense at the time. In light of socialism’s environ-
mental toll, the idea that the West should learn from GDR environmen-