Jutta Braband was an active member of the political opposition in the GDR. Along with others who in the fall of 1989 created the prodemocracy group United Left (Vereinigte Linke) she believed in the ideal of a socialist democracy. She had tried to bring troubling issues to the attention of the SED-state by participating in demonstrations and circulating letters of protest. She cried the night the Wall opened because without the border, she feared the goal of a democratic GDR, which she and her friends had fought for, could no longer be realized.

Despite her experience in the opposition, however, Jutta Braband questioned the appropriateness of the term "dictatorship" when applied to the GDR. Acknowledging that many laws oppressed East Germans, she nonetheless commended the state for allowing its citizens to push against the limits of the law. She pointed out that laws were enforced differently in the GDR than in oppressive countries such as South Africa or Chile: "The GDR at least attempted to maintain the appearance of a state based on law."

Jutta Braband's story is striking because it describes the path from opposition leader and political outsider in the GDR to political participation within the new united Germany as Bundestag representative for the state of Brandenburg. Moreover, her story illuminates the uncertainties and difficulties which unification brought to the Bundestag.

When I spoke with Jutta Braband, the all-German Bundestag had been in session only two months. She told of the boos and whistles that interrupted the Bundestag speeches of well-known East Germans like Hans Modrow and PDShead Gregor Gysi. She talked about the disdain felt by West German representatives for all members of the Bundestag who could be identified with the SED-state.

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