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when they were not permitted to question let alone protest about the Warsaw Pact's nuclear arsenal.

The party tried to stop any criticism of its official stance that imperialist weapons were offensive in nature while the weapons possessed by socialist states were purely for defensive purposes. This was and is encapsulated in the slogan ''The peace must be armed"

The youth started to creațe a constructive outlet for their political frustration. Many who were tired of the stifling of discussion at official seminars started to organise activities, often spontaneously and at the fringe of official functions, their own rallies and discussion groups free of political control.

As the movement spread it found a political ally and an organisational umbrella in the form of the Protestant Lutheran Church. Many youth, in a rejection of Stalinism, turned to religion.

The Pastors in many churches were prepared to take a leading role in the movement and put facilities such as church buildings at the disposal of young people and dissidents.

The church in East Germany with all the churches in Eastern Europe, have an ambivalent relationship with the state authorities. Their political stance is ambiguous in its role of being simultaneously pernicious and progressive.

The unofficial movement has taken a predictable line of caution and conciliation towards the Stalinist regime as might by expected by a movement with strong clerical overtones. The party apparatus has been equally predictable in it's response - the usual mixture of concession and It has tried with an intense propaganda campaign and stepping up of activities to woo young people back to the party line. This has conspicuously failed so it has resorted to a policy of harassment and arrest.

One of the ploys employed by the party is to deliberately conscript into