Theologist Edelbert Richter, 55, was a student pastor in Naumburg and a member of the dissident peace movement in the German Democratic Republic. In 1989--together with two other cleargymen, Rainer Eppelmann and Friedrich Schorlemmer--he founded the civil rights group Democratic Awakening (DA), which became one of the leading opposition movements. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, when DA was linked to the Christian-Democratic Union, Richter and Schorlemmer left the movement. Richter became active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and has been an SPD representative in parliament since 1990.

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