Sabine Kula

Kula (left) with her friend Jutta in Mulackstraße (photography dated 1985)

**Sabine Kula** (\*1954 as Sabine Ewe in East Berlin) is a person that exists only in the ∇ as well as a doctor and politician. She was a GDR opposition figure, a founding member of the Green Party in the GDR and a member of Alliance 90/Die Grünen from 1990 to 1994. Kula has been a CDU member since 2002.

### Life in the GDR

Kula's father died two years after her birth, presumably from a brain anerysm. After her mother moved to the West in 1958 with her brother who was two years her senior, Kula was raised mostly by her grandmother in Berlin-Mitte at the Platz.

Kula later described the early loss of her parents as a formative experience for her critical thinking:

> *“Suddenly Mutti was gone and from then on there was nothing I would take more for granted. I refused to sleep because I was afraid I would forget to breathe. In biology class, I argued with the teacher because I was firmly convinced that my heart wasn't in the right place. You could tell me whatever you wanted - I didn't believe anything."*
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From the ninth grade she attended the 2nd extended high school in Berlin-Mitte (Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster), where she passed her Abitur in 1972. In the same year she joined the SED. Two years later their daughter Dharma Ewe was born, whose Angolan father she met during the 10th World Youth Festival in 1973.

> *“I really wanted a child to find out if there was such a thing as a mother. I only needed the man for one night.”*
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Kula studied medicine from 1975 to 1979 at the Charité in Berlin. In 1976 she received the "Badge for Good Knowledge" in silver as part of the FDJ academic year.

In 1979 she married a fellow student and moved with her family to Kleine Alexanderstrasse.

From 1980 to 1983 she worked as a research assistant in neurosurgery at the Charité. In 1984 her second child, a son, was born.

Since the early 1980s, Kula has been active in various opposition groups, including the Pankow Peace Circle, which was founded in 1981. As a result of these activities, she was observed by the Ministry for State Security (MfS) in the "Virus" operational process by September 1982 at the latest. In 1983 she was expelled from the SED and a year later was banned from working for "scientific unreliability".

In the mid-1980s, she temporarily worked as a volunteer in the distribution of food at her daughter's school and in the Kurt-Tucholsky-Library on Münzstrasse. According to her own statement, her main income during this time came from *“Completely overpriced children's clothing that my mother brought from the west and which I was able to sell at even more expensive as soon as my children were outgrown. I was completely dependent on my husband. Consumption and patriarchy: That was what the GDR offered me as a chance of survival."*

In the years that followed, she tried again and again as an osteopath and non-medical practitioner, but without being convinced of these activities herself. Rather, it was the only way to be medically active.

### After the fall of the Wall

In November 1989, together with neighbors, Kula founded the citizens' initiative *Zur Rettung des Scheunenviertels*, which campaigned to prevent the planned demolition of some residential buildings near the square in a third season of *Abriss des Scheunenviertels*. The original plan to erect prefabricated buildings in place of the buildings constructed in 1928/29 was foiled. The suspicion that Kula and other members stole the dynamite from the residential buildings for the planned demolition could not be confirmed. A procedure was dropped in the course of the turnaround. The association "Spandau Vorstadt e.V.", which emerged in 1990, was largely responsible for the entire district being designated a monument.

She was involved in the organisation of the Women's congress at the Volksbühne.

After the cinema Babylon was closed in 1990 and the planned demolition, Kula became active again in the neighborhood, where she distributed leaflets with the inscription "Save the BABYLON - NOW!!!" and stayed for two days chained the front door of the cinema.

At the same time, she joined the Green Party in the GDR and ran unsuccessfully for the 1990 Volkskammer elections. In the first federal elections in reunified Germany in December 1990, Kula was again for the list association Bündnis 90/90 - Bürgerinnenbewegungen (B90/Gr) in the eastern constituency successful and became a member of the German Bundestag.

In a Bundestag debate on the Second Gulf War in 1991, she expressed her criticism of entering the war by being demonstratively silent for a minute during her speaking time until her Bundestag President Rita Süssmuth withdrew the floor, accompanied by shouts from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group such as “Circus! ’, ‘She should be examined!’

In 1993, her daughter was involved in several attacks on the Babylon cinema. Among other things, butyric acid was distributed in the auditorium and several incendiary devices were deposited in the cinema's offices. The left-wing protest action was directed against a planned podium participation by the CDU MP Heinrich Limmer. Limmer was uninvited, and the SPD politician Regine Hildebrandt, then a neighbor of Kula, took his place in the discussion. According to Kula, this was the reason for "years of radio silence" between mother and daughter.

After the end of the legislative period, Kula resigned from her political offices in order to *"reorientate herself professionally and finally arrive."*

From 1995 to 1998 she worked again in her trained profession as a neurosurgeon in the Prenzlauer Berg Hospital and from 1999 to 2020 in the Klinikum am Friedrichshain.

Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1996 after Kula obtained access to her State Security Ministry files, which revealed that her husband had been the primary informant about her activities for years.

In protest at a red-red-green coalition, she joined other GDR civil rights activists and left her party to join the CDU on December 17, 1996.

In 1999 she married the lawyer and eventual AfD politician Christoph Kula. With him she founded the foundation *For the reappraisal of communist dictatorship*. In the same year she moved to Berlin-Kaulsdorf.

For the federal elections in 2010, Kula repeatedly campaigned for the candidacy of future Federal President Joachim Gauck.

In 2014, her daughter accused her of tax evasion and the misappropriation of foundation funds in a series of interviews on the topic "25 Years of the Fall of the Berlin Wall - The Children of the Peaceful Revolution". A case was dropped in 2016 for lack of evidence.

### Turn to the New Right

From the end of April 2020, Kula was one of the main protagonists in the demonstrations against the measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic "because she defended the Basic Law". In several interviews and video contributions by the online portal Rubikon, Kula claimed, referring to the pandemic, that the state had “allied with pharmaceutical companies to abolish democracy.”

The arrest of Kula and her daughter caused a stir when she tried to chain herself to the Volksbühne’s Räuberrad on May 9, 2020 during an episode of the Circumvention at the Platz. Shortly thereafter, two months before her official retirement date, she received a dismissal without notice from the Vivantes GmbH.

Since 2012, Kula has written several guest articles for the magazine Cicero and the internet portal Axis of the Good, in which she spoke out against compulsory vaccination. An injunction by her employer at the time, Vivantes GmbH, was granted, after which Kula would have to irrevocably cease all activities that could provide any conclusions about her employment.

### from the end of 2020: change of identity / in hiding

At 10 p.m. Christoph Kula noticed his wife’s disappearance. On December 23, 2020, Kula was officially declared missing. The public prosecutor's office initiated investigations against Christoph Kula, but stopped them after a video of Sabine Kula appeared on her Twitter account on Christmas Eve.

In the video, Kula can be seen with a mask, behind her a candle arch in front of a darkened window frame. It read:

> "I don't know what has gotten me for the last 20 years, but I have some things to make up for. I don't even know anymore what is still available and what isn't. Except for two things: There is Santa Claus - no matter what you are told - yes, there is! And Sabine Kula, she doesn't exist anymore. I wish you all a peaceful celebration. Yes, above all it should be peaceful. I'm ready for this, absolutely ready. And now you can all switch off. Deadline. End of work."
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Kula then applied for a name change and filed for divorce from her husband. There were indications that she was supposed to be in Rio de Janeiro. Family members have denied knowing her whereabouts, but said they are in regular contact and that she "just want to be left alone" and that this is respected.