up her (three) small children she continued to study behavioural biology in spare moments. She also joined the local (Protestant) church council and over time began to take a closer interest in potentially political issues such as environmental concerns, human rights and pacifism. It was through her church connections that she came across the Pankow Peace Circle, which had been established by in 1981. Angelika Barbe joined the peace circle in 1986. In 1987 she was a co-founder, with Marianne Eschenhagen, of the Women's Working Group in Berlin's Johannisthal quarter ("Johannisthaler Frauenarbeitskreise"). During 1988/89 she became involved in the Peace Working Group around Ulrike Poppe, Jens Reich and Marianne Birthler. As political tensions rose, especially in the cities, she came under state surveillance in the Ministry for State Security's so-called "Operation Hysteria". Barbe was one of the small group of people who on 7 October 1989 formed a new incarnation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the Berlin area (initially) of East Germany. She was voted the party's number 2 spokesperson and, in January 1990, its deputy chair. After reunification in October 1990 the East German SDP merged into the West German SPD, which left Angelika Barbe a prominent member of what was, at that point, Germany's second largest political party in terms of vote share. Meanwhile, in March 1990 East Germany held its first and - as matters turned out - last free and fair general election. The SDP's 21.9% vote share entitled it to 88 of the 400 seats in the national parliament (Volkskammer), and Angelika Barbe, as a candidate, was high enough up on the party list to be elected. She was a member between March and October 1990, serving as chair of the parliamentary committee on women and family. After reunification she became a member of the Bundestag between December 1990 and November 1994, elected as part of the SPD party list for the Berlin electoral district. Despite being a member of the SPD party executive during that period, her uncompromising clarity of thought and expression within the party made Barbe the opposite of a natural political networker. She was not favoured by the party officials in Berlin with an easily winnable position on the national party list, instead being pitched against Gregor Gysi of the PDS in the East Berlin electoral district. She was not re-elected in 1994, and a period of unemployment followed.