The National Defense Council of East Germany authorised the formation of Baueinheiten (construction units) for men of draft age who "refuse military service with weapons on the grounds of religious viewpoints or for similar reasons".
The Baueinheiten were seen as a victory for East German conscientious objectors, but in reality their creation was a planned move by the government to segregate them from regular conscripts, who they feared would be contaminated by pacifist ideas.
Though outwardly peaceful in appearance, soldiers in Baueinheiten were obliged to make a promise of loyalty in which they stated that they would "fight against all enemies and obey their superiors unconditionally", though this was replaced by an oath to "increase defence readiness" in the 1980s.
In 1968, the demand for Baueinheiten grew rapidly following the GDR government's tacit support for the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, which appalled many young East German men and led to a surge of conscientious objection.
In the 1980s, the gradual decline of the GDR led to increasing resistance to mandatory military service, even in the Baueinheiten, from the growing pacifist movement and opposition to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).
The dissolution of the Baueinheiten was a deliberate political act under the government Lothar de Maizière, the only non-SED and democratically elected prime minister of the GDR, occurring just over a month after the Fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.