The Initiative emerged from a human rights seminar in East Berlin that was planned for 16 November 1985 but was cancelled by the Berlin-Brandenburg state church due to Stasi pressure.

The Initiative campaigned for disarmament and demilitarization and was against any kind of authoritarian structure, the glorification of violence and the exclusion of minorities and foreigners.

In February 1986, a social revolutionary wing led by Thomas Klein and Reinhard Schult split from the Initiative and formed the Gruppe Gegenstimmen.

In January 1988, several members of the IFM were arrested in connection with the state-sponsored Liebknecht-Luxemburg Memorial March in Berlin and subsequently deported to the West.

In November 1988, when the Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu was invited to visit East Germany, civil rights activists organized a Romanian evening in the Gethsemane Church in East Berlin in order to draw attention to the violation of fundamental rights and the catastrophic living standards in Romania.