He started a professional trade apprenticeship in 1970, but was excluded from further training or schooling in 1972 after he left the Young Communists (FDJ / Freie Deutsche Jugend) and announced his refusal to undertake military service with the National People's Army:[3] the German Democratic Republic made no accommodation for Conscientious objectors.
In June 1973 Kretschmer, still aged only 17, attempted to escape from East Germany, "in order to avoid military service" ("um sich dem Wehrdienst zu entziehen").
[2] Human losses during World War II, exacerbated by a steady stream of migration to the west during the 1950s, had left the country desperately short of working age population, and after 1961 there were effective measures in place to prohibit and prevent emigration.
[4] However, 500 meters short of the border dividing Czechoslovakia from Austria he was caught by Czechoslovak soldiers, blindfolded, placed on the back seat of a jeep like vehicle next to a large dog whose noisy panting and odour he would remember long afterwards, and returned to the German Democratic Republic.
Between 1974 and 1976 he worked as a care assistant at the city hospital in Jena, and in a residential institution for the handicapped at the nearby health resort of Bad Blankenburg, while also remaining active in the local "alternative youth scene".
[6] The new Construction soldier ("Bausoldat") system provided the state with a solution to the challenge presented by Conscientious objection, but it also offered a de facto finishing school for principled activists and pacifists.
Kretschmer developed an affinity with the Solidarity Movement in neighbouring Poland, and demonstrated his support at the start of 1982 with a New Year's Batik which he designed, created, and distributed to his friends.
[7] His seasonal greeting was intercepted by the censors and he was arrested in January 1982, spending the next six months being looked after by the Ministry for State Security at their Main Interrogation Centre in Berlin.
[2] In August 1982 a military high court in Halle condemned Kretschmer under sections §214, §245 and §246 of the criminal code for "activity affecting the state" and "public disrespect".
His case was taken up by Archbishop Kurt Scharf, Bishop Werner Leich, and by church organisations more generally, along with Amnesty International who nominated him their "prisoner of the year".