The German Green Party was established in 1979-80 as the parliamentary presence of the peace, women’s and Third World movements. The input from those campaigns was reflected in the parliamentary initiatives of the parliamentary party in the Bundestag. Petitions to the Green party’s international solidarity fund reflect Green work in developing countries.
The Archiv Grünes Gedächtnis has also become a repository for Germany’s social movements. The most important documents related to the women’s movement are the Frauenaktion 70 archival materials and the documentation of the Autonomes Frauen-Archiv Wiesbaden. The peace movement is represented by the Netzwerk Friedenskooperative and Netzwerk Friedenssteuer networks. The anti-nuclear archive of the Bielefeld environmental center document initiatives related to Brokdorf, Gorleben and Kalkar since the 1970s, while the El Salvador and Guatemala information centers chronicle solidarity initiatives with Latin America. A major focus of the reference library is on periodicals and gray literature related to the new social movements.

The archive of the European parliamentary group chronicles the Green Party presence in the European Parliament from 1984 to the present. It contains the documents of the European parliamentary group with the files of the general secretariat and the party executive, covering a range of activities from the parliamentary party meetings and the initiatives discussed there to the specialist sections within the parliamentary party on topics such as women’s issues, development and peace policy. Audio recordings are also available of the meetings. The documents of the German delegation are the subject of a dedicated file series.
The parliamentary party archive is supplemented by around twenty depository holdings from MPs who have kindly provided their personal documents from their parliamentary work in Brussels. Among these are holdings from MPs of other EU states whose Green parties have not yet established archives of their own. The combination of documents of the parliamentary party, the general secretariat, the specialist sections and individual MPs represent a valuable history of Green policy in the European Parliament.