An association representing the Civic Movement Archive in Leipzig was founded on 5 May 1991 by former members of the Leipzig peace, human rights and environmental conservation groups with the purpose of collecting, as completely as possible, written, visual and audio records of the regional opposition movements.

A basis for the Archive was laid in 1990. It came into being through the joint initiative of an East German, Leipzig-based opposition activist, Uwe Schwabe, and a West German, Klaus Roewer, who came to Leipzig in the beginning of 1990 to collect material for academic research on the Peaceful Revolution in the city. Uwe Schwabe utilized his contacts with the Leipzig Civic Movement and impressed upon its members the value of donating their personal papers to an archive, while Klaus Roewer made his apartment in the city available as the first depot for the envisioned archive. Further, Roewer provided financial means for the first steps towards creating a permanent facility.

In May 1991, the two jointly founded with other members of the opposition from Leipzig the Civic Movement Archive in Leipzig e.V. For the reasons listed above, the archive sees itself as a German-German (East-West) project. Another basis for the current archive was provided by the ’Markus Library’. Ever more documents relating to the civic movements, opposition int the GDR, church groups and private collections have found their way into the collection. Presently, the Archive is physically located in the Leipzig Haus der Demokratie [House of Democracy].