Autumn 1989: The refugee crisis that led to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (pt 1/7)
By default, citizens of the GDR were not allowed to travel abroad. They had to ask for a permit, which was usually granted if they wished to travel to a socialist brother state, but was usually denied if they applied to travel to a non-socialist country, all of which had an agreement with the GDR to stop East Germans from escaping to the West by any means, including the use of firearms.
Permits to visit West Germany were particularly hard to obtain. Even in the case of family affairs such as a funeral, usually only the direct relative was allowed to go while the rest of the family had to stay in the GDR – many interpreted that as their family taken hostage by the state to guarantee their return.
The wish to permanently leave the country and relocate to West Germany was not tolerated and led inevitably to social isolation and economic discrimination steered by the ubiquituous Stasi.
The obvious rigging of the local elections in the GDR in May 1989, the
unwillingness of the GDR government to follow the societal reforms of
glasnost and perestroika, and the desperate economic situation of the
GDR contributed to the urgent desire of many to leave the country.
Therefore, numerous citizens of the GDR took the opening of the border between Hungary and Austria in early summer 1989 as an opporunity to escape to West Germany while the border between the two German states was still insurmountable. Others tried to force their emigration, for which they oftentimes had applied many years ago, by occupying West German embassies in East Berlin, Prague, and Budapest.
This situation created immense pressure on the GDR government, which did not only lose thousands of citizens each week, but was also under fire from protests within the country of citizens that were upset with the political and economical situation but did not want to leave. That pressure ultimately caused the big mistake to announce
This series of news reports documents the refugee crisis from its beginning up to the errorneous announcement of a new travel law facilitating journeys outside the Eastern Bloc the day before it was actually implemented, triggering the Fall of the Berlin Wall. After that event, there was no other way than heading for the German reunification.
30 years ago, on Monday, October 9, 1989, 70,000 citizens of the GDR gathered in Leipzig for an unauthorized demonstration against the ruling Socialist Unity Party of East Germany (SED), their resistance against reforms similar to those taking place in other countries of the Eastern Bloc, and rigged elections. Despite an armed police force of 8000, the demonstration remained peaceful and was not suppressed forcefully as it had happened in Beijing only weeks before.
The population of the GDR, encouraged by the first sign of the communist state bowing to pressure, replicated demonstrations like this in other cities, putting even more pressure on the SED dictatorship, which, together with the mass-exodus of East German citizens over the open western borders of the neighboring states finally led to the collapse of communist power, the fall of the Berlin wall, the opening of the inner-German borders, and ultimately the German reunification.
Why and by whom the armed police and military forces that had been deployed to Leipzig in order to forcefully dissolve any demonstration were stopped is not completely clear to this day. Disobedience by intermediate officers surely played a decisive role. The sheer mass of people (almost 15 % of the city’s population) may have been a contributing factor. A message of peace initiated by a committee of six, which included dissident SED politicians and the respected conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Kurt Masur, had been broadcast through the city’s loudspeaker announcement system. The protesters chanted not only “WE are the people!”, but also “NO violence!”, intimidating the armed forces, many of which were anyway wary about inflicting violence on their potential neighbors (some divisions even refused to leave their barracks). Communication from East Berlin to Leipzig aiming at enforcing the violent oppression was hampered by the circumstance that the chairman of the SED district of Leipzig was ill and could not forward the messages. Apparently, the armed forces were held back at short notice and despite everything was prepared for a bloody escalation: Additional hospital beds and blood transfusions had been brought in the days before.
State leader Egon Krenz’s claim that is was him who ordered the forces not to intervene remains unsubstantiated. In the end, a situation that was on the verge of turning out like the
Tiananmen Square Massacre
remained peaceful thanks to the prudent behavior of everyone involved.
Tori