Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
collapsed in the wake of the general easing of communism in the Eastern Bloc of the
late 1980s. he Berlin Wall was breach on
November 9, 1989
, symbolizing an end to
the Cold War, making a lifetime's dream come true for most Germans - above all, for
those living in the East. Several events then fairly logically and briskly followed: the
union of the two Germanys; the reassertion of Berlin as capital; and the start of the
lengthy process of putting those responsible for the GDR's crimes on trial.
The first holes in the Iron Curtain
Despite the unyielding position of the GDR government, as the 1980s wore on things
started to happen. he
Protestant Church
provided a haven for
environmental and
peace organizations
, whose members unfurled protest banners calling for greater
freedom at an o
cial ceremony in East Berlin in January 1988. hey were immediately
arrested, imprisoned, and later expelled from the GDR. he end of the regime didn't
seem nigh - so when Chris Gueffroy was shot dead trying to cross the Berlin border at
Neukölln on February 6, 1989, no one fathomed that he would be the last person
killed in such an attempt. However, the impetus for East German collapse came from
other Eastern European countries: in 1988 Hungary began taking down the barbed
wire fence along their Austrian border, creating a
hole in the Iron Curtain
, across which
many East Germans fled. A similar pattern emerged in Czechoslovakia.
The October revolution
he East German government's disarrayed response to these goings-on galvanized into
action thousands who had previously been content to make the best of things. Fledgling
opposition groups
like the
Neues Forum
emerged, and unrest begun in Leipzig and
Dresden soon spread to Berlin. hen, at the beginning of October, at the pompous
o
cial celebration of the GDR's
fortieth anniversary
, Gorbachev stressed the need for
new ideas and stunningly announced that the USSR would not interfere in the affairs of
fellow socialist states. Protests and scu
es along the cavalcade route escalated into a huge
demonstration as the day wore on, which the police and Stasi (the East German secret
police) brutally suppressed. housands of arrests were made, and prisoners were subjected
to the usual degrading treatment. he following week,
nationwide demonstrations
came
close to bloodshed in
Leipzig
, where seventy thousand people marched through the city,
forcing the sudden replacement of Erich Honecker with
Egon Krenz
as party secretary,
who immediately announced that the regime was ready for dialogue.
he final week of October saw a growing exodus of GDR citizens via other Eastern
Bloc countries, while pressure on the streets kept rising. hen on November 4, East
Berlin saw more than one million citizens demonstrate, forcing authorities to make
hasty
concessions
, including dropping the requirement for GDR citizens to get visas
to visit Czechoslovakia - in effect, permitting emigration. People swarmed across the
Czech border, and within two days fifteen thousand had reached Bavaria - bringing the
number of East Germans who had fled the country in 1989 to 200,000.
The Wall opens
he
opening of the Berlin Wall
was announced almost casually, on the evening of
hursday November 9, when EastBerlin party boss Günter Schabowski told a televised
press conference that East German citizens were free to leave the GDR with valid exit
1999
2005
Berlin becomes capital of reunified Germany.
Openly gay mayor Klaus Wowereit dubs Berlin “poor
but sexy”, which becomes a slogan for the city.
