Das Ende der Mauer und der DDR
The End of the Wall and the GDR
Eine Chronik des Endes
Looking back now, one can clearly see how the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR) was inevitably approaching in the fall of 1989. Events happening in the Eastern Bloc countries that surrounded East Germany and pressure from its own citizens would prove to be the undoing of Erich Honecker's German communist "workers paradise." When Ronald Reagan had visited Berlin on June 12, 1987 and urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, the U.S. president could not have dreamed that his wish would come true just over two years later.
In the Soviet Union the reforms (perestroika, glasnost) begun by Gorbachev in 1984 had set the stage for loosening Russia's hold over the Soviet Bloc countries. Once the Soviet influence lessened, the various communist nations began to test their new freedom.
Wir sind das Volk! (We are the people!)
Below is a chronology (eine Chronik) of the events that preceded the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the East German government that had erected it on August 13, 1961. Almost exactly 28 years later, on August 19, 1989, Hungarian border guards opened a gate on the Austrian border, allowing hundreds of East Germans to flee. (On August 23 Hungary officially removed its border restrictions with Austria.) Thus was set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the end of the Wall before the year was out. With the demise of the Wall, the Cold War buffer of communist nations set up by Stalin in 1945 between the Soviet Union and western Europe could not stand either. The changes begun in Hungary soon spread throughout the Eastern Bloc and communist East Germany. There were mass protests on the streets of Dresden and Leipzig, with chants of "Wir sind das Volk!" ("We are the people!").
Here is a detailed timeline of the major events, beginning in September 1989.
Summer 1989
All during the summer of 1989 the East German government had been embarassed by a constant flood of refugees desperate to escape the so-called German Democratic Republic. Trying to find holes in the crumbling Iron Curtain, East Germans were going to neighboring communist countries that had borders with western European countries. It all started in May 1989, when the Hungarian government began dismantling the barbed wire fences along its border with Austria. Despite Hungarian restrictions, East Germans began traveling to Hungary in order to get to the West via Austria. Soon Hungary was forced to close its border with East Germany – but it would reopen in September.
September 1989
On September 10, 1989 Hungary re-opens its border with the GDR. A new flood of East German refugees begins crossing through the torn Iron Curtain via Hungary to Austria. During the month of September, more than 13,000 East Germans manage to escape via that route.
On September 24, East German television shows a frail Erich Honecker receiving foreign dignitaries. There are rumors that Honecker is seriously ill. He would later die of cancer in exile, only a few years after the Berlin Wall opened.
October 1989
On Saturday, October 7, the GDR celebrates its 40th anniversary with ceremonies and parades in East Berlin. Soviet leader Gorbachev is in attendance for the occasion. Honecker ignores Gorbachev's prophetic warning that day: "Wer zu spät kommt, den bestraft das Leben." (Life punishes those who delay / arrive too late.) The national celebration ends with protest demonstrations (Demos) that have to be broken up by force.
Only three days earlier, on October 2, Erich Honecker had been forced to approve trains that took hundreds of East Germans from Warsaw to West Germany via the border town of Hof – after first traveling through East Germany, so that Honecker could claim they had "returned home" before "expelling" them to West Germany. By October 3 the East German government bans its citizens from traveling to Czechoslovakia because of the waves of East Germans trying to get to West Germany via the West German embassy in Prague. Restrictions are placed on what was formerly the open border between East Germany and Czechoslovakia. The travel ban will only last about a month.
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