Peaceful Revolution
Encyclopedia
Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
, also often called civil resistance
Civil resistance
The term civil resistance, alongside the term nonviolent resistance, is used to describe political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and...
. The events were part of the Revolutions of 1989
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
.
In the summer of 1989, the East German government praised the Chinese Communist Party decision to use violence against the Tiananmen Square protesters
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
. Like the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, East Germany had previously used violence against dissidents and it was not clear whether events would develop peacefully. The demonstrations began on Monday, September 4, 1989 at the St. Nicholas Church
St. Nicholas Church
-Albania:*St. Nicholas' Church, Moscopole*St. Nicholas' Church, Perondi*St. Nicholas' Church, Shelcan-Bulgaria:*Church of St Nicholas, Sapareva Banya*Russian Church, Sofia*Church of St. Nicholas, Sofia*Church of St Nicholas, Vukovo-Germany:...
in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, led by a Protestant pastor of the church, Christian Führer
Christian Führer
Christian is a Protestant Pastor and one of the leading figures and organisers of the 1989 Monday demonstrations in East Germany which finally led to the German reunification and the end of the GDR in 1990.-Life:...
. After the October 2 demonstration, Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(SED) leader Eric Honecker issued a shoot to kill order to the National People's Army
National People's Army
The National People’s Army were the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic .The NVA was established in 1956 and disestablished in 1990. There were frequent reports of East German advisors with Communist African countries during the Cold War...
. The government prepared a huge police, militia, Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, and work-combat troop presence and there were rumors of a looming Tiananmen Square-style massacre.
On October 9, Leipzig's protesters took to the streets under the banner "We are the people!". The military surrounded the demonstrators, but did not take action. The Stasi, East Germany's secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, unsuccessfully attempted to spark violence by planting violent agent provocateur
Agent provocateur
Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...
s in the middle of crowds. Honecker had to resign on October 18.
The non-violent demonstrations were a key component in the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9 and ultimately led to the fall of the East German regime. German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
happened within a year, on October 3, 1990.
The complete process of change in East Germany is known as Die Wende
Die Wende
marks the complete process of the change from socialism and planned economy to market economy and capitalism in East Germany around the years 1989 and 1990. It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process...
.
Earlier demonstrations
Opposition to the East German government and its leader, Walter UlbrichtWalter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
, had existed since the 1950s. Before the Peaceful Revolution there were a few demonstrations that usually had little to no effect on the regime. In the most significant incident, the uprising of 1953 in East Germany
Uprising of 1953 in East Germany
The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on June 16. It turned into a widespread anti-Stalinist uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day....
was quickly and violently suppressed by Soviet troops which had been stationed in East Germany. At the time, most of the opposition was left up to the intellectual elite, led by Wolfgang Harich
Wolfgang Harich
Wolfgang Harich was a philosopher and journalist in East Germany.A deserter from the German army in World War II and a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Harich became a professor of philosophy at Humboldt University in 1949...
and other like-minded individuals.
The elite resistance ultimately had little to no effect on the government, and ended with its members being incarcerated after a series of show-trials. Until 1989, the only visible form of popular protest was the increasing rate of East Germans that were fleeing to the West. By 1960, already three million East Germans had left the country. In 1961, the East German government, in an attempt to stop the quick decrease of population, constructed the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
.
External factors that facilitated the revolution
There were two significant external factors that caused a stir in the East German people, and gave them hope that change was possible, along with increasingly widespread disapproval of the East German regime. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and introduced a new foreign policy, which led to the termination of the Brezhnev doctrine
Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
. Firstly, it meant that Moscow’s allies, including East Germany, could no longer count on Soviet foreign military aid. Secondly, it also meant that the East German government was left alone in trying to control the growing internal threat presented by its own citizens.
The Peaceful Revolution
By September 1989, the East German people had become more unruly, and many opposition movements were created. Among them were the Neues Forum (New Forum), Demokratischer Aufbruch (Democratic Awakening), and Demokratie Jetzt (Democracy Now). The largest opposition movement was created through a Protestant church service at Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche, German for Church of Saint Nicholas, where each Monday after service citizens gather outside demanding change in East Germany.The demonstrators' strong tie to the church helped assure the peaceful nature of the demonstrations. The group grew from week to week and by October 9, 1989 there were 120,000 non-violent protestors, and a week later there were 320,000. Once other East Germany cities, such as East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
, Karl-Marx-Stadt, and Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
, heard about the Leipzig demonstrations, they, too, began meeting on Monday nights at the city squares. On November 4, 1989 over 500,000 East Germans gathered in protest in the streets of East Berlin.
After the October 2 demonstration, Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
leader Eric Honecker issued a shoot to kill order to the military.
Communists prepared a huge police, militia, Stasi, and work-combat troop presence and there were rumors of a Tiananmen Square-style massacre.
On October 9, Leipzig's anti-communists took to the streets under the banner "We are the people!". Communist military surrounded the demonstrators, but did not take action despite orders from the Socialist Unity Party. The Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
attempted to spark violence by planting violent demonstrators in the middle of crowds.
The severity in the size of the demonstrations proved that the majority of the population was against the regime. “We are the people” was the main chant of the non-violent protestors that could be heard echoing throughout the streets of East Germany. It came to symbolize the power of the people united against its oppressive government. They wanted democracy, free elections and freedom of mobility.
By the middle of October, East Germans were leaving the country at a rate of 10,000 per day. The massive exodus was taking a toll on the country's infrastructure. Combined with the large non-violent demonstrations carried out throughout the country, it was enough to force Honecker to resign on October 18, in favour of his top lieutenant, Egon Krenz
Egon Krenz
Egon Krenz is a former politician from East Germany , and that country's last Communist leader...
. Several other members of the Politburo also resigned that day, including Margot Honecker
Margot Honecker
Margot Honecker née Feist is a former Communist politician, who was a prominent member of the political elite in East Germany...
, Erich Mielke
Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist politician and Minister of State Security—and as such head of the Stasi —of the German Democratic Republic between 1957 and 1989. Mielke spent more than a decade as an operative of the NKVD during the rule of Joseph Stalin...
, Kurt Hager
Kurt Hager
Kurt Hager , was an East German statesman, member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, was known as the Chief Ideologist of his Party and decided about many cultural and educational policies in East Germany.-Life:The son of a laborer, Hager passed the high school exam in 1931, after a visit of...
, and Hans Tisch. By November 7, 1989 the entire government, under Willi Stoph
Willi Stoph
Willi Stoph was an East German politician. He served as Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic from 1964 to 1973, and again from 1976 until 1989.-Biography:...
resigned.
Then, on November 9, 1989, the Politburo voted to allow East Germans to go to West Germany directly through East Germany. Günter Schabowski
Günter Schabowski
Günter Schabowski is a former official of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany , the ruling party during most of the existence of the German Democratic Republic...
, the party boss of East Berlin, was charged with making the announcement. However, he didn't know that the regulations were to take effect the next day. When asked when the regulations were to take effect, he replied, "As far as I know effective immediately, without delay." Later that evening, pictures were broadcast all over the world of thousands climbing and tearing down the Berlin Wall in the presence of the helpless East German guards that could do nothing about it. In the following days, thousands of East Germans were free to come and go as they pleased, a right that had been denied to them for years.
In December 1989, the entire Politburo, including Krenz, resigned. Shortly afterward, the SED gave up its guaranteed right to rule. The demonstrations eventually ended in March 1990, around the time of the first free multi-party elections.
See also
- Civil resistanceCivil resistanceThe term civil resistance, alongside the term nonviolent resistance, is used to describe political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and...
- Die WendeDie Wendemarks the complete process of the change from socialism and planned economy to market economy and capitalism in East Germany around the years 1989 and 1990. It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process...
- East BerlinEast BerlinEast Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
- Erich MielkeErich MielkeErich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist politician and Minister of State Security—and as such head of the Stasi —of the German Democratic Republic between 1957 and 1989. Mielke spent more than a decade as an operative of the NKVD during the rule of Joseph Stalin...
- Fall of the Berlin Wall
- Goodbye Lenin!
- History of Germany since 1945History of Germany since 1945As a consequence of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II Germany was split between the two global blocs in the East and West, a period known as the division of Germany. While seven million prisoners and forced laborers left Germany, over 10 million German speaking refugees arrived there from...
- Inner German border
- List of Berlin Wall segments
- Nonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
- Nonviolent revolutionNonviolent revolutionA nonviolent revolution is a revolution using mostly campaigns of civil resistance, including various forms of nonviolent protest, to bring about the departure of governments seen as entrenched and authoritarian...
- Revolutions of 1989Revolutions of 1989The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
- StasiStasiThe Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
- Tear down this wallTear down this wall"Tear down this wall!" was the challenge from United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall....
- West BerlinWest BerlinWest Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
External links
- Spiegel: A Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig