A happy day in German history

 

                                                        The courage to demand freedom (Photo: picture-alliance / ZB)

On this day 20 years ago, 70,000 people took to the streets of Leipzig to demonstrate for freedom. That courageous step smoothed the peaceful way to reunification. Chancellor Angela Merkel today commemorated the peaceful mass demonstration, calling it a "propitious chapter in German history".

 

 The commemoration was particularly moving for those who witnessed the events of that day first hand. None of them knew whether the demonstration would in fact remain peaceful right until the end. Their courage was stronger than their fear. And that paid off in the end.

 

Learning from Leipzig

 

                    on their way to the ceremony: Chancellor Angela Merkel and German President Horst Köhler(Photo: REGIERUNGonline/Bergmann)

"Many of you were there that day. Thank you! You can be eternally proud of what you did," President Horst Köhler said in his speech. In those days in October everything had been on a razor's edge, he went on. But the revolution went off peacefully because the demonstrators had stuck to their motto of "No violence!"
 
However, Köhler reminded his listeners, an important task followed from the Peaceful Revolution, namely the task of keeping the memory of the SED dictatorship and the resistance against it alive. "Knowledge is a safeguard against idealising romanticisation," he emphasised. That was why pupils across the whole of Germany had to be taught about the GDR.
 
Because "democracy is not something one wins just once. It has to be continuously lived and experienced," the President said. A legacy of the Peaceful Revolution was that everyone had to be involved in improving it.
 
The Chancellor too called it a "special day for Leipzig, as well as for the people of the former GDR and us Germans as a whole". The peaceful Monday demonstrations 20 years ago had "written a good chapter of German history".
 

A movement that made history

 

                       Master conductor Kurt Masur (Photo: REGIERUNGonline/Bergmann)

Kurt Masur once more led the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra as it played music by Ludwig van Beethoven. Masur was Director of Music of the Orchestra when the Monday demonstrations began in 1989. on 9 October the well-known conductor had called for calm on both sides and for peaceful dialogue.
 
That day in October 70,000 people assembled after the prayers for peace to demonstrate on the inner ring road in Leipzig. The 8,000 strong security forces of the SED government had not expected such a large group.
 
The demonstrators shouted "We are the people!" and "No violence!" By the time the demonstration had ended peacefully, the power of the SED had been symbolically broken.
 
The civil rights activist Werner Schulz described the demonstration as a revolution during which not blood but candle wax was spilled. The courage of those citizens who took part in the demonstrations had been greater than the helpmates of dictatorship: fear and powerlessness.
 

German reunification unstoppable

 

The Chancellor commemorates the Peaceful Revolution(Photo: REGIERUNGonline/Bergmann)

From that day onwards more and more people took part in the Monday demonstrations. The cries of "We are the people!" gradually turned into "We are one people!"
 
The Peaceful Revolution led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening of the inner German border and ultimately to German reunification.
 
In commemoration of the day on which the dictatorship collapsed, people will this evening gather to say prayers for peace and to hear a special concert in St Nicholas' Church. Following that there will be a Festival of Light on the inner ring road, along the route the demonstration took that day in 1989. 
 http://www.bundesregierung.de/nn_6538/Content/EN/Artikel/2009/10/2009-10-09-leipzig-friedliche-revolution__en.html

 

 

                                                                  1848: The Paulskirche Movement

 

                                      Chancellor of the Reich Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)

                                                           1919-1933: Berlin, the Weimar Republic

                                                                    1949: Berlin, end of World War II

 

                                                              1961: Construction of the Berlin Wall
 

                                                                  1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall