The GDR National day holiday

A folk festival atmosphere reigned on Alexanderplatz. Thousands of people were clustered around the bratwurst stalls, were buying handicrafts from the Erz mountain region, or were enjoying the musical performances. This was going on everywhere in the whole East Berlin metropolitan area, because there was something to celebrate. The day was October 7, 1989, and it was the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic, the GDR.

However the joy was not unadulterated. Tens of thousands had left the country in the preceding months, turning their backs on their previous lives and heading for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), often via adventuresome routes. Everybody was familiar with the photos of the jam-packed embassies in Prague and Warsaw. There had been civil-war style altercations in Dresden in early October when countless youths had tried to board the trains taking the “embassy refugees” to the FRG. The GDR political leadership had insisted that the trains cross the GDR – they must have rued this decision the day that the trains reached Dresden, if not earlier. Street fighting broke out every evening for several days, cars were set on fire, and the number of arrests shot up and up. All this did not make for an idyllic anniversary.

Since problems were accumulating elsewhere, the Ministry for State Security (MfS) had requested that each Berlin district office provide precise analyses of activity in its city district in the run-up to October 7. The MfS also desired an estimation of the problems that could be expected in connection with the anniversary of the country’s founding. The district offices assiduously reported their findings to headquarters and practically all of them came to the same conclusion. As ever, there was a lot of resistance to the system of government, and they had their hands full dealing with it, but there was no reason for particular concern. The top leadership around the 81-year-old MfS minister, Erich Mielke, saw things somewhat differently. In order to be prepared for any eventuality, they had detailed action plans worked out, which were explicit on one point: all available means were to be used against “provocateurs” and other troublemakers. Beyond that, numerous steps were taken that were intended to contribute to the stabilization of the general situation: unwanted inhabitants were expelled on short notice to the Federal Republic of Germany, the “paid informants” (IM) of the Ministry for State Security were pushed to broaden the scope their spying, entry from West Berlin was made significantly more difficult, and “ID checks” were conducted on those whose political orientation was seen as unreliable. The debacle in Dresden was on no account to be repeated, and particularly not in the capital of the GDR on the country’s fortieth anniversary.

But at first such drastic steps seemed to have been totally unnecessary. The country’s political leadership was also celebrating good-humoredly. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which in practice ruled alone, staged an impressive festival program. Some 100,000 young people marched in a torchlight procession through downtown Berlin on the evening of October 6 to pledge fidelity to the Party. Bevies of official guests graced the various banquets, receptions, and other events. The Soviet president and Party general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, also flew in on October 6 and distributed verbal niceties. In so doing, he quoted a well-known saying: “Life punishes latecomers.” The appropriateness of this remark was to be demonstrated much more rapidly than any of the participants expected.

One of the high points of the official celebrations was the solemn reception for “commendable citizens” and foreign guests that was given in the Palace of the Republic on the evening of October 7 by Erich Honecker, in his dual role as general secretary of the SED and chairman of the state council. Built on the West bank of the Spree river, on the site of the torn-down city palace, the pompous, deeply symbolic building had since 1976 represented the supposed victory of socialism in the GDR. And, as he stated to his guests, the 77-year-old head of state did not have the slightest doubts regarding that victory:
“You can return home with the certainty that our Republic will also be a significant, reliable factor for peace in central Europe during the fiftieth decade of its existence. Our friends around the world may rest assured that socialism on German soil, in the homeland of Marx and Engels, stands on unshakeable foundations. Will you raise your glasses with me ...”
This was probably the last time that Honecker was to propose a toast so light-heartedly. A glance out the window would have shown him quite distinctly that the mood in the streets had turned into its opposite. On the other side of the Spree, sealed off by the river and by rank upon rank of police officers, several thousand people were energetically demanding reforms and non-violence. They were chanting the words that were to become emblematic of the Peaceful Revolution: “We are the people!” The general dissatisfaction with existing conditions was beginning to explode, and from that point on the movement went from strength to strength.

The protests were directly triggered by a small number of people. There had been municipal elections in the GDR on May 7, 1989, and obvious election fraud on the part of leading Party and government officials. This was nothing new, and yet this time a small group of people kept voicing their strong disapproval. They gathered on Alexanderplatz on the seventh of every month to remind everyone of the election fraud. They had been arrested time and again – and then came October 7, the GDR’s big national holiday.

When state security ministry personnel attempted to proceed against the protesters in their usual brutish way, they aroused resentment on the part of those attending the popular festivities. The difficulties of everyday life in the GDR, the political stagnation and the resulting frustration felt by the people found an outlet. The courage of a few activists encountered the until-now lethargic mass of the dissatisfied – and the consequences simply could not be calculated. An initially small crowd of people immediately began to move, but their numbers grew quickly. Their goal was the Palace of the Republic. Not only was the above-mentioned reception taking place there, but Gorbachev was also believed to be there. Much hope rested on his reform policy, with its two watchwords:  perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (transparency). Up until now, the SED leadership, which had been in power for decades, had stonewalled all such considerations. Now the people wanted to show where their sympathies lay. When the crowd arrived at the palace, it had already grown to around 3,000 people and they vociferously made themselves heard. Because the people’s police and the state security personnel had sealed off the bridges over the Spree river, the protest march ended up heading toward Prenzlauer Berg.

And that was just what the security forces had been waiting for. Once the crowd had been squeezed out of the downtown area, a clear example was to be made. Although the protesters were calling out “no violence!” over and over – and in principle the protesters did not use any violence, either – the forces of law and order now lashed out brutally according to the previously worked-out plans. Individual groups were surrounded, mishandled with riot batons and water cannon, and harshly placed under arrest. Several hundred people suffered this fate. What this actually looked like was later recorded by one of those involved:
“What I experienced was that people were grabbed willy-nilly and dragged across the road by two or three uniformed individuals and beaten with riot batons. All I could hear was cries of pain that were interrupted by orders like “grab him!” I saw with my very eyes how an elderly man was grabbed by the hair and his face was smashed down into the street again and again by three uniformed individuals. ...  The whole thing went on for two or three minutes, until the order “Arrest them all!” rang out over the cries.”

If those arrested believed that the worst was now behind them, this supposition was quickly proved to be mistaken. They were loaded onto trucks, brought to various “delivery points” around the city, where they were treated to the regime’s full arbitrariness. Similar scenes were then repeated on the following evening, when the protests were repeated. Once all the jail cells had been filled, up to 150 people were jammed into one-car garages, where they were forced to stick it out without medical care or toilets until the following morning. Others hand to stand for hours in an open courtyard beneath the drizzling rain – some with their faces to the wall. Due process and constitutional legality lost all meaning and even the GDR’s questionable laws did not cover the proceedings.

The GDR national day had become a real fiasco. This was all the truer as the population supported the mostly young demonstrators more strongly than hitherto. For, while violent aggressiveness had characterized both sides in Dresden, here nonviolent demonstrators had felt the brutality of the state authorities.  In addition, the obviously arbitrary nature of the actions made it clear that literally anyone at all could become a victim. Naturally, only a few lines were devoted to the events in the government-friendly media, in which there was talk of a rout of hooligans inspired by the Western media. It was all too clear that this did not correspond to reality. The preceding months had presaged changes, but little had happened as yet. A radical change was soon to come. All eyes were now on Leipzig, where the next big demonstration was scheduled for October 9.
In sum, October 7, 1989, undoubtedly marks an important turning point in the history of the Peaceful Revolution, especially as disturbances had also broken out in other cities in the GDR. Nowhere, however, had the confrontation between nonviolent demonstrators and the violence-prone state authorities been so direct and savage as in East Berlin. This was fraught with consequences.

But how had such a situation arisen in the first place? Why did the SED regime see itself compelled to proceed so uncompromisingly against its own citizens? And how can it be explained that, less than a year later, the GDR had completely disappeared from the political map, giving way to a united Germany? These questions form the central theme of this book. In order to answer them, a brief look at the GDR’s forty-year history is necessary.