Alexanderplatz-Demonstration
The Alexanderplatz demonstration was the largest non- state-led demonstration in the history of the GDR. The demonstration took place November 4, 1989 in East Berlin and was the first authorized demonstration in the GDR, which was organized not by the power structure, but by the people. The demonstration and final rally at Alexanderplatz directed against violence and for constitutional rights, the press, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. The Alexanderplatz demonstration is considered a milestone of the peaceful revolution in the GDR.
Preparation
The initiative for the demonstration went out to East Berlin theaters in mid-October of actors and staff. In the wake of attacks by the People's Police and Stasi against demonstrators during the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the GDR a gathering of 800 theater people was held in Berlin on 15 October 1989 on the first Jutta Wachowiak made the suggestion of a demonstration for a democratic GDR. Wachowiaks proposal was developed at the suggestion of the New Forum. On October 17, 1989, a group of theater people, the request for approval of a demonstration for Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution of the GDR, which was approved on 26 October 1989. As the official organizer acted the artists of the Berlin theater, the Association of Fine Artists, the Association of Film and Television Workers and the Committee for entertainment arts.
Expiration
The demonstration started at 10 clock in front of the ADN - building on the minor street corner Prenzlauer Allee, from where the march on the Karl- Liebknecht-Straße went to the Palace of the Republic, the palace on the Marx- Engels-Platz circled before he the Town Hall Street led to Alexanderplatz - the site of the final rally, which lasted about three hours. Around half a million people participated in the demonstration. The organizers itself went out of one million participants. The historian Ilko - Sascha Kowalczuk considers logistical reasons had not more than 200,000 people participate in this event. He goes in his reflections largely on the available space for closing rally in the late afternoon. The majority of the protesters are simply went to "their" demonstration home because they saw their goal is reached, of the planned final rally knew nothing, or from the close quarters on the Alex were quenched.
Among the more than 20 speakers have included politicians such as Manfred Gerlach and Schabowski, Stasi General retired colonel Markus Wolf, theologian Friedrich Schorlemmer, attorney Gregor Gysi, Rectors Bisky, writer Christoph Hein, Stefan Heym, Christa Wolf, playwright Heiner Müller, as a representative of the New Forum Jens Reich; Marianne Birthler for the Initiative for Peace and Human Rights and the actors Steffie Spira, Ulrich Mühe and Jan Josef Liefers. In addition, singer-songwriters like Kurt Demmler and Gerhard Schöne occurred. The Bärbel Bohley also invited by Wolf Biermann had been denied by the East German border authorities at the border crossing Friedrichstrasse entry. The " representatives of the established order " ( Gerlach, Schabowski, and especially Wolf, who was identified as a long -term director of the HVA especially with the Stasi ) were - regardless of their self-representation as a reformer - repeatedly interrupted by chants and catcalls.
"When I saw that his ( Markus Wolf's ) hands were shaking because people have whistled, I said to Jens Reich: So now we can go, now it's all gone. The revolution is irreversible. "
"It is as if one opened the window! After the many years of stagnation - the spiritual, economic, political; - The years of dullness and stuffiness of Phrasengewäsch and bureaucratic arbitrariness, of official blindness and deafness. [ ... ] One wrote me - and the man is right: We have overcome our speechlessness in these last few weeks and are now going to learn to walk upright! "
Many participants wore himself painted banners with slogans such as "We are not fans of Egon Krenz ," " referendum on the leadership of the SED ", " Free elections wrong numbers " and " resignation is progress." The creativity and wit, which showed itself in many banners, were a special feature of this demonstration. The demonstration was transferred without notice, live on East German television.
Members of national police were barely visible; as a voluntary folder functioned artists who were marked for this feature with colored sashes that read " No violence ". The East Berlin border troops, however, were in high alert since the GDR government feared a breakdown of the protesters to the Berlin Wall. In addition, the leadership moved in the night of 3 to 4 November NVA soldiers of the 1st MSD organized into fourteen hundreds to East Berlin, met during the demonstration which stood in readiness.
Effect and reception
A large part of the Transparent Alexanderplatz demonstration was collected after the event and in 1994 the German Historical Museum in Berlin handed. For the tenth anniversary of the demonstration exhibitions, discussions and artistic actions took place in Berlin in November 1999 under the motto " We were the people. " Instead. Among other things, the house of the teacher has been provided with an eight story high banner with the motto. The historical significance of the Alexanderplatz demonstration is estimated by the historian Ilko - Sascha Kowalczuk as high as especially many famous people had come to speak to her and she had obtained as a result of a transfer by the East German mass media a very widespread impact.