Leipzig 1989: The peaceful revolution

[@BlackAdder665]

As an Easterner I distinctly remember the fear we had in those days due to the government's reaction to the Tiananmen Square massacer, which was approving. The priest of St. Nicholas, Pfarrer Christian Führer, whom I had the honour to interview, always called the firing of zero shots "a miracle of biblical proportions". I don't know if I would go THAT far, but as a Christian I can surely see the spirit of Christ at work.

[@swanpride]

As someone from West Germany, I remember how much we shared that fear. In the weeks leading up to the fall of the Berlin wall, our TV was running constantly, always on the news channel. The moments during which we were the most afraid something would go wrong badly was easily the march in Leibzig and the day when the people from the Prague Embassy were brought to the BRD and had to cross the GDR to get here. I was so relieved when nothing bad happened...so relieved I could barely been excited about it.

[@slidenapps]

As a Christian you don't believe in divine intervention?

[@JennHolt]

@@swanpride Were you afraid that they would be detained while passing through the DDR?

[@swanpride]

@@JennHolt Yes, naturally, they were Republikflüchtlinge after all. There was a reason why one of our high ranking politicans drove with the train. Partly to keep the people in it calm and partly to make an attempt like this more unlike.

[@marcbouchard3674]

Very well summarized story. The "Miracle of Leipzig", as it is sometimes called, is generally overlooked for its huge importance. If this had turned bloody on October 9th, then the opening of the wall and reunification would not have materialized so fast. Indeed we have to praise for the courage of the people of Leipzig. MB Montréal

[@lohfert86]

I was 3 years old at the time. I remember seing people on the Berlin wall. At the time i didn't understand what was going on. Only that it wasn't normal for people standing on walls.

[@sakkra83]

I was six at the time. I can remember that on the 9th of November my mother pulled me out of the bed, after she tuck me in hours before, sat me in front of our old black and white TV and said to me: You can tell your grandkids of this!" It was people standing on dirty and smeared concrete wall. I was to young to understand it at that time.

[@pedrocarmo1996]

I am portuguese and I was also 3 years at the time. It was weird to see those people destroying the wall at the time on TV.

[@tuschman168]

It's the time of the year when I suddenly start watching German movies again. "Good Bye, Lenin!", "Berlin Blues", maybe even "The Lives of Others" if I can emotionally prepare for such a heavy movie.

[@renepfluger1113]

personaly I like „Deutschland eilig Vaterland“

[@slidenapps]

Classics

[@zafranorbian757]

A great example of the sadly way to rare case of a compleatly peacefull revolution where the people took power. No guns or killing needed.

[@KaiHenningsen]

Also, however, a reminder that it takes two sides to pull off a peaceful revolution. If the East German government had chosen a more Chinese-style path back then, it wouldn't have been peaceful, possibly not even a revolution at all. However, I suspect they were no longer quite certain Moscow would back them up.

[@zafranorbian757]

@@KaiHenningsen they knew Moskow would not back them up and 5k police vs 100k protestors would not end well in an urban environment for the police, even though they would have caused massive casualty nubers this were just to manny people.

[@CharlesJones-um1th]

Rewboss, one of your best videos, short and to the point. I visited Leipzig late last year, including the church in question and the Stasi Headquarters (museum). Your clearly stated video plus my recent memory made it easy to imagine the pivotal events that took place there and then. Today’s Leipzig Hbf would have blown Leipzigers‘ minds back in ‘89.

[@Schlotzinger]

Großartiges Video. Ich empfehle, das Stasi-Museum in Leipzig zu besuchen.

[@John_Weiss]

So we're about the same age, rewboss. I was doing my junior semester abroad at Uni Mainz at the time. I clearly remember watching things unfold each day. I had also, when I arrived in Mainz in September, signed up for „Die Berlinreise für ausländische Studierende“, a week's long trip to Berlin with morning seminars, afternoon tours, and of course, nights in whatever Kneipe we happened to go past. The trip for the fall semester of 1989, scheduled of course long in advanced, was for the week of November 11-18. It was … quite the week, to say the least.

[@slidenapps]

Ich wäre so gerne dabei gewesen.

[@hmhouston]

I've really been enjoying your videos lately. Thanks for all of the great and informative content!

[@unnamedchannel2202]

Just the day before Mikhail Sergeyevich had publicly and clearly, as clearly as diplomatically possible, pointed out to Berlin: No violence! Else you'll be in deep trouble.

[@dorderre]

I was a bit confused for a second until I realised that Sergeyevich must be Mr. Gorbachovs middle name, right?

[@unnamedchannel2202]

@@dorderre, yes. Who else could have said that. ;-)

[@dorderre]

@@unnamedchannel2202 you're totally right of course :) Guess it depends on what we're used to. Growing up in germany I only ever knew him as Michail or even Michael (german prononciation) Gorbatschow (depending on the author/journalist) - I only learned his middle name from your comment :D Ah well - different countries, different naming conventions ;)

[@unnamedchannel2202]

@@dorderre, verzähl mir doch nix! Du kennst ihn als Gorbi. :-þ

[@babarasul680]

It feels good to live in a city knowing its rich history.

[@Gassenhauer]

wenn es bloß LOK und RB Leipzig nicht geben würde ^^

[@untruelie2640]

I wasn't born back then, but my grandmother was one of those 70.000-100.000 demonstrators on the 9th of October. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z4KXeKF3h7Khg9E There was considerable fear that the armed forces would use violence, but a few hours before the demonstration, 5 people (two local SED party officials which were reform oriented, the reverend of St. Nicholas' church, the conductor of the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra and a well known "Kabarettist" - a subversive satirist/comedian - ) crafted a public message that asked the demonstrators to be peaceful and not to use violence against the police and the armed forces. This message was also announced via loudspeakers. Many people consider this action to be one of the factors that prevented the outbreak of violence on that evening. Well known phrases used by the demonstrators were "Keine Gewalt!" ("No violence!"), "Stasi raus!" ("Out with the Stasi!"), "Gorbi!" (referring to Mikhail Gorbatchev, the reformist leader of the USSR and source of hope for many East Germans) and "Wir sind das Volk!" ("We are the people!"). The last one needs perhaps a bit of explaining: The SED party and the whole GDR was officially ruling in the name of "the people". In reality, it was a party dictatorship of course. "We are the people" therefore means "YOU are not representing the people, WE are the real people.")

[@bridge6649]

"shall we say... a biut unhappy about" Me: oh, what a very british understatement! 😁

[@downhilltwofour0082]

Excellent video!

[@Plengwing]

Hmm, released on 7th October. Coincidence? I think not.

[@albussr1589]

I once heard that ever since those Demonstrations, only Fridays for Future reached those Numbers in Germany.

[@eisikater1584]

Andrew, I heard a different story, from a woman from Leipzig, who came over to my lovely Bavaria, and we were friends for a couple of years. She told me that the GDR government had given order to fire at the protesters "if necessary", but the police refused. "We don't kill our own people", some officer allegedly said. That's from the infamous BILD-Zeitung, so it can be true or not. We have so much heart for our fellow people in the East, and I'm asking myself, why don't we have as much heart for people with different skin color who talk strangely? I'm Bavarian, my girlfriend was from Saxony. Dialects do vary.

[@rewboss]

There's a lot I didn't mention in my video. It's certainly true that the use of force had been sanctioned or at least expected, and it's also certainly true that many -- if not most -- police officers had a really bad feeling about that. It's also true that some soldiers who should have been there as backup simply refused to go. Also some high-ranking local Party officials signed a statement calling for non-violence and dialogue.

[@eisikater1584]

@@rewboss Ja, stell dir vor,, es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin.

[@slidenapps]

I believe Germans do have a heart for people with different skin color. Look at the welcome the refugees, hm got when they first came. With the time it became apparent that they really weren't there to work, not all of them, but to take advantage of a free handout system which apparently does not exist in their culture. There's the same problem in America. Africans came to cross the Mexican border illegally, got across and immediately held out their hands and say, Give. Helping is a great thing and should be done but people that are being helped should also be a little bit grateful..

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@slidenapps Also, people shouldn't use groups by what a very small percentage of them do, such as in your examples.

[@JennHolt]

@@slidenapps I have found, in my experience, that immigrants are extremely grateful. Just because they aren’t quickly able to integrate, there is sometimes backlash. It’s not easy to leave your home culture and home language behind. And to come to the United States for a handout? There’re no handouts here.

[@valencianiste6451]

One thing, when I finish university, I have plans to go to Germany to be an entrepreneur and start a business. Do I have to be a German citizen to start a business? And if I need it, having the B2 and taking the nationality test would be enough to ask for German citizenship?

[@varana]

Are you an EU citizen? If so, everything's fine anyway. But no, you don't have to be a German citizen to start a business. :)

[@valencianiste6451]

@@varana yeah, im from Spain. Ok, thx

[@swanpride]

@@valencianiste6451 As EU citicen you can start a business whereever you want in the EU...you just have to follow local regulations. You are not necessarily entitled to the same support a German citizen gets as entrepreneur, though. If you eventually want Germany citizenship, you basically have to proof that you lived in the country long enough (7 years, I think), that you speak the language and that you can take of yourself financially. That's basically is it. But again, as an EU citizen, you don't necessarily need it for the right to stay in the country, you only need to have work/some sort of income, and you can even vote in local elections without becoming a citizen.

[@valencianiste6451]

@@swanpride thx for ur help, european friend.

[@yanibarca]

So DDR police in 1989 behaved better than Spain police nowadays.

[@markhesse2928]

It seems that what is usually portrayed of events in 1989 is that nothing happened until a bunch of young people went to the Berlin Wall and knocked it down. This is a good reminder of one of the many events of political upheaval that took place in those days which led to (among other things) the end of the DDR. There was definitely some concern in the US Army In Europe. I was in the US Army in Fulda then and we were placed on a higher level of alert and all departments went to 24-hour operations. I don't recall being told anything concrete that might happen or what our response would be if any Tiananmen Square-type incidents were to occur in the DDR. That didn't last very long and in a week or two we resumed business as usual (more or less).

[@KaiHenningsen]

_until a bunch of young people went to the Berlin Wall and knocked it down_ ... any such thing only happened long after the dramatic events.

[@maxm.1974]

I don't know what really happened in Berlin in 1989. But I know one thing for sure: the moans of Delphine Lassale under Lorraine Broughton drowned out all the sounds from the fall of the Berlin wall and from the fireworks!😊❤🌋💦👭

[@chrisX1722]

Weird ist das Volk!

[@Arminixnix]

Honnecker wollte an sich Panzer schicken. Allerdings hätten diese immense Schäden in der Stadt angerichtet, weshalb er darauf verzichtete.

[@unnamedchannel2202]

Das hätte ihn nicht gestört. Was ihn daran gehindert hat, waren die klaren Worte von Gorbi. Es hatte noch ein anderes Problem. Die Volksarmee stand alles andere als geschlossen hinter ihm. Ein Schießbefehl wäre die perfekte Ausrede für einen Militärputsch gewesen, den er sicher nicht überlebt hätte.

[@lw3705]

interesting!

[@D4l4m4r]

Sorry, but you are seriously off. First of all, explaining the fall without actually mentioning "Glasnost and Peristroika" is preposterous. The truth is that the sowjet union was not "relaxing its grip", it too actively opened to the west, with the GDR being the only country of the warzaw pact that remained adamant in their stance against the west - which lead to serious diplomatic conflicts between Russia and the GDR. As a result protests flaired up all over Eastern Germany but also within the SED. Despite what the letter of the Kampfgruppe said: There is little chance that East German troops would actually have fired at the demonstrants. Up until then, protests had usually been subdued by Russian forces, but in 1989, Russia wasnt opposed to the protests anymore. Thats why the SED never gave the order - also, as i said, the reform process within the SED was already gathering momentum. Secondly, the main event that lead to the fall of the Berlin wall was the Paneuropean Picnic, where, for the first time in decades, the borders between the east and the west were opened, which prompted several hundreds of GDR citizens to flee. Fromt hat point forward, the fall of the wall was inevitable. Neither the demonstrations in Leipzig nor the famous blunder of Günther Schabowski were actually of consequence. What had started with Glasnot and Perestroika had inevitably to end in the opening to the West.

[@rewboss]

Apart from anything else, the thing you have to remember here is that I was making a 5-minute KZbin video, not a 45-minute TV documentary. On the subject of why the police didn't move in against the protesters: we'll never know for sure. There are conflicting accounts about who gave the order to withdraw and why. But on the day itself, nobody knew what the official policy was, what orders would be given, or whether anyone would carry them out. Police had previously used violent tactics against the demonstrations: there was no reason to believe they wouldn't do so again.

[@uliuchu4318]

For some great contempary footage, reports and interviews I strongly recommend "leipzig im Herbst" by Andreas Voigt kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZqTdKZtq7SLrsk (It's german though)

[@uliuchu4318]

Especially interesting because among the interviewed are also young drafted riot police who reflect their orders and the protesters demands... highly recommended