Key moments - 'We are the people!'

1 Nov 2009, 12:00 am   -   Source: Bryony Jones, SBS
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The 'Monday Demonstrations' played a pivotal role in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany (LTS/Kuehne)

The 'Monday Demonstrations' played a pivotal role in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany (LTS/Kuehne)

October 9, 1989: Pro-democracy protesters face off against East German authorities on the streets of Leipzig, inspiring copycat demonstrations across the country.

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October 9, 1989: Pro-democracy protesters face off against East German authorities on the streets of Leipzig, inspiring copycat demonstrations across the country.

Throughout 1989, a group of campaigners calling for more freedom of movement, and for the right to vote in free and fair elections, had been meeting at Leipzig's St Nicholas Church to discuss their hopes for the future of East Germany.

But as the year progressed, it became clear that the GDR's leader, Erich Honecker, was unwilling to see the country go through the kind of reforms alredy sweeping Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Undeterred, in September Leipzig's citizens decided to take their peaceful campaign to the streets, holding candlelit vigils outside the church after their weekly meeting.

The 'Monday Demonstrations' had begun.

Over the weeks, their numbers swell, news of their resistance begins to spread, and the East German authorities become alarmed - on October 2, many of the protesters are beaten by police during the weekly rally.

The following week, just two days after the 40th anniversary of the GDR, organisers plan the biggest Monday Demonstration yet.

'We're staying here!' chant

But fears of violence are growing, and tensions are rising - authorities warn protesters their campaign is likely to be met with opposition from the police and armed forces.

"We are ready and willing to protect the work we have created with our own hands, in order to end these counter-revolutionary activities finally and effectively - with weapons if necessary," Combat Group Commander Guenter Lutz told the local newspaper, the day before the planned rally.

The warning does not put people off, and on Monday October 9, between 75,000 and 100,000 people - out of a population of just 500,000 - prepare to take to the streets of Leipzig.

More than 8,000 gather at the St Nicholas Church, spilling out onto the nearby square, while four other churches open their doors to make room for the protesters.

Together, the massive crowd, bearing banners declaring 'We are the people!' and 'We're staying here!', marches around the city's ring road, passing the local Stasi headquarters, and blocking traffic.

At several points, Stasi informers in the crowd attempted to provoke trouble, but the demonstrators insist their 'October Revolution' will be a peaceful, non-violent one, and drown out any calls to attack.

Tensions remain high, but at the critical point, riot police and troops step aside, allowing the marchers to pass unimpeded, into the history books.

Pivotal role in collapse of GDR

The events of Monday 9 October were, at the time, one of the largest protests Germany had ever seen. But they were, in fact, only the beginning.

Secretly filmed footage of the demonstration was smuggled out to West Germany for broadcast, sparking a string of copycat marches in Dresden, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Potsdam and even East Berlin.

And in the weeks that followed, Dresden's Monday Demonstrations continued to grow, with as many as 320,000 people on the streets on October 23.

The protests played a pivotal role in the collapse of the GDR, allowing everyday citizens to take a stand and demand a say in the way they wanted to live their lives, after decades of state control.

"It was a self-liberation," Pastor Christian Fuehrer, one of the leaders of the movement, explained to German news magazine Der Spiegel.

"We did it without the dollar or the DAX [the German stock exchange], without the US or Soviet armies. It was the people here who did it."

 

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