Zersetzung

What is “Zersetzung?”

The East German Ministry for State Security, or “Stasi” as it is most commonly known, did far more than just bug homes and arrest political dissidents. Indeed, throughout the 1970s and 80s, under Erich Honeckerʼs state leadership, the Stasi and its vast network of unofficial collaborators (henceforth referred to “IMs,” a contraction of the German “Inofizieller Mitarbeiter”) would adopt much more insidious measures to destabilise and disembolden potential “enemies of the state.” These measures were, in fact, so insidious, that many victims of so-called “Zersetzung” operations would only uncover the true extent of the Stasiʼs interference after Reunification, when Stasi records became available to the public.

Prior to Ulbrichtʼs departure from East Germanyʼs leadership in 1971 due to failing health, the Stasi had been known for its ruthless and oftentimes brutal treatment of prisoners and those suspected of harbouring an anti-state ideology. Honecker, however, aimed to establish the GDR as an internationally-recognised nation – for this end, East Germany would have to (ostensibly) adhere to the United Nationsʼ principles. In 1972, the GDR signed the Basic Treaty with West Germany, which called for a greater emphasis on human rights, and the Helsinki Accord in 1975. In line with the stipulations of these treaties, the SED government was seen to reduce the number of political incarcerations in the GDR, though this didnʼt necessarily mean an increased leniency towards political dissenters…

21st December 1972, signing of the Basic Treaty between FRG and GDR

Why Zersetzung?

Thus, the idea for Zersetzung came about, The term was first brought into the lexicon by the Nazis, whose “Wehrkraftzersetzung” was a multifaceted term denoting any crime undermining – or “decaying,” which the word literally translates to – the military´s strength, punishable by death. For the Stasi, however, Zersetzung was not an overt criminal penalty – indeed, Honecker intended to circumvent the penal code as best as he could. Instead, Zersetzung incorporated elements of operational psychology to destroy a potential dissident on a personal, psychological level – it was a preventative measure, not a punishment for those who had already committed “crimes” against the SED government. On Zersetzung, British journalist Luke Harding writes, “The security serviceʼs goal was to use Zersetzung to “switch off” regime opponents. After months and even years of Zersetzung a victim’s domestic problems grew so large, so debilitating, and so psychologically burdensome that they would lose the will to struggle against the East German state. Best of all, the Stasi’s role in the victim’s personal misfortunes remained tantalisingly hidden. The Stasi operations were carried out in complete operational secrecy. The service acted like an unseen and malevolent god, manipulating the destinies of its victims.”

How was Zersetzung carried out?

Much like a “malevolent god,” the Stasi utilised its omniscience – that is to say, its huge network of IMs, to collect the personal information required for Zersetzung to be truly effective. To really get into a personʼs head, the IM would take particular note of personal insecurities, such as homosexuality, alcoholism, pornography addictions – or secrets with the potential to destroy oneʼs home life, often extra-marital affairs. Yet, whilst this espionage was highly effective, the Stasi often constructed fake information or set up situations to lure a victim into, for instance, adultery. Anonymous letters, dating agency flyers, doctored photographs, telephone calls and telegrams were all methods employed during Zersetzung operations to spark tension within the home, leaving “dissidents” too embroiled in personal scandal to harm the State on any level.

Another aspect of Zersetzung which Harding brings up is its incredibly covert, “tantalisingly hidden” nature – this really being the linchpin in the operationʼs effectiveness. Even if a person suspected the Stasiʼs involvement in their personal misfortune, how could they prove it? Certainly, anyone attempting to absolve themselves of blame for an affair by claiming photo evidence was created by the Stasi, or that their tyres were slashed by the Stasi, or that the Stasi had entered their apartment and changed the time their alarm clock was supposed to go off, would appear to lack responsibility for their actions at best, or seem completely mad, at worst. Coupled with a victimʼs own belief that they may indeed be suffering from psychosis, this dynamic would further isolate a victim from their peers. This, of course, played right into the Stasiʼs hands.

In actual fact, the Stasi and its network of IMs was very much to blame for these domestic disturbances, with an average of three IMs allocated to each victim. In the Stasi college of law, students were increasingly taught the principles of operational psychology so as to be adept at damaging victims most effectively on a psychological level – itself, a form of operant conditioning, as the process used positive punishment (simply the idea that repeated punishment for an action will dissuade the punished person from committing the action again,) to deter victims from their State-critical sentiments. A teaching manual of approximately 50 pages was disseminated to students of the law school, detailing these methods.

“Discover love anew!” This pamphlet was sent to homes as part of Zersetzung operations, to make it appear as if the targeted person/their partner had shown interest in a dating agency, creating domestic tension.

Friedenskreis Pankow

A case study illustrating the Stasiʼs use of Zersetzung is to be found in the document entitled “ Zersetzungsmaßnahmen gegen den “Friedenskreis Pankow,” “Zersetzung measures against the Pankow Peace Circle.” In this document, the author/s lays out the aims of their operation and proposes various measures typical of Zersetzung operations for achieving these. The Peace Circle was a Christian-led oppositional group in the Berlin district of Pankow, who would meet to discuss topics such as peace, environmental protection and disarmament. This kind of group was a typical target of Stasi espionage and Zersetzung, amongst:

• Associations of people making collective visa applications for travel abroad
• Artists’ groups critical of the government
• Religious opposition groups
• Youth subculture groups
• Groups supporting the above (human rights and peace organisations, those assisting illegal departure from the GDR, and expatriate and defector movements).

First page of the Zersetzung document kept by the Stasi regarding the Pankow Peace Circle

The Stasi, perceiving the group as a potential threat, intended to “reduce the influence, activities and number of participants,” to “prevent the enemy from building up a state-independent peace movement,” and moreover, to “unsettle the leading figures of the peace circle and neutralise their influence.”  To achieve this end, the document’s author proposes the following – note the instrumental role of IMs in the operation:

• IMs who are argumentative, confrontational and biased will be sent to peace circle debates to ignite heated debate. For this precise operation, the document notes the selection of 25–30 students, divided into approximately six smaller “task forces.” Each task force is to be assigned a leader, who is fed instructions regarding the most inflammatory demeanor and arguments to adopt, having infiltrated the circle. Naturally, as a group rooted in pacifism, the idea that the group might have hostile members would not only put off potential members, but would shake the foundations of the circle, who could no longer trust the intentions of its members.

• The reputation of the circle is to be further damaged by the arrival of a “Jehovahʼs Witness,” who will arrive “to preach his faith.” As part of his reasoning for why members should turn to the religion, he will decry alleged adultery within the group, depravity, and the fact that the members are espousing a polyamorous “free love.” He will allege that a member took inappropriate photos of other members bathing during a Mecklenburg “peace hike,” at which point, he will produce an edited photograph created by the Stasi. This infiltration would leave members questioning their personal safety within the group, with many members asking for clarity from the Superintendent of the Circle, who was, of course, unaware of the accusations. This method would have been especially efficacious for the Stasi – a movement cannot pose any significant threat to a government if its own members do not trust one another.

• To shake the already unstable marriage of one member, the IM Horst Hoffmann will inform the member in a staged “man to man” conversation of an affair he had “heard about” between the member´s wife and another man, rendering him too despondent from his marital woes to contribute meaninfully to the Circle. Here, prior espionage is highlighted as an important facet of Zersetzung – the Stasi knew to target this manʼs marriage specifically, since they had already gathered data regarding a very real affair between the member´s wife and another man. Therefore, adultery was a point of particular contention in the marriage, and the member would have been more likely to believe that his wife had engaged in a second affair, making this “well-meaning memberʼs” conversation all the more devastating.

Olof-Palme-Friedensmarsch and Pilgerweg 1987, organised by the Pankow Peace Circle.

Image credits: http://www.alt-pankow.de/friedenskreis/geschichte.html

These are just a select few stages of the operation, however. If you would like to read the full document, it is available here:

https://www.stasi-mediathek.de/medien/zersetzungsmassnahmen-gegen-den-friedenskreis-pankow/blatt/24/

Thank you for reading!

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The Wall divided German-German societies, particularly in the travel market. West Germans and West Berliners were allowed to travel to almost any country in the world at any time. His home country didn’t care about his travels.

Things were very different in the GDR. Even with a visa, GDR citizens were only allowed to travel to the socialist brother countries. The West was taboo for most people. There were “travel cadres” who had permission to travel to the West, selected by their companies or universities for economic or scientific reasons. But there were only a few of them and some took the opportunity to escape.

On paper, GDR tourism was great. When the state was founded in 1949, the GDR wrote the “right to rest” and “to annual leave against pay” into Article 16 of the constitution for every worker. The “Handbook of the GDR” praised the socialist vacation system as a “great social achievement of the GDR”.

The procurement of resources was typical of the GDR. In 1953, a large number of police officers searched more than 700 private hotels, restaurants and guesthouses on the Baltic coast as part of “Aktion Rose”.

The absurd accusation: the hoteliers were selling “illegally imported Western goods” and working for the “agent headquarters of American imperialism”. At the end of the campaign, 440 owners were simply arrested as agents of the West.

60% of tourism in the GDR was organized by companies and the state. The FDGB vacation service organized around 2 million trips per year. The state travel agency of the GDR was a VEB, and the FDJ had its own youth travel agency from 1975. Anyone between the ages of 16 and 25 could book with Jugendtourist. However, it was known that older people were also taken along if there were still places available. And you had relationships.

In 1989, 34% of overnight stays were accounted for by company facilities, 26% by campsites, 19% by FDGB hotels, 17% by youth recreation facilities and 4% by others.

These official figures are deceptive. There is a lack of overnight stays in private accommodation, which accounted for the majority of overnight stays in the vacation season in places with high tourist traffic. These private tourists repeatedly caused noticeable shortages in the local supply of food and everyday goods in the vacation resorts.

For GDR citizens, worries about their summer vacation began in winter. The order forms for bus trips or for coveted trips abroad to the Eastern Bloc had to be received by the GDR travel agency by a fixed date. Out of 1,000 applications, only about 30 were approved. It was like winning the lottery, paid for with one of the coveted pink “FDGB vacation checks”. Statistically, the applicant only received this FDGB vacation voucher every five years.

Holidaymakers only had to pay a third of the costs themselves, and this also applied to the outward journey on the Reichsbahn. Two weeks full board in the Baltic seaside resort of Boltenhagen cost just 95 marks per person in 1965.

But the tone was strange. The vacation vouchers said “Induction to the FDGB vacation village” and the food was served in “catering points” The social security card had to be presented and sportswear was expressly expected. Many a person had to put up with the boss at a collective lunch. The level of comfort was manageable, the taps dripped, beds squeaked – and every morning the battle for the shared shower began. 10% of the GDR budget was spent on subsidized vacations, but supply never met demand.

Those who wanted to avoid the masses camped; in the end there were more than 500 campsites in the GDR, the largest with up to 5000 pitches. Those who were lucky had a caravan trailer such as the “Klappfix” or the “Campifix”.

The pitches were in great demand and had to be applied for months in advance at the Central Campsite Agency.

Even the socialist brother countries were not easy to travel to as a normal GDR citizen, starting with the foreign currency. The friendly countries were not keen on the GDR currency either. Tens of thousands of citizens queued for hours to apply for travel to Bulgaria, the CSSR or Hungary. If they were successful, they stuffed their Trabbis with food, as officially only a maximum daily rate could be exchanged. In the CSSR, for example, it was only 30 marks. The GDR traveler felt like a second-class holidaymaker when he suddenly met a West German at Lake Balaton.

And of course they wanted to avoid escapes. In 1968, the GDR set up an alternative route through the USSR for travel to the Balkans. You needed a transit visa for this. With this 3-day visa, the borders of the USSR became permeable for individual tourists, which in some cases led to unauthorized trips to the East. When applying for entry, you had to state the exact route and the individual daily destinations. There were areas that were closed to all foreigners for military reasons and you could get lost but also have mishaps and get stuck. Therefore, you had to report to the militia at your destination, who were informed of your arrival in advance. If this did not happen, a search operation was triggered.

Travel to Cuba was possible from 1973, but it was very expensive and almost exclusively reserved for cadres.

The majority of the group trips were made by plane, in exceptional cases by train (e.g. the adventure trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok). The flights always began and ended at the same airport. When abroad, you met a local interpreter, usually an agent of the respective secret service. Who, however, did not cooperate with the GDR tour guide.

The GDR travel agency was actually a branch of the Stasi. Most of the permanent representatives and chief representatives of the travel agency of the GDR and also the honorary tour guides worked as IM or agents of the MfS. The volunteers were paid for the trip, but had to use their vacation time to travel. Wives had to pay in full for the journey. If there were mishaps for which the tour guide was held responsible, he was personally liable for the damage. The GAU was a refugee on a trip abroad.

So it is no wonder that the tour guides constantly put pressure on the travelers. Always queue in alphabetical order and no unwanted contact with foreigners.

When the mass protests shook the GDR system in 1989, many wanted not only more democracy but also something completely unthinkable: “Visa-free to Hawaii!” In 1989, the Society for the German Language chose “freedom to travel” as the word of the year.

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Berlin Disease Control.

Mankind has a short memory. It helps people not to live in constant fear. And the longer it has been since the last case, the less aware we are of the danger.

Epidemics are nothing new, Corona is just the latest in a whole series of mass diseases that hit Germany.

Who remembers the Hong Kong flu epidemic between 1968 and 1970 that killed over a million people worldwide? In the Federal Republic alone, there were around 40,000 deaths. There had already been several pandemics in the 20th century. During the Spanish flu, after World War I, citizens in Western countries were exhorted to stay home, but few obeyed. At the time of the Asian flu and Hong Kong flu, people were limited to getting through the crisis, there was no general curfew. Today, people react much more sensitively. Increased life expectancy may be one of the reasons. .

So pandemics are nothing new, but between 1945 and 1989 there was a peculiarity, diseases and precautions became weapons in the arsenal of propaganda in East and West. Outbreaks in the other Germany were commented on in the media, always referring to the respective state doctrine as the supposed cause.

At the end of March 1962, there was an outbreak of bacterial dysentery in the GDR. By the middle of the last week of March at the latest, it was known that the capital of the GDR had become the scene of the most widespread epidemic to hit the territory of the GDR since the end of the war.

The MfS was alerted, and the search and counterintelligence apparatus of the East Berlin epidemic department went into action. The result was a disaster politically. The cause was butter contaminated with dysentery bacilli that had been sold in four East Berlin districts in the week before last in March.

The disease spread explosively through contact infection. As early as April 1, the capacity of East Berlin’s hospitals was no longer sufficient. Auxiliary hospitals had to be established. In addition to trained staff, students and People’s Police officers were used as caregivers.

It was not until April 4, more than a week after the wave of illness began, that the government broke the silence. It was not until that day that the SED announced the epidemic.

On April 8, an entry and exit ban was imposed on Berlin, but due to lack of control it did not take effect and it was too late anyway. Large parts of the GDR were now affected. The number of people sickened rose to 75,000, and the first fatalities were reported.

Nevertheless, the SED officials did not want to close schools and kindergartens. They did not want to give the Western propagandists – like the “Bild” newspaper, which claimed to have already discovered 100,000 sick people and 40 dead – any more excuses to retaliate for the campaign that had been sparked in East Berlin on the occasion of a West German smallpox outbreak.

Some of the contaminated butter came from the Soviet Union, of course, this was not admitted. Scattered rumors referred to China as the country of origin.

The propaganda machine started up. Largely publicized articles hailed the exemplary performance of physicians in the socialist system.

As the death toll remained low, the diarrhea-stricken Berliners were helped through the crisis by their sense of humor. The joke circulated, “Everything is getting better: East Berlin is the Ruhr.”

For the first time, RIAS and other West Berlin media were able to find something positive about the Berlin Wall. It had reliably kept the epidemic out of West Berlin. And this although it did not have the later dimensions in 1962. In The Wall Museum you can see the installations of that time.

The disease outbreaks in the West provided excellent targets for SED propaganda. Especially since Bonn, for dogmatic reasons, refused help. Willi Stoph, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, offered three million vaccine doses to the Federal Republic in 1961 – as a humanitarian gesture for the Ruhr region, which was ravaged by polio; with 42 dead already, the crisis was acute. Adenauer declined. And the SED reported the “no”. The picture was clear; here healthy working people in the socialist state, there dangerous epidemic areas and high disease rates in capitalism.

Shortly before the Wall was built, GDR television warned of imported pathogens from the West. Travelers from the West were even offered free vaccinations.

Even one worked mostly with cover-up.

April 1963, a man in Aschersleben showed smallpox symptoms. It was an African who had been living in the GDR for half a year. Globalization as we know it today, and with it the rapid accessibility of all areas of the world, were not known at the time, certainly not in the isolated GDR.

There had been local outbreaks and deaths in West Germany, but not in East Germany. Smallpox vaccination was compulsory in both parts of Germany. The patient in Aschersleben was isolated, and all contact persons were located. 1,700 people were vaccinated as a precaution.

In the SED media, the action was justified by an outbreak of chickenpox.

The GDR experts waited for a report to the World Health Organization, which was actually required, until the laboratory results were available. After a few days the all-clear came from the laboratory, it was not a smallpox infection.

A few months later, an Interflug crew reported a possible smallpox infection. After landing in Berlin-Schönefeld, a woman was immediately isolated and taken to a clinic. Passengers and crew had to remain in the aircraft. and later taken to a temporary isolation ward. Fortunately, it was a false alarm; it was a strong reaction to the smallpox vaccine. Again, there were no media reports about the background.

MfS reports on the incident showed serious deficiencies in the health care system. There was a lack of a special hospital for disease cases and isolation facilities at airports. A hospital was planned in Berlin-Buch. It remained with the plan

The GDR was lucky when smallpox broke out in Kulmbach, Franconia, in the fall of 1965. A pensioner from the GDR returned home, she was immediately vaccinated again – as were all her contacts in the GDR. There were no contagions in the GDR.

In 1972, there was another case of smallpox in the Federal Republic. The GDR was alarmed, the state security took over. The available vaccine was controlled. Up to 50,000 doses were immediately available, and up to 1.4 million doses within 24 hours. The SED leadership was inoculated. More intensive checks were carried out on those entering the country. And in addition, the GDR established contact with the health authorities of the Federal Republic. The quarantine measures in the Hanover area had worked. More than 600 people in the vicinity of the diseased guest worker were isolated and 65,000 were revaccinated.

The GDR also took action. A woman from Hanover had entered Rostock. She was assessed as a direct contact and placed under strict house arrest. Then the border guards reported that her husband had also entered the country. In the middle of the route, the train to Rostock was stopped, but the MfS people could not locate the wanted man – the MfS border guards had given a false name. Later, the husband was found, and he was also placed under house arrest.

Again, an evaluation took place. Imported vaccination guns had proved necessary. However, there was only one of these per GDR district and, according to the report, they were “already heavily worn in some cases.” Spare parts were scarce, an in-house production “has not succeeded so far”.

To prevent smallpox epidemics, the GDR stuck with its compulsory vaccination, even though there was vaccine damage. Annually, health authorities recorded one to two deaths and some cases of brain inflammation as a result of vaccination. This was seen as justifiable. The case of the Yugoslavian guest worker remained the last recorded smallpox disease in all of Germany.

In 1979, the World Health Organization announced the end of smallpox. They were thus officially eradicated worldwide – a great success for modern medicine.

Public health as a result of the superiority of the socialist system – that was what the GDR was all about when it came to vaccination. The slogan was issued: “Socialism is the best prophylaxis”. Vaccinations against smallpox, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, tuberculosis and, from the 1970s, measles were mandatory. . Until the age of 18, adolescents received a total of 20 protective vaccinations – prescribed by the state

The coercive state had its advantages; while polio epidemics were still raging in the West in 1960, the centrally administered GDR society had been largely immunized against polio since 1958.

But there was also vaccination fatigue in the GDR. There have been spontaneous sick calls before vaccination appointments and refusals of shots by skeptical parents. In some regions, the vaccination rate fell below 50%. The SED reacted in its own way – with permanent vaccination centers and mass vaccinations in vacation camps, schools and factories.

By the end of the 1970s, the GDR was falling behind more and more in vaccination Too many vaccination appointments made people recalcitrant. Combination vaccines were not available. Epidemics, such as measles, which had been thought to have been conquered, reached East Berlin again in the 1980s. GDR vaccine production suffered from ancient machinery. Ampoules were sealed with increasingly poor quality rubber. Despite all health and vaccination programs, life expectancy in the East was almost three years lower than in the West in 1989.

However, the legend of the exemplary GDR vaccination and health care system persists to this day. At that time, it is thought, there could have been no shortage of protective masks. Yet intensive care already lacked modern equipment in normal operations.

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The beginnings of the Berlin Wall. October 1962

The course of the Berlin Wall meant that many people in West Berlin lived directly next to the Wall. While houses in East Berlin in the immediate vicinity of the border were cleared and demolished, the West Berliners remained living there.

The shock quickly gave way to habit. Since the border had been set according to the sweeping limits of garbage collection, there was only a narrow footpath in front of some houses, which actually already belonged to East Berlin. Because the wall was almost nowhere the actual border, it was usually 3 – 5 m further in the direction of West Berlin.

But as a rule, the use was tolerated. For this, everything on the GDR side had been removed that could have given the refugees visual cover.

https://youtu.be/7E3T7eiSBsY

Since the death strip was constantly controlled with microphones, many tunnels were dug by escape helpers into East Berlin in the early years. As a starting point, the houses directly on the border had been particularly suitable.

Many tunnels were betrayed by informers. There were quite a few SED sympathizers in West Berlin, others did it for money. However, anyone caught by the occupants of the house received a severe beating before being handed over to the authorities.

Occasionally, the quiet was interrupted by escape attempts. Again and again, bullets hit the facades of West Berlin houses. Sometimes the bullets landed in living rooms or bedrooms when they shot through the windows. This could also happen in accidents; I myself, as a passerby, experienced how a bullet, not far from me, hit a house wall. The border guard had loaded the gun, dropped it and the shot went off.

However, this was at a section of the Wall where the street belonged to West Berlin on both sides. There, too, people lived in their shadow. The GDR border guards observed all the events on the west side and took photos. This also involved a close look at the apartments. It was feared that Western intelligence agencies might use them as bases.
A telescope on a balcony triggered a flurry of activity. The MfS even sent out agents to check who lived there and what the person was up to. An amateur astronomer or a potential boundary violator? A large number of the house residents near the wall had Stasi files. Especially those who had relatives in the GDR.

Quite a few people liked to live near the wall. Since the border often interrupted roads, the area was then like a traffic-calmed zone. In addition, these residential areas were often particularly inexpensive. The lighting and guarding of the border installations even gave some West Berliners a sense of security. For example, the allotment garden colony “Freedom on the Wall” was free of burglaries at that time.

With the fall of the Wall in 1989, all that changed quickly.

Nevertheless, the people who lived in its shadow are naturally happy about the fall of the Wall.

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During the Cold War, as this portion of the Havel River formed the border between West Berlin and East Germany, the bridge was used several times for the exchange of captured spies and thus became known as the Bridge of Spies.

The Berlin Wall was there in all weathers, but some weather conditions made it easier to escape if you prepared accordingly.

On the night of November 21, 1963, 21-year-old Hubert Hohlbein swam through the Jungfernsee, not far from Cecilienhof Palace. After 90 minutes in the ice-cold water, he reached the West Berlin shore, 200m from the Glienicker Bridge.

He ran to the bridge, where West Berlin police officers warmed him with blankets and called an ambulance. He survived the escape well.

Two of his friends had already successfully used this escape route there before. The three obtained diving suits and secretly trained to swim and dive under the ice in the waters in and around Berlin.

Hohlbein decided to help others escape from the West. In October 1964, his group managed to help 57 GDR citizens escape through a tunnel. Among them was his mother.

In the GDR he was denied an academic degree because he was the son of an entrepreneur and so had to do an apprenticeship. Now he could fulfill his dream and study.

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On 15 June 1965, Hermann Döbler (42) and his companion Elke Märtens (21) are discovered by two border guards during a boat trip on the Teltow Canal, part of which belongs to the GDR. Döbler intends to turn around at a water stop and return to Wannsee, the starting point of the excursion. What he doesn’t know, however, is that the official border already runs a few hundred metres in front of said barrier. After a few warning shots from the border troops, Döbler and Märtens begin to wave desperately to prevent anything worse from happening, but this is interpreted by the soldiers as a provocation and leads to them shooting down the two boat occupants. Hermann Döbler succumbs to his wounds while still in the boat, while Elke Märtens survives, seriously injured by a grazing shot to the head. While Willy Brandt calls the crime a cold-blooded murder, GDR officials gloat over accusations against Döbler, who allegedly planned attacks on the Berlin Wall and is known as a West Berlin refugee helper. After German reunification, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office brought charges against the border guards, which ended in a 6-year prison sentence for the shooter.

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In 1987, on the Whitsun weekend in West Berlin, rock superstars such as David Bowie and Genesis joined hands to celebrate the 750th anniversary when they performed at the Concert for Berlin on a 76-metre-wide stage in front of the Reichstag building. Just a few metres away, on the other side of the Berlin Wall, music fans from the GDR have come together to at least hear the concerts live. The festival runs over the entire Whitsun weekend, and so it happens that on Saturday a few hundred GDR citizens on the other side of the Wall listen to the spectacle, but on Sunday several thousand listeners are already there.

The organisers, Concert Conzept, clearly intended to cover both the West and the East in order to draw attention to the division, but also to demonstrate the unifying power of music. What is not in the intention of the organisers, however, are the riots on the east side of Berlin that sparked off between police and music fans from Whit Sunday to Monday.

While around 60,000 people celebrate peacefully in front of the Reichstag building, confrontations in the east steadily increase. At first, the People’s Police begin to check IDs and expel people when they try to get a glimpse of the concert. However, after news of the concert and the repressive measures by the People’s Police spread in the East of Berlin, more and more people move towards the Wall, first as music fans, later as demonstrators. GDR officials did not expect thousands of citizens, and so on Sunday and Monday the situation escalates completely. The police try to disperse demonstrators with truncheons, civilian officials arrest individual music fans in groups and all this is drowned out by shouts of Gorbachev and insults against the police and the state.

In the end, it is clear that this was not the last protest the citizens of the GDR were to experience. After the Pentecost weekend, official GDR sources say that the Western media exaggerated the situation and that everything was under control.

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On 22 June 1974, the professional football teams from East and West Germany met for the only time, and that at the World Cup in West Germany. The two teams had already met two years earlier at the Olympics, but the FRG had fielded an amateur team. The group match between the two in Hamburg actually only decided who would win the group, as both participants had already qualified for the next round, and yet it was later to go down in history. The clear objective of Georg Buschner, coach of the GDR eleven, was to have his own team compete against the best teams in the world and to measure itself against the top footballers, which, however, contradicted the line of GDR officials who considered victories at the Olympics to be more important. No one had expected the GDR to show such self-confidence and in the 77th minute the time had come: the winning goal for the GDR was scored, leaving the big favourites, the FRG, stunned. To this day, the West German coach Helmut Schön is said to have told his team that they had to lose in order to be able to play weaker opponents in the next round, instead of Brazil and the Netherlands. However, these are mere allegations. In the end, the defeat in the German-German match caused enough resentment among Franz Beckenbauer’s team that they played their way through the next round with extra motivation, winning the final against the Netherlands 2-1 at the end of the World Cup and thus becoming world champions.

Do you remember who scored the winning goal for the GDR? All visitors who give the right name at our ticket office pay only €7.50* for their ticket until 15.07.2018!
A little tip: The goal scorer himself once said that if one day only “Hamburg 1974” was written on his gravestone, everyone would know who was buried there.

*Reduced admission (students/pupils/trainees/pensioners/disabled people) 4.00 € with the correct answer.

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On 19 August 1989, a joint picnic of Austrian and Hungarian citizens was to take place in the Sopron border area. The reason for this joint picnic was the custom that there had already been several celebrations in the border area by Austrian and Hungarian citizens, to which another celebration was now added. Originally, the celebration was planned by Hungarian opposition members and the Austrian Pan-Europa Union to symbolise the historical closeness between Hungary and Austria. The Hungarian-Austrian border was to be opened briefly for several hours. The organisers had obtained the necessary permission for this from the Hungarian and Austrian authorities, so the Hungarian border guard Arpad Bella was to maintain border protocol during the festival. This was connected to an orderly celebration with the guests who were to ceremoniously cross the opened border on the occasion of the opening of the border.

Unexpectedly for the organisers, more than 600 East Germans suddenly arrived to take advantage of the opening of the border and flee across the Austro-Hungarian border to the West. Through leaflets distributed by West German embassy staff and other opposition members, the news of the imminent opening of the border reached everyone’s ears. In 1989, East German refugees continued to spend their well-deserved summer holidays in Hungary, as East Germans were only allowed to travel to the Eastern brother states, such as Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. Voluntary departure to the West, however, was inevitably persecuted. Therefore, many East Germans used their stay in Hungary to look for new escape routes.

For the Hungarian leadership, the East German mass flight during the picnic meant a confirmation of the previous political course. After all, the flight during the picnic was a test, according to which not only the previous border demolition since 2 May 1989 now found its political recognition, but also the further political development was looking for its confirmation. For Nemeth and Pozsgay, the opening of the border in retrospect was a test that showed how far one could go in opening borders. A good two weeks after the picnic, it became clear that the border would be opened completely, so that on 10 September 1989 Gyula Horn opened the Hungarian western border completely to East Germans who wanted to leave the country. For various actors, such as Helmut Kohl, the Pan-European Picnic was considered the event that knocked the first stone out of the Berlin Wall.

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The East German opposition was fed by various sources; among the opposition members were also those who wanted to leave the country and no longer considered the GDR capable of reform. They considered permanent emigration to West Germany as the only alternative to change their living conditions. With the announcement of the opening of the Hungarian border on 2 May 1989, they had to look for alternative ways to leave the country. Finally, with the opening of the Hungarian border, a movement of refugees began to emerge, as the GDR became less and less committed to reform. The electoral fraud in the local elections alone indicated an unwillingness to reform, so that for many contemporaries it was considered advisable not only to wait for the people to leave the country or to venture across Hungary, but also to campaign for improvements in their own living conditions.

Many East Germans hoped to reach the West via Hungary. But the Wall still existed; even though the border security agreements that had existed between the Eastern bloc states began to break down, as the unity of the Eastern bloc states also became obsolete. Thus, they refused to deport the refugees because there was hardly any ideological bond left between Hungary and the GDR. The refugees took the opportunity to flee again if necessary. In this context, the Pan-European Picnic took place, during which the East German refugees used an occassionally opened border to leave Hungary via Austria. The Hungarian leadership was prepared for this situation and opened the border on 10 September 1989 so that the East German refugees could leave for a country of their choice. The situation in Hungary also had an effect on the GDR, and the mass exodus had an effect on the opposition in the GDR.

It was not until the late summer of 1989 that an opposition formed again, which expressed itself freely and publicly addressed the need for reform in the GDR. Finally, the bloodletting of people became apparent in everyday life, and leaving the country via Hungary became a political issue. The New Forum was formed as early as 8/9 September 1989. This platform expressed political criticism freely and reliably for everyone for the first time in several decades. Other opposition groups also engaged in political activity. Democracy Now and Democratic Awakening, for example, were also founded. These organisations formed a civil rights movement, which created novel possibilities for participation at the time.
This soon led to new protest marches through the city centres of Leipzig and Berlin. Thus there were situations that could no longer be stopped by the authorities because there was a constant danger of people leaving the country via Hungary. Even the surveillance of the opposition did not change the fact that the demonstrations spread to other cities. Threats of violence by the state and the party became obsolete because the party shied away from violence in order not to lose its authority.

Nevertheless, it became clear that the new possibility of protest did not mean the end of the demands. In the end, the situation could not be clarified to such an extent that the protests came to an end. Thus, despite the protests, there were still people willing to leave the country who tried to leave via Czechoslovakia. The West German embassy building in Prague was besieged by refugees in order to extort their departure. As early as October 1989, the refugees were able to force their way out, so that West German Foreign Minister Genscher had to declare that their departure would be granted. However, the East German side insisted that the trains bringing the East Germans to the West should pass through East German territory. It turned out that the passage of the trains through the GDR was accompanied by protests. Eventually, clashes broke out in Bad Schandau and Dresden, which the police tried to quell. East Germans wanted to get on the trains to travel with them to the West. At one point, the protesters used a pram to make the trains stop, but this failed as the trains ran through the empty pram. The East Germans arrived happily in West Germany.

The events showed that for the first time since 17 June 1953 there were protests in Dresden, Bad Schandau, Leipzig and Berlin. Orders and chains of command failed so that protests successfully meandered through the inner cities. These events showed how protests were linked to the movement to leave the country and the East German opposition. On 4 November 1989, a good one million people were on the streets in Berlin and Leipzig to demonstrate for social improvements. The pressure from the streets forced the SED to make concessions. On 9 November 1989, the border was opened at Bornholmer Strasse because the demand for freedom of travel created enormous pressure which the DRR regime had to give in to. A misunderstanding in the media thus led to the fall of the Wall, which to this day symbolises the collapse of the GDR regime.

Associated with the fall of the Wall was the right to travel freely to the Western world. This right was made possible by the opening of the border at Bornholmer Strasse. Günther Schabowski’s statement that all citizens could travel to the Western world immediately led to the GDR admitting its loss of power. The fall of the Wall brought the end of the GDR to the fore as the central event, and with it came the imminent reunification of the two German states. Chancellor Kohl drew up a roadmap for reunification in his 10 Points, which was also widely shared by West Germans and West German politics. Thus, the fall of the Wall also led to reunification, as Kohl’s policy had made the unity of Germany the top priority. Thus, the emigration movement and the protests of the East German opposition led to the fall of the Wall.

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