“Wir Sind Das Volk”: Monday Demonstrations 1989 and Today
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JW-2 GERMANY Jill Winder is a Donors’ Fellow of the Institute studying post-reunification Germany through the ICWA work and attitudes of its artists. LETTERS “Wir sind das Volk”: Monday Demonstrations 1989 and Today Since 1925 the Institute of By Jill Winder Current World Affairs (the Crane- SEPTEMBER 19, 2004 Rogers Foundation) has provided long-term fellowships to enable BERLIN–On September 4, 1989 approximately 1,000 people gathered around Saint outstanding young professionals Nicholas’s Church in Leipzig to demand human rights and more democratic free- doms, calling for a thorough reform of the German Democratic Republic (GDR— to live outside the United States former East Germany). According to the Goethe Institute, the date is considered and write about international to be the first of the so-called Montagsdemonstrationen, or Monday Demonstra- areas and issues. An exempt tions, a specifically “eastern” form of protest, which are credited with catalyzing operating foundation endowed by the dissolution of the East German regime later that same year. Churches across the late Charles R. Crane, the East Germany were the centers of peaceful protest, and citizens from across the Institute is also supported by GDR gathered after work on Monday evenings to attend demonstrations often contributions from like-minded clandestinely organized through local religious institutions. Protesters carried individuals and foundations. candles and signs that read “Wir sind das Volk” (We are the people), and demanded a reform of the socialist system in East Germany, using phrases such as “Socialism with a human face.” Many hoped for the development of a “third way” system of TRUSTEES government that would retain socialist and democratic principles without com- Bryn Barnard pletely giving over to the linkage of liberal democracy and capitalism found in Joseph Battat most countries of Western Europe (including West Germany). Mary Lynne Bird Steven Butler At the height of the demonstrations, October 9, 1989, nearly 100,000 people Sharon F. Doorasamy marched through the city center of Leipzig calling for more non-violent demon- William F. Foote strations and political reforms. Though many anticipated violent clashes with the Peter Geithner 8,000 soldiers and armed policemen who were present to quell the demonstra- Gary Hartshorn tion—the brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square in China only months before Kitty Hempstone added to these fears—such confrontations were relatively minor. In the following Katherine Roth Kono weeks, protests spread across the entire GDR, particularly in cities such as Dresden, Cheng Li Magdeburg and Halle. Estimates of weekly participation in the demonstrations Peter Bird Martin Dasa Obereigner Chandler Rosenberger Edmund Sutton HONORARY TRUSTEES David Elliot David Hapgood Pat M. Holt Edwin S. Munger Richard H. Nolte Albert Ravenholt Phillips Talbot Institute of Current World Affairs The Crane-Rogers Foundation Four West Wheelock Street Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 U.S.A. Monday Demonstration in Leipzig, October 9, 1989, courtesy: www.tourjour.nl range from 100,000 to 150,000 East German citizens. among citizens of eastern Germany that the promises of reunification remain largely unfulfilled, and that on po- During the 15 years that have passed between au- litical, economic, and social levels they are treated as sec- tumn 1989 and today, Germany has been engaged in the ond-class citizens in the country. complex process of the unification of West and East. The task of integrating a highly developed Western demo- * * * cratic state with the strongest economy in Europe and a member state of the Communist bloc has been enor- Every Monday since August 2, 2004, a new wave of mously expensive, politically sensitive and socially divi- Monday Demonstrations has swept through Germany, sive. In 1989, Chancellor Helmut Kohl proclaimed that this time to protest a set of measures known as Hartz IV the new German states in the east would be turned into (named after Peter Hartz, the head of personnel at blühende Landschaften (blooming landscapes) and that no Volkswagen, chairman of the state commission that one would be worse off after reunification. Today, unem- drafted them), Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his ployment in the eastern regions of the country hovers at government’s planned reforms of the country’s gener- 20 percent, double that of the western German regions, ous system of welfare and unemployment benefits, which and the figure is even higher in villages and rural areas, will particularly affect people who have been unem- and among citizens between 18 and 29. In her essay, ployed over a year. These reforms are part of an overall “Blooming Landscapes? Taking Stock of German Reuni- reform package called “Agenda 2010,” aimed at reinvigo- fication after 14 Years,” economist Louise Tamaschke rating the economy and dismantling the core of notes that according to a 2004 government survey, the Germany’s welfare state by the year 2010. The protests eastern German economy is growing at half the rate of began in the eastern city of Magdeburg and quickly the West’s and its productivity levels are at two thirds spread to other cities in the region such as Halle, the rate of the West. This is in stark contrast to the early Acherleben, Dessau and Leipzig. By the end of August, 1990s when growth rates in the East were at about 8 per- regular protests were also taking place in Berlin and west- cent and levels of unemployment, productivity, innova- ern cities such as Hamburg, Munich, Kassel, Düsseldorf, tion and investment were all showing movement in fa- Saarbrücken and other towns in the Ruhr region. vorable directions. There is widespread disillusionment The anti-globalization group Attac, which is moni- toring the protests, believes demonstrations have oc- curred in 140 cities across the country. When thousands protested in front of Saint Nicholas’s Church in Leipzig on August 16th, many explicitly invoked their participa- tion in the Monday Demonstrations of 1989, carrying ban- ners with statements such as: “We have brought down the government before!” and “1989-2004: We’re back!” “Wir sind das Volk!” reappeared alongside demands for Chancellor Schröder’s resignation and the withdrawal of the Hartz IV reform proposal. The demonstrators rep- resent a broad demographic crosscut, ranging from pen- sioners to young families to leftist, university-age anti- globalization activists. Young neo-Nazis have also been present at demonstrations, but have been shunned by the majority of protesters. For many older participants, these are the first demonstrations they have attended since late 1989, and the anti-reform demonstrations are by far the largest in Germany since the fall of the GDR. At the Leipzig demonstration, Reinhard Sauper, a 50- year-old mechanic who has been unemployed for four years, told a reporter, “We have been thoroughly be- trayed. Helmut Kohl promised us ‘flourishing land- scapes’ and look what happened. Now Schröder comes along and tells us that cuts are necessary in order to cre- ate new jobs. This is complete nonsense. It has been a downhill development all along.” Sauper and others were incensed last month when the government sent out a 16- page questionnaire to all those who have been unem- ployed for more than a year requesting extensive finan- Monday Demonstration, September 8, 2004 in Magdeburg; cial and personal data, as well as a record of attempts to photo: Der Spiegel find employment. Sauper called the questionnaire “scan- 2 JW-2 ent also demanded a halt to the demonstrations, claiming that to call the present protests “Monday Demonstrations” is an embarrassment to the legacy of the revolution of 1989 and “an insult to the civic courage shown by many East Germans.” Many pro- testers who were involved in the 1989 demonstra- tions disagree, and go so far as to say that the cur- rent government is cynically trying to dismiss this mass movement by calling into question the pro- testers’ aims and moral right to dissent. Many of the protesters see the current wave of Monday Demonstrations as an ethically appropri- ate and direct extension of those of 1989. They claim that current conditions in eastern Germany are a result of the missed opportunities and failures of reunification. Winifried Helbig, a veteran of the 1989 protests, commented: “The people went out into the streets in 1989 because they could see no future for themselves, and this is the case for many people today as well. The Monday Demonstrations are a brand name, one that reminds us of past vic- tories and current disappointments.” Attac, the anti-globalization group comprised of mainly young students, responded to criticisms by saying, “We want to remember 1989, when the people said, ‘that’s enough’.” Christian Führer, a dalous” and said, “these are impertinent questions, and Saint Nicholas’s pastor at who was involved in organiz- their only aim is to reduce any claims as much as pos- ing the Leipzig protests in 1989, is playing a role in the sible.” Another demonstrator, Mona Ragy, explained that latest round of Monday Demonstrations by once again she had participated in the 1989 demonstrations and that opening the Church to protesters as a center for organi- although basic democratic rights had been achieved by zation and peaceful protest. He countered claims that the those protests, they need to be defended and preserved demonstrators were putting Schröder’s government on today. Ragy claimed that Schröder has only perpetuated a par with the communist East-German regime with, “You and intensified the policies of social injustice initiated by can’t say, ‘We’re happy that you marched against the com- then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the early 1990s. She munists, but you should shut up now.’ That’s totally un- called for both the withdrawal of Hartz IV and the resig- acceptable.” In an interview with Stephan Löwenstein in nation of Gerhard Schröder.