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Sources of East Germany Revolution and German Unification Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe Volume 11 Issue 3 Article 2 5-1991 Sources of East Germany Revolution and German Unification Frederick O. Bonkovsky Columbia Seminary Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree Part of the Christianity Commons, and the Eastern European Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bonkovsky, Frederick O. (1991) "Sources of East Germany Revolution and German Unification," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 11 : Iss. 3 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol11/iss3/2 This Article, Exploration, or Report is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SOURCES OF EAST GERMAN REVOLUTION AND GERMAN UNIFICATION1 by Frederick 0. Bonkovsky Dr. Frederick Otto Bonkovsky is professor at Columbia Seminary and teaches at Columbia and Emory University in the University Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Frankfurt and the University of Berlin, Germany. He was educated at Harvard University--Ph.D., Yale University­ -M. Div., U. of Berlin--Certificate, Muskingum College--B.S. His writings on Central Europe haye appeared in Evangelische Kommentare, Commonweal, Worldview, and The German Church Struggle. His related books include International Norms and National Policy and The Built Environment: Present and Future Values. For the first time in its 2000 year history, Germany has been united peacefully. In retrospect we can now see that the path to reunification and the revolution in East Germany received major direction and impetus in the confrontations of January I 7, I 988, and the events which followed. The East German autocratic and single party regime sustained blows in early I 988 from which it never recovered. It lost its internal cohesion and its self-confidence. Thus when winds of change gathered force from East and West, the totalitarian bulwark tottered and collapsed. Once the political and social cement was gone, the Berlin Wall fell easily. By late 1989, the Cold War was officially ended, even in Germany, the center of the old battlefields. A new Germany was born in October, 1990. A new Europe waits in the wings. This essay details how that arterial flow worked internally and persistently to renew East Germany in the months leading to fall, 1989. We begin with an overview of the event of January, 1988, and the challenges and changes they occasioned. It is important to have in mind the changing shape of East German and Eastern European society throughout the I 980s. By the late I 980s the regime in the person of Erich Honecker had lost its youthful hard line enthusiasm. On the other side, a significant and impressive array of system critics had arisen and found support in various quarters. 1 For their support in making possible the research and observations underlying this essay, the author thanks Columbia Seminary, the Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany, and the Fulbright Scholars Program. 21 But the most dramatic decisions of 1988 (and 1989) were made by Protestant church leaders who with great skill and ultimate success sought change in state and society while protecting human rights and moral freedom. The church risked much, including its own traditional identity. The final outcome of that risk is not known. But in the years 1988- 1990, there was no more important source for change than the persons grouped around the traditional churches. THINKING DIFFERENTLY The revolution began with a reaffirmation of the ancient regime. On January 17, 1988, 200,000 of the committed marched to the graves of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Led by Communist East German State and Party Chief Erich Honecker, they commemorated the Spartacists' murders in 1920�. At the old Frankfurt gate in East Berlin dissenters tried to join the march. Their placards proclaimed Luxemburg's bold anti-imperial slogan, "Freedom must be freedom for those who think differently." Scores of dissenters were quickly rounded up by the police and security agents. In the following hours, the security services conducted raids on homes and other buildings. Offices and rooms controlled by the Protestant church and used by groups with church approval were searched. About one hundred people were arrested, including many of East Germany's best-known system critics. Vera Wollenburger, the most prominent leader of the Protestant "Church from Below," was arrested, quickly tried, found guilty, and imprisoned without possibility of appeal. The 'Ecology Library' at East Berlin's Zion Church was searched, as they had been in November, 1987. The ecologist leaders were jailed. The police knew exactly where to look for evidence. The crackdown was felt across Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Charges ranged from rowdyism and anti-social behavior to treason and working with agents of capitalism (for which sentences of 12 years were proposed). Of the first I 00 arrested, 60 were immediately expelled to West Germany. Two famous East German artists were jailed, Stephan Krawczyk, the poet and balladeer, and his theatrical director wife, Freya Klier. The prosecutor proposed sentences of 12 years given the accused' histories of statements and songs which criticized the GDR. Moreover, the prosecution charged that the two and others had direct and treasonous contacts with agents of western capitalism. Krawcyzk and Klier thus accepted expulsion to West Germany rather than 12 years prison terms. But they violated their agreement by immediately holding a western press conference in which they proclaimed their continuing solidarity with friends in East Germany and noted that they had left the GDR only under the meanest of pressures. 22 In the East German churches the nation-wide Allianc-e Prayer Week had ended. But across the country, large groups gathered in churches every night to pray for the arrested and for the leaders of society and state. In East Berlin there were nightly services where thousands gathered. The 1945 Four Power Status and the Quadriparteid Agreements of 1972 assured some openness to East Berlin. So western journalists and observers could be present. For weeks, the events in East Berlin made daily headlines in West German newspapers and on national television and the radio. Seventy-five million German and millions more in other countries followed the developments in East Berlin very carefully indeed. The BBC World Service and other world communications networks covered the events extensively. G.D.R. DISSENT AND DEVELOPMENT While the dissenters were a diverse group, the most prominent may be grouped under such titles as perspective emigrees, the system critics, and the rowdies. Many of these were younger people. This at least seemed to be how progressive circles within the Socialist Unity Party [S.E.D.](the ruling coalition of political groups controlled and led by the communist party) viewed their non-Communist opponents. New awareness and perspectives characterized the younger generation in East Germany. Born after Stalin and reared after the Berlin Wall of 1961, young people viewed the GDR as part of an established East European System. The young differed from their elders who had extensive personal contact with Western Germany and could recall Stalinism or Nazism. The GDR was almost 40 years old. Its younger adults were educated under state socialism and had been socialized to believe in the promises and ideals of communism. More than any other, German socialism in the 1970's had been successful in producing a good and equitable standard of living for its people. In 1978, the GDR was rated the worlds tenth greatest industrial power and its standard of living was estimated by British scholars as exceeding that of the United Kingdom. Economically, the 1980s were not a good decade for the GDR and Eastern Europe. Recent estimates put East Germany 26th by world standards. It no longer challenged highly advanced western societies. The GDR stagnated economically while parts of the west boomed and much of Eastern Europe declined noticeably. Politically, however, elements in the GDR became more daring and liberated during the past decade. The context was a Berlin situation normalized in 1972 by Four Power agreement. Communications to and from West Berlin were guaranteed. East Berlin made major strides in rebuilding and becoming the world's showcase of socialism. 23 State and Party Chief Erich Honecker was increasingly active in international relations. In 1988-89 he paid the first East German official visits to Paris and Bonn. He received the President of Greece in East Berlin. Having entertained West German chancellor Schmidt some years earlier, in 1987 East Germany was visited by the conservative Bavarian minister­ president, Franz-Josef Strauss. Sitting West German chancellor Kohl owed Honecker a return visit. But the revolution of November, 1989, transformed Kohl's visit into an electoral campaign wherein Kohl's Christian Democratic Union triumphed. Honecker was not the only East German travelling. In 1988 there were three million visits by GDR citizens to West Germany, two million of them by persons of pre-retirement age. Fewer than one percent of those who visited stayed in the West. Not everyone was permitted to visit, of course. Families often had to stay at home while members visited the west. But overall, the GDR was loosening its controls. PERSPECTIVE EMIGREES In 1988 it was estimated that some 200,000 East German citizens had officially applied· and were waiting to immigrate to West Germany (Official DDR sources said 20,000). When emigres arrived in the West, they were immediately given full citizenship papers, social benefits, some money, and help in finding work.
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