Hungary was not the only escape route for East Germans anxious to leave their country. Thousands drove to Warsaw and Prague, abandoned their Trabis in the streets, and took refuge in the local West German embassies. Like their counterparts in the Budapest embassy, these people refused to leave their sanctuaries until given travel documents enabling them to go west. By the end of September there were over 10,000 East Germans encamped in the Prague complex alone, making it Europe’s largest squat. With shelter and sanitation facilities stretched to the limit, the Red Gross warned of an imminent health crisis. Harried embassy officials could not simply evict the refugees because Bonn regarded all East Germans as West Germans-in-waiting, entitled to instant citizenship should they demand it. Finally, on September 30, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher flew to Prague and announced that Bonn and East Berlin had worked out an arrangement allowing the embassy occupiers there and in Warsaw to emigrate to West Germany. As an assertion of GDR sovereignty, Honecker insisted that all the refugees pass through East Germany on their way to the Federal Republic. Officially classed as “expellees,” they would be transported in sealed trains and have their GDR identity papers taken from them en route. As they boarded their trains on October 3–4, Neues Deutschland sneered that the departing ingrates would not be missed: “Through their [unpatriotic] behavior they have trampled on the moral values of the GDR and isolated themselves. . . . Therefore one should not cry any tears of regret at their departure.” But instead of echoing this official verdict, thousands of East Germans came to the railway stations to cheer the refugees as they headed west. At the Dresden station a riot ensued when hundreds of people tried to force their way onto one of the sealed trains. A large police force, backed by units of the National People’s Army, beat back the would-be escapees with clubs. Nobody managed to get on the train, but one young man fell under the wheels and lost both legs. Upon reaching the West German border the exhausted but ecstatic refugees were showered with gifts and embraced like long-lost brothers.
In the late summer and early fall of 1989, as the GDR government prepared to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the state’s foundation, the prevailing mood among the populace was anything but celebratory. In cities and villages across the country shop windows and factory gates sported signs advertising for new employees. The place was like a battered old car whose tires were going flat—hardly the sort of conveyance in which one could confidently drive into the bright Communist future. The GDR citizens who chose to stick it out at home insisted that their loyalty be rewarded with genuine reforms, including the freedom to travel when and where they wished. Having been told for so long that theirs was a nation by and for the people, they accompanied their demands for greater freedom with cries of “We are the people!”
The largest protest demonstrations were in Dresden and Leipzig, not in East Berlin. Reflecting its status as a bastion of SED loyalty, the East German capital had so far failed to generate large-scale displays of civil courage like the Monday night vigils in Leipzig, where on October 2 over 10,000 citizens demonstrated for freedom. A visitor to the GDR who stayed only in East Berlin might well have agreed with Honecker when he bragged that the Berlin Wall would stand for another one hundred years.
Even Honecker, however, worried that his capital might not put on a properly loyal face during the upcoming anniversary celebration, scheduled for October 6–7. Gorbachev would be the chief guest of honor, and there was reason to fear that his presence might ignite efforts to turn the birthday party into a riotous confrontation with the authorities. The SED chief could imagine a local version of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square protests, which, in Honecker’s view, the Chinese comrades had let go on for far too long before cracking down. To ensure that his capital remained tranquil during the anniversary celebration he brought in thousands of extra police and Stasi agents; army units were also moved into the city. East Berlin had never been short on signs of official vigilance, but now it resembled a high-security prison, with armed guards on every corner. Surveying the scene on the eve of the anniversary, G. Jonathan Greenwald, political counselor in the American embassy in East Berlin, observed: “There is a body politic odor of nervousness, uncertainty, even fear.”
Gorbachev flew in on the morning of the sixth. In order to reduce the size and spontaneity of the welcome, his arrival and schedule were not announced. Only a few shouts of “Gorby! Gorby!” went up as his motorcade proceeded down Unter den Linden. At an official reception one man blurted out “Gorby, help us!”, to which the Soviet leader reportedly replied, “Don’t panic.” Throughout the two-day affair, the police and Stasi managed to prevent significant disruptions, but this required a liberal use of force. In the late afternoon of October 7, about 400 young people gathered in the Alexanderplatz shouting “Gorbachev! Freedom!” When the crowd moved toward the Palace of the Republic, where the final reception was in progress, the police herded the marchers into side streets and made arrests by the score. On the night of October 8 hundreds of people gathered in the streets around the Gethsemane Church in Prenzlauer Berg. They waved pictures of Gorbachev and called for the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The police closed off the area and attacked the demonstrators with clubs, which succeeded only in making the demonstrators more resolute. As one protester recalled: “I never knew how hard a billy-club was. And in that moment I thought, ‘It’s right for me to be here.’” For another demonstrator, the police behavior made what the regime called Staatsfeindlichkeit—being an enemy of the state—“not just a question of political temperament, but a matter of morality.”
The authorities’ ready use of force stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent tactics of the protesters. A visitor from West Berlin, an aging ’68er, scoffed to Counselor Greenwald about the passivity and small size of the East Berlin demonstrations compared to the legendary anti-Shah riot in West Berlin in June 1967. What would the East Berlin “pigs” have done, the West Berliner wondered, if they had been faced with the large numbers and tough tactics that his generation had employed? Greenwald, who actually knew something about the East German authorities, was understandably irritated by such puffed-up naïveté. “These police are not like those you played against as students,” he replied. “There is a chance for real change here, but if the old men feel their state’s existence and their own power is at stake, there could be a bloodbath.”
Gorbachev, the man whose name was so often invoked by the protesters, was careful throughout the fortieth anniversary celebration not to embarrass his hosts by openly upbraiding them for their lack of reforming zeal. Honecker was not so considerate in return. In a private meeting with the Soviet leader he reminded him that living standards in the USSR were lower than in the GDR. “Your problems are worse than ours,” he insisted. Such talk could hardly have endeared Honecker to the Russian, and in a meeting with the Politbüro Gorbachev signaled his irritation by warning that “life punishes those who come too late.” At least two Politbüro members, Egon Krenz and Günther Schabowski, got the impression that Gorbachev believed that Honecker ought to be ousted in the near future, a conclusion that they had already reached themselves.
Honecker’s “punishment” for falling behind was not long in coming. The event that provided the immediate impetus for his ouster occurred not in East Berlin but in Leipzig, the old Saxon town that was becoming known as “the city of heroes.” A mass demonstration of 50,000 marchers was announced for the night of October 9. Asked by his party colleagues how the regime should respond, Honecker provided no answer. He seemed irresolute, confused, and befuddled. Perhaps he believed that if he gave an order to shoot it would not be carried out. He certainly knew that the Soviets would not approve of a violent crackdown. In the end, he left the decision about how to handle the Leipzig situation to his defense minister, Heinz Keßler, and to the regional party bosses. When 50,000 Leipzigers set out on their march from the Nikolaikirche on the night of October 9, they had no idea how the authorities would react. Fearing the worst, Kurt Masur, the influential director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, urged both the marchers and the authorities to remain calm. As the march progressed, the police slowly melted back. There was no firing, no mass arrests. “We’ve won!” shouted the demonstrators. At this point, they did not realize how much they had won: their victory in the battle for Leipzig was a victory in the war for the future of Germany.