Peaceful Revolution 1989: Utopia in a Nutshell

Back to the Future, adapted from a US science fiction trilogy, is the title of a series of events organized by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, which deals with the turning points in (East) German history in 1949 and 1989 as well as the present. On Tuesday evening, the focus was on the events 35 years ago in Leipzig. First, a film was shown that was made in those days, shot by a small team from the Defa documentation studio. However, before it was said “Off!”, an apology from the filmmakers could be read on the screen in the foundation’s Berlin conference hall that they had not already done so in the turbulent September ’89 and in the dramatic days around October 7th. The 40th anniversary of the GDR, were there, with the people on the streets and squares of the smaller German republic: “We couldn’t do it.” This laconic sentence conceals the entire dilemma of the majority of GDR journalists at the time, their inner one Tornness, on the one hand, wanting to be with the people who are breaking out and breaking out, to live up to their reporting or chronicling duty or even to show partisanship, and on the other hand, to be trapped and trapped in loyalty to the state and party.

“We were only there from October 16th,” admits Gerd Kroske, one of the authors of the film “Leipzig in Autumn”. He reports how he and his colleagues were surprised that, after the decision had been made to travel to the focal point of Leipzig, even without the blessing of the bosses, the magazine was generously opened with film cassettes and they were given plenty of Orwo rolls from the Wolfen film factory in a country where even paper for newspapers and publishers was rationed. And how they then experienced being welcome: “People were waiting for us, their own people, to question them, not just the Western media, ARD or ZDF.” The author and director has pleasant memories of the fact that no one at the Demonstrations and rallies shouted or rioted, people even apologized if they interrupted someone in the heat of open, public discourse.

You look at serious, thoughtful faces. “It’s time for something to change in this country,” says one of the demonstrators. He wasn’t interested in bananas or a visa to Hamburg, the other person was. Not about abolishing socialism, but rather improving it. No more bullying from above, they wanted to be responsible citizens. Posters and banners call for “free elections,” the abolition of Article 1 of the GDR constitution (“leading role” of the SED) and the approval of the New Forum. No more hollow slogans, no more empty words such as “Work with us, plan with us, govern with us.” The most drastic statement the Defa team heard in those days: “They screwed us over for 40 years.”

You can see garbage collectors who have to collect the posters and banners the night after to shred them. “I would have left them on,” says one. “They’re right.” Kroske and his followers also questioned the other side: the state power, in uniform or with party badges. Even if the language and habitus are old, seriousness and thoughtfulness also dominate. And relief that the confrontation didn’t end bloodily and that a brutal operational order was withdrawn at the last minute: “That was close.” Between the fronts were young conscripts from the riot police who carried out orders, “but not out of conviction,” as one emphasized. Another remembers dragging a young woman by her hair and is ashamed of it.

That young woman was Katrin Hattenhauer. On September 4, ’89, at the time of the Leipzig Autumn Fair, the 20-year-old and her friend Gesine Oltmann unrolled the famous banner “For an open country with free people” that was captured by the world’s cameras. She was arrested at the following Monday demonstration. The artist and civil rights activist let the audience in Berlin know on Tuesday evening that she was astonished that in the award-winning children’s animated film “Fritzi – A Revolutionary Miracle Story,” a German-Luxembourgish-Belgian-Czech co-production, this very banner was depicted by two men, “a bearded man and one in a parka”. It was precisely women who significantly brought about and supported the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR. For Katrin Hattenhauer, who helped initiate the Leipzig Monday demonstrations with her spectacular action, but was then only able to follow the subsequent events from her prison cell, it was important to point out that no one thought of reunification at the time and no one in the opposition wanted it had. And in fact, the call for such a thing does not appear in the film clip shown.

Moderator Knut Elstermann, film journalist and author (“I used to be a film child”, “Gerda’s Silence”) finds the documentary film “Leipzig in Autumn”, which is actually eleven hours long, “touching” in its immediacy, directness and authenticity. Kroske sees “utopia burned into a nutshell” in the film he co-directed with his colleague Andreas Voigt. Katrin Hattenhauer, on the other hand, speaks of a “time capsule,” which certainly implies the hope that the expectations and ideas of the time will be recovered again and possibly fulfilled. At least with regard to social discourse: progressive, optimistic mood, non-violent and constructive, instead of confrontation, verbally and physically aggressive.

“Fighting for the future – protests for ‘tomorrow’” was the subtitle of the Federal Foundation’s event. Unusual for an institution whose primary task is to demonize the GDR as a totalitarian regime in its entirety, to deny any progressive legacy that may be associated with it and to shy away like the devil from holy water, utopias that go beyond the current social order. A new generation of scientists seems to have arrived in this house, with a new perspective and new questions.

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