Exhibition theme: Protest and Flight: A nationwide human chain for democratic renewal in the GDR [5/56]
OBJECT INFORMATION
Info
December 3 1989
Berlin, Prenzlauer Allee/Dimitroffstraße, now known as Danziger Straße
Created By:
Thomas WiesenackLicense: Not Creative Commons
A human chain on Prenzlauer Allee, part of the human chain accross the entire GDR that hundreds of thousands of citizens participated in on 3 December 1989
Depicts
banderole,
crowd,
demonstration,
human chain,
street,
traffic lightPlaces
Other places (Berlin)Text in image
Stalinisten- / Kalte Krieger / Krenz / Schabowksi / Schwanitz / Niemals wieder
Other items in this set
Ultimately, it was the citizens of the GDR themselves who brought down the SED regime. From the summer of 1989 on, thousands of East Germans tried to flee to the West across the Hungarian-Austrian border and via the West German embassies in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw. In East Germany itself, ever greater numbers of people supported the demands of the citizens' movements for free elections, freedom of the press, and freedom to travel, despite their fear of state repression. In October, mass protests, which now involved hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, spread across the entire country. Aware that their protest could no longer be stopped, people increasingly felt a desire to capture events on film.