I happened across this article today...
The man who opened the Berlin Wall has no regrets
Published: 26 March 2009
By Joost van der Vaart
http://www.nrc.nl/international/arti...has_no_regrets
Günter Schabowski wanted to reform the GDR but unwittingly ushered in its final demise. 'I was nothing more than an instrument,' he says twenty years later.
BERLIN - He is the man who fired the starting pistol. Almost twenty years ago Günter Schabowski unwittingly opened the Berlin Wall, thus signing the death warrant of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
The honour is not his, he says. "It was the GDR citizens who caused the peaceful revolution in November 1989 with their pressure from the ranks. They demolished the Wall and the border between East and West Germany. I was nothing more than an instrument in that process."
'Folks, we mustn't do that again'
Schabowski, 80, once a convinced communist, speaks out in the anniversary year of the fall of the Berlin Wall – and he does so without any self-flattery. He has just published a book about the last days of the GDR. It has become a political testament, one in which he comes to terms with his past under the revealing title Wir haben fast alles falsch gemacht [We did almost everything wrong].
At the time of the GDR, Schabowski was editor in chief of Neues Deutschland [New Germany], the newspaper of the unity party SED. He was later included in the politburo, the group of high ranking party officials that governed the republic of labourers and farmers - with an iron fist and one eye on Moscow at all times. "All important decisions went via the Soviet Union. I heard about my appointment as editor in chief from the Russians, not from my own party leadership," he says.
Schabowski would rather not say what party he votes for these days. But he stopped being a communist a long time ago. "The only achievement of the system was that it failed. So we can now say: 'Folks, we mustn't do that again.' The GDR was a fundamentally flawed society."
In the early evening of November 9, 1989, Günter Schabowski wrote history. He was chosen by his boss Egon Krenz, one of the last GDR leaders, to inform the international press of the reforms the new party leadership was considering in response to the massive protests of the days before. It was at that press conference, broadcast live in the GDR, that it happened: a series of coincidences led to a key moment in the Wende, the peaceful revolution in East Germany.
Schabowski: "As party leadership we had drafted a new travel act which we thought everyone would be happy with. It stated that henceforth all GDR citizens were free to travel after obtaining permission from the authorities. But no one was happy, on the contrary. The word 'permission' led to great outrage. Every citizen knew that in the GDR permission could always be refused.'
Historic words
"Krenz and I decided to correct that. For us this travel regulation was ultimately just a small part of a much larger package of political and economic reforms. Krenz gave me a sheet of paper that I was to read at the press conference. Among other things, that text reformulated the travel law, this time without the word 'permission'. I was very tense. An Italian journalist asked a question about travel. I quickly read out what was on the paper, to avoid further questions. But a reporter from [the West-German tabloid newspaper] Bild asked when the new travel regulation would come into effect. That wasn't mentioned in Krenz's written explanation. So I had to say something."
And those became historic words: "As far as I know, it comes into effect now, with immediate effect." That's when things got out of hand. Schabowski: "Less than an hour later the Trabants were heading to the border crossings en masse. There was no end to them, it was that crowded."
It was not without danger, this stampede. The border patrols had instructions to shoot in the event of illegal border crossing. Schabowski says they had not been informed of the new travel regulation which he had unintentionally put into effect that evening. "It could easily have gone wrong, it could have been a bloodbath. But thanks to [the border patrol's] caution and discipline, and also because they did not want to endanger their own future, they refrained [ from shooting]. Fortunately they acted like normal people."
Self-criticism
In that turbulent year Schabowski was one of three innovators in the politburo who had staged a coup to remove Erich Honecker, the long-standing leader of the GDR. Honecker's position had become untenable after the reforms Mikhail Gorbachev had already allowed in the Soviet Union. Schabowski: "From that moment on the continued existence of the GDR was acutely threatened. Every day three- to five-hundred people managed to cross the border. We had to do something."
Honecker was deposed after mass protests. Krenz took the reins, supported by Schabowski, Siegfried Lorenz and others. "Only with a coup to depose Honecker could we save ourselves. I sometimes wonder now how we, who had grown up under Stalinism after all, were able to come to such an absurd idea as deposing the secretary-general, the party leader himself."
Ideologically speaking, Schabowski was still entrenched in the old school. He remained a communist to the very end. When at the beginning of January 1990 he was expelled from the SED, it was a definitive and painful break. "If you have lived and breathed the ideology for so long and so deeply, letting go of it is difficult. I was expelled from the party because they blamed me for the new travel act, which after all had ushered in the end of the GDR. But I had wanted to save the GDR in fact. I was outraged. 'I will never see you again' - with those words I left the party conference."
In contrast to many party officials from the GDR time, Schabowski does not suffer any nostalgia for East Germany, for the safe yet constrained existence of those times. He is full of self-criticism and confronts his past head on. He attends debates, talks to the media and gives lectures. He agrees that not everything went smoothly after reunification. But Schabowski is cautious about criticising.
"Unification is a unique and difficult process. Don't forget that the GDR was bankrupt. The businesses were nothing in comparison to their western competitors. The people who are now so critical, often former party officials, must realise that they themselves are responsible for the bankruptcy [of the GDR] and its consequences."
The man who opened the Berlin Wall has no regrets
Published: 26 March 2009
By Joost van der Vaart
http://www.nrc.nl/international/arti...has_no_regrets
Günter Schabowski wanted to reform the GDR but unwittingly ushered in its final demise. 'I was nothing more than an instrument,' he says twenty years later.
BERLIN - He is the man who fired the starting pistol. Almost twenty years ago Günter Schabowski unwittingly opened the Berlin Wall, thus signing the death warrant of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
The honour is not his, he says. "It was the GDR citizens who caused the peaceful revolution in November 1989 with their pressure from the ranks. They demolished the Wall and the border between East and West Germany. I was nothing more than an instrument in that process."
'Folks, we mustn't do that again'
Schabowski, 80, once a convinced communist, speaks out in the anniversary year of the fall of the Berlin Wall – and he does so without any self-flattery. He has just published a book about the last days of the GDR. It has become a political testament, one in which he comes to terms with his past under the revealing title Wir haben fast alles falsch gemacht [We did almost everything wrong].
At the time of the GDR, Schabowski was editor in chief of Neues Deutschland [New Germany], the newspaper of the unity party SED. He was later included in the politburo, the group of high ranking party officials that governed the republic of labourers and farmers - with an iron fist and one eye on Moscow at all times. "All important decisions went via the Soviet Union. I heard about my appointment as editor in chief from the Russians, not from my own party leadership," he says.
Schabowski would rather not say what party he votes for these days. But he stopped being a communist a long time ago. "The only achievement of the system was that it failed. So we can now say: 'Folks, we mustn't do that again.' The GDR was a fundamentally flawed society."
In the early evening of November 9, 1989, Günter Schabowski wrote history. He was chosen by his boss Egon Krenz, one of the last GDR leaders, to inform the international press of the reforms the new party leadership was considering in response to the massive protests of the days before. It was at that press conference, broadcast live in the GDR, that it happened: a series of coincidences led to a key moment in the Wende, the peaceful revolution in East Germany.
Schabowski: "As party leadership we had drafted a new travel act which we thought everyone would be happy with. It stated that henceforth all GDR citizens were free to travel after obtaining permission from the authorities. But no one was happy, on the contrary. The word 'permission' led to great outrage. Every citizen knew that in the GDR permission could always be refused.'
Historic words
"Krenz and I decided to correct that. For us this travel regulation was ultimately just a small part of a much larger package of political and economic reforms. Krenz gave me a sheet of paper that I was to read at the press conference. Among other things, that text reformulated the travel law, this time without the word 'permission'. I was very tense. An Italian journalist asked a question about travel. I quickly read out what was on the paper, to avoid further questions. But a reporter from [the West-German tabloid newspaper] Bild asked when the new travel regulation would come into effect. That wasn't mentioned in Krenz's written explanation. So I had to say something."
And those became historic words: "As far as I know, it comes into effect now, with immediate effect." That's when things got out of hand. Schabowski: "Less than an hour later the Trabants were heading to the border crossings en masse. There was no end to them, it was that crowded."
It was not without danger, this stampede. The border patrols had instructions to shoot in the event of illegal border crossing. Schabowski says they had not been informed of the new travel regulation which he had unintentionally put into effect that evening. "It could easily have gone wrong, it could have been a bloodbath. But thanks to [the border patrol's] caution and discipline, and also because they did not want to endanger their own future, they refrained [ from shooting]. Fortunately they acted like normal people."
Self-criticism
In that turbulent year Schabowski was one of three innovators in the politburo who had staged a coup to remove Erich Honecker, the long-standing leader of the GDR. Honecker's position had become untenable after the reforms Mikhail Gorbachev had already allowed in the Soviet Union. Schabowski: "From that moment on the continued existence of the GDR was acutely threatened. Every day three- to five-hundred people managed to cross the border. We had to do something."
Honecker was deposed after mass protests. Krenz took the reins, supported by Schabowski, Siegfried Lorenz and others. "Only with a coup to depose Honecker could we save ourselves. I sometimes wonder now how we, who had grown up under Stalinism after all, were able to come to such an absurd idea as deposing the secretary-general, the party leader himself."
Ideologically speaking, Schabowski was still entrenched in the old school. He remained a communist to the very end. When at the beginning of January 1990 he was expelled from the SED, it was a definitive and painful break. "If you have lived and breathed the ideology for so long and so deeply, letting go of it is difficult. I was expelled from the party because they blamed me for the new travel act, which after all had ushered in the end of the GDR. But I had wanted to save the GDR in fact. I was outraged. 'I will never see you again' - with those words I left the party conference."
In contrast to many party officials from the GDR time, Schabowski does not suffer any nostalgia for East Germany, for the safe yet constrained existence of those times. He is full of self-criticism and confronts his past head on. He attends debates, talks to the media and gives lectures. He agrees that not everything went smoothly after reunification. But Schabowski is cautious about criticising.
"Unification is a unique and difficult process. Don't forget that the GDR was bankrupt. The businesses were nothing in comparison to their western competitors. The people who are now so critical, often former party officials, must realise that they themselves are responsible for the bankruptcy [of the GDR] and its consequences."
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