Leipzig city tour on the subject of the “Peaceful Revolution”
A city tour of Leipzig can be undertaken from many different perspectives, alone or with a guide. There is a lot to discover, so we set off in search of clues through the city.
From a historical point of view, Leipzig is certainly not boring and we can highly recommend taking part in a guided tour on the subject of the “Peaceful Revolution in the fall of 1989”. Although there are very well-constructed steles all over the city that tell of the events, a guided tour with a contemporary witness is much more emotional. When you are told how the time was experienced not only on paper but also live on site, you can understand many things even better.
When was the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig and how did it go?
The Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig took place in the fall of 1989. A decisive moment was the Leipzig Monday Demonstration on October 9, 1989, which is considered a turning point for the entire subsequent development. On this day, 70,000 people took to the streets to demonstrate peacefully against the SED dictatorship and for freedom and justice.
The prayers for peace in Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche, which took place on Mondays from November 1982, played an important role in the Peaceful Revolution. From the beginning of the 1980s, these prayers were a decisive milestone on the road to overcoming the division of Germany and Europe.
It is important to emphasize that the outcome of the Peaceful Revolution was uncertain and that the courage and determination of the people in the GDR were decisive for the success of the revolution.
What were the consequences of the Peaceful Revolution?
The Peaceful Revolution had several significant consequences that still have an impact on Germany today:
Collapse of the socialist state The most important consequence was the collapse of the socialist state in East Germany and the end of the SED dictatorship.
Fall of the Berlin Wall Another significant event was the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, which is considered a symbol of the success of the Peaceful Revolution. This marked the end of the division of Germany.
Reunification of Germany The Peaceful Revolution ultimately led to the reunification of Germany.
Social change The Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig also led to profound social change. The opposition movements in the socialist countries and the opening of the border, which had divided Europe for decades, heralded the end of the Cold War’s systemic confrontation.
City tour of some of the sites of the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig
The tour introduces some of the places that played a decisive role in the events of fall 1989. There are certainly many other places where history was made, as there was a sense of upheaval everywhere in the city at the time.
Main Post Office
We start our tour at the building of Leipzig’s former main post office. The building was constructed between 1961 and 1964 and represents a building of GDR modernism. The building is located on Augustusplatz (formerly Karl-Marx-Platz). Today, a hotel has moved in.
If you look at historical photographs from 1989, you will notice the large clock on the façade. Today, this clock can be used to document the exact course of the revolutionary days. On October 9, 1989, an estimated 70,000 participants marched peacefully in front of the building and just one week later around 120,000 participants passed by. During the demonstrations, numerous security forces were positioned on the roof, who would have intervened in the demonstration if ordered to do so.
Gewandhaus
When you think of the Gewandhaus, the first thing that comes to mind is the outstanding concerts that are played there. In the fall of 1989, however, completely different events took place there. The “Leipzig Six” met here.
The “Leipzig Six” refers to a group of six people who played a decisive role during the peaceful revolution in Leipzig in 1989 with their joint call for non-violence during the Monday demonstration on October 9, 1989.
The group consisted of the following people:
Kurt Masur, conductor
Bernd Lutz Lange, cabaret artist
Peter F. Zimmermann, theologian
Kurt Meyer, SED district leadership
Jochen Pommert, SED district leadership
Roland Wützel, SED district leadership
Their call for calm and non-violence led to a relaxation of the situation and the armed forces were not deployed. Kurt Masur, the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, played a special role. He read out the appeal against violence, which had been jointly formulated by representatives of the GDR state leadership and the opposition.
Just a few days later, the “Dialogue at Karl-Marx-Platz” was held for the first time. This answered questions from the population and within a short space of time, the Gewandhaus no longer had enough room for the interested audience. The event was transferred to the stairwells and adjoining corridors.
Democracy bell
The Democracy Bell on Augustusplatz looks like an egg. If we hadn’t been told during the tour that it was a bell, I wouldn’t have noticed it.
It was designed by the artist Via Lewandowsky from Berlin, who won the Leipzig Cultural Foundation’s design competition. The bell was cast in Lauchhammer in August 2009 and the striking mechanism inside was manufactured by Uhrentechnik Schnabel from Klinga.
The Democracy Bell is dedicated to the Peaceful Revolution and was inaugurated on the 20th anniversary of the Monday demonstration of October 9, 1989, i.e. on October 9, 2009. The bell strikes twelve times every Monday at 6:35 p.m., in reference to the beginning of the Monday demonstration on October 9, 1989. On all other days, the bell strikes between one and up to twelve strokes randomly once every hour on the hour between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
St. Nicholas Church
St. Nicholas Church is located in the heart of Leipzig’s old town. In the 1980s, a movement emerged there which, in retrospect, was one of the beginnings of the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig.
Every Monday, the church opened its doors and invited people to the “Nikolaikirche-offen für alle” (“Nikolai Church open to all”) event. In times of increasing threats from nuclear weapons, prayers for peace took place there in a protected space. Every Monday at 5 p.m., interrupted only by a summer break, these prayers are still held today.
The campaign was not without controversy at the time. Non-Christians also came to the church and expressed their opinions or criticized topics such as environmental protection or urban decay. However, the dialog was unstoppable and more and more interested people came. Until finally, on October 9, 1989, around 70,000 people dared to express their opinions and rebel against the regime in the Monday demonstration.
Old Nikolai School
Whenever visitors to the weekly prayers for peace left the church, they were made very aware of the state of the city’s historic buildings. The Alte Nikolaischule, which was built in 1512 and where many well-known personalities had studied, was actually just a ruin.
For many visitors to the church, this sight was almost a memorial symbolizing the state of affairs in the country.
Today there is a fountain in front of the Alte Nikolaikirche. It symbolically represents what happened back then. The water gradually fills the basin until at some point “the barrel overflows” and it seeks a new path. The citizens of the town felt the same way. The “barrel” of dissatisfaction with the political system and living conditions was filled to the brim and the last drop caused it to overflow and the Peaceful Revolution movement could no longer be unfolded.
Interpelz building
The building, which now houses a hotel, played a small but decisive role in the course of the fall of 1989. The State Security installed a surveillance camera on the roof of the then office building of the Interpelz foreign trade company. They wanted to ensure that visitors to the Nikolaikirche would abandon their plans for fear of reprisals and that the movement would “fall asleep”. However, they achieved exactly the opposite. The people of Leizig became disgruntled, felt even more restricted and eventually ignored the camera.
Market square and Old Town Hall
Throughout the history of the GDR, the market square by the Old Town Hall was repeatedly one of the places where people made their protest known. In 1953, for example, there was a demonstration here during the workers’ uprising and in 1965 the so-called beat demo after “modern music” was banned. Today, a memorial set into the ground just off the square commemorates the workers’ uprisings. This is intended to symbolize the traces of the tank tracks that crushed the uprisings in the GDR.
In January 1989, demonstrators used the traditional celebrations in honor of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht to distribute flyers. There they called for the first demonstrations. Around 500 people are said to have responded to the call.
After the local elections in 1989, there were strong protests on the market square because the citizens suspected electoral fraud with the falsification of the results.
District administration of the Ministry for State Security
The building with the actually beautiful name “Runde Ecke” was the headquarters of the district administration of the Ministry of State Security, i.e. the Stasi, in GDR times. It was not a building you entered voluntarily, unless you worked there. In 1989, around 2,400 full-time employees and an estimated 10,000 informal employees are said to have worked here.
The Stasi files were stored in the building. They contained all the important and unimportant information that had been gathered about the people in the region. Information that could destroy entire lives in the GDR regime and, in retrospect, information that could influence future lives.
During the protest marches through the city in the fall of 1989, the crowd also passed by this building. In order not to irritate the crowd, the building was darkened and kept quiet. In front of the entrance, a human chain tried to calm the demonstrators.
Nevertheless, on December 4, 1989, demonstrators entered the building and occupied it. They began destroying files. A citizens’ committee quickly intervened and succeeded in stopping the destruction of files and preventing further attacks. The rooms were sealed and so it was possible to view and process the files later.
Today, the building houses the “Museum in der ‘Runden Ecke’” memorial with its permanent exhibition “Stasi – Power and Banality”.
Rear extension to the district administration of the Ministry for State Security
If you walk just a few steps around the building, you are faced with an ugly gray concrete block, a typical building from the 1970s.
This building was also used by the Stasi and clearly shows how large the administrative apparatus was. There was a huge antenna system on the roof, a small part of which still exists.
Today, there is a free open-air exhibition on the walls of the building, which is accessible around the clock. It shows the course of the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig on well-designed display boards.
Central Station
Our tour ends at Leipzig Central Station.
The main station was opened on December 4, 1915 and was badly damaged in bombing raids on December 4, 1943. Reconstruction was completed on 4.12.1965.
When demonstrators marched through the city on December 9, 1989, the security forces feared that violent riots could break out. The station was considered an important location and hundreds of NCO students from Delitzsch and Bad Düben were deployed to protect it. The area was generously cordoned off and stood on standby. The demonstrators passed by peacefully, just as they had done in previous Monday demonstrations.
Other interesting places of the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig
There are several other interesting places throughout the city that played a role in the Peaceful Revolution. We have not included these in our walk through the Old Town. However, I would like to point them out:
Wehrbezirkskommando In the fall of 1989, the city villa where the military district command was located was on high alert. In the event of violence, orders would have been issued from there to break up the demonstration by force.
Soviet military defense For decades, a townhouse in a side street in the Gohlis district was the headquarters of the Soviet military defense and a branch office of the secret service. Here, developments in the city were monitored with suspicion and all incidents were reported to Moscow (what exactly is still unknown today).
SED district headquarters The SED headquarters in Leipzig was located about 2 kilometers outside the old town. This was the location of the operational command, which had prepared for an escalation of events but was unwilling or unable to make any decisions due to the size of the crowd.
Council of the district The seat of the district council was located in the adjacent building. This was presumably the place where electoral fraud was carried out, which was one of the reasons for the unrest that ensued.
Leipzig radio station No violence! This was one of the central messages that was broadcast on October 9, 1989, at 6 p.m. by the Leipzig radio station and subsequently read out on the city radio. The Leipzig Six (Kurt Masur, Bernd-Lutz Lange, Peter Zimmermann, Kurt Meyer, Jochen Pommert and Roland Wötzel), who were trying to prevent a de-escalation, had called for this.
Map “Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig”
The city tour was part of the program of a press trip to Leipzig.
Leave a Reply