Exhibition theme: Protest and Flight: Demonstration against electoral fraud and for democracy at the Leipzig Church Congress [48/56]
OBJECT INFORMATION
Info
July 9 1989
Leipzig, Scheibenholz horse race track
Created By:
Roland QuesterLicense:
From the Set
Depicts
banderole,
crowd,
demonstration,
German Protestant Church Congress,
Statt-Kirchentagbanderole,
civil rights movement,
democracy,
demonstration,
electoral fraud,
German Protestant Church Congress,
police cordon,
streetcarPeople/Organizations
Ministry for State SecurityPlaces
LeipzigOther 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.
