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Exhibition theme: Protest and Flight: Demonstration in Potsdam [1/56]

OBJECT INFORMATION

Info

October 7 1989
Potsdam, Klement-Gottwald-Straße 69, now Brandenburger Straße
Created By: G. H.

License: Creative Commons License

From the Set

Demonstration in Potsdam, 7 October 1989

A demonstration march in Potsdam; police forces and the Catholic church St. Peter and Paul in the background

Depicts

banner (flag), church (building), crowd, demonstration, flag of the GDR, shop

Context

child, crowd, demonstration, family, father, member of the People's Police, opposition

People/Organizations

People's Police

Places

Brandenburger Strasse (Potsdam), St. Peter and Paul (Potsdam)

Text in image

Einrichtungshau[s]

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.