On November 4, 1989, over 500,000 people gathered on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin to peacefully protest the East German regime. It was a culminating point in a series of events over several months, if not years, which led to German reunification.
Christa Wolf was one of several prominent public figures invited to speak. She gave a memorable ten-minute speech which I reproduce here in English to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the transformation and reunification of former West Germany and the GDR, never to be forgotten. In addition to all the German people I know played an important role in this, I thought Hungarian prime minister Miklós Németh was remarkably brave in helping "trigger" the transformation.
Original German: Christa Wolf footage of speech
We look on at the turncoats with amazement...
Dear fellow citizens,
Every revolutionary movement
also liberates language. What had
previously been so hard to say openly, now rolls right off our tongues. We are
amazed at what we had been thinking so long and we now shout out to each other:
Democracy now or never! And we
mean government by the people. We remember the bogged down or brutally
repressed approaches in our history and do not want to fail to seize the
opportunity in this crisis, it stirs all our productive powers. But we do not
want to rashly waste this chance either, or simply reverse the images of what the
enemy is.
I have difficulties with the
word Wende.(1) It brings to mind a sailboat; the captain
shouts out: “Get ready to change tack,” because the wind has shifted, the wind
is blowing in his face [applause], and the crew ducks as the boom sweeps across
the boat. But is this picture still an accurate one? Does it still fit a
situation that is being driven forward each day? I would describe it as
revolutionary renewal.
Revolutions start at the
bottom. The “bottom” and the “top” exchange places in the value system and turn
socialist society upside down. Major social developments are set in motion.
Never has there been so much talk, speaking with each other, in our country than has been seen these past few weeks, never before with this passion, with so much rage and sadness and with so much hope. We want to take advantage of every day, we do not sleep, or only a little, we become friends with new people and we argue in anguish with others. That is now called “dialogue” – we demanded it and now we can hardly stand hearing the word and still haven’t really learned what is meant by it. We stare, with a sense of mistrust, at certain hands suddenly extended toward us, into faces which had previously been so stony: “Mistrust is good, control even better” [applause] – we twist old sayings which once scorned and injured us and respond in kind. We are afraid of being exploited. And we fear rejecting an offer which is honestly meant. Our whole country is now in this Catch-22 dilemma. We know that we have to practice the art of not allowing these conflicting feelings to turn into confrontation: These weeks, these opportunities will be given to us only once – by our own selves. We look on at the turncoats (Wendehälse) with amazement. "Wendehals" is a German expression for a political chameleon who, as the dictionary says "quickly and easily adapts to a given situation, moves cleverly in such a situation, and knows how to gain from the situation." It is these people most of all who will block the credibility of the new political climate. We are not that far along yet that we can humorously shrug off the turncoats/Wendehälse – something we are already able to do in other cases. I can read “Fellow travelers – step down!” ["Trittbrettfahrer - zurücktreten!"] on banners. And demonstrators chanting at the police: “Change your clothes and join us!” – a generous offer.
In economic terms, we also
think: “If you have rule of law, who needs the StaSi (state security)!” (StaSi
was the GDR’s feared intelligence and secret police organization.)
And we are even willing to dispense with down-to-earth things:
And we are even willing to dispense with down-to-earth things:
“Fellow countrymen, turn your boob-tubes off! Join the Trabi motorcade!”
Indeed, the language sheds the bureaucratic and newspaper tone it was rolled up in and recalls words that have feeling. One of these words is “dream.” Therefore we dream with alert minds: Just imagine, there would be socialism and nobody went away!
Indeed, the language sheds the bureaucratic and newspaper tone it was rolled up in and recalls words that have feeling. One of these words is “dream.” Therefore we dream with alert minds: Just imagine, there would be socialism and nobody went away!
But we see the images of those who are fleeing even now and ask ourselves: “What can you do about it?” and we hear the echo in response: “Do something!”(2) The tasks (“Do something!”) begin now as the things we demand, rights, become obligations: investigation committees, constitutional tribunals, administrative reforms. A lot to be done, and all of it on top of our regular work.
Plus the newspaper too, and
eating! We won’t have any more time to go attend
adulatory military parades, prearranged popular demonstrations. This is a demo,
approved, non-violent. If it stays that way till the end, we will
again know more about what we are capable of and then we will insist on it. A proposal for May 1:
The leadership parades by in front of the people.
[crowd laughs in approval]
Unbelievable transformations. The “state citizenry of the GDR” takes to the streets in order to recognize itself as the people. And to me this is the most important sentence of these last few weeks – the thousand-fold cry:
We – are – the - people!
A simple statement of fact.
This we should not forget.
(1) The term Wende, which means a new political beginning and reorientation, was introduced as a new phrase in German as die Wende and symbolizes the unrest, upheaval and revolutionary movement and "about-face" of 1989 in the German Democratic Republic. As elsewhere in this text, Christa Wolf refers to the repressive GDR regime and its official use of words or nomenclature. For example, “dialogue” is ironic (she says she cannot stand hearing it anymore) and refers to speeches given by Egon Krenz, the General Secretary of the SED and the GDR's last Chairman of the State Council of the SED party, in which Krenz used the term Dialog in a manipulative and inhuman way. Everybody at the demonstration was aware that with his use of Dialog, Krenz had falsely claimed the mass demonstrations were still controlled by the Central Committee or even desired by it, and thus amounted to so-called “dialog.” By using the phrase die Wende, Krenz also tried to usurp the people’s revolution for himself, the Central Committee and the politburo: “As of today, we will initiate a Wende, we will, in particular, regain the political and ideological upper hand (speech by Egon Krenz, October 18, 1989). In the meantime, the political sea-change (Wende), which we initiated has taken hold of all areas of our society (speech by Egon Krenz, November 3, 1989).” It is perhaps fitting that "Die Wetterfahne" ("The Weathercock") was set to music by Schubert, for it also means somebody who is fickle and flip-flops depending on the political winds, or in this case, romantic inclination. Further discussion of Wendehals is found on Deutsche Welle.
(2) Rhetorically the German question keeps the same words of “Was tun” because the phrase can mean both a) What can be done (about it)? A resigned tone indicating, no, you can’t help those who still don’t believe. The second time it means b) Get up and do something (bring about the collapse of the regime) so that those who still don’t believe and are fleeing/going away will see there is no point in driving through Czechoslovakia to the Hungarian border to Austria, as so many in fact, hundreds of thousands, did.
