Lessons from Leipzig in 1989 underline just why you should use your vote today
Being in Leipzig this week learning about the powerful events of 1989 underlines just why you should vote today
Hello, on General Election day,
I’m so very glad I made it to the evocative east German city of Leipzig this week during my Euro 2024 travels.
The powerful events in this city back in 1989 underline just why you should vote today.
A photograph of some of the 70,000 pro-democracy protestors who gathered in the centre of Leipzig on the seminal night of October 9, 1989. Across from them were at least 8,000 armed police, including East Germany’s hated secret police, the Stasi. CREDIT: The Stasi Museum, Leipzig.
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In that momentous year that changed history forever, people risked their lives in their desperate hope for freedom and the return of democracy, after enduring a totalitarian regime for decades.
It has been incredibly powerful sensing the echoes of the will of the people and their brave, peaceful protests that paved the way for democracy, in this remarkable east Germany city this week.
Leipzig’s pro-democracy citizens protesting against the totalitarian regime on October 9, 1989. Across from them were at least 8,000 armed police, including East Germany’s hated secret police, the Stasi. CREDIT: The Stasi Museum, Leipzig.
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Leipzig place is considered the city of the Peaceful Revolution in events that changed the world forever in 1989.
This crucial factor stemmed from the famous demonstration in Leipzig on October 9, 1989 - a month before the Berlin Wall came down.
As the 1980s progressed, in the last decade of the GDR’s existence, citizens’ loyalty to the party and state leadership declined significantly. Discontent simmered over the fundamental lack of democratic rights, state rule and the lack of travel, prompting increasing number to try and escape to the west.
They were also relentlessly spied upon by the GDR’s hated secret police, the Stasi - whose forbidding headquarters I visited this week in Leipzig.
The doors to the former Stasi HQ in Leipzig. CREDIT:
Original Stasi cassette tapes recording conversations by Leipzig citizens as shown in the Stasi Museum. CREDIT:
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East Germany’s leadership had rejected the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of ‘perestroika and ‘glasnost’, which had given hope to many in other easter European countries such as Czechoslovakia.
This led to increasingly vociferous public opposition to the GDR’s political and economic problems.
Countdown to history
Brave members of the previously underground Leipzig opposition printed and distributed around 4,000 leaflets in the city on January 11, 1989.
While the Stasi quickly identified and arrested those behind the move, 500 courageous people met on January 15, 1989 in the centre of freezing cold Leipzig.
Where I stood in awe on Tuesday afternoon trying to imagine the scene.
The astonishing gathering immediately sparked GDR-wide protests, forcing Eric Honecker’s government to release the organisers behind the leaflets.
Yet the protests refused to die down.
Leipzig’s pro-democracy citizens protesting against the totalitarian regime on October 9, 1989. Across from them were at least 8,000 armed police, including East Germany’s hated secret police, the Stasi. CREDIT: The Stasi Museum, Leipzig.
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‘Uninvolved passers-by became a protesting crowd’
Opposition groups had been invited to a street music festival in Leipzig on June 10,1989. The authorities immediately banned the event but musicians - who’d come from all over the GDR - started to play anyway.
At midday the Stasi turned up and brutally loaded the musicians onto trucks with arrests continuing all afternoon. However, many witnesses were horrified at such violent tactics used by the hated secret police. And started to protest themselves.
Thus, all around Europe including Leipzig at that moment, as Czech dissident and future president of his country Vaclav Havel, later explained, “uninvolved passers-by became a protesting crowd.”
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A photograph of the Stasi shooting a dissident in Leipzig in the late 1980s. CREDIT: Stasi Museum
That summer of 1989, sensing the tide of history about to change, Gorbachev ended the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’. The dictum that and threat to socialist rule in any eastern bloc country was a threat to socialist rule, and by definition a threat to them all - and one which must be met with brutal and violent intervention, as it had in 1956 in Budapest and 1968 in Prague.
This decision led to thousands of GDR citizens attempting to flee their country after Hungary opened its border with Austria in July 1989.
Hated GDR leader Honecker then fell seriously ill, and the elderly, out of touch, leadership cabal reacted with helped obstinacy - attempting to restrict east Germans’ ability to travel.
However, they could not stop the mass exodus, which also led to further demonstrations by those who wanted freedom and democracy.
Former GDR leader Eric Honecker’s image displayed in the Stasi Museum. CREDIT: laythy29
Protestors produced fliers during 1989, including this one in the Stasi Museum that reads: “Stasi: Macht und banality” - power and banality. CREDIT:
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Violence or peace
In Leipzig and east Germany the critical mass came to a head on October 9, 1989.
On a cold autumnal evening on the date of the 50th anniversary of the GDR, 70,000 brave souls gathered in the centre of Leipzig to protest against the regime - where I stood this week. The crowd chanted ‘Wir Sind as Volk’ - we are the people.
Against them stood 8,000 armed security forces including the Stasi.
A tense standoff ensued.
At that precise moment the authorities had to decide whether the forthcoming revolution was to be a violent one, or a peaceful one.
As everyone held their breath.
They chose the latter.
And the march of history started in earnest.
Once the protest had passed off peacefully in Leipzig, the momentum for political and social changes could no longer be halted.
A month later the Berlin Wall came down, and on October 3, 1990 German reunification was celebrated in Leipzig - at the very same place the demonstrators had met in front of armed forced, a little more than 12 months earlier.
Unlike those brave 70,000 people that night in Leipzig, and those courageous souls before before them - who faced arrest, incarceration, violence, possibly even death - all you have to do today is stick an ‘X’ in a box on a bit of paper.
I don’t care who you vote for today - well I do, but that’s a different story entirely - but I do care that you should vote.
History everywhere demands it.
Stasi paraphenalia produced after Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - as displayed in the Stasi Museum. CREDIT: (@laythy29)
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PS:
One of my favourite film characters, in one of my favourite films, Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now - which is actually a strong anti-war film - says ruefully: “One day this war will end."
Meaning, conversely, for the film is so gloriously counter-intuitive, that he didn’t want it finish, as he enjoyed war so much.
Well, to paraphrase Col Kilgore, 'one day Euro 2024 will end.
It might be today for me.
It’s my birthday on Sunday, and my wonderful partner has organised a long-standing surprise weekend away for me.
All I know is that I have to bring my passport and pack a bag, as it’s ‘in a country I’ve never been before.’
I’ve been really looking forward to it.
My wonderful partner knows how much sport and football mean to me on so many levels and for so many reasons, and she puts up with me being on the road for ten months every season - including more when tournaments such as Euro 2024 are on.
She’s so kind and loving, she even offered to cancel our weekend away so that I could go to England vs Switzerland in Dusseldorf - but I really don’t want to be *that person*.
She puts up with my passion which I’m fortunate enough to also call my work, and my profession, every single day of the year - but it’s finally time to miss a game and spend quality time together having fun on a weekend away.
So, England can wait, as I will be putting my wonderful partner first.
Watch this space I’ll let you know where we end up watching England vs Switzerland.
Love you gorgeous. x
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DAILY LIST:
I Back to Blighty from Leipzig to see my wonderful partner, and the kids, two of who are actually able to vote in a General Election for the first time today.
(Quote from the 20-year-old: “It’s quite cool to be able vote.”)
II Pop over to see my dear old mum with the youngest daughter (who I’m proud to say has now got a summer job after her GCSE’s)
III Vote
Please use your vote today.
All around the world, including Leipzig in 1989, people risked their lives to be able to live - and vote - in a democracy.
