Running Away

Abstract A hole in the Iron Curtain started the mass exodus. When Hungarian soldiers cut the barbed wire fence on May 2, 1989, desperate East Germans began to cross the Austrian frontier. Those who were turned back or were less daring crowded into West German embassies in Budapest, Prague, and East Berlin.

Though the GDR protested against “crude interference in [its] sovereign affairs,” Bonn welcomed the refugees from poverty and repression: “When they come to us, we accept them as Germans. We will not throw them out by force.”1 Sure of a warm reception, more and more East Germans sought to leave without permission, since they had given up any hope for change. In mid-August 661 refugees rushed across .the Austro-Hungarian frontier.

When overcrowding closed the embassies, desperate East Germans fled during a peace picnic sponsored by the pan-European Union. Others were stopped and one was shot by a Hungarian border guard. With several thousand thronging around the FRG legation in Budapest, the Red Cross set up tent camps for those unwilling to go back in spite of their government’s frantic efforts to retrieve them.

Though leery of accepting too many migrants, Chancellor Helmut Kohl urged Hungarian leaders to open the border. But East German foreign minister Oskar Fischer threatened them with dire consequences. Caught in the diplomatic crossfire, Budapest wanted the Germans to resolve the issue themselves.

In the makeshift camps crowded with six thousand refugees, impatience grew. 2 The Hungarian cabinet faced a difficult dilemma. Bloc solidarity and a travel agreement with the GDR mandated the return of all refugees to East Berlin.

But assisting in such a “barbaric, antihuman cause” would reduce chances for Western aid. Since the East Germans refused to let their citizens go, Hungarian Foreign Minister Guyla Horn worked out a one-time release of over one hundred with Red Cross documents. When refugee numbers continued to swell, Horn became convinced that a more