People Power? Towards a Historical Explanation of 1989

The celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the overthrow of Communism have enshrined the fall of the Wall as the most important European event since the end of the Second World War. Even if there was less enthusiasm elsewhere, in Germany numerous eyewitness accounts, media specials, public exhibitions and official commemorations expressed joy over the collapse of the GDR and the return of national unity. Recalling her elation as a 35-year-old East German physicist, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel called November 9th a triumph of the “struggle against unfreedom” which she marked by walking with Mikhail Gorbachev and Lech Wałęsa across the Bornholm bridge, the first border-crossing point to open.

1 Many participants felt an irrepressible urge to tell their own inspiring story of flight, protest or liberation, with commentators hailing the popular mobilization as a victory of democracy over dictatorship. While commemoration efforts such as the candlelight march of 200,000 people in Leipzig recaptured some of the emotional excitement, such memory events have added little to historical understanding. 2