| SEPT 9 1944 | 1968 | 1987 | NOV 4, 1989 | 1990 - 2000 |
| We are the People! |
In May 1989, Hungary removed the fence along its border with Austria, enabling thousands of East Germans to escape to the West. It was a summer of peaceful, slow-motion revolution, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall that had separated East and West Germany since 1961. The German Reunification Treaty, signed the following year, outlined the terms for this process, including the warp-speed dismantling of the German Democratic Republic. While the end of communism brought certain freedoms, it also resulted in economic distress, widespread unemployment and what many perceived to be a loss of community, security, and idealism. On November 4, 1989, East German writer Christa Wolf spoke at an enormous demonstration in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz:
“The German Language itself is freeing itself from the confines of bureaucratic gibberish and reclaiming its emotionally significant words, one of which is the word 'dream'. So let’s all engage in rational dreaming! Imagine there’s socialism, and nobody leaves! For me, this is the most important line to come out of the last few weeks—a thousand voices crying: We are the people! A simple sentence. Let’s not forget what it means.”