Bacon and beer, there should be, directly on the Hungarian-Austrian border. The symbolic Festival for an open Europe enabled – half of the first mass Exodus from the East intentionally, half-unintentionally.
One afternoon in August: From the holiday in freedom
Great story begins, sometimes quite small. 19. In August 1989, for example. The sky over Sopron Puszta promises on this day, nothing Good. Heavy, gray clouds hanging over the Hungarian Village, only a stroll far from the Austrian border. A picnic for the day on the schedule, but not an ordinary one. A political, a symbolic get-together, it should be. From 15 to 18 o’clock, right on the border fence. A sign for a Europe without barriers. In fact, bacon and beer is literally falling into the water – rain, the grill fire can go out before you are really hot.
On this day, no chronicler would lose a word about it, if this 19. August didn’t break the rare combination of opportunity, chance, and determination of all those Involved train. Because at the end of the day, nearly 700 of the GDR had changed-a citizen of the pages. The little wooden gate, took the East Germans of Hungary-tourists in the storm and stumbled in the freedom according to St. Margarethen in the Austrian Burgenland. The Overture to the fall of the Berlin wall three months later – politics as a lay game.
“We had a Glock nine-Millimeter”: Hansi Göltl (li.) and Arpi Bella 30 years later
The heroes and their weapons: “We had the Glock, nine Millimeter”
In the middle of “Hansi” and “Arpi”. Chief inspector Johann Göltl and Lieutenant Colonel Arpad Bella know in 1989, for years. The a did service on the Western side of the border, the other behind the Iron curtain. “We had the Glock” remembers “Hansi” Göltl against journalists 25 years later. “Nine-Millimeter! The Glock is a disaster that starts immediately, and we had to be unlocked to make service.” Also “Arpi” Bella had a Glock in the Holster, however, is a Hungarian brand.
Until today, both puzzle over what came just before 15 o’clock as a natural event about you. “Hansi” and “Arpi” to this date, directly at the border in anticipation of the announced political picnickers. The green strip on the Hungarian side is a bad overlook, a hill blocks the view. All of a sudden, hundreds of men, women and children marching down the hill, accelerating past the race of “Arpi”, and four, five other border guards, to press the gate and seconds later you are in another world – in the West.
Vote with your feet
Thousands should follow, because in the summer of 1989, the GDR is at the end. The country is economically in a free-fall, people desire, while Erich Honecker and his government still cheering messages to 40. Birthday of the state of workers and farmers in circulation. The signals from the people remain unheard. It is the time in which the East Germans start to vote with their feet.
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Pan-European Picnic
In Hungary, the most Western of the Eastern bloc countries to hold, at this point, around the lake Balaton, tens of thousands of GDR tourists. First rumors about the porous border to Austria in the round. In may, the foreign Ministers of both countries, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn had zerschnippelt, the border fence is symbolic. The opportunity seems to be favorable – so much so, that many of your Hungary visa expire and stay longer. Secretly, the escape is prepared. Local Hungary give tips. The middle one of the three watch-tower in Sopron Puszta was never occupied, just at the stone quarry in the forest and to the tower control. The day of the pan-European picnic, a brainchild of Otto von Habsburg, the then President of the panEuropean Union, and son of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, proves to be the ideal opportunity for escape from the Republic. –
Who the helpers were?
Hungary was already pretty far to the socialist state doctrine advanced in the Softening. A year before the historic picnic, the Budapest government gifted its citizens with the freedom to travel. The “Iron curtain” referred to in the same year, Minister of state Imre Pozsgay as a “morally and politically obsolete”. As a “Watchdog” for the tens of thousands of Balaton-tourists from the GDR, they would not serve longer.
The question of who is now on 19. August directed, remains 30 years later, largely unanswered. The newly formed Hungarian Opposition had an absent son of an Emperor (Otto von Habsburg was the daughter of Walburga represented) or the secret services of the hat on? Or all three?
Walburga von Habsburg, calls her father as a source of ideas of political picnics, which had been specifically from the former Hungarian government approved. Until today, the theory, the newly formed opposition Alliance, the “Hungarian democratic Forum” (MDF) but, have organized the bacon bar, in order to test the process of Democracy in Hungary.
Done! – “In the neighborhood” and the Chance
Really conspiratorial, the following acts: none other than the then Minister of state, Imre Pozsgay, one of the patrons of the picnic, had in the days before the 19. August the order of Malta in the country contacted. The care of the East German holidaymakers, who were not come for a Swim at the lake Balaton, but to escape to the West. His message: The border will be a few hours open and the East German vacationers “could find the way, if you would stop randomly in the vicinity”.
The miraculous flight sheet-propagation
Interestingly, the Hungarian opposition and the pan-European Union, are in agreement about one thing: Both of them can still amazed to this day about the momentum of the Afternoon only. In the Background, others have to be at work have been discreet, but effective. Laszlo Nagy, a former MDF-activist, is surprised today that a Chauffeur of the German Embassy in Budapest in the run-up to the picnics bags flight had spread leaves around the lake Balaton – “invitations” to the picnic – in English and in Hungarian. The invisible involvement of the Federal intelligence service and other intelligence services is now an open secret.
Preparations of this type proved to be for Arpad Bella and his men as a dangerous Dilemma. The refugees was his Job to stop, if necessary by force of arms, they provide a service offence. Downright mischievous, the solution Bellas seems. The Hungarians turned to the onrushing 700 just the back and controlled, instead, the identity papers of the of Austria incoming picnic guests. A Feat Of Strength?
“Everything was agreed” – Helmut Kohl and the former Hungarian Prime Minister Nemeth Miklos on may 15. Anniversary of the turning
By no means! “Arpis”colleague Johann “Hansi” Göltl had witnessed the assault on the wood gate from the other side. Years later, he told former Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the feat, and that Bella had immediately a disciplinary procedure on the neck. “This stupid man”, is said to have cabbage on Bella’s head, “that was deprived of everything.”