Poor lighting, poor sound quality, an incomplete sentence. There are seconds, the speed of the story. Genscher’s Prague’s balcony speech was a historic and a personal highlight.
Hans-Dietrich Genscher on the balcony of the Prague Embassy
The History Of
The summer of 1989. East Germans return to your state of the back-and-seek protection in Bonn’s embassies in Hungary, Poland, the former CZECHOSLOVAKIA, and also in the Permanent representation (StäV) in East Berlin. First, there are a few, then hundreds, at the end of thousands of people who try to force their departure in the Federal Republic of Germany. According to the West German interpretation of a legitimate act, because the meaning of the basic law, they are German. In Hungary, reform of governance, the socialists, the country is facing an economic Bust. The Budapest government is proposing a new course. Consequence: is The Hungarian-Austrian border is only guarded half-hearted.
11. September change tens of thousands of citizens of the GDR, the pages and the once-insurmountable Iron curtain behind. Hungary’s border guards, only the trellis to stand. Erich Honecker and his government are appalled. And also the power in the CZECHOSLOVAKIA of thinking and acting according to the old law. As for the GDR leadership on the Embassy are lineups for the Prague in power unlawfully. The consensus within the Moscow power Empire is crumbling. No one overlooks this late in the summer of ’89 the scope of the protests with the feet. A want it but guessed: Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign Minister.
The garden of the Embassy in Prague: a tent city
The Scene Is New York, First Act, 27. September 1989
The UN General Assembly. An ideal opportunity for the foreign Minister to talk with his counterparts from the Soviet Union, the GDR and Czechoslovakia over the always dramatic expectant Situation in the messages. Only on 8. September had left 117 citizens of the GDR, the Permanent representation of the Federal Republic in East Berlin. A speedy departure was not promised, only impunity, and the return to work.
The StäV is closed. The result is that The pressure on the embassies in Warsaw, Budapest and Prague will be greater. And the GDR expected of the Bonn government cabbage nothing less than the closure of the embassies, to set against potentially-be emigrants a Signal. Responsible for representations cher – alias “Genschman gene”, as the German foreign Minister is colloquially called – and he rejects the closures categorically. He orders instead, the reception, accommodation and care for the citizens of the GDR. In the meantime, thousands have arrived in the three messages.
27. September, a Wednesday, eats Genscher and his East Berlin counterpart, Oskar Fischer, to evening. He makes two suggestions: GDR-officials to issue visas and stamp the passports at the embassies. Variant two: The citizens of the GDR to travel in trains on East German territory in the West. Fischer wants to inform you on the weekend Honecker. Too late, says Genscher.
28. September
On the following day, and the fishermen call gene again. In the Embassy buildings, especially in Prague, are the hygienic conditions increasingly intolerable. Fischer promises, Genscher’s proposals to East-Berlin route. The Czechoslovak foreign Minister Johanes is visited by Genscher in New York. However, it remains non-binding.
In the afternoon, Genscher asks for a personal interview with Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign Minister. He may in the Soviet Embassy is reported to him back. But Genscher is no car available. A New York police car to come with blue to Shevardnadze light and siren. Once there, tells Genscher, the chaotic conditions in the messages. Shevardnadze asks: “Are the children?” Genscher: “Many”. The Soviet: “I’ll help you”.
On the same evening, the support of the American and French foreign Ministers, Baker and Dumas secures Genscher.
29. September
Genscher is on the way to the airport, there’s a call on behalf of the GDR reaches him Minister of foreign Affairs. There is important information on the following day at the Permanent representation of the GDR in Bonn for him. “It is necessary to pay always,” says the caller from the East is Berlin’s foreign Minister, Oskar Fischer, align, “to speak with him.”
Hans-Dietrich Genscher at the German Embassy in Prague in 2009
30. September
In the Bonn Chancellery, gene learn, and Rudolf Seiters, German interior Minister, that East Berlin for the second variant has been chosen: the train of people wanting to leave the GDR. Genscher puts and calls on high-profile train personnel, as a confidence-building measure for the citizens of the GDR. “The refugees don’t trust you,” he says to the Permanent representatives of East Berlin, in Bonn, Horst Neubauer. Genscher and outsider want to ride. East Berlin’s man in Bonn must ask again for his government. A little later the approval is.
Shortly before the Start of Genscher’s and outsider’ in the direction of Prague Neubauer and cons of logs calls for the commitment of East Berlin in Parts. Genscher and outsider are not permitted. The pressure is on the rise.
The Palais Lobkowitz, the second act: a Showdown at 18.58 PM
In Bonn’s Embassy in Prague arrived on, Genscher again contact with Neubauer. There is no East Berlin. Only two German officers are allowed to travel per train.
To 18.58 PM Genscher on the Embassy balcony, and speaks the most famous half-sentence in recent German history: “dear countrymen, we have come to you, to inform you that today your departure…” The Rest gets lost in the cheering.
At 19.30 the first East Germans to leave the Embassy in the historical Palais Lobkowitz. Three minutes earlier, the state news Agency of the GDR, ADN, an explanation of the East had spread-Berlin’s foreign Ministry. You have made that illegal in the embassies of the FRG’s occupants, for humanitarian reasons, to be recorded.
To 20.50 at the first rich web of Prague towards Dresden leave. Four additional trains to follow in two hours clock. Aim of the Bayerischer Hof.
Audio listen to 00:16
Hans-Dietrich Genscher at the 30.09.1989 in Prague
Station yard, Track 8, in the third act, 1. October
It is 6.14 PM, as the first 1,200 East Germans in the Bavarian-Saxon border town of Hof, to arrive at Track 8, including many children. Around 6,000 people will reach this 1. October Yard. They all come without passports. Had you taken the GDR-officials in the train. Legions of helpers and journalists you expect.
A couple of Thousands of GDR citizens had shown their state. A vote with the feet. Six weeks later the Berlin wall fell.
“The hours of the German Embassy in Prague include, for example, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, in retrospect, “the most moving of my life…we had goose bumps pure.”