Why and how East Germans rebelled

Conclusion

Attempts to explain the East German uprising are particularly significant because it was probably the most important event in the collapse of European communism. The building of the Berlin Wall was the symbol of the Cold War division between Eastern and Western Europe and its fall led to the reunification of Germany and marked the end of this European partition. Elizabeth Pond has written: “When the Berlin Wall fell, the crash obliterated a country, an empire, and an era.”¹

There are several obstacles to adequate explanation, however. The reasons why East Germans rebelled cannot be separated from the end of communism in Europe. The GDR was “imprisoned” within the socialist bloc (similar to the way the SED “locked up” its own people). Rebellion could only (successfully) occur when Soviet domination had eased. The popular rebellion in East Germany was precipitated by a wave of “exit” unleashed by reform communists in Hungary who had eliminated border controls. The Wall was opened from outside before it was pulled down from within.

Even when confined to the protests within the GDR, that is to the second stage of the revolt, the main causes of the uprising have often been misunderstood. The would-be “exiters” were an important part of “voice” and often prompted the activities of the pro-GDR opposition. “Loyal voice” did play a significant role in calling for and speaking at anti-regime rallies. But these oppositionists did not mobilize the population themselves. Mass exodus, and political reform elsewhere in Eastern Europe, had set off the revolt by giving many East Germans a new found sense of political efficacy that led them to act spontaneously.² Without private advantages and aware of the personal risks, millions of ordinary citizens went onto the streets because they felt a collective sense of obligation to do so.

The key to understanding how East Germans rebelled, that is, to explaining the distinctiveness of the revolt, is the ex-GDR's lack of national identity. While the Polish and Hungarian leaderships could initiate democratization and hope to protect some of their interests under postcommunist rule, the SED risked losing “its” state as well. Hirschman underestimates the GDR leadership's dilemma when he argues that “the extinction of the German Democratic Republic can be seen as the ultimate penalty for the long suppression of exit and voice” (p. 200). The GDR could only survive by preventing its citizens from leaving for the bigger, richer, and more democratic state in a divided nation. East Germany was inconceivable as a liberal state. Reform efforts always literally ran into the Wall.

Not only does the lack of national identity explain the hardline nature of the regime, it also illuminates the “revisionism” of the opposition. It is only an apparent paradox that in a “state without legitimacy” the loyalty among the GDR intellegentsia was particularly intense.³ The same matter-of-fact nationalism that made many East Germans feel a part of the Federal Republic (of which they were, by nature of the West German Grundgesetz, “virtual” citizens), tied artists, writers, and oppositionists alike to the ideal of the “better German state.” They felt that the evils of German nationalism could best be preempted by socialism, which offered a clear anti-fascist position and justified the continued existence of the GDR.⁴

East Germans had to rebel against an unrelenting SED and then abandoned the pro-GDR opposition's hope for a rejuvenation of East Germany. Continued emigration and mounting protest doomed efforts to reform the regime and rescue the state. Elections had to be moved up from May to March 1990 to head off pending economic and political disaster. West German parties, which supported GDR “affiliates,” and Western politicians, who were well known and often better liked than their East German counterparts, played a dominant role in the campaign. The vote brought a conservative coalition to power that had promised the fastest and marginalized the two major opponents of immediate unity: the reformed communists (PDS) and the opposition alliance (Bündnis 90). Democratic transition had become part of German unification.