The Civil Rights Movement of the GDR in 1989

Abstract

The civil rights movement of the GDR was the most powerful social movement in German history. Its extraordinary power resulted from the unique fact the civil rights movement was supported by literally every group of society: Workers, intellectuals, and students joined the coalition fighting for a democratic society, among them old people as well as the country's youth, men and women. Moreover, the demonstrations were not limited to big university cities or industrialized regions but spread over the entire country from the very South to the islands of the Baltic Sea. The mass demonstrations of 500.000 people in Berlin or 300.000 in Leipzig certainly were the most visible actions, but demonstrations also occurred in small rural towns where manifestations of maybe 50 of a village's 100 inhabitants constituted a mass mobilization of its own right.