Mijn stem

1 Alderliefste & Ramses Shaffy & Liesbeth List - Laat me/vivre
2 Aphrodite's Child - Rain and tears
3 BAP - Kristallnach
4 Beatles - Strawberry fields forever
5 Cockney Rebel - Sebastian
6 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Our house
7 Edith Piaf - Non je ne regrette rien
8 Frankie goes to Hollywood - The power of love
9 Gloria Gaynor - I will survive
10 Jethro Tull - Bourée
11 Joan Baez - The night they drove ol' dixie down
12 Kraftwerk - Autobahn
13 Nina Simone - Ain't got no - I got life
14 Queen - Who wants to live forever
15 Soft Cell - Tainted love

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Schienensuizid

Schienensuizid (auch Eisenbahnsuizid oder Bahnsuizid) ist eine verkürzte Bezeichnung einer Form des Suizids, bei der sich das aktive Opfer vor einen fahrenden Zug der Eisenbahn wirft oder legt...

...Die Lokführer sind beim Schienensuizid als unmittelbare Augenzeugen erheblichen psychischen Schockwirkungen ausgesetzt: Meist erkennen sie die Suizidabsicht bereits aus weiter Entfernung, sind jedoch nicht in der Lage, den Zug rechtzeitig anzuhalten. Sie erleben so unmittelbar den Tod eines Menschen. Viele erleiden dabei einen psychischen Schock, der sie monate- und jahrelang beeinträchtigt. Bei verschiedenen Eisenbahnunternehmen gilt daher auch die Anweisung, betroffene Lokführer für den jeweiligen Arbeitstag zunächst vom Einsatz freizustellen und sie für eine Reihe von Tagen als arbeits- bzw. dienstunfähig einzustufen. Eine psychologische oder seelsorgerische Betreuung ist notwendig, um das erlebte Trauma zu verarbeiten. Dennoch ist nicht selten eine dauerhafte Arbeits-/Dienstunfähigkeit Folge eines solchen Ereignisses. In vielen Rettungsdienst-Bereichen wird der Lokführer standardmäßig von der Krisenintervention im Rettungsdienst zur Vermeidung einer posttraumatischen Belastungsstörung betreut. (Quelle)

Z.B. Rudolf Wilger, einer von vielen Lokführern, die zusammen mit ihren Familien durch verantwortungslose Selbstmörder ins Verderben gerissen wurden. All diesen unbekannten Lokführern zolle ich heute mein Bedauern, niemand anderen sonst. Ich werde heute kein Deutsches Fernsehen mehr schauen und keine Deutschen Webseiten mehr aufrufen. Die öffentliche Anteilnahme, die da einem berühmten Fußballspieler zuteil wird, finde ich zum Kotzen!

German Revolution: "immediatley"

20 years ago, November 9th 1989, a marginal mistake on a press conference.

6.53 p.m.
Günther Schabowski announces the new travel regulations. When asked by a journalist when the regulations are to go into force, Schabowski answers: "Sofort, unverzüglich", which means: "As of now; immediately!" This was wrong, on the government's paper, which he didn't found at this moment, was written: 10 November, which means, one day later.

11.30 p.m.
On Bornholmer Strasse, the situation is becoming a threatening one for the passport inspectors. Thousands of people are pushing towards the border crossing point. The "valve solution" has proved to be unwise. When some are allowed to leave the country, the others who have to wait push and shove even more. When the wire fence in front of the border crossing is pushed aside, the border guards fear for their lives. Lieutenant-Colonel Harald Jäger decides to open up everything and stop checking passports. Thousands of people pour into the border facilities, overrun the checkpoints, go over the bridge and are welcomed enthusiastically on the West Berlin side.

By around midnight, all the Berlin border crossings are forced to open, sometimes by West Berliners (at the Invalidenstrasse crossing point, for example). [more]

German revolution: One day before the turning point of history

Twenty years ago, November 8th 1989: black despair.

East Germany (GDR) is insolvent
People stay escaping to West Germany (FRG)
Helplessness politicians in West Germany
No visions, no plans...

Christa Wolf
Please stay!

German Revolution: The demission

20 years ago: November 7th 1989, the government of the GDR declares the demission.

Der Sprecher der Regierung der DDR, Wolfgang Meyer, gibt im Fernsehen den Rücktritt der gesamten DDR-Regierung (Ministerrat) unter ihrem Vorsitzenden Willi Stoph bekannt und appelliert - im Namen der Regierung - eindringlich an die Bevölkerung, die "lebenswichtigen Funktionen" des Staates aufrechtzuerhalten [podcast]

The government of the FRG calls for free elections in the GDR, see this document

German revolution: The insolvency

20 years ago: November 6th 1989, secret negotiations about the upcoming insolvency of the GDR.

In Bonn, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, representing Egon Krenz, secretly meets with West German Chancellery Minister Rudolf Seiters and Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. He tells them that the SED leadership is ready to open the Wall gradually in return for new loans totalling twelve to thirteen hundred thousand marks, and extended economic cooperation. His most urgent request is for the West German government to temporarily help pay for the increased travel of GDR citizens expected as a result of the travel bill, which would amount to an additional 3.8 hundred thousand marks. [more]

Two years later, the former budget accountant of the GDR, Alexander Schalk-Golodkowski, told about the real financial situation of the former GDR

German Revolution: The last days of the Berlin Wall

The inner German border (German: innerdeutsche Grenze or deutsch–deutsche Grenze; initially also Zonengrenze) was the frontier between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. Not including the similar but physically separate Berlin Wall, the border was 1,381 kilometres (858 mi) long and ran from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia.

20 years ago, the refugees of

• ...
• August 1989: 20.995 GDR citizens
• September 1989: 33.255 GDR citizens
• October 1989: 57.024 GDR citizens
• ...

The Wall of Berlin was part of the inner German border. No more words, see the animation

German Revolution: "Wir sind das Volk!"

20 years ago: the "Monday demonstrations" October/November 1989.

Wir sind das Volk means We are the People or We are the Nation, a slogan, which chant the demonstrating people to keep the security forces from intervention, successfully! Monday demonstrations are arranged by the civil right movement ("Bürgerrechtsbewegung") and took place after 18h-church-services in many cities of the former GDR.

Exactly 20 years ago, on November the 4th (Saturday):

On the Alexanderplatz square in East Berlin, 250,000 to 500,000 people demonstrate from the morning to the afternoon, calling for freedom of expression, a free press and freedom of assembly.[more]

Leipzig October 9th 1989

(East-) Berlin November 4th 1989, speaking Markus Wolf, head of the General Intelligence Administration, trying to save his bacon, and Jens Reich, co-founder of Neues Forum:

Listen also to Günter Schabowski, spokesman of the GDR-government, who five days later accidently announced an immediately opening of the GDR-borders to West-Germany.

German revolution: Fall of the political mafia

Twenty years ago: October 18th 1989:
Honnecker announces his demission

playing "Auferstanden aus Ruinen"

Erich Honecker (August 25, 1912 – May 29, 1994) was a German Communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until 1989.

Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (December 28, 1907 – May 21, 2000 in Berlin) was a German Communist politician and Minister of State Security of the German Democratic Republic from 1957 to 1989.

Markus Johannes "Mischa" Wolf (19 January 1923 – 9 November 2006) was head of the General Intelligence Administration (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung), the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security (MfS, commonly known as the Stasi). He was the MfS's number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War.

Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski (born July 3, 1932) was a politician and trader in the German Democratic Republic. He was the Hauptverwaltungsleiter in the Ministry for Foreign Trade and Domestic Trade (1956-62), the Deputy Minister for External Trade (1967-75), and head of the GDR's Kommerzielle Koordinierung (KoKo, 1966-86).,

German Revolution: the embassy refugees

Twenty years ago, Sept. 30th 1989:
Refugees from the GDR in the backyard of the FRG Embassy in Prague.

In September 1989, some 6 000 East German refugees meet in front of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague hoping to be able to reach the FRG via the Hungarian-Austrian border that was opened on 10 September. On 30 September 1989, the German Federal Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, tells them that they are legally authorised by the GDR to emigrate to the FRG. [more]

German Revolution: reopening East borders

Twenty years ago, Nov. 1st, 1989:
the GDR reopened the temporally closed borders to Eastern Europe.

On 19 August 1989, some 600 East Germans “picnickers”, participants in a celebration of good neighbourly relations on the Austrian-Hungarian border, originally meant for Austrians and Hungarians, pushed through a barbed wire topped wooden gate and made their way into the West and freedom. As it turned out, this was not a one-off “great escape” but the precursor to the greatest flood of East German refugees fleeing their “bastion of socialism on German soil” since 1961 when the Berlin Wall was built. Some three weeks later, the trickle of escapees from the Iron Curtain became a deluge of tens of thousands, who were able to cross legally from Hungary to Austria and eventually to West Germany. Although I missed the picnic I made sure that I would be able to witness and report what happened on the following 11 September. [more]