From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Sep 16 2002 - 02:53:57 MDT
I made a mistake last week in my comment: "For some reason Mr.
Barenboim reminds me a little bit of Kurt Masur and his fantastic
efforts in Leipzig the day before the East Berliners burst through
the wall."
http://www.lucifer.com/exi-lists/extropians/2932.html
I re-read that part in the book, from where I got the information and
it was actually the _month_ before.
In case you're wondering what I'm talking about, this is the story:
In the Fall of 1989, Leipzig (the largest East German city) became the
largest center of dissent in East Germany. The Leipzigers wanted
changes and freedoms and a life that was more similar to what they
glimpsed (on rare occasions) outside their country. The city people
began to meet in larger numbers at at the Monday night services of the
Nikolaikirche and walk through the streets together after the
services, carrying candles and praying for peace and freedom. A very
large march was scheduled for the night of Monday, October 9 (1989).
Honecker decided that demonstrations that evening would be put down by
force: the police authorities distributed extra blood plasma to their
medical units, companies of regular police, mobile police, additional
militia units and Stasi units were prepared, and instructions were given
to use firearms if the truncheons didn't work for crowd control.
This is where Kurt Masur, the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus
orchestra entered the story. He had been appalled by earlier East
German police brutality against peaceful demonstrators. This time,
seeing the possibility of a blood bath, he stepped in. He first called
the local Soviet army commander and asked about their intentions. (He
learned that the Red Army were staying their barracks: strict orders
from Gorbachev) He then learned from the East German army commander
that his forces were on alert. So then he called a pastor, an
influential cabaret artist and three local SED party officials to
propose a formal appeal for calm. The three SED officials passed the
word up to a senior SED politburo member to approve the appeal,
meanwhile the lower SED members, who revered their orchestra and its
conductor, decided on their own that they didn't want any violence and
to join in the appeal for calm at this demonstration. That was enough
for the appeal for calm to succeed in the politburo. Then Masur asked
the Leipzigers to act with reason in order to make a peaceful dialog
possible and he read his speech for calm and reason on the radio,
adding that he wished the East German police commander to pull back
their forces from the route of the marchers. The police commander
could not refuse their favorite conductor, either.
That evening after the church services, the largest crowd up to that
point: 70 000 of the Leipzig demonstrators assembled for a candlelight
march through the city center. They walked and sang and the the police
and army drew back and did not try to stop the march or harass the
marchers.
_From Yalta to Berlin_ by W. Smyser, pg. 337-338
[Over the next month the demonstrators in Leipzig continued to gather
in larger and larger numbers. On October 23, 300 000 marched in
Leipzig to demand real reforms and true democracy. And all over the
rest of East Germany, massive demonstrations were in progress too...
more stuff tumbling until the Wall 'fell' on November 9. Looking back
on it, even though I was following it closely in the newspapers from
far away, this is to me still an incredible story. The most amazing
thing to me is that Gorbachev _let_ East Germany and East Berlin
*go*....]
The book (above) provides good information about the Cold War struggle
over Germany: 1945-1990. It's very well researched, (~800 references)
book by an American-German scholar who has spent a great deal of time in
both countries. It's silly to talk about Hitler or Stalin or snippets of
events from the last century (bantering those names around) if you don't
know well those events, have those snippets in context, and have spent
a good amount of time educating yourself.
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Dare to be naive." -- Buckminster Fuller
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