The march that cracked the Berlin Wall

LEIPZIG, Germany, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Twenty years ago in Leipzig, a mass of East Germans took the streets to protest for democracy in a historic event that helped bring down the Berlin Wall.

In what is today known as the "miracle of Leipzig," 70,000 people on Oct. 9, 1989, marched through the streets of Leipzig, openly demanding democratic reforms despite threats by the Stasi, East Germany's feared secret police, to break up the demonstrations with violence.

The core of the demonstrators met in a Leipzig church with their leader, Pastor Christian Fuehrer, who for the past eight years had organized Monday night vigils that had developed into meetings where people issued their frustration over bogus elections, state monitoring and travel bans.

On that October night, the church was packed, and outside, a mass of protesters had gathered. As Fuehrer led them through the city, Leipzigers from all walks of life who demanded to be heard joined them. "The citizens of East Germany knew they did not want to continue living without freedom, living narrow and dismal lives," said Germany's Federal President Horst Koehler said Friday, speaking in a Leipzig concert hall before guests including Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The protesting mass, many of them carrying candles, chanted slogans such as "Freedom" and "We are the people."

At the time, Mikhail Gorbachev had ushered in the era of perestroika in the Soviet Union, but the East German leadership seemed resistant to change.

Of course the demonstrators were afraid: Only four months earlier Chinese authorities had ordered a bloodbath at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The communist regime in East Germany had warned people to stay home or face authorities' crackdowns. But surprisingly, on that Monday, the thousands of riot police and army officers stood by and let the people pass.

On Oct. 9, 1989, "the people of Leipzig showed us what citizens can achieve when they believe in their own strength and take their destiny into their own hands," Koehler said.

The so-called Monday demonstrations spread to other cities, eventually reaching Berlin, where on Nov. 9, 1989, the wall that divided a city and a people in two, finally fell.

A new democratic leadership took over East Germany, which was reunified with the western half in 1990.