Democratic awakening

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Rita Süssmuth at the founding party conference of the DA in December 1989

The Democratic Awakening ( DA ) was initially a political grouping in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) , which was constituted in October 1989 at the time of the change . The official founding as a party took place at the party congress on 16./17. December in Leipzig . The DA came on 5 February 1990 the electoral coalition Alliance for Germany in order to jointly the People's Parliament elections in 1990 to run on 18 March 1990th Shortly before the election, the chairman of the party, Wolfgang Schnur, was exposed as a long-term unofficial employee (IM) of the Ministry for State Security (MfS).

The DA existed until its merger with the former CDU-Ost block party on August 4, 1990.

history

The forerunner of the DA was an initiative group founded in East Berlin in August 1989 with mainly church representatives, including the prominent pastors Rainer Eppelmann and Friedrich Schorlemmer as well as the lawyer Wolfgang Schnur . Other founding members were Rudi-Karl Pahnke and Thomas Welz . The full name of the planned political association was Democratic Awakening - Social - Ecological (DA) . The founding member Edelbert Richter was entrusted with the development of a program, Schnur should draft a statute.

A second meeting was planned for October, but the dynamic of the political upheaval in autumn 1989 forced earlier action. When the Neues Forum collection movement was founded on September 9, Richter went public on September 14 during a visit to the Federal Republic of Germany. On September 26, he publicly presented the democratic awakening in the GDR, in Erfurt . Two days later the first general meeting took place in the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt . The meeting on October 1st, in which Günter Nooke and Daniela Dahn participated, took place in Ehrhart Neubert's Berlin apartment and was massively hindered by the state security , numerous members and interested parties were locked out. The state security had temporarily blocked the phone in the apartment, but then released the line again so that it could be eavesdropped. The participants use this to inform West German broadcasters that reported about it during the meeting. In the evening, programmatic texts were handed over to the magazine Der Spiegel and the establishment of the DA was explained. In its program, the DA first looked for a compromise between the idea of democratic socialism and liberal ideas and called for reforms to the GDR system.

The Democratic Awakening was regularly founded at a second meeting on October 29, 1989 with over a hundred representatives in the Queen Elisabeth Hospital in Berlin and given a statute that laid down communication and management structures. It was decided that the DA should turn into a political party by May 1990 . Wolfgang Schnur was elected chairman.

In December 1989 there was a programmatic reorientation. A draft of a working group around Christoph Kähler formed the basis of the program that was adopted at the party congress on December 16 and 17 in Leipzig. Concepts of socialism disappeared from considerations, while the orientation towards the market economy quickly established itself. German unity was formulated as a goal, but this was highly controversial within the party. With the “Leipzig Program”, the democratic awakening was relatively far to the right in the ranks of the newly founded opposition movements that were still strongly politically left-wing. Left-wing members such as Friedrich Schorlemmer and Daniela Dahn then left the party. Angela Merkel became the party's press spokeswoman, Oswald Wutzke general secretary .

Election poster of the DA with the picture of Wolfgang Schnur before the Volkskammer election

From December 18, 1989 to March 12, 1990, the Democratic Awakening belonged to the Central Round Table with two seats . Participants were Wolfgang Schnur and Rainer Eppelmann.

On February 5, 1990, the DA joined the electoral alliance " Alliance for Germany " with the German Social Union (DSU) and the CDU-Ost . The chairman Wolfgang Schnur prophesied to be the future Prime Minister of the GDR. Less than a week before the Volkskammer election, a report by Der Spiegel magazine revealed that Wolfgang Schnur was an IM for the State Security. For many years he had denounced dissidents whom he had represented as a lawyer and informed the MfS about every step of the DA from the start. Schnur collapsed and announced his resignation on March 14, 1990. For the democratic awakening, the exposure resulted in a catastrophic loss of credibility. Rainer Eppelmann became his successor as party chairman and top candidate.

The alliance won the election to the People's Chamber ; The DA was by far the weakest partner in the electoral alliance with 0.9% and four seats. Rainer Eppelmann, who had previously been a minister without portfolio in the second Modrow government of Prime Minister Hans Modrow from February 1990 , became Minister for Disarmament and Defense in the freely elected GDR government on April 12, 1990 .

On August 4, 1990, the DA merged with the GDR CDU, with which it had already formed a parliamentary group in the People's Chamber since March 18. This united again two months later, on October 1 and 2, 1990, with the West German CDU .

Party leader

  • December 16, 1989-14. March 1990: Wolfgang Schnur
  • March 15, 1990-21. April 1990: Rainer Eppelmann (acting)
  • April 22, 1990-4. August 1990: Rainer Eppelmann

See also

literature

  • Ehrhart Neubert: Our revolution. The history of the years 1989/90. Piper, Munich a. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-492-05155-2 .
  • Wolfgang Jäger , Michael Walter: The alliance for Germany. CDU, Democratic Awakening and German Social Union 1989/90. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 1998, ISBN 3-412-13197-0

Web links

Commons : Democratic Awakening  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 87.
  2. a b c Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 88.
  3. a b c Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 89.
  4. Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 89f.
  5. Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 195.
  6. a b Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 194.
  7. a b Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 351.
  8. Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, p. 353.
  9. "That was a top source" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1990, pp. 18-22 ( online - March 12, 1990 ).
  10. Ehrhart Neubert: Our Revolution. 2008, pp. 87, 365f.