German Embassy in Prague

German Embassy in Prague
State level	bilateral
Position of the authority	Embassy
Supervisory authority (s)	Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Headquarters	Prague
ambassador	Ambassador Christoph Israng
Website	www.prag.diplo.de

The German Embassy is located in the Lobkowitz Palace in Prague. View of the south side with the garden area and the orangery (outbuilding). In the center is the semicircular balcony on the first floor, from which Genscher gave his speech.

The German Embassy in Prague is the diplomatic representation of Germany in the Czech Republic . It is located on the Lesser Town in Prague in the Lobkowitz Palace .

From August 1989, the Prague embassy came into the focus of the media when GDR citizens sought refuge there. In the weeks that followed, thousands occupied the site, whereupon the GDR authorities gave in and, from September 30th, allowed a total of 17,000 of their citizens to leave for the Federal Republic. On November 3, the ČSSR authorities allowed GDR citizens to leave the West without regulation and thus lifted their part of the Iron Curtain , which is considered to be one of the most important preliminary stages to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent German reunification .

history

German Embassy in Prague, main entrance on the north side

The German embassy (in the center, on the edge of the forest) seen from Petřín . In the background the Hradčany .

As the former seat of the Holy Roman Empire , Prague is inextricably linked with the history of Germany . Since Bohemia was not independent for centuries, Prague only became the seat of the embassies of other countries again when Czechoslovakia gained independence in 1918 . This independence was abolished from 1939 to 1945 when the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was incorporated into the Greater German Reich . After the war, the Federal Republic of Germany did not establish formal diplomatic relations with states that recognized the GDR within the framework of the claim to sole representation and the Hallstein doctrine . This only changed with the New Ostpolitik . In 1973 relations were established with what was then the ČSSR .

"There have always been GDR refugees in our Prague embassy since we moved into the Lobkowicz Palace in 1974," says Hermann Huber, ambassador from December 1988 to 1992. Four years before he took office, he had to help out in Prague, around 160 Care for refugees. These were the Minister of Intra-German Relations (BMB) through the mediation of a lawyer bird redeemed .

When Huber presented the then President Husák with his credentials in December 1988, there were no GDR refugees in the embassy, ​​but in February / March the first refugees appeared who had come to the premises via the embassy fence at the back or in some other way outsmarted the strict Czechoslovak militias that controlled every visitor.

In the run-up to the revolutions of 1989 , the embassy premises became known as a place of refuge for refugees from the GDR. In the summer of that year, more GDR citizens dared to cross the Vltava River from Prague's main train station to the German embassy. On August 19, 1989, around 120 refugees were living there, and 20 to 50 more were added every day. On August 23, Ambassador Hermann Huber closed the baroque palace to the public on instructions from the Foreign Office. The consular department was temporarily relocated to a Prague hotel in order to maintain embassy status.

The rush to the embassy area continued, however, more refugees forced entry, partly past the increasingly negligent Czechoslovak police through the gate, or by climbing over the fence, which in some cases led to injuries. Tents and sanitary facilities have been set up in the embassy park and a school for children has been set up. Abandoned Trabant and Wartburg vehicles dominated the area; the GDR immediately tried to have the silent certificates removed. The sanitary conditions in the embassy became precarious in the course of September, at times 4,000 refugees were at the same time on the rain-soaked area. The main occupation was standing in line for hours in front of the toilets, in ankle-deep mud. Some violent clashes took place with people who were suspected of working for the Stasi .

The then Federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher arrived on the evening of September 30, 1989. It came from negotiations with the then foreign ministers of the Soviet Union ( Eduard Shevardnadze ), the GDR ( Oskar Fischer ) and the ČSSR ( Jaromír Johanes ) on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. He told the assembled journalists that he did not want to inform them because he wanted to speak to the Germans from the GDR first. At 6:58 p.m. he announced from the balcony of the palace:

"Dear compatriots,
we have come
to you to inform you
that your departure today
(thousands of outcry and cheers)
... has become possible."

The end of the sentence was drowned out in the cheering of the GDR refugees who were camping in the courtyard and who wanted to leave the country. A plaque on the balcony railing reminds of the moving words. The possibility of indirect emigration to the Federal Republic of Germany achieved in negotiations, by train with a detour via the GDR territory in order to maintain the facade of a regular departure from there, was then fearfully questioned in interceptions, since an arrest by GDR organs for fleeing from the GDR was feared.

From October 1, 1989, the first trains ran from Prague via Dresden and Karl-Marx-Stadt to Hof (Bavaria) . After the embassy had been successfully evacuated, thousands of people wishing to leave the country found themselves in the alleys around the palace; on October 4, over 5000 were in the area, and another 2000 had to wait in the cold, so that conditions similar to sieges prevailed. Another departure could be arranged, shortly before the 40th anniversary of the GDR, now this also introduced a visa requirement for the brother country ČSSR and thus closed the border. The “green border” in the Ore Mountains could only be crossed in smaller numbers, especially in autumn, so that the influx almost dried up. On October 28, this group was even allowed to drive directly to the Federal Republic with legal GDR exit papers and their own vehicles, whereupon the ambassador continued his vacation that had been interrupted in the summer.

Events soon rolled over. On November 1, the GDR lifted the visa requirement; on November 3, there were again more than 5000 people on the premises. On November 3rd at 9:00 p.m., the deputy foreign minister of the ČSSR announced in a short conversation that people without a GDR permit can travel directly from Prague to the Federal Republic of Germany, which deputy Armin Hiller announced from the “Genscher balcony”.

The historical dimension of this decision to leave the country unconditionally is nothing else than the fall of the ČSSR part of the Iron Curtain , which soon became visible through the dismantling of the border fortifications. According to the popular saying “How are you? - Via Prague! ”Every day thousands of GDR citizens boarded a train to Prague, where the embassy staff gave assistance at the train station for the immediate onward journey to the Federal Republic . This led to the GDR leadership announcing on November 9th that they would allow the exit directly, which resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall that same evening . From mid-November the Velvet Revolution took place in Czechoslovakia.

“A historical review of the events that led to German reunification cannot ignore the dramatic events in Prague in late summer and autumn 1989, when thousands of refugees from the GDR sought refuge in the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. The rush to the embassy that suddenly began in August 1989 was not only a novelty in terms of dimensions, but also represented a completely new situation in terms of quality that had to be dealt with. It finally accumulated on November 3, 1989 in an exit regulation (on the part of the ČSSR), which made the iron curtain and the Berlin Wall obsolete. "

- Ambassador at the time, Hermann Huber

The events from that time are also documented with photos on the embassy website. The grounds and buildings were badly affected by the crowd of people staying there for weeks and had to be renovated afterwards.

Quo Vadis by David Černý : Trabbis on legs in the garden of the German Embassy

Apart from the Genscher plaque on the balcony railing, the sculpture Quo Vadis by the artist David Černý , which depicts a Trabant running away on legs, “reminds of the many thousands of Germans from the GDR who passed through the embassy in Prague in the summer and autumn of 1989 Looking for and finding the way to freedom ”.

Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany

Advertising for the German language at the German Embassy in Prague

See also: List of German ambassadors in the Czech Republic

• April 25, 1974 - May 18, 1977 Dr. Gerhard Ritzel
• June 8, 1977 - October 27, 1982 Dr. Jürgen Diesel
• December 13, 1982 - May 31, 1985 Dr. Klaus Meyer
• June 25, 1985 - November 17, 1988 Dr. Werner Schattmann
• December 21, 1988 - August 30, 1992 Hermann Huber
• September 15, 1992 - March 13, 1996 Dr. Rolf Hofstetter
• March 18, 1996 - January 31, 1998 Dr. Anton Rossbach
• February 10, 1998 - September 30, 1998 Michael Steiner
• February 23, 1999 - June 30, 2001 Hagen Graf Lambsdorff
• August 22, 2001 - June 15, 2005 Dr. Michael Libal
• September 25, 2005 - July 10, 2009 Helmut Elfenkämper
• September 3, 2009 - September 2, 2011 Johannes Haindl
• September 7, 2011 - July 18, 2014 Detlef Lingemann
• September 2, 2014 - November 30, 2016 Arndt Burchard Ludwig Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven
• since August 8, 2017 Dr. Christoph Israng

Documentation

• Harald Salfellner, Werner Wnendt: The Lobkowicz Palace - A Place of German History in Prague. Vitalis Verlag, Prague 1999, ISBN 80-85938-65-0 . (Illustrated book)

Television films

• In October 2006, the filming of the television film “Prague Embassy” about the events of that time took place on the original location. Actors are Hinnerk Schönemann , Hans-Werner Meyer , Anneke Kim Sarnau , Timm-Marvin Schattling and Christoph Bach , director Lutz Konermann . The producer is filmpool . It was first broadcast on September 23, 2007 at 8:15 pm ( RTL ).

• Hans-Dietrich Genscher gave Gisela Marx a long interview on site as part of a documentary film. The documentary ran for the first time directly after the first broadcast of “Prague Embassy” on September 23, 2007 on RTL.

• “Train to Freedom.” Documentary. Direction: Sebastian Dehnhardt , Matthias Schmidt. Germany 2014.

literature

• Karel Vodicka: The Prague embassy refugees 1989. History and documents (= reports and studies of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism . No. 67). With a prologue by Hans-Dietrich Genscher and with the collaboration of Jan Gülzau and Petr Pithart. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8471-0345-5 .
• Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Karel Vodicka: Ignition spark from Prague. How in 1989 the courage to freedom changed history dtv, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-423-28047-1 .

Web links

Commons : German Embassy, ​​Prague  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website of the German Embassy in Prague

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hermann Huber ( Memento of the original from August 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Memories of Ambassador a. D. Hermann Huber ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ FAZ.net: Naked fear and great hope.
4. ↑ Hans-Dietrich Genscher on the Prague embassy refugees
5. ↑ ^{a b} TV program magazine "TV-Spielfilm", issue 19/07, p. 16.
6. ↑ TV recording
7. ↑ Gerd Appenzeller: 13 words that heralded the end of the GDR . In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 1, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
8. ^ The embassy refugees on their journey from Prague to Hof
9. ↑ Hermann Huber, Ambassador out of service for 1989 ( Memento of the original from December 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ Website of the Embassy - Refugees ( Memento of the original from March 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ↑ German Embassy in Prague ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Curriculum vitae of the current ambassador Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven 
13. ↑ Federal Foreign Office: Ambassador Dr. Christoph Israng. Retrieved September 28, 2019 . 
14. ↑ RTL [1] Radio.cz [2]
15. ↑ Refugees ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
16. ↑ ARD website

Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 13.4 "  N , 14 ° 23 ′ 53.3"  E