For our country

“ For our country ” was an appeal by 31 GDR citizens, which was written on November 26, 1989 and published at a press conference on November 28 in East Berlin .

Due to fears of the initiators about a political and economic appropriation of the GDR, he turned against a reunification of the two German states and the initially planned confederation of the GDR with the Federal Republic of Germany . At the same time, the call for the preservation of an independent GDR as a "socialist alternative to the Federal Republic".

prehistory

Initially, the opposition in the GDR aimed primarily at internal reforms, but not at unification with the Federal Republic of Germany. A united Germany was first called for at the Monday demonstration on November 13, 1989 in Leipzig.

The Dutch evangelical reformed theologian Dick Boer , who tried to win over a group of GDR personalities , gave the impetus for the appeal “For our country” . The idea of ​​a call with the collection of signatures came from an earlier campaign in the Netherlands against the neutron bomb .

There were three draft texts, by Dieter Klein , Günter Krusche and Konrad Weiß . On November 25, 1989, there was a meeting in the Robert Koch lecture hall of the Charité in Berlin, at which a draft was agreed. The final version of the appeal was formulated by the writer Christa Wolf in her apartment and submitted to various people who had been selected by the initiators as first signatories. On November 28, 1989, the appeal was read out by Stefan Heym at a press conference in front of 75 domestic and foreign journalists and then explained and justified by other first signatories.

content

The appeal contained the call to work against reunification with the Federal Republic and for the independence of the German Democratic Republic. The appeal named values ​​and goals such as peace, social justice, freedom of movement and protection of the environment. In the event of reunification, there was fear of “selling out our moral and material values” and the appropriation of the GDR by the Federal Republic. With recourse to the anti-fascist founding myth of the GDR, the statehood of the GDR was demanded.

Extract from the appeal:

“We still have the chance to develop a socialist alternative to the Federal Republic of Germany in equal neighborhood to the states of Europe. We can still reflect on the anti-fascist and humanist ideals from which we once started. "

Counting

200,000 people signed this appeal within the first two weeks, including the SED General Secretary Egon Krenz (which was understood as an affront by the initiators ) and Lothar de Maizière , who later became the first and last freely elected Prime Minister of the GDR. There was support from West Germany through the appeal “For your country, for our country”.

After the end of the campaign by the initiators in January 1990, around 1.17 million approvals and 9,273 rejections were counted. The sociologist Bernd Lindner suspected the signing by Egon Krenz as the reason for not even greater approval.

Also on November 28, 1989, Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl presented a ten-point program in a speech that spoke of the possibility of German unity.

First signatory

Götz Berger Wolfgang Berghofer Frank Beyer Volker Braun Reinhard Bruehl Tamara Danz Christoph Demke Siegrid England

Bernd Gehrke Sighard Gille Stefan Heym Uwe Jahn Gerda Jun Dieter Klein Günter Krusche Brigitte Lebentrau

Bernd Löwe Thomas Monday Andreas Pella Sebastian Pflugbeil Ulrike Poppe Martin Schmidt Friedrich Schorlemmer Andree Türpe

Jutta Wachowiak Heinz Warzecha Konrad White Angela Wintgen Christa Wolf Ingeborg Graße

Walter Janka had approved the paper but was unable to sign it before it was published.

Later calls "For our country"

As a result, calls were made in 1989 in which the title “For our country” was taken up, but the message of the original text was significantly changed.

In November 1998 the right-wing extremist Horst Mahler wrote : “Publication of the 'leaflet to the Germans who still want to be, about the situation of their people.' Founder of the German national citizens' movement 'For Our Land'. The movement calls on all Germans to join it, 'So that Germany remains German ...'  " 

literature

• Konstanze Borchert, Volker Steinke, Carola Wuttke (eds.): For our country - an appeal in the last year of the GDR. IKO-Verlag for Intercultural Communication, 1994, ISBN 3-88939-376-4 .

Web links

• Appeal "For our country" of November 26, 1989 ( Memento of October 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• Call for action “For our country”, DY 2, 1989–1990 (1992–1999), edited by Kristina John and Inga Meiser, Berlin 2004 Foundation archive of parties and mass organizations of the GDR in the Federal Archives

Individual evidence

1. ^ E. Hoh: Colloquium for Reinhard Brühl. In: Potsdam's latest news. October 9, 2004, accessed December 2, 2013.
2. ↑ Dieter Klein: For an alternative democratic socialism. Discussion position of the working committee on the new formation of the SED as a modern socialist party starting from the base. In: New Germany. December 8, 1989, p. 3.
3. ↑ Dieter Klein: In the current deep social crisis we ask ourselves ... Autumn 1989, (unpublished)
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} ddr89.de: “For our country” with background information . November 26, 1989 ( ddr89.de ).
5. ↑ K. Borchert, V. Steinke, C. Wuttke (eds.): "For our country". A call action in the last year of the GDR.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on bam-portal.de  
6. ↑ ^{a b c} hausderdemokratie.de: Appeal “For our country” - autumn of utopia . ( hausderdemokratie.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ]).
7. ↑ Call for "For Our Country" from November 26, 1989 ( Memento from October 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Bernd Lindner: The democratic revolution in the GDR 1989/90 . Ed .: Federal Agency for Political Education. Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-89331-315-X .
9. ↑ http://www.hdg.de/lemo/biografie/horst-mahler.html