Ossietzky affair

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Main entrance of the EOS "Carl von Ossietzky" (1987)

The Ossietzky affair refers to the proceedings around the discipline of students of the East Berlin Carl-von-Ossietzky-Oberschule in autumn 1988. On September 30, 1988 students were kicked out of the school because they were open to peace and the Solidarność opposition in Poland and had spoken out against military parades and right-wing extremism in the GDR . The action taken by the official bodies against the students sparked protests in both East and West.

prehistory

At the request of the FDJ's basic organization, director Rainer Forner gave EOS “ Carl von Ossietzky ” permission at the beginning of the 1988/89 school year to set up a “ speaker's corner ”. Here the students should take an open and uncensored position on the topics that affect them.

Criticism from students

The State Security had already noticed some students at the school . Alexander Krohn , Benjamin Lindner, Shenja-Paul Wiens and Philipp Lengsfeld , son of the recently expatriated opposition member Vera Wollenberger , with self-made banners against fascist tendencies and neo-Nazis, attended the “memorial rally to honor the victims of fascism ” on September 11, 1988 published in the GDR. They were briefly arrested by "bodyguards" of the Stasi to establish their identity. Just one day later, Benjamin Lindner and Shenja-Paul Wiens, grandson of the writer Paul Wiens , posted the critical article "This is how we see it. Comments on the current situation in the VR Poland " on the school's wall newspaper . This ended with the call for reforms and a participation in power by Solidarność and other opposition groups. The article was removed on the same day by her classmate Carsten Krenz, son of the then Deputy Chairman of the State Council and later SED Secretary General Egon Krenz , and put back on the next day with a critical comment. Thus the state and party leadership had an insight into what was going on from the start.

On September 14th, Kai Feller posted another article on the “Speaker's Corner” that questioned the need for military parades on the occasion of the anniversary of the GDR and called for them to be abandoned. This was provided with a list of signatures, on which 38 of the 160 or so students signed up until the action was stopped by the city district school board. At the same time, sharp attacks began against the school and students. The students Lengsfeld and Lindner answered this with the praise poem Du Meine on the Kalashnikov from the newspaper Die Volksarmee , which was provided with an ironic comment.

Reaction of the school management and other official bodies

The events alerted the MfS district office in Pankow , which immediately brought in the unofficial employee (IM) "Ilona" for spying on students and individual teachers.

From September 22nd, defamation, interrogation and tribunal-like gatherings began at the school. Under pressure from the school, 30 of the 38 signatures were withdrawn. Only Kai Feller, Katja Ihle, Philipp Lengsfeld, Benjamin Lindner, Georgia von Chamier, Shenja-Paul Wiens and two other students stayed with their statements. Under pressure from the FDJ basic organization management, votes were held in the classes to exclude students from their FDJ groups. The allegations were " anti-socialist behavior ", " treacherous group formation " and " establishing a pacifist platform ". On September 30, the school management staged the relegation of the students involved. These had to step forward in the auditorium and were referred to a separate statement in front of the assembled school in the auditorium. Here parts of the student body showed solidarity with the students threatened with exclusion. The protest of individual students who had supported the FDJ exclusion, but refused to be excluded from the school, changed nothing. Feller, Ihle, Lengsfeld and Lindner were relegated from school, and from Chamier and Vienna they were transferred to other schools. The other two received a written reprimand.

Solidarity with the students

The events caused consternation in society, as many were reminded of the political repression and the uncompromising action against opposition members at GDR schools in the 1950s. An unexpected wave of solidarity with the eight students arose. At the beginning of November, the school building was given the slogan “Further questions!”. As early as October 16, the environmental papers of the Berlin Environmental Library reported on the events. Under the title “ What is happening in our schools? “ Wolfgang Rüddenklau spread the invitation to a strategy conference in Berlin's Zionskirche . Under the heading “ The risk of having your own opinion ”, the environmental papers reported in more detail on the case in December. In addition, they produced 3,000 leaflets that were supposed to clarify the events. Numerous churches also took part in the protests with information and solidarity services. The implementation of church action weeks was hindered by the general superintendent Günter Krusche , who, in coordination with the Berlin consistorial president Manfred Stolpe, advised the churches “not to allow such events in the churches and parish halls”. The students also received support from Germany . Teachers in West Berlin schools made a public appeal to the government of the GDR to protest against the reprisals. The International Association of Doctors Against Nuclear War (IPPNW) also condemned the government measures in a public letter in its magazine.

Result

The protests were ineffective and the verdicts initially persisted. In addition, from then on the school was under special control of the Ministry for State Security . It was not until November 1989, after the fall of the Wall and the peaceful revolution in the GDR , that the Ministry of Education canceled the school penalties so that the four pupils who had been expelled from school could catch up on their Abitur . In spite of all this, the events confirmed that even under the authoritarian education system led by Margot Honecker , young people were growing up who, despite all the repression , wanted to make use of their constitutional right to express their opinion. The GDR civil rights activist Jens Reich saw the eight students as "pioneers of the revolutionary movement".

literature

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Cf. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : The Ossietzky Affair 1988 , in: Hans-Joachim Veen / Hubertus Knabe / Peter Eisenfeld / Manfred Wilke et al. (Eds.): Lexicon Opposition and Resistance in the SED dictatorship , Berlin 2000, p. 274.
  2. ↑ a b Vera Lengsfeld : 25 years of the Ossietzky-Schul affair at www.achgut.com, October 10, 2013
  3. ^ Carl von Ossietzky affair Havemann Gesellschaft, archive of the GDR opposition, viewed May 26, 2020
  4. ^ BStU, Stasi-Mediathek: Information from the main department for personal protection at the Stasi about people with self-made banners from September 12, 1988
  5. ^ Benjamin Lindner; Shenja-Paul Wiens: That's how we see it. Comments on the current situation in the VR Poland. In: Jörn Kalkbrenner; Joachim Giera: Judgment without trial: Margot Honecker against Ossietzky students. Dietz-Verlag 1990. ISBN 3320016822 . Page 15.
  6. ↑ a b BStU, Stasi-Mediathek: Stasi report with reconstructed text from Speakers Corner on page 13 below .
  7. ↑ BStU, Stasi-Mediathek: Copy of "Du Meine" with commentary and signatures Lengsfeld and Lindner with comment: "A poem that moved us deeply and made us think"
  8. ↑ a b c d Cf. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : "Rausgeschmissen" - The relegation of students from the Carl von Ossietzky School , viewed on July 19, 2011.
  9. ^ A b c See youth opposition in the GDR: The events at the Berlin Ossietzky School , [1] .
  10. ^ A b See Neubert, Ehrhart : History of the Opposition in the GDR 1949–1989 , Bonn 2000, pp. 774f.
  11. ↑ Relegated pupils can continue their education http://zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/ddr-presse/resultbeispiel/?purl=SNP2532889X-19891101-0-2-23-0