Saturday circle

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The Saturday Circle (1988–1989) was an unofficial, non-governmental and extra-church meeting of the organized resistance of subversive groups and the opposition directed against the SED state in the GDR in Leipzig .

History and function

He met on the 3rd Saturday of the month (i.e. between the 15th and the 21st of a month) in Leipzig . The first meeting took place on August 20, 1988. The invitations were given orally so that only people they trust could be brought in.

“Since the summer of 1988, representatives from more than 40 groups have met once a month in Leipzig. The political issue was not the individual, but the organized association and its collective action against the rulers. "

- Frank Richter on the 25th anniversary of the revolution in the Nikolaikirche 2014

The purpose of the meeting was the GDR-wide networking of groups and active individuals in order to ensure a quick and surveillance-free exchange between the groups, reports of attacks by the state organs and contacts with the Western press. The first members included the civil rights activists Thomas Rudolph and Rainer Müller . Other co-founders were Bernd Oehler , Till Böttcher and Peter Grimm .

"The Saturday Circle, which has been taking place monthly since the summer of 1988, with numerous groups, especially from the south of the" GDR ", also had the purpose of coordinating and disseminating texts and generating a relevant return flow of approvals that could give the texts weight. The Saturday Circle also had the function of motivating people to come to Leipzig on Monday. "

- Rainer Müller and Oliver Kloss

The Saturday Circle remained undetected, although it can be proven that at least three unofficial employees had participated up to the last Saturday meeting on March 17, 1990 . Hints accumulate, for example, in the documents of the Ministry for State Security about Rainer Müller, one of the organizers involved (OV "Märtyrer"). In the so-called quarterly assessments, information events are also regularly mentioned, which according to the date can easily be recognized as the regular 3rd Saturday of the month. Base group representatives were invited, reports were made of an "internal" supraregional meeting or of a "conspiratorial meeting of hostile-negative forces" or of "strictly internal" meetings. However, the State Security apparently did not recognize a regular connection.

The IMs state several times that it was an event in the Theological Seminary in Leipzig (ThSL). Places were e.g. B. the parish rooms of Pastor Rolf-Michael Turek , later of Pastor Christoph Wonneberger at the Lukaskirche . Several meetings took place in a student dormitory of the Theological Seminary in Leipzig, which Rainer Müller u. a. had rented on the pretext of a personal birthday party. The IMs' assessment was always that it was an "information event". The fact that actions were also being prepared could not always be noticed, at least without consequences. So a meeting served z. B. the preparation of the street music festival in Leipzig, conspiratorial GDR-wide musicians and artists for street theater could be invited.

Since there was no explicit program, no hierarchy, no peer pressure, no ideological guidelines, no higher government agencies took notice, although there were up to 50 people present. For example, some of the group agreed to meet during a break to write a text in the park. It was voted on later. Ultimately, individuals could never be arrested through such caution.

This freedom from censorship made this circle an important point of contact and a think tank for the developing peaceful revolution in Leipzig . Participants came from environmental libraries, from the “Conciliar Process”, from the Human Rights Working Group , the Leipzig Justice Working Group and other subversive or grassroots groups as well as (from / from) editorial offices of “inner-church” and independent journals. Calls for demonstrations, contributions to internal church debates or theoretical topics were discussed and processed together. One of the media that made itself available from the start was Peter Grimm's Grenzfall magazine .

The Saturday Circle never signed as a group; it was always signed by the affected or acting groups or the individuals representing them, which meant that the context remained anonymous and unassailable.

literature

Web links

Radio and television documentation

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IFM-Archiv eV (Ed.): Organization of Protests 1988 (August 20, 1988).
  2. ↑ Frank Richter : Introduction on the occasion of the 25th anniversary in the peace prayer of the Nikolaikirche to the historical leaflet "Appeal of October 9, 1989"
  3. ^ Rainer Müller / Oliver Kloss : Foreword , in: Thomas Rudolph , Oliver Kloss, Rainer Müller, Christoph Wonneberger (eds.): Way in the uprising. Chronicle of opposition and resistance in the GDR from August 1987 to December 1989. Volume 1, Leipzig, Araki Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-941848-17-7 , p. XXXII.
  4. ↑ IFM-Archiv Sachsen eV (Ed.): From the MfS files of the GDR on the Justice Working Group: Selected quarterly assessments of the Leipzig district administration of the Ministry for State Security on the OV "Märtyrer". Rainer Müller, former student at the Theological Seminary in Leipzig and spokesman for the Justice Working Group. Leipzig, Edition Critique and Creation, 2014, Quarterly Assessment IV, p. 6 as of November 19, 1988; Quarterly estimate I, p. 7 as of February 18, 1989 and P. 10 as of March 18, 1989; Quarterly estimate II, p. 3 as of May 20, 1989.
  5. ↑ For example, the Saturday circle of December 17, 1988 is documented in: Ibid., Quarterly assessment I / 1989 , p. 2 below: “On December 17, 1988 , M. [üller] took part in a conspiratorial meeting in the theological seminary in Leipzig. [...] M. sold a variety of underground materials to the participants. "