We are one people

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The German political slogan "We are one people" was built in the time of political turnaround in Germany 1989 / 1990 . He initially conjured up the common origin of citizens and security forces of the GDR at the Monday demonstrations. Its use as a slogan for reunification , which emerged a little later, resulted from the slogan “ We are the people ”.

We are one people - a call for the unity of citizens and security forces

In the wake of the fall of the Wall, the GDR's largest protest demonstration to date took place in Leipzig on October 9, 1989 , in which many participants on all sides had the violent reaction of the Chinese state power on Tian'anmen Square in the back of their minds, but ultimately nothing of the kind happened. Members of opposition groups printed a call for nonviolence the evening before in the Lukas parish at Christoph Wonneberger's . The 25,000 leaflets were aimed at "emergency services" and demonstrators alike with the evocative formula:

“We are one people ! Violence among us leaves wounds that bleed forever! The party and the government must be made primarily responsible for the serious situation that has arisen . But today it is up to us to prevent the violence from escalating further. Our future depends on it. "

Later use: We are the people - We are one people

" We are the people " was the motto at the Leipzig Monday demonstrations in 1989. Sometimes it was shouted in addition to "We are not hooligans". This referred to a political leading article in the Leipzig daily press, this leading article described the demonstrators as "hooligans". Tens of thousands of demonstrators chanted the exclamation repeatedly during the Peaceful Revolution . He was called for the first time at a major demonstration in Leipzig on October 9, 1989. When the demonstrations subsequently expanded to other East German cities, this slogan became common everywhere.

In 2002 the pastor Christian Führer from the Nikolaikirche and the mayor of Leipzig Wolfgang Tiefensee had the distinctive sentence - which did not come from them - under trademark protection in order to prevent abuse. On February 6, 2013, the German Patent and Trademark Office repealed the word mark . The civil rights activist Angelika Kanitz had requested this: the sentence should remain as free as it was formulated in 1989. The city of Leipzig has not filed an objection.

By later exchanging a single word for “We are one people”, the demonstration call got a far-reaching political impact, which subsequently had a strong impact on world politics. The change of the demonstration slogan indicated the will of the East German citizens to German reunification , which West German politicians , especially Chancellor Helmut Kohl , used to negotiate the unity of Germany with the victorious powers of the Second World War .

History of the change of the demonstration slogan

To this day it has not been clarified when the demonstration slogan changed for the first time, but probably only after the Berlin Wall opened on November 9, 1989.

On the leaflet dated October 9, 1989, the sentence “We are one people” is written in a blocked manner. However, the letter was addressed to demonstrators and emergency services alike and urged them to renounce "violence among us", i.e. towards the other side. This did not mean the reunification of Germany.

On November 11, 1989, the headline of the picture (subtitle: The reunification of Germany - This is our mission! ):

“We are the people” they call today - “We are one people” they call tomorrow!

As a result, the reputation was spread across a large area for the first time and linked to the demand for state unification . At the first Monday demonstration after the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 13, 1989, according to eyewitness reports, smaller groups chanted the new demonstration call. Since the Berlin Wall was open, it remains unclear whether this exclamation came from West or East Germans.

Subsequently, the CDU had posters, flyers and bumper stickers with the new battle cry printed in hundreds of thousands. From mid-January 1990 onwards, the call was posted across the board in the GDR. The top candidate of the CDU in the GDR , Lothar de Maizière , had himself featured on election posters for the 1990 Volkskammer election in such a way that the impression was created that the sentence was his.

Germany United fatherland

Chancellor Kohl and demonstrators with the slogan "Germany united fatherland"

According to eyewitness reports, at the demonstrations that followed the opening of the Wall, the phrase “We are one people!” Was shouted less often than the phrase “Germany united fatherland!”. The last-mentioned motto was taken from the text of the national anthem of the GDR , which at that time was no longer officially sung because of this very text passage and was only played in purely instrumental form.

According to research by Deutschlandradios , the slogan “Germany united fatherland” as well as “We are one people” were placed in the Leipzig Monday demonstrations from West Germany . On the initiative of the system critic Siegmar Faust , who was ransomed from the GDR by the West in 1976 , he was entrusted to a senior citizen in Leipzig who was allowed to travel to the West before the Wall came down. The pensioner allegedly received DM 1,000 for this . This agreement took place on the sidelines of a congress of the Paneuropean Union in West Berlin .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Jankowski : The day that changed Germany - October 9, 1989. (= series of publications by the Saxon State Commissioner for the Stasi documents. No. 7). Essay. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-374-02506-0 , p. 85.
  2. ↑ Facsimile of the appeal by three Leipzig opposition groups on jugendopposition.de . Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Country report Deutschlandradio Kultur, September 29, 2005 .
  4. ↑ Peter Schilder: We are the people . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. February 22, 2013.
  5. ↑ focus.de
  6. ↑ Celebration on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Dr. Lothar de Maizière , website of the INFRANEU main association ( Memento from December 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Thilo Schmidt : German calls (3): Germany, united fatherland. Deutschlandradio Kultur, September 23, 2009.