TIL that a month before the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany's government attempted to order an arrest of about 86,000 people
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By the time they came up with that idea it was arguably already too late.
Had they cracked down on the first Monday protests at the beginning, things might have gone differently.
Each week people saw that the protests were not violently crushed and more decided to take the risk to join the next Monday.
The more people joined the harder crushing the protest became and the safer protesting became.
The safer the protests appeared the easier it was for people to decide to take the risk to join.
They couldn't prevent their people from learning about the movement because radio and TV broadcast from west Germany and West Berlin reached much of East Germany. They couldn't pretend the protest weren't happening and were to afraid to violently crush them.
It didn't help that the whole apparatus of the GDR discouraged people at the bottom of the hierarchy from showing imitative and that people at all levels had the impression that if push came to shove their superiors wouldn't have their backs and they would need to get everything in writing and look out for themselves first.
This is how it ended too.
On November 9th Günter Schabowski was announcing new travel regulations that he had not really been briefed on in detail at an international press conference. What was meant as a one-way safety valve to get rid of the worst trouble makers in a last ditch effort. Was misinterpreted as a free for all abolishing of all travel restrictions and when one reported asked when this would come into effect he simply said "As far as I know immediately, without delay".
Nobody in power was able or willing to correct that mistake and the low level soldiers manning the border checkpoints and their superiors knew they were fucked. Nobody in power would go on record to issue any orders. If they tried anything not only would they receive violence from the mob that wanted to pass though, but they would also be thrown to the wolves by the rulers for having acted without orders.
Even if orders had come down at that point, they might not have been followed. The people didn't necessarily want to shoot their fellow citizens after all.
That is the problem with the whole only following orders mentality. Without orders there were precious few willing to show any kind of initiative that would put them at risk.
Had they cracked down on the first Monday protests at the beginning, things might have gone differently.
This seems to be a frequent miscalculation of authoritarian regimes- the idea that if they let the boot up for a while it'll be okay and let some pressure off. It does not- it only aggravates the situation.
Once you put the boot down, you must forever keep it down.
Once they "put the boot down", the outcomes of self destruction are fore-ordained.
Their FIRST & Last miscalculation is their very existence.
The exact same process is ongoing in Iran and Chung Hua today on the streets. Over 75% of the people of teheran hate their gov. Now that same gov is slaughtering their own daughters.
there is NO future in that. Either.
To make a long story short, the inevitable fall of the corrupt , evil and inefficient USSR, extended to their vassal states.
Look at the Ceauscescu's as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu
Then the remnants of Serbia's Slob-odan Milosevic gov, ended up the same way. Kosovo's genocide his last aberrancy of a totally evil and corrupt system.
The Chad West German Capitalists vs. the Virgin East German Communists
Interesting that there is not a single word about this "Plan X" in the German version of the article.
I looked at the references and it seems all of the Plan X stuff came from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Stasi-Untold-German-Secret-Police/dp/0813334098/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
We might say their attempts at arresting were Arrested. Most ended up in jail for crimes against their own people. Or fled to South Am with their Nazi acquaintances.
Most ended up in jail for crimes against their own people.
I don't think that's true.
Not citing the facts is also not a reason.
Egon Krenz, East Germany’s last hard-line Communist leader, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison after 115 days of testimony and evidence in what has come to be known here as “the Politburo trial.” ; “The defense of the border was placed above human life” in Krenz’s system, presiding Judge Josef Hoch said in a verdict that took two hours to read.
Two other former Politburo members, Guenther Kleiber and Guenther Schabowski, received sentences of three years each, as Germany continues the slow and difficult process of sorting out blame and punishment for the woes and crimes of the former East Germany.
Although the Politburo, once the most powerful body in the East German system, consisted of 22 members, few of those have stood or probably will stand trial. Some have been deemed too old or too sick; for others, there has been a lack of admissible evidence. The Politburo trial started out with six defendants, but three were allowed to drop out because of frailty and ill health.
To further frustrate justice-seekers in Germany’s post-Cold War era, other top Eastern officials have been tried but acquitted because their activities, however inhumane, were legal under East German law.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-aug-26-mn-26083-story.html
The LA times is hardly a paragon of much else but creating the news rather than reporting it.
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