Günter Schabowski
| Guenter Schabowski | |
 Schabowski in 1982 |
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| Born | January 4, 1929 Anklam, Pomerania |
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| Profession | Politician |
Günter Schabowski (born 4 January 1929) is a former official of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the ruling party during most of the existence of the German Democratic Republic. Schabowski gained worldwide fame in November 1989 when he improvised a slightly mistaken answer to a press conference question, raising popular expectations so rapidly that massive crowds gathered the same night at the Berlin Wall, forcing its opening after 28 years; soon after, the entire inner German border was opened.
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[edit] Background
Schabowski was born in Anklam, Pomerania (now part of the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). He studied journalism at the Karl Marx University, Leipzig, after which he became editor of the trade union magazine, Tribüne. In 1952, he became a member of the SED. In 1978, he became the chief editor of the newspaper Neues Deutschland (“New Germany”), which as the official organ of the SED was considered to be the leading newspaper in the GDR. In 1981 he became a member of the SED Central Committee. In 1985, he became the First Secretary of the East Berlin chapter of the SED and a member of the SED Politbüro.
[edit] Tearing the Berlin Wall down
On 9 November 1989, due to a misunderstanding, Schabowski famously announced in a live broadcast international press conference that a new regulation governing travel of East Germans abroad, suspending previous restrictions, was to take effect “immediately”.
Shortly before the press conference, Schabowski was handed a note that said that East Berliners would be allowed to cross the border with proper permission but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards. However, nobody had informed Schabowski.
He read the note out loud at the end of the press conference. When the Italian journalist Riccardo Ehrman, the Berlin correspondent of ANSA newsagency, asked when the regulations would come into effect, Schabowski assumed it would be the same day based on the wording of the note and replied: “As far as I know effective immediately, without delay (sofort, unverzüglich)”. After further questions from journalists, he confirmed that the regulations included the border crossings into West Berlin, which he had not mentioned until then.[1]
Later that night, tens of thousands of East Berliners began proceeding to border crossings along the Berlin Wall and demanded to be let through. They vastly outnumbered the border guards who stalled for time and were finally forced to open the gates and allow people into West Berlin. This was the beginning of the end of the Wall regime.
In the following purges of the “Party old guard”, Schabowski was quickly expelled from the SED (which then morphed into the Party of Democratic Socialism, the PDS), even though just months earlier in 1989 he had been awarded the party's prestigious “Karl Marx medal”.
[edit] Political life after reunification
After German Reunification, Schabowski became highly critical of his own actions in the GDR and those of his fellow Politburo members, as well as of Soviet-style socialism in general. As of 2004[update], he remains the only really high-ranking GDR official to have renounced the GDR as fatally flawed. He worked again as a journalist and editor for a small local paper between 1992 and 1999. His campaign help for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) prompted some of his former comrades to call him a Wryneck (a bird that can turn its head 180 degrees; popular term used to mock Communists who have turned capitalist).[2]
Together with other leading figures of the GDR regime, he was charged with the murders of refugees. In August 1997, Schabowski was convicted along with Egon Krenz and Günther Kleiber. Because he accepted his moral guilt and renounced the GDR he was sentenced to only 3 years in prison. In December 1999 he began serving his sentence in Hakenfelde Prison in Spandau. However, in September 2000 he was pardoned by Governing Mayor Eberhard Diepgen and released in December 2000, having served only a year. He is critical of the PDS/Left Party (i.e., successor of the Socialist Unity Party); in 2001, he collaborated with Bärbel Bohley as advisor of Frank Steffel (CDU).
[edit] References
- ^ Walker, Marcus (Oct 21, 2009) "Did Brinkmannship Fell Berlin's Wall? Brinkmann Says It Did" The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Pond, Elizabeth (1993). Beyond the Wall: Germany's Road to Reunification. Brookings Institution Press. p. 117. ISBN 0815771541. http://books.google.com/books?id=8Nc-1Nc2aIwC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=Schabowski+wryneck&source=bl&ots=ERWmAJ87Hz&sig=m3Y7SNpVGK4GTnkSzi8cqdXs1Tg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA117,M1.
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