Protesters from Germany's left and the right have called for regular Monday protests against the rising cost of living. These evoke the peaceful revolution in East Germany but also of recent anti-immigrant rallies.
By helping bring down communist East Germany, Monday demonstrations have a storied history in GermanyImage: Waltraud Grubitzsch/ZB/picture alliance
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Parties on both the left and right of the political spectrum in Germany have announced a "hot autumn" with regular Monday demonstrations.
The socialist Left Party was the first to announce the new series of protests against Germany's rising prices for gas, energy and food.
It chose Leipzig, a city in former East Germany, as the location for its first Monday march on September 5.
The choice of Leipzig has a powerful symbolic resonance: This is where East Germans played a decisive role in toppling the dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) with their Monday demonstrations.
There was once a Wall...
It was a turning point in German history: A little awkward phrasing by Günter Schabowski on November 9, 1989 electrified a nation. The GDR official was only supposed to announce a provisional new travel regulation.
Image: ullstein bild-Succo
The Wall that no one feared anymore
Just 48 hours after the borders were opened, the so-called "death strip" had lost its power to terrify. Berliners celebrated in front of, behind and on top of the concrete wall that had divided the city. East and West Germans were one people again.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The prologue
On May 2, 1989, Hungarian soldiers began to dismantle several sections of border fence between Hungary and Austria. These were the first gaps in the Iron Curtain, the ideological border between Eastern and Western Europe since the end of World War II.
Image: AP
Fake elections - again
On May 7, 1989, the people of East Germany voted in parliamentary elections. The results were predictable, because once again they were faked. The incumbents claimed to have won 98 percent of the vote. Only this time the opposition resisted. A day later demonstrators took to the streets of Leipzig.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Roland Holschneider
Gorby slaughters a sacred cow
The Warsaw Pact summit in Bucharest, July 1989. Gorbachev revoked the Brezhnev Doctrine, suspending the Soviet Union's right to intervene in the affairs of its socialist neighbors. From now on, Moscow's allies had to find their own solutions to national problems. A taboo had been broken.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Overburdened and fleeing
The traditional summer holiday in Hungary becomes a turning point in the lives of thousands of East Germans. From Dresden to Usedom, they had heard about the porous fence along the Austrian border. Carrying all their belongings, whole families walked across the green line to freedom as fast as they could. The border soldiers just looked the other way.
Image: AP
Embassies as refugee camps
The gardens of West German embassies became particularly popular holiday destinations in the summer of 1989. The buildings were soon full of East Germans, and the hygiene situation was occasionally appalling. At the high point of the refugee tide in Prague, there were almost 5,000 people camping in the garden of the Palais Lobkowitz.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Genscher's moment
Hans-Dietrich Genscher would later call it the most moving experience of his life. On September 30, 1989, the West German Foreign Minister told thousands of GDR citizens that they were free to travel to West Germany. It is the emotional climax ahead of the actual fall of the Berlin Wall. Click "More" to hear the jubilant response to his announcement (in German).
Image: ullstein bild-AP
'We are the people'
On the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, the people found their courage. Leipzig became a protest city, the Monday demonstrations taught those in power in East Berlin to fear. At the end of September, 8,000 people took to the streets. By mid-October the numbers had grown to 70,000. By the end of the month, 300,000 people were demonstrating against the Honecker government.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Special trains west
At the start of October, the Prague embassy was full of East Germans once again, as was its counterpart in Warsaw. It was a time of hectic, and covert, diplomacy between Bonn and East Berlin. More than 6,000 GDR citizens eventually moved to West Germany via the embassies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
40 years older, but no wiser
The internal erosion of the GDR was far gone by its 40th birthday. While at the start of the wave of protests, the various opposition movements were merely pushing for reforms, by October their aims were much broader: free elections, open borders, prosperity. Honecker remained stubborn, but Gorbachev knew the game was up.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Krenz comes too late
Erich Honecker, head of state and party, remained utterly myopic until the very end of his political life. On October 18, the until-then unchallenged Honecker was dropped by both the party and the state council. "Crown prince" Egon Krenz took over and tried to keep the GDR alive with promises of reform. Too little, too late.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Peter Kroh
The people have had enough
At the start of November, the protest movement reached the East German capital. Several hundred thousand people protested against their own government. Their slogan: no violence. It was and would remain the biggest demonstration in the 40-year history of the GDR.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The opposition spells out its demands
The demos on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin were broadcast live - a sensation that underlined the powerlessness of the Krenz government. The opposition demands struck at the core of the socialist state. Freedom to travel, the freedom of the press, and the freedom of assembly were key. And the Stasi's crimes were not to go unpunished.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Martti Kainulainen
History's biggest stumble
A few words that changed the world. A tired and ill-prepared GDR official, Günter Schabowski, stumbled over his words as he announced a temporary new travel regulation for East German citizens. After being expressly asked for clarification, Schabowski said the opening of the border was valid "as of now." Click "More" to hear him say the words that opened the Wall (in German).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Trabis on the Ku'damm
The night of November 9, 1989 was an experience often described as unreal and dream-like. Within 48 hours, hundreds of thousands of East Germans had gone over to West Berlin by bike, on foot, or in their Trabants - the East German state-manufactured car. Checkpoint Charlie became a carnival site.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
No love lost
Four days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany's TV audiences, both East and West, could watch in astonishment as an old predator transformed into a puppy. Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi and hard-liner at the politburo, practically groveled as he asked for understanding in front of the East German parliament. It was a pathetic final appearance of an old man with blood on his hands.
Image: ullstein bild-Succo
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What were Cold War Monday demonstrations?
It all started with prayers meetings at Leipzig's St Nicholas Church that evolved into demonstrations in September 1989. These peaceful protests eventually spilled into other towns and cities across East Germany.
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Protests around the 40th anniversary celebrations of the GDR on October 7, 1989, were met with a forceful response by the state. Despite the increased international attention at the time, some 3,500 people were arrested and many others injured throughout East Germany.
The next day, October 8, some 8,000 police and armed military units gathered in Leipzig. This triggered fears that the state would crack down on the Monday demonstration by using the "Chinese Solution" — a term East Germans used to refer to the Chinese massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Tianamen Square, which had occured only a few months previously.
More than 70,000 protesters, out of Leipzig's population of 500,000, turned out and marched peacefully on that date. Across the country, hundreds of thousands protested against the communist regime of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) at the time, chanting "We are the people!"
The security forces backed down.
In 2004, East German protesters took to the streets of Leipzig on Mondays to show their anger against labor market reformsImage: Eckehard Schulz/AP Photo/picture alliance
AfD and Free Saxons compete with the Left Party
The fact that Monday was chosen for this week's marches obviously enhances that symbolism, something that has not gone down well with some.
The Green Party criticized Sören Pellmann, a Leipzig-based member of the Bundestag and Left Party's eastern Germany representative, for using the term "Monday demonstration," as he believed it had a symbolic meaning that was directed against the SED, the Left's precursor party.
The Greens also accused the Left Party of accepting "that far-right appropriations of the Monday demonstrations in the center of the city could become acceptable."
That was an allusion to the fact that in addition to the Left Party, several right-wing parties have also called for demonstrations, including the far-right splinter party called Free Saxons and far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is represented in the Bundestag and under surveillance by Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
The Left Party leadership has defended itself against the accusations. They are aware of the danger coming from the right, said Janine Wissler, who shares the party leadership with Martin Schirdewan.
As for Schirdewan, he defended the plan for the Leipzig demonstration as a "powerful, peaceful protest" for a political course correction.
The protest slogan translates as "Unburden people. Cap prices. Tax excess profits." Wissler argued: "Protests against the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine should not be left to the right. After all, the Left is the party of social justice."
But right-wing extremists have already demonstrated the danger of appropriation. "Together against those up there": Under this slogan, the smallest party had registered its rally at the same location as the Left near Leipzig's main train station, giving the impression that it was pulling together with its political opponents. The Left Party successfully took legal action against this.
Far-right xenophobic demonstrations by the PEGIDA movement turned violent like here in Chemnitz on Monday August 27,2018Image: Getty Images/AFP/O. Andersen
The far-right appropriates the battle cry: 'We are the people'
The label "Monday demonstration" has been appropriated many times since Germany's reunification in 1990, by both the left and the right. In 2004, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), another forerunner of today's Left Party, mobilized against what was known as "Agenda 2010," the then government's reforms of unemployment benefits.
In the Saxon capital of Dresden alone, up to 25,000 people took to the streets, specifically echoing the tradition of the GDR's peaceful revolution with the slogan: "We are the people." PEGIDA protests still take place today, though more than 200 people rarely take part.
Protesters against COVID regulations appropriated the Monday demonstrations in 2021, labeling their far-right protests as 'Monday evening strolls'Image: Sachelle Babbar/ZUMA Wire/picture alliance
COVID protest disguised as a 'stroll'
Another mass movement emerged temporarily at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when protests against the government's policies to contain the virus were called "Monday strolls" in an attempt to evade and satirize lockdown restrictions. However, with falling infection figures and the removal of almost all restrictions, such as mandatory masks in stores, cinemas or concert halls, this variant of the Monday demonstrations has also died down.
Now the Monday demonstrations are set to bloom again. The dispute about the alleged or actual misuse of the original from the fall of 1989 will probably continue.
This article was originally written in German.
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