Honecker’s “punishment” for falling behind was not long in coming. The event that provided the immediate impetus for his ouster occurred not in East Berlin but in Leipzig, the old Saxon town that was becoming known as “the city of heroes.” A mass demonstration of 50,000 marchers was announced for the night of October 9. Asked by his party colleagues how the regime should respond, Honecker provided no answer. He seemed irresolute, confused, and befuddled. Perhaps he believed that if he gave an order to shoot it would not be carried out. He certainly knew that the Soviets would not approve of a violent crackdown. In the end, he left the decision about how to handle the Leipzig situation to his defense minister, Heinz Keßler, and to the regional party bosses. When 50,000 Leipzigers set out on their march from the Nikolaikirche on the night of October 9, they had no idea how the authorities would react. Fearing the worst, Kurt Masur, the influential director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, urged both the marchers and the authorities to remain calm. As the march progressed, the police slowly melted back. There was no firing, no mass arrests. “We’ve won!” shouted the demonstrators. At this point, they did not realize how much they had won: their victory in the battle for Leipzig was a victory in the war for the future of Germany.
A week later Honecker was pushed from the position of power he had held for seventeen years. Having shown himself unable to contend effectively with any of the GDR’s manifold problems—its sagging economy, emigration crisis, rebellious citizenry—he faced a hostile Politbüro at the group’s meeting on October 17. His opponents had already laid the groundwork for his dismissal. When the SED veteran Willi Stoph proposed his removal from office, no one came to his defense. Egon Krenz, one of the key plotters against him, was appointed general secretary of the party in his place. For years Krenz had been known as Honecker’s most loyal satrap. Now, by turning against the old man, he was acting just as Honecker had done in helping to bring down
At the time of Honecker’s fall no one could have known that the old Stalinist’s proudest achievement, the Berlin Wall, would in effect go down with him. The three-week interregnum between the end of Honecker’s reign and the fall of the Wall was marked by escalating protest demonstrations against the new regime of Egon Krenz. The change in leadership obviously did not convince a large percentage of GDR citizens that the SED regime would introduce meaningful reforms without being compelled to do so. The largest demonstration to date occurred on November 4 at the Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. About 700,000 people crowded the vast square, brandishing hand-lettered signs with slogans like “Stay in the street and don’t ease up!”; “Passports for everyone—a red card [soccer term for expulsion from the game] for the SED!” They heard speeches from representatives of a newly formed opposition group, Neues Forum, demanding a role in the political process. Jens Reich, a professor of molecular biology, appealed for “dialogue” with the government, though he cautioned that “Dialogue is not the main meal, only the appetizer.” The writer Stefan Heym spoke excitedly of the fact that Germans were finally learning to “walk upright” after years of “clicking their heels” under the kaiser, the Nazis, and the SED. But walking upright, he added, was not enough; the German people had to learn to rule themselves. Members of the new government also spoke, trying their best to convince the people that significant changes were in the works. Markus Wolf, no longer wearing his mask of Stasi anonymity, delivered a short speech promising a cleanup of the domestic security forces. However, if the chorus of boos and catcalls was any indication, most people in the crowd considered a reformed Stasi a contradiction in terms.
For East Berlin the November 4 demonstration was a turning point. It suggested that the East German capital was finally coming into its own as a center of political protest and civic courage. Egon Krenz, the new East German leader, reaped the harvest of this popular awakening. With his set of big teeth and a mane of silver hair, he was widely caricatured in the suddenly iconoclastic East Berlin press as a Communist wolf disguised as Little Red Riding Hood’s benevolent granny. He sought to gain support with promises of dialogue and a “market-oriented socialist planned economy,” but no one, not even his SED colleagues, trusted him. The exiled singer Wolf Biermann described him aptly as “a walking invitation to flee the republic.”
