House of the Teacher

On October 7, 1989, the 40th anniversary of the GDR was celebrated. But not everybody was in the mood for cheers. Since the fraud in the local elections in May, there was repeated protest. And protest demonstrations were also announced for the day of the anniversary. Yet a lot of people had reservations about going to the streets on this day. Rightly so, because the state forces, controlled by the operations centre in the House of the Teacher at Alexanderplatz, took brutal action against the demonstrators.

Frank Pfeifer was determined to also demonstrate against the GDR on the day of its anniversary. Together with civil rights activist Evelyn Zupke, he was involved in the Friedenskreis Weissensee, in English Peace Circle Weissensee. He reports on how they called on people to protest.

"The next steps were that there was going to be a demonstration on October 7. That was the 40^th national holiday of the GDR. And that was – what today many people don’t like to hear – it was difficult for them to become involved. They simply said: That will be too dangerous! Our peace circle also said: We will have an event in the church. We will then go to the community centre and do without a demonstration. Other groups also simply said: Guys, we’re going to sit this one out. And then it was just Evelyn Zupke and I who were left, and we used a small printing press that we had borrowed to make these little notes that called for them to demonstrate. The Umweltbibliothek helped lay them out. We also dropped them in mail boxes at night and things like that: October 7, 5 p.m. World Clock! This became the first larger demonstration with a couple thousand participants which then started on October 7 at the World Clock on Alexanderplatz and headed towards the Gethsemanekirche."

Evelyn Zupke was one of the best known organizers of the protests. She and her fellow campaigners were therefore under special observation by the state. At first, they wanted to be cautious and not go to the streets themselves on October 7. But then, she recalls, the situation turned out to be different than expected.

"The day turned out to be quite dynamic and later in the evening on October 7, there were the first mass demonstrations all over the center of East Berlin. We then went out again, too. We hid all our personal things like identity papers and so on in some basement in the church. The trams were closed down later on. Some people were not able to return to the Gethsemanekirche. Only local residents were allowed to pass through. And, what absolutely has to be mentioned about those October days is that one didn’t know anything at all. It all happened so quickly. It developed an incredible dynamic. There was talk of ‘shooting orders’ down in Leipzig, in Berlin. No one knew what was happening. One knew from people who worked in hospitals that blood supplies were being provided. People had the Chinese solution in mind. It was such a wild time with a lot of excitement and also increasing fear."

Bärbel Reinke from East Berlin talks about how shocked she was by the state’s actions against the demonstrators.

"We took the tram because we realized all of a sudden that it was impossible to get everywhere. I have to say quite honestly: I don’t know what ours, – I mean in military terms – had available for equipment. The people in the tram came from this offical celebration. Well, the people who were sitting in there with a red carnation in their hand. The tram passed a cross street and I said to my husband: What is that? We don’t – this sounds silly now – have any snow yet. Why is there a snow plough? There were these large machines that had already been driven into position. I said, It can’t be that they wanted to bring people back to their senses, can it? But that was the intention. I didn't want to understand it."