Peaceful Revolution
Videos
The Peaceful Revolution – also called Die Wende – was one of the peaceful revolutions of 1989 at the peak of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s. It was a process of sociopolitical chan
Berlin wall falls, Brandenburg Gate, 10 November 1989
Monday demonstration in Leipzig, 16 October 1989
Queue outside a bank in Gera, on 1 July 1990, the day that the GDR adopted the West German currency
Otto von Habsburg, who played a leading role in opening the Iron Curtain
East Germany
Videos
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic, was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, i
Peaceful Revolution
…peak of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s. It was a process of sociopolitical change that led to, among other openings, the opening of East Germany's borders to the Western world. These events were precipitated by Solidarity's peaceful revolution in Poland and enabled by Soviet leader Mikhail…
GDR leaders: President Wilhelm Pieck and Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl, 1949
SED First Secretary, Walter Ulbricht, 1960
Erich Honecker, head of state (1971–1989)
Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) Helmut Schmidt, Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Erich Honecker, U.S. president Gerald Ford and Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky signing the Helsinki Act