The people began to demandister Yasov to warn about the danger oi imperialism and to call for a stronger Warsaw Pact. Although Chancellor Kohl, in his state of the nation address to the German Bundestag in December 1988, welcomed the lifting of certain travel restrictions, he denounced the suppression of the reform movement in the GDR. To Honecker the new civil rights movements were merely examples of “extremist intemperance”. In response to appeals to remove the Wall, he replied on 19 January 1989: “The wall protecting us from fascism will stay there until such time as the conditions which led to its erection are changed. It will still be in existence in 50, 100 years’ time.”

The stubborn rigidity of the GDR leaders at a time when Gorbachev saw a “common European home” taking shape and Helmut Kohl was speaking optimistically about “the disintegration of ossified structures in Europe” aroused even more discontent among the GDR population. At times the Federal Republic’s permanent representation in Berlin (East) had to be closed because of the surge of people wanting to move west.

then a number of remarkable things happened in quick succession: In September 1989 Hungary opened its border, thus permitting thousands of people from the GDR to pass through to Austria and from there into the Federal Republic. This breach of Warsaw Pact discipline encouraged ever more people in the GDR to take to the streets in protest, including growing numbers outside the church. When the GDR leaders celebrated the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR with great pomp and ceremony at the beginning of October 1989, mass demonstrations were held, primarily in Leipzig. (”We are the people!”)