Exhibition theme: Protest and Flight: Occupation of the district office of the Ministry of State Security [43/56]
OBJECT INFORMATION
Info
December 5 1989
Gotha, Friedrich-Engels-Straße, now Helenenstraße
Created By:
Archiv Manfred WettsteinLicense:
On the 4th of December 1989, members of the citizens' committee occupied the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) (
Wikipedia-Artikel, Stand 17. Februar 2010) district office in Gotha in order to prevent the Stasi from destroying files. The first district administration of the Ministry for State Security was occupied in Erfurt early that morning.
Crates for securing and transporting weapons are carried into the district office of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) in Gotha on December 5. Later, representatives of the citizens' committee seized weapons and ammunition and took them to the VPKA (district office of the People's Police) to be stored away.
Depicts
group of people,
man,
member of the People's Police,
micro,
nightprotestPeople/Organizations
Citizens' Committee,
Eckardt Hoffmann,
Ministry for State SecurityPlaces
GothaOther items in this set
Ultimately, it was the citizens of the GDR themselves who brought down the SED regime. From the summer of 1989 on, thousands of East Germans tried to flee to the West across the Hungarian-Austrian border and via the West German embassies in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw. In East Germany itself, ever greater numbers of people supported the demands of the citizens' movements for free elections, freedom of the press, and freedom to travel, despite their fear of state repression. In October, mass protests, which now involved hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, spread across the entire country. Aware that their protest could no longer be stopped, people increasingly felt a desire to capture events on film.
Original Caption
"Die leeren Kisten für die Stasi-Waffen werden gebracht."
(3 rankings) 
