Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm

1989 is 30 years ago. The wall has been gone longer than it ever stood and yet many stories of the GDR and the East have yet to be told. One such story is that of the short autumn of utopia. A revolutionary situation, in which citizens took to the streets for “an open country with free people” and a vision of democratic socialism. Councils and grass-roots associations were established, buildings occupied and factory workers went on strike – for a few months, everything was possible. The GDR was the freest country in the world. Power lay in the streets and yet was not quite within grasp. How did this revolutionary situation happen? What was the role of leftist opposition in these battles, what was the character of the revolt? When and how did this eruption of emancipation turn into a process of incorporation into West German reality? What remained, what was lost?

An event by younger and older East Germans from Frankfurt as part of a series of public events dealing with the GDR and the East in ways long overdue in Germany.