THE YEAR 1989 BROUGHT A RADICAL CHANGE of the world order that had dominated Europe and defined the relationship between the USSR and the USA ever since the end of World War II. The perestroika reform policy introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and later president of the Soviet Union, as well as reform movements in Hungary, Poland, and other satellite states of the USSR paved the way for a political upheaval in Communist Eastern Europe. A chronological survey of the most important events:
HungaryJanuary 11
Hungary is the first state of the Eastern Bloc to pass legislation permitting the establishment of parties, trade unions and other political associations. Moreover, the right of assembly is laid down by law.
HungaryJanuary 21
Under pressure from its inner-party reform wing, the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party renounces its leading role in state and society guaranteed by the Constitution. The party’s Central Committee decides to permit a multi-party system in Hungary and thus forgoes its power monopoly.
PolandFebruary 6
The first Roundtable Talk: between February 6 and April 5, representatives of the Polish United Workers’ Party, the underground trade union Solidarność, the Catholic Church and other groups sit down for negotiations in Magdalenka near Warsaw. Due to a permanent political crisis with an attendant strike wave, the ruling Communist party had found itself forced to accept these talks.
PolandApril 5
In conclusion of the Roundtable Talks, a decision is made for the readmission of the Solidarność trade union which had been banned since 1982. In addition, negotiators agree to hold relatively free elections in June 1989.
HungaryMay 2
Hungary officially starts dismantling its border installations on the Austrian-Hungarian border. Instead of repairing the damaged barbed-wire fence it is removed part by part; the electric surveillance system is shut off.
GDRMay 7
Oppositional civil-rights groups furnish evidence of massive fraud in the local elections. First protests make themselves heard but are stifled by the SED Regime with a wave of arrests.
PolandJune 4
In the first more or less free elections agreed upon in the Roundtable Talks, the Solidarność Citizens’ Committee wins a landslide victory over the ruling Communists.
Read more: Polish opposition wins in free elections (in German)
Hungary/AustriaJune 27
Austrian foreign minister Alois Mock and his Hungarian counterpart Gyula Horn cut the Iron Curtain in a symbolical ceremony.
AustriaJuly 17
Austria applies for membership in the European Community (EC). Foreign minister Alois Mock travels to Brussels to personally hand over the letter of application to Roland Dumas, chairman of the EC Council of Ministers.
Read more: Austria applies for EC membership (in German)
See also: What happened in Austria in 1989 (in German)
HungaryAugust 19
At the “Pan-European Picnic” on the Austrian-Hungarian border, a border gate is symbolically opened for a couple of hours. Almost 700 GDR citizens succeed to cross the border into Austria. Hungarian border guards, acting on higher instructions, disobeyed the firing order.
Read more: the “Pan-European Picnic” (in German)
PolandAugust 24
Tadeusz Mazowiecki (Solidarność) becomes the first non-Communist Prime Minister of Poland and the first non-Communist head of government in the entire Warsaw Pact area.
GDRSeptember 4
The first “Monday Demonstration” occurs in the course of a prayer for peace held art the Leipzig St. Nicholas’ Church. Under the impression of the mass flight movement, demonstrators mainly demand the freedom of travel.
HungarySeptember 10
In the night, Hungary officially opens its borders to Austria for GDR citizens without requiring permission from Moscow. This of course facilitates the flight to the West of tens of thousands of GDR citizens across the Austria-Hungarian border which already got more permeable in late August.
October 7
On the occasion of the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the GDR, demonstrations against the SED regime spring up in Leipzig and Plauen. Security forces react with a crackdown..
GDROctober 9
The “Monday Demonstrations” grow into a mass protest movement. In Leipzig, 70,000 people take to the streets in protest against the regime. One week later, there are 120,000 demonstrators, two weeks later 320,000.
GDROctober 18
Erich Honecker resigns as Chairman of the Council of State of the GDR and as Secretary General of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany). His successor is Egon Krenz.
HungaryOctober 23
The end of the People’s Republic of Hungary: on the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 the new democratic and parliamentary Republic of Hungary is proclaimed. On that same day, the new Hungarian constitution also goes into effect.
USSROctober 25
The Soviet foreign spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov coins the term “Sinatra Doctrine” – after Sinatra’s famous song “My Way” – to characterize Mikhail Gorbachev’s decision to let the “Socialist brother states” decide upon their on political course independent of Moscow.
GDRNovember 4
On Alexanderplatz in East-Berlin, 500,000 people demonstrate for democracy.
November 7
MTV Europe broadcasts the first live program from East Berlin.
FRG/GDRNovember 9
The Berlin Wall falls: the symbol of the SED regime is virtually stormed and overrun by masses of people. The inner German borders are opened.
Read more: The Fall of the Berlin Wall(in German)
CzechoslovakiaNovember 17
In Prague, activists use an authorized student demonstration to call for the end of the Communist regime and the resignation of Communist Party Secretary General Milouš Jakeš. The protests grow into a mass movement, and the “Velvet Revolution” takes its course.
Read more: The “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia (in German)
CzechoslovakiaNovember 19
The Czech Civic Forum around Václav Havel and the Slovak “Public Against Violence” become the mouthpieces of the protest movement and seek to get in dialogue with the Communists in power.
November 24
Writer and civil rights activist Václav Havel and Alexander Dubček, leading politician of the Prague Spring of 1968, speak on a mass demonstration on Wenceslas Square in Prague 1968. The Secretary General of the Communist Party, Milouš Jakeš, resigns with the entire Politburo.
FRG/GDRNovember 28
(West) German chancellor Helmut Kohl surprises the public by presenting the Bundestag with a Ten Point Program for the German reunification. The time horizon for a unified Germany is about ten years.
CzechoslovakiaNovember 29
The constitutional provision securing the Communist Party the leading role in the state is repealed. One day before that, the Civic Forum and “Public Against Violence” had entered into negotiations with the Communists.
GDRDecember 3
The GDR government under Willi Stoph and the entire Politburo are forced to retire.
CzechoslovakiaDecember 5
The barbed-wire fortifications along the borders to Austria and the GDR are dismantled.
CzechoslovakiaDecember 7
Public pressure forces the Prime Minister of thr Czechoslovakian Federation, Ladislav Adamec, to resign from office.
CzechoslovakiaDecember 10
The reform communist Marián Čalfa is appointed Prime Minister and forms a coalition government of “national understanding” in which the Communists no longer have a majority. On the same day, the communist President Gustáv Husák resigns from office.
RomaniaDecember 15
First demonstration in Timişoara against the impendent eviction of the very popular pastor and dissident László Tőkés. The protests mark the beginning of the short but bloody Romanian Revolution of 1989.
RomaniaDecember 21
The protest demonstrations spread to the capital city of Bucharest and other Romanian cities. Violent clashes and fighting continue until December 27. All in all, the revolution costs the lives of 1104 people.
FRG/GDRDecember 22
28 years after the building of the Berlin Wall the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of Berlin, is opened again.
RomaniaDecember 25
The Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife Elena are sentenced to death by a military court and executed. Reform communists around Ion Iliescu take power in the country.
Read more: The Execution of Nicolae Ceauşescu (in German)
CzechoslovakiaDecember 28
Alexander Dubček, the leading Communist reformer of thr Prague Spring of 1968, is elected Speaker of the federal Czechoslovak Parliament.
CzechoslovakiaDecember 29
Václav Havel, the candidate of the Civic Forum, is elected president by the Federal Assembly. He leads the country to free elections in June 1990 and is re-elected as president by the new Parliament on July 5, 1990.
External LinkEuropean History in Multimedia Presentations
On its multilingual “European Navigator” website, the Centre Virtuel de Connaissance sur l’Europe in Luxembourg offers a comprehensive multimedia database about recent European history, for which a large number of films, photographs and documents were compiled.
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