Shining role of Leipzig in fall of East Germany
The shadow of the Wall was lifted from Berlin more than a quarter of a century ago yet the spark of freedom that finally took flame across the German Democratic Republic in 1989 started in Leipzig, just 70 miles away.
It was away from the glare of Western media and politicians in Leipzig that a peaceful protest on October 9, 1989 after prayers for peace in the city’s St Nicholas Church and three other cities across the city that around 70,000 people gathered and waited to see if the armed forces would open fire on them.
This was the culmination of weekly Monday protest meetings proclaiming “We are the people” and neither side probably knew what would be the outcome. With candles in their hands they stood up to the authorities who had threatened to fire on the crowd.
The armed forces had started the engines of their personnel carriers to confront the crowd and fire on their own people if necessary. Frantic calls to the Central Committee of the governing Socialist Unity Party in Berlin asking what to do about the peaceful, vast protests offered no instructions, the engines of the personnel carriers were turned off and within weeks East Germany had crumbled. This momentous night was just two days after the Central Committee has celebrated 40 years of the GDR.
Each year the city celebrates a Festival of Lights on October 9, featuring light installations, art exhibits, concerts, and live performances, to mark the Peaceful Revolution. This special year a light installation by the artist Tilo Schulz will honour the role Leipzig’s citizens played in 1989 with audio, video and light installations starting a weekend of commemorations.
But all year round the story of the former communist state, the role of the dreaded Stasi Secret Police and the everyday lives of the people who spent quarter of a century living in the East German state, can be experienced.
Outside the Nicholas Church is a column that has been erected as a monument to the prayers for peace, copying the classical motifs of the interior of the church. What they were struggling against is brought to life at the Stasi Museum in the Runden Ecke, the former headquarters of the East German secret police, features a permanent exhibition on ‘STASI – Power and Banality.” It has some 40,000 items from statues of Lenin and Trotsky, medals, uniforms, to grim prison cells, listening equipment, posters and other forms of state propaganda.
If you can drive from Berlin to Leipzig try to cross at the Glienicke Bridge that marked the border between East and West, where spies were exchanged at the height of the Cold War. A simple white line marks the division between ideologies, military blocs and families.
The people of Leipzig are proud of their pivotal role in ending the Cold War and eager to share it. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. In 2015, the city will celebrate the thousandth year since “Leipzig” was first mentioned, and the world is invited. The church that played such an important role on the fall of the East also links the visitor to the further distant past of Leipzig. It was where Bach’s Christmas Oratorio was originally performed and Martin Luther once preached from the pulpit.
Even in the Communist days the city hosted international book fairs and is possibly this chance to mingle with people from the West that made Leipzig a leading force in the process of change.
The city center is only one-half square kilometer in size so Leipzig can be enjoyed by strolling around, taking in historic buildings, stopping for coffees or something stronger in cafes and bars that all have their own story to tell. One stop on the walking tour should be the Coffee Baum café and coffee museum, founded in 1619, and recently reopened after extensive restoration. You are never very far away from music and it was here that Robert Schumann sipped that exotic drink with his musical mates.
The musical richness of the city can be followed on a five-kilometer Music Trail linking 23 significant sites of the musical history of Leipzig. It was home to Johann Sebastian Bach, Richard Wagner was born and where Felix Mendelssohn founded the first German conservatory. The recently reopened Mendelssohn House museum, where the composer worked and died, includes his piano and provides a sense of the man and his times. Even if classical music is not really for you it is fun to try your hand at conducting with the Effektorium, a podium where you wave the baton and a virtual orchestra responds.
The city’s celebrates Orchestra of the Gewandhaus was founded in 1743. The concert hall itself is the third built on the site, the last being destroyed in a fire-bombing raid in World War 2. I attended a concert to mark the 150th anniversary of the birthday of Richard Strauss. The construction of the new concert hall was a massive project by the East German regime that was completed in 1981. Sadly a neighbouring church that survived the war was demolished by the East German regime. Now it is remembered in the architecture of the city’s university.
Another great experience is the Yadager Asisi 360 degree Panometer (a panorama in an old gasometer) created to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig during the Napoleonic Wars. Try spotting Napoleon leaving the battle field.
If food rather than music is your love don’t miss the historic Auerbachs Keller restaurant which has great 19th century murals depicting scenes from Goethe’s Faust. Check out the replica barrel that reminds of this moral tale; Faust rode from the cellar in a barrel as he sold his soul to Mephistopheles.
From the Steigenberger Grandhotel you can stroll in just a few minutes to the main historic square which has on one side the magnificent 15th century city hall. Walk through its arcades and you come across the cute Baroque stock market and a statue to Goethe.
Speaking of money, you may be pleasantly surprised at the cost of your stay in Leipzig. It may be in the Eurozone but eating, drinking and hotels are sensibly priced compared with cities in the west of Europe.
Mike Smith travelled to Leipzig as a guest of the German National Tourist Office. http://www.germany.travel. He travelled to Leipzig via Berlin with EasyJet from London Gatwick. The city is served by airlines from most UK regional and national airports. There are Ryanair direct flights from London Stansted. In Leipzig he stayed at the Steigenberger Grandhotel on Salzgasschen. Tel: +49 (0) 341 350 5810. http:/en.steigenberger.com/Leipzig/Steinberger-Grandhotel-Handelshof. For more information on Leipzig Tourism: http://www.ltm-leipzig.de