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Guenter Schabowski
Schabowski in 1982
Born	January 4, 1929 (1929-01-04) (age 81) Anklam, Pomerania
Profession	Politician

Günter Schabowski (born 4 January 1929) is a former official of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the ruling party during most of the existence of the German Democratic Republic. Schabowski gained worldwide fame in November 1989 when he improvised a slightly mistaken answer to a press conference question, raising popular expectations so rapidly that massive crowds gathered the same night at the Berlin Wall, forcing its opening after 28 years; not long after the entire inner German border was opened.

Background

Schabowski was born in Anklam, Pomerania (now part of the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). He studied journalism at the Karl Marx University, Leipzig, after which he became editor of the trade union magazine, Tribüne. In 1952, he became a member of the SED. In 1978, he became the chief editor of the newspaper Neues Deutschland ("New Germany"), which as the official organ of the SED was considered to be the leading newspaper in the GDR. In 1981 he became a member of the SED Central Committee. In 1985, he became the First Secretary of the East Berlin chapter of the SED and a member of the SED Politbüro.

German Reunification

Günter Schabowski (November 1989)

On 9 November 1989, due to a misunderstanding, Schabowski famously announced in a live broadcast international press conference that a new regulation governing travel of East Germans abroad, suspending previous restrictions, was to take effect "immediately" ("sofort, unverzüglich"). However, the misunderstanding was only with regards to the date; the plan had been to lift the restrictions, deemed unsustainable after mass defections of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the next morning.

Tens of thousands of East Berliners began proceeding to controlled access points in the Berlin Wall, where vastly outnumbered border guards stalled for time and were finally forced to open the gates and allow people into West Berlin; this was the beginning of the end of the Wall regime. In the following purges of the Party old guard", Schabowski was quickly expelled from the SED (which then morphed into the Party of Democratic Socialism, the PDS), even though just months earlier in 1989 he had been awarded the party's prestigious "Karl Marx medal".

After German Reunification, Schabowski became highly critical of his own actions in the GDR and those of his fellow Politburo members, as well as of Soviet-style socialism in general. As of 2004, he remains the only really high-ranking GDR official to have renounced the GDR as fatally flawed. He worked again as a journalist and editor for a small local paper between 1992 and 1999. His campaign help for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) prompted some of his former comrades to call him a Wryneck (a bird that can turn its head 180 degrees; popular term used to mock Communists who have turned capitalist).^[1]

Together with other leading figures of the GDR regime, he was charged with the murders of refugees. In August 1997, Schabowski was convicted along with Egon Krenz and Günther Kleiber. Because he accepted his moral guilt and renounced the GDR he was sentenced to only 3 years in prison. In December 1999 he began serving his sentence in Hakenfelde Prison in Spandau. However, in September 2000 he was pardoned by Governing Mayor Eberhard Diepgen and released in December 2000, having served only a year. He is critical of the PDS/Left Party (i.e., successor of the Socialist Unity Party); in 2001, he collaborated with Bärbel Bohley as advisor of Frank Steffel (CDU).

References

From Wikiquote

Günter Schabowski was the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) Politbüro member who accidentally gave the order for the Inner German Border to be opened in Berlin. Subsequently he denounced the GDR.

• Am meisten bedrückt mich, dass ich ein verantwortlicher Vertreter eines Systems war, unter dem Menschen gelitten haben, dass Repressionen gegen einzelne Menschen gerichtet waren, die wegen ihrer oppositionellen Haltung verfolgt wurden. Ihre Einstellung war die richtige. Meine Einstellung war die falsche. Wir waren nicht demokratiefähig, sondern haben versucht, mangels besserer Argumente uns der anderen Meinung mittels direkter Gewalt zu entledigen.
  Translation: What upsets me the most is that I was an accountable representative of a system under which people suffered, also under which repression was aimed at individuals, who were persecuted because of their oppositional stance. Their position was the right one. My position was the wrong one. We were not capable of democracy, but rather tried in the absence of better arguments to get rid of the other opinion with direct violence.
• Ostalgie ist nicht mein Ding. Manchem erscheint die DDR in rückblickender Verklärung als ein Hort sozialer Sicherheit. Tatsächlich ist die DDR nicht zuletzt daran zugrunde gegangen, dass sie infolge wirtschaftlicher Ineffizienz ihre sozialen Verheißungen nicht finanzieren konnte.
  Translation:Ostalgie [≈ “East German Nostalgia”] is not my kind of thing. To some, the GDR appears in a backward-looking bleary-eyed view as a palladium of social security. In truth, the GDR collapsed not least because, being economically inefficient, it could not finance its social promises. from: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 6 November 2004.
• Privatreisen nach dem Ausland können ohne Vorliegen von Voraussetzungen (Reiseanlässe und Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse) beantragt werden. Die Genehmigungen werden kurzfristig erteilt. Ständige Ausreisen können über alle Grenzübergangsstellen der DDR zur BRD beziehungsweise zu Berlin (West) erfolgen.
  Translation: Private travel into foreign countries can be requested without conditions (passports or family connections). Permission will be granted instantly. Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR into the FRG or Berlin (West). Press conference, 9 November 1989.

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Günter Schabowski