1989/2009 1989 – The Verge of New Departures

In 1989 Eastern Europe, not a political stone is left standing. While change comes peacefully in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, the revolution in Romania takes a bloody turn. Even the stone-age communists in Albania imagine that their time is up. An overview.More ...

For Africa, 1989 was a watershed year. The promise of democracy heralded by the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War was only comparable to the euphoria of the independence movements in Africa in the 1960s and Nelson Mandela’s release from incarceration in 1990.
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On 19 August 1989, opponents to the political regime in Hungary organized a “Pan-European Picnic” on the Hungarian-Austrian border near Sopron. On this day, around 1,000 citizens of East Germany (GDR) managed to escape to freedom. The picnic tore a hole in the Iron Curtain, partly because a Hungarian border guard, Arpad Bella, decided to turn a blind eye to what was happening.More ...

The prayers for peace which led to the Monday demonstrations that in turn triggered the Peaceful Revolution in the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) in October 1989 began at St Nicholas' Church – the Nikolaikirche – in Leipzig. What role did the church play at that time, and how important is it to people today?More ...