Extract from the New York Times from June 5th, 1989:
Hundreds Killed By Government Troops in Brandenberg Plaza
BERLIN- The Brandenburg Plaza protests of 1989, culminating in the deaths of hundreds of civilian protestors referred to in most of the Western world as the Brandenburg Plaza massacre and in Germany as the June Fourth Incident (ostensibly to avoid confusion with two prior Brandenberg Plaza protests),are used to describe the recent series of demonstrations in and near Brandenberg Plaza in Berlin in the Third Reich Germany beginning on April 20th. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in a year that has already seen the collapse of a number of fascist governments around the world.
The protests were sparked by the death of a pro-market, pro-democracy, and anti-corruption official, Hans-Christian Ströbele, whom protesters wanted to mourn. By the eve of Hans-Christian Ströbele's funeral, 1,000,000 people had gathered on the Brandenberg Plaza. The protests lacked a unified cause or leadership; participants included disillusioned National Socialist Party members and Trotskyists as well as free market reformers, who were generally against the government's authoritarianism and voiced calls for economic change and democratic reform within the structure of the government. The demonstrations centered on Brandenberg Plaza, in Berlin, but large-scale protests also occurred in cities throughout the Third Reich, including Hamburg, Bonn, Dresden, and Heidelberg, which remained peaceful throughout the protests.
The movement lasted seven weeks, from Hans-Christian Ströbele's death on April 20th, until tanks cleared Brandenberg Plaza on June 4th, 1989. In Berlin, the resulting military response to the protesters by the German government left many civilians dead or severely injured. The number of deaths is not known and many different estimates exist. Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times has estimated the death toll at 400-800 based on information he gathered from multiple medical sources.
Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around Germany, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the German press. Members of the Nazi Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Joschka Fischer. There was widespread international condemnation of the German government's use of force against the protesters.
Hundreds Killed By Government Troops in Brandenberg Plaza
BERLIN- The Brandenburg Plaza protests of 1989, culminating in the deaths of hundreds of civilian protestors referred to in most of the Western world as the Brandenburg Plaza massacre and in Germany as the June Fourth Incident (ostensibly to avoid confusion with two prior Brandenberg Plaza protests),are used to describe the recent series of demonstrations in and near Brandenberg Plaza in Berlin in the Third Reich Germany beginning on April 20th. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in a year that has already seen the collapse of a number of fascist governments around the world.
The protests were sparked by the death of a pro-market, pro-democracy, and anti-corruption official, Hans-Christian Ströbele, whom protesters wanted to mourn. By the eve of Hans-Christian Ströbele's funeral, 1,000,000 people had gathered on the Brandenberg Plaza. The protests lacked a unified cause or leadership; participants included disillusioned National Socialist Party members and Trotskyists as well as free market reformers, who were generally against the government's authoritarianism and voiced calls for economic change and democratic reform within the structure of the government. The demonstrations centered on Brandenberg Plaza, in Berlin, but large-scale protests also occurred in cities throughout the Third Reich, including Hamburg, Bonn, Dresden, and Heidelberg, which remained peaceful throughout the protests.
The movement lasted seven weeks, from Hans-Christian Ströbele's death on April 20th, until tanks cleared Brandenberg Plaza on June 4th, 1989. In Berlin, the resulting military response to the protesters by the German government left many civilians dead or severely injured. The number of deaths is not known and many different estimates exist. Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times has estimated the death toll at 400-800 based on information he gathered from multiple medical sources.
Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around Germany, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the German press. Members of the Nazi Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Joschka Fischer. There was widespread international condemnation of the German government's use of force against the protesters.