NID: EAST GERMANY: TROUBLED 40TH ANNIVERSARY

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe: A 30-Year Legacy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06826775
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 26, 2019
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2019
• Publication Date: October 6, 1989

Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826775
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EAST C;ERNIANY: Truuoled 40th Anniversary
East
East Germany's orthodox leadership almost certainly worries
that President Gorbacher's arrival today will prompt additional
demonstrations and deepen the crisis facing the regime.
The tenuous nature of the regime's hold on the population showed
again this week when thousands of East Germans tried to board the
trains evacuating the second group of emigrants from Prague to West
Germany. A riot involving an estimated 1.000 East Germans and
considerable police violence erupted at the railway station in Dresden
on %% ednesdav when authorities tried to clear the area to allow the
trains to pass.
With the escape route through Czechoslovakia effectively closed.
would-be emigrants are seeking other exits. Some are swimming
across the Elbe River to Poland and eluding Polish border guards.
Small groups of East Germans have also sought refuge in the US.
French. and West German E bassies in East Berlin and at Bonn's
Embassy in Sofia.
Comment: The self-congratulatory rhetoric of the leadership during
the 40th anniversary celebrations will ring hollow to East Germans,
and Ciorbachev's visit is likely to provoke demonstrations this
weekend and afterwards. despite tight security. The size of recent
demonstrations has been steadily increasing, and many disenchanted
East Germans may %veil see the Gorbachev visit as a golden
opportunity to voice grievances. Large-scale protests would increase
the pressure on a regime that already appears to be suffering a
leadership vacuum.
Gorbr.cliev's dilemma is to avoid undermining either East Berlin's
efforts to maintain the stability of the Communist regime or
Moscow's relations with Bonn, which the Soviets view as their key
interlocutor on European arms control and economic cooperation
issues. Thus, in public Gorbachev will play up the importance of
Soviet�East German ties and support East Germany's position on the
reunification and refugee issues. In private, however, he is likely to
press East Berlin for political reforms to ease popular discontent
and emigration pressure, picking up on comments Soviet party
International Department chief Falin made earlier this week
advocating reform in East Germany. Gorbachev probably will
also stress that the Soviets and East Germans must enlist Bonn's
coo_perat ion to find an orderly solution to the refugee crisis.
reL
TCS 2933/89
6 October 1989
Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826775