Leipzig Monday Demonstrations
Also called: Montagsdemonstrationen, Peaceful Revolution
After Monday prayers at Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church, citizens took to the streets chanting “We are the people”. On 9 October some 70,000 marched and the regime did not use force — the turning point of the Peaceful Revolution.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1989-1023-022 / Friedrich Gahlbeck · CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Source
From the 1980s St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig held prayers for peace every Monday. Demonstrations began after the prayers on 4 September 1989, and tension mounted when protests elsewhere were violently broken up around the GDR’s fortieth anniversary on 7 October.
On 9 October, with armed police and troops standing by, about 70,000 people marched around the city ring road chanting “No violence!” and “We are the people!”. The security forces did not intervene. The protests then spread across the country and Honecker was forced out on 18 October. The slogan gradually became “We are one people”.