“First I was scared”
A dossier on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. In Part 5, Günter Oesterreich from Leipzig describes his experiences during the fall of the Wall and the period of change that followed.
“I was sitting in the living room with my wife. The television was on and I thought to myself: ‘No, that can’t be true.’ They were broadcasting a press conference. It was 9 November 1989. A voice said the borders were immediately open. I wasn’t pleased; no, not at all. First I was scared. All kinds of questions went through your head. For example, what would happen if the Russians intervened because they didn’t accept it? Would there be another war? The smallest conflict would be enough to set it off. Imagine what it was like: the Wall had been the world’s most secure frontier for almost 30 years, and this was all supposed to change overnight – no, I couldn’t believe it. My wife, my daughter, all of us were scared.
It was only weeks later that I first realized we were now one Germany. It was a wonderful moment: I was driving my Wartburg over an unplanted field to reach one of the temporary border crossings. It was like an invasion – far too many people wanted to go to the West at the same time. There was a sea of cars and they all were all crossing the field to the border point. It was only when I was in the West that I experienced joy, pure joy. No traces of fear any more. I knew there would not be a war. We were one country and I could travel freely without fear of punishment.
I was fortunate. Many people lost out, the so-called losers of reunification who lost their jobs from one day to the next. Permanently. My firm was closed, too, immediately after the fall of the Wall, but I soon found another job. I realize how lucky I was. Many were not as lucky. I know people who tell me they feel like second-class citizens as East Germans, because the East still has lower wages and higher unemployment. But I think positively. Now, 25 years after the fall of the Wall, I no longer feel like an East German. I’m a German. As Willy Brandt put it so eloquently: ‘What belongs together is now growing together.’ And he was right about that.”
Günter Oesterreich was born in Chemnitz in 1935. After the bombing of the city during the Second World War he fled to the Ore Mountains with his parents. There he later completed a vocational training programme as an industrial clerk. Since 1957 he has lived in Leipzig, where he worked for decades as a finance specialist. Until 1994 he was commercial director of a bag factory in Leipzig. Günter Oesterreich is married and has two daughters.
Transcript: Matthias Jügler
