Leipzig: Hotbed of Protest

By Kenneth W. Banta/Leipzig

If real democracy does come to East Germany, much of the credit should go to Leipzig (pop. 567,000), which has emerged as the driving force for reform. Through more than a month of spontaneous, peaceful demonstrations, which often brought more than half the city's population into the streets, Leipzig's workers precipitated the ouster of repressive party leader Erich Honecker and helped inspire the historic breach of the Berlin Wall. "They call us 'the Leipzig Miracle,' " says Alfred Richter, 38, a supervisor in a hotel kitchen whose wife and two small children joined in the protests. "But it was caused by all of us little people who had had enough, and found the courage to say so."

Karl Marx would have understood their revolt. Just outside Leipzig's jumble of medieval churches and high-rises lies one of the most dismal landscapes in Europe. This is the heart of the rust belt: mile after mile of blackened smokestacks spew sulfurous coal smoke into the yellow sky; workers labor in ramshackle chemical and textile plants under Dickensian conditions of dirt and noise. To the east stretch crumbling tenements built 100 years ago; to the west sprawl ugly new developments virtually devoid of stores, cinemas or restaurants. Average monthly incomes would buy just $30 of goods in the West; "luxuries" ranging from women's shoes to oranges and shampoo are routinely unavailable in the dingy shops.

The exodus of thousands of well-trained plumbers, bus drivers and doctors has only added to the misery, shutting down entire assembly lines, paralyzing health care, even forcing policemen to drive public buses. Says Sylko Roehle, 17, a machinist: "We saw what Poland and Hungary were doing; we heard Gorbachev. Everyone felt, Why are we being left behind?"

Discontent boiled over last summer when local election returns gave an improbable 98.85% of the vote to the Communist Party. That anger found an outlet at the Nikolai Church, downtown, where a small band of peace activists had been meeting. Almost overnight their number grew into a mass movement for political freedom. "We didn't start this," says Pastor Christian Fuhrer, "but we protected it. We were the catalysts."

As recently as a month ago, residents spoke only furtively with foreigners, while a pervasive net of state control silenced dissent and enforced Marxist indoctrination of schoolchildren. Last week the opposition New Forum was sifting through official invitations to speak at local factories, while at a "Democracy Kiosk" outside the philharmonic hall, crowds gathered to scribble down addresses and meeting dates for everything from feminist films to university talks on "the collapse of Communism." The Academixer cabaret theater, famed for its political satire, revamps its sell-out show Who's to Blame? every night to keep up with developments. Quips artistic director Hans- Walter Molle: "All this democracy could put us out of business."