February 1989
February 3: The prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Björn Engholm, visits the GDR from January 31 to February 3. His talks with Erich Honecker focus not only on international relations, but also on possible areas of cooperation between the GDR and Schleswig-Holstein. Honecker stresses that both German states should be guided by the recognition of realities, respect for sovereignty, non-intervention and the acceptance of legitimate, mutual interests. He says contentious issues such as the recognition of GDR citizenship, the position of the Elbe border and the existence of the Salzgitter registration centre should be resolved bearing these things in mind.
Honecker and Engholm both give their support to the establishment of "normal relations" between the East German Volkskammer and the West German Bundestag. Both also describe an extension of cooperation between the GDR and Schleswig-Holstein as "desirable". Engholm's suggestion to include the city of Kiel in the transport network near the border meets with a positive response from the GDR.
February 5: At around 9 p.m., in the East Berlin district of Treptow, the 20-year-old Chris Gueffroy and the 21-year-old Christian Gaudian approach the border to Neukölln, here formed by the Teltow Canal.
Chris Gueffroy is to be drafted into the army in May 1989 against his will. He has a dream: to travel and see America before he dies. At the end of 1988, he and Christian Gaudian were told by a friend who is doing his military duty with the border troops in Thuringia that the order to shoot people trying to escape over the border (the so-called "Schiessbefehl") had been abolished, and that firearms could only be used in cases of desertion or attacks on border soldiers. They both believe that they will come to no harm.
They have removed the handle from a garden cultivator and tied a rope to it, intending to use it as a grappling hook to get over the last barrier in front of the Teltow Canal, which here consists of a wire-mesh fence. They crawl for almost three hours through garden allotments at a temperature of three degrees below zero, before they reach the so-called "Hinterlandmauer" ("hinterland wall", named thus from a Western perspective) at around 11.40 p.m.. They succeed in scaling this wall without being spotted. The next obstacle, only five metres away, is the signal fence. They manage to climb over it, but in the process they set off an optical alarm; the border soldiers notice them.
Chris Gueffroy and Christian Gaudian are running towards the wire-mesh fence, the final barrier, when they are fired at by a pair of guards. They try to escape the shots by running away from the soldiers along the fence. Both try in turn to give each other leg-ups over the fence. Their attempt to escape the first pair of guards drives them into the arms of another. Shots ring out in the night, strike sparks from the steel fence. Chris Gueffroy slumps, falls to the ground and lies motionless in front of his friend, who also collapses, hit in the foot by a bullet.
Chris Gueffroy dies within a few minutes. A shot in the chest has torn his heart muscle. On May 24, 1989, Christian Gaudian is sentenced by the Pankow district court to three years in prison for "attempted illegal border crossing of the first degree".
The death of the 20-year-old Gueffroy leads to international protests against the "Schiessbefehl" and the Berlin Wall. The Western Allies protest, calling the shooting a "crime against humanity". The bullets fired at Chris Gueffroy and Christian Gaudian are the last fatal shots at the Berlin Wall.
February 6: In Warsaw, talks begin at the Round Table between the government and the independent union "Solidarity".
February 11: The Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party decides to give up the power monopoly of the communist party and to introduce a multi-party system. It also resolves to remove the "Iron Curtain" – the barbed wire on the Hungarian-Austrian border - and replace it with normal border security measures.
February 15: The last Soviet soldier leaves Afghanistan. State and Party head Najibullah has put Afghanistan under martial law since February 5 to continue the fight against the mujahideen.
February 16: A family of four from Potsdam flees by car into the car park of the West German Permanent Mission, breaking through a barrier and injuring a GDR policeman.
February 21: The Czechoslovakian author and civil rights activist Vaclav Havel is sentenced to nine months' imprisonment in Prague for "hooliganism". He had tried to lay flowers on Prague's Wenceslas Square at a demonstration commemorating Jan Palach's self-immolation. In May, Havel is let out on probation. – Leipzig opposition groups such as the "Working Group for Justice" (Arbeitskreis Gerechtigkeit) and the "Working Group for Human Rights" (Arbeitsgruppe Menschenrechte) had protested against Vaclav Havel's arrest.
In February, 5008 GDR citizens manage to flee to the West; 4087 people are given permission to leave the GDR.
