May 1989
May 2: Hungarian border forces start taking down the barbed-wire fence to Austria. – In a memo of May 6 to SED General Secretary Erich Honecker about the start of the "planned dismantling of the border security fence on the national border of the Hungarian People’s Republic to Austria," GDR Defence Minister Heinz Kessler assumes that it is only a cosmetic measure and that the Hungarian government will continue to keep the border secure.
May 6: The number of people leaving the GDR for the West has reached record heights during the previous days: on May 4, 345 people arrived in the reception centre in Giessen and 250 on May 5. According to the Hessian Ministry for Social Security, this has "completely exhausted" the centre’s capacity. Normally, it says, 50 to 80 people arrived per day. The number of GDR citizens arriving in West Germany in the first four months of 1989 has increased threefold in comparison with the previous year.
May 7: Independent citizens’ groups monitoring vote counting in polling stations discover that the SED is manipulating the results of local elections: they can prove that there are discrepancies between the numbers of votes they have counted in the polling stations and the results that are announced later. From now on, there are public demonstrations against this election fraud on the 7th of every month in East Berlin and other cities.
May 8: The Central Committee of the Hungarian communists remove the former party leader János Kádár completely from political office.
May 15: In Beijing, the first summit between Soviet and Chinese leaders in thirty years takes place. Gorbachev’s visit is accompanied by mass protests at which more than a million people call on the Chinese Party leaders to follow Gorbachev’s example and allow freedom and democracy. Thousands of students have gone on a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to promote these goals. On May 20, martial law is imposed on eight Beijing districts.
May 16: The head of planning, Gerhard Schürer, tells the inner circle of economics experts in the SED Politburo that the GDR’s debts to the West are now increasing at a rate of over 500 million marks per month. He warns that, if this development continues, the GDR could face insolvency by 1991.
May 23: The West German Federal Assembly elects Richard von Weizsäcker as president for a second term.
May 24: In Bonn, the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the constitution is celebrated at a state ceremony.
May 25: Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the CPSU and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, is elected as president by the newly created Congress of People’s Deputies, without any rival candidates.
25/26 May: At a consultation of the deputy finance ministers of the Comecon, the Soviet representative suggests – as recorded in a GDR transcript of this meeting – "changing over to methods of clearing that are based on the use of different currencies in the period 1991-1995. This particularly means clearing in convertible foreign currencies. The main aim of this proposal is to come as close as possible to the economic conditions of the capitalist global market, particularly by using current global market prices, and to create uniform conditions for businesses both on the capitalist global market and on the Comecon market. Soviet experts are of the opinion that neither the transferable rouble nor the principle of settlement in national currencies bilaterally agreed upon between several Comecon countries is in a position to achieve this."
The Hungarian delegation is the only one to support this proposal. The GDR rejects it out of hand, because East German production levels are too low to compete with global market prices.
May 29: A summit of the NATO heads of government in Brussels adopts a "Comprehensive Concept of Arms Control and Disarmament".
30/31 May: After the NATO summit, US President George Bush visits West Germany. In a speech in Mainz, Bush, as a friend and ally, offers the FRG a role as "partner in leadership". He demands that "Europe must become united and free" and calls for free elections and political pluralism in Eastern Europe. Referring to the removal of the barbed wire on the Hungarian-Austrian border, the US president calls out: "Let Berlin be next!" The Wall is a monument to the failure of communism, he says, and must come down.
In May, 10,642 GDR citizens manage to flee to the West; 9115 are given permission to leave the GDR.
