Much More Than Just a Few Words - 35 Years of Genscher Balcony

“We have come to you to inform you that today your departure…”. This unfinished sentence marked one of the most significant events at the end of the Cold War.

On 30 September 1989, the German Foreign Minister at the time, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, stepped onto the balcony of the German embassy. He addressed around four thousand East German refugees who had been waiting in the embassy garden for weeks in the hope of freedom. Genscher's words were interrupted by a thunderous cheer from the crowd as the refugees understood that they were allowed to travel to the West.

Only three days later, 5,000 more East Germans had gathered in the garden of the Lobkowicz Palace, the seat of the German embassy. Another 2,000 refugees were waiting in front of the building. The streets around the Lobkowicz Palace were lined with their abandoned Wartburg and Trabant cars with many car keys just hanging from street trees. Their owners could eventually also travel to freedom by train.

The events in Prague became a symbol of the end of the Iron Curtain. In the following three months, the world would change forever with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communist regimes across the former Eastern Bloc. The peaceful Velvet Revolution succeeded and the dissident Václav Havel became the new president of Czechoslovakia.

Today, the balcony of the Lobkowicz Palace on which the iconic words were spoken, is commonly known as the “Genscher Balcony”.  A bronze plaque commemorates what is now regarded as one of the most important and emotional moments in the history of Central Europe.

By Martin Holler

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