![Oliver Mark - Otto Habsburg-Lothringen, Pöcking 2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Oliver_Mark_-_Otto_Habsburg-Lothringen%2C_P%C3%B6cking_2006.jpg)
The Pan-European Picnic (german: Paneuropäisches Picknick; hu, páneurópai piknik; sk, Paneurópsky piknik) was a peace demonstration held on the
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n-
Hungarian border near
Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989. The opening of the border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic turned out to be another initiative of a widely building peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which
Germany reunified, the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its ...
fell apart, and the
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
disintegrated. The
communist governments
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comi ...
and the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...
subsequently dissolved, ending the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
. As a result, this dissolution also led to the disintegration of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
.
[Thomas Roser: DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln (German - Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) in: Die Presse 16 August 2018.]
The idea of opening the border at a ceremony and testing the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
's response came from
Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg (german: Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, hu, Ferenc József Ottó Róbert Mária Antal Károly Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Lajos Gaetan ...
, then the President of the
Paneuropean Union, and was brought up by him to
Miklós Németh, then the Hungarian Prime Minister, who also promoted the idea.
[György Gyarmati, Krisztina Slachta: Das Vorspiel für die Grenzöffnung. Budapest 2014, pp 89.]
The Pan-European Picnic itself developed from a meeting between Otto von Habsburg and Ferenc Mészáros of the
Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) in June 1989. The local organisation in Sopron took over the Hungarian Democratic Forum, and the other contacts were made via Habsburg and the Hungarian Minister of State
Imre Pozsgay. The Austrian Paneuropean Union and the MDF took care of advertising the event with leaflets that were distributed in Hungary. The patrons of the picnic, Habsburg and Pozsgay, who were not present at the event, saw the planned event as an opportunity to test
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
's reaction to an opening of the border on the Iron Curtain.
The official emblem of the picnic was a pigeon breaking through the barbed wire.
At the picnic several hundred East German citizens overran the old wooden gate, reaching Austria unhindered by the border guards around Árpád Bella. It was the largest mass exodus since the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the gover ...
was built in 1961. The Hungarian borders were opened on 11 September, and the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November. The Warsaw Pact disintegrated in 1991.
Background
In 1989, the situation in
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...
was tense. Ruled by dictatorial governments, the people in
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
countries demanded democratic elections, freedom of speech, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Iron Curtain and its physical manifestations in heavily guarded border fences and crossings, as seen
in Czechoslovakia and
in East Germany, were a dominant factor in the movement to unite Europe. Although some countries, such as East Germany, had a hard-line Communist power structure, others, such as Hungary, took a reform-oriented approach. Supported by
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
's new policies, the reformist Communist countries' leadership accepted the necessity for change (
Perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
).
Non-governmental organisation
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...
s and new political parties played a sizable role in the movement towards a democratic, multiparty system. That year,
round-table discussions were held in several Central European countries to develop a consensus on changing the political system. In February formal discussions began in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, and on 4 April the
Polish Round Table Agreement
The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Poland from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups in an attempt to defuse growing social unrest.
Histo ...
was signed, legalising
Solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
and scheduling
parliamentary elections
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
for 4 June. Solidarity's victory surpassed all expectations.
In this context, there were individual organisations in the west that were constantly trying to get in touch with the people in the east or to find ways to weaken the communist system, like the Austrian branch of the
Paneuropean Union, whose president
Karl von Habsburg
Karl von Habsburg (given names: ''Karl Thomas Robert Maria Franziskus Georg Bahnam''; born 11 January 1961) is an Austrian politician and the head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, therefore being a claimant to the defunct Austro-Hungarian t ...
had been since 1986. Under his responsibility, attempts were made to sustainably support the opposition and freedom movements in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Paneuropa Union participated intensively in political events in what was then Czechoslovakia, Hungary, then Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States. But in public opinion in the West, as well as in the East, nobody thought of the possibility of a quick dissolution of the communist structures in the East. The
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its ...
was strictly guarded and fully intact until August 1989, even if individual technical systems were dismantled.
According to its files, the Hungarian State Security Service had known since 10 July 1989 that an event was planned at the border on the basis of a suggestion from Otto Habsburg. He informed the Hungarian domestic secret service on 31 July 1989, about preparations for this event. The operational group of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR (- the presence of the
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990.
The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...
in Hungary) had information about the Pan-European Picnic, but their officers did not react either and the Stasi had no choice but to organise the return transport of the abandoned vehicles.
Developments in Hungary
Beginning in 1989, the Hungarian government claimed that it opened refugee camps for Romanian citizens that supposedly crossed the Hungarian-Romanian border near
Debrecen
Debrecen ( , is Hungary's second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the largest Hungarian city in the 18th century and i ...
. The government further claimed that in the early summer of 1989, thirty to forty thousand people sought asylum in Hungary. Although the Hungarian government had been bound by a bilateral agreement to return the refugees to Romania, Hungary signed the
United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CRSR) in 1989.
The financial situation was difficult in Hungary. Prime Minister
Miklós Németh decided that his government could not afford to maintain automated border control along the border with Austria; spare parts would come from the West and were paid for in hard currency.
Németh believed it was no longer necessary to secure the borders; Hungarians were allowed to travel freely, and the government did not intend to continue fortifying the country's western borders. At the border between
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...
and
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
several hundred people were killed, with
border guards ordered to shoot escapees. The last person shot to death was
Chris Gueffroy
Chris Gueffroy (21 June 1968 – 6 February 1989) was the last person to be shot and the second-last to die in an escape attempt while trying to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin across the Berlin Wall.
Biography
Chris Gueffroy was bo ...
, in February 1989. On 27 June Austrian Foreign Minister
Alois Mock
Alois Mock (10 June 1934 – 1 June 2017) was an Austrian politician and member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). He was Vice Chancellor of Austria from 1987 to 1989. As foreign minister, he helped take Austria into the European Union.
Life ...
and his Hungarian counterpart,
Gyula Horn
Gyula János Horn (5 July 1932 – 19 June 2013) was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1994 to 1998.
Horn is remembered as the last Communist Minister of Foreign Affairs who played a major role in the demolishi ...
, cut the border fence in a symbolic ceremony highlighting Hungary's decision to dismantle its border surveillance, which had begun on 2 May.
East Germans, who often spent their summer holidays on
Lake Balaton
Lake Balaton () is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the largest inflow of water to the lake, and th ...
(where they could meet relatives and friends from
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
), remained in Hungary during the summer of 1989. In the spring of 1989 the GDR Interior Minister
Friedrich Dickel
Friedrich Dickel (9 December 1913 – 23 October 1993) was a German politician, who served as the interior minister of East Germany for nearly twenty-six years.
Early life
Dickel was born on 9 December 1913 in Wuppertal-Vohwinkel in the Pru ...
asked for travel opportunities to Hungary to be restricted because of the inadequate border security in Hungary, but Mfs Minister
Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (''Ministerium für Staatsicherheit'' – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 u ...
had refused to do so in view of the situation in the GDR.
On 20 June
Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg (german: Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, hu, Ferenc József Ottó Róbert Mária Antal Károly Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Lajos Gaetan ...
,
heir apparent
An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...
of the
House of Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
and
member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
from 1979 to 1999, addressed an audience at the
university of Debrecen
ThUniversity of Debrecen( hu, Debreceni Egyetem) is a university located in Debrecen, Hungary. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest continuously operating institution of higher education in Hungary ever since its ...
about Europe without borders and the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
elections' impact on Central Europe. His speech was followed by a dinner, at which two representatives of the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) party (
Mária Filep and Ferenc Mészáros) suggested a picnic for local residents at the Austro-Hungarian border to celebrate the bonds between Austrians and Hungarians.
Although the national leadership of the MDF had reservations, Filep (supported by local
Fidesz
Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (; hu, Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán.
It was formed in 1988 under the name of Alliance of Young ...
and MDF groups) recruited participants and searched for a suitable location. She wanted to include guests at the "common destiny camp", a gathering of intellectuals and opposition activists from
Central and Eastern Europe
Central and Eastern Europe is a term encompassing the countries in the Baltics, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe (mostly the Balkans), usually meaning former communist states from the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact in Europe. ...
an countries in
Martonvásár
Martonvásár is the 11th largest town in Fejér county, Hungary. It's a popular tourist destination in Hungary because of the Brunszvik Palace where Ludwig van Beethoven stayed and wrote "Für Elise". There is also a museum for Beethoven. The tow ...
(not far from Lake Balaton) scheduled to end date on 20 August. The site chosen for the picnic was on Bratislava Road in
Sopron
Sopron (; german: Ödenburg, ; sl, Šopron) is a city in Hungary on the Austrian border, near Lake Neusiedl/Lake Fertő.
History
Ancient times-13th century
When the area that is today Western Hungary was a province of the Roman Empire, a ...
, a border crossing since 1922.
The gathering was intended as an informal meeting of Austrians and Hungarians at the border meadow. Permission to open the border station for three hours was granted, so pedestrians from both countries could experience Europe without borders. Its organisers recruited Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay, a reformist member of the
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party ( hu, Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt, MSZMP) was the ruling Marxist–Leninist party of the Hungarian People's Republic between 1956 and 1989. It was organised from elements of the Hungarian Working Peop ...
(MSzMP) and Minister of State, as patrons of the event.
Former Prime Minister Miklós Németh explained in ''1989'', a 2014 documentary, that the picnic offered the Hungarian government a way out of a situation which had arisen with East German tourists holidaying in Hungary that summer:
Under East German law, citizens were required to request permission to travel to the West; they saw the picnic as an opportunity to act. The destiny of these approximately 100,000 people was the top news story in prime-time news broadcasts for several months, showing Europe the urgent need to find a suitable way out. The East German rulers, planning to
celebrate the 40th birthday of East Germany on 7 October 1989, were keen to hide the problems and were silent about the mass exodus of their own people.
In a re-enacted scene in 's documentary ', Prime Minister Németh tells an aide, "Gyuri, I think this could actually be a very good thing. I think it would be good if some of the East Germans used this opportunity and fled." "Fled?" "Yes. And we would not interfere with it." "I see." Németh explained in the documentary:
The first information about the pan-European picnic appears on July 10, 1989, in the files of the Hungarian State Security Service. The Hajdú-Bihar District State Security Service informed headquarters that the thought was raised during a visit by Otto von Habsburg to Debrecen on June 20, 1989 – in the middle of a discussion with local leaders of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF). "To arrange a so-called" bacon roast "at the Austro-Hungarian border in August or September 1989 and then repeat it every month." "The MDF accepted Otto von Habsburg's suggestion and the Presidium commissioned a member to organize the event." The Hungarian Defense Against Internal Reaction, informed on July 31, 1989, informed their superiors about the pan-European picnic in Sopron.
The MDF took on the local organization (local permits, benches and stage, food) and designed leaflets. For those interested, it also provided a sketch of how to get to the border and the place of the picnic. The MDF then distributed Hungarian-language leaflets in Hungary and German-language leaflets in Austria. For the later success, however, the spread of the German-language text in Hungary among the East Germans vacationing there was decisive. The Austria Paneuropa Union, which was under the leadership of
Karl von Habsburg
Karl von Habsburg (given names: ''Karl Thomas Robert Maria Franziskus Georg Bahnam''; born 11 January 1961) is an Austrian politician and the head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, therefore being a claimant to the defunct Austro-Hungarian t ...
, distributed thousands of German language leaflets in Hungary inviting people to a picnic near the border near Sopron. Radio Freies Europa also drew attention to the event. Many of the GDR citizens understood the message and came here. The advertised motto of the event was also “Dismantle and take with you”, so every visitor was allowed to cut off a piece of the barbed wire and take it with them. According to a Stasi spy, leaflets were also attached to parked cars at the Formula 1 Grand Prix near Budapest in early August. It is unclear who distributed all the leaflets up to Lake Balaton, and in some cases it is assumed that the West German BND was involved. The East German secret service Stasi was warned by a report by the East German ambassador in Budapest on August 11, 1989, about the planned picnic and the opening of the border, but no countermeasures were taken.
Picnic events
In a symbolic gesture agreed to by Austria and Hungary, a border gate on the road from
Sankt Margarethen im Burgenland
Sankt Margarethen im Burgenland ( hu, Szentmargitbánya) is a town in Burgenland near the state capital of Eisenstadt, in Austria. It is home to a large 1st-century Roman quarry. A passion play has been presented in St Margarethen each summer f ...
, Austria to
Sopronkőhida
Sopronkőhida is a village in northwestern Hungary, 4 km north of the city Sopron and 5 km south of the border with Austria.
Significance
The village is the location of an infamous Hungarian military prison. Its notoriety stems from ...
, Hungary was to be opened for three hours on 19 August. Otto von Habsburg was represented at the picnic by his daughter Walpurga von Habsburg, who gave his greetings. The Hungarian writer and dissident György Konrád also spoke, who until 1988 was only allowed to publish his critical texts abroad. Music was played and speeches made on a wooden stage; there was wine, beer, grilled food, and goulash. Many of the participants also cut about a kilometer (1000 yards) from the fence of the old border system. This symbolic demolition party was officially approved. The fence area in question at Sopronpuszta was just not dismantled because it was supposed to be used for a planned game reserve. Aside from Walpurga Habsburg and the officials of the MDF, very few Hungarians and Austrians were present at the picnic, but television teams and journalists were there.
[Marcel Burckhardt "Ein Picknick für die Freiheit" In: Badische Zeitung, 19.8.2019.]
Shortly before 3 p.m., the first twenty or thirty East German citizens arrived at the border gate, which was still guarded by armed forces. The gate was torn open and the mostly young GDR citizens ran to the Austrian side, where some journalists and a camera team from an Austrian broadcaster were waiting. During the picnic and the "symbolic" opening of the border, the refugees crossed the Iron Curtain in three waves. It was the largest refugee movement from East Germany since the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the gover ...
had been built. The news of the mass exodus spread very quickly. The Hungarian border guards reacted calmly to the emerging mass exodus and did not intervene. The leading border officer at the time,
Árpád Bella
Árpád (; 845 – 907) was the head of the confederation of the Magyar tribes at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. He might have been either the sacred ruler or ''kende'' of the Hungarians, or their military leader or '' g ...
contributed significantly to this. In addition, thousands of GDR citizens waited a little further away for a chance to cross the border, because they were not confident that the border really had been opened. As a result, only 661 people crossed the border that day. The 80,000 Soviet soldiers in Hungary did not intervene.
Prime Minister Németh said in ''1989'',
"I was in my office all day, I was nervous, very nervous. Luckily, there was no knocking on my door by the Soviet ambassador, no telephone calls from Moscow."
More than six hundred East Germans fled to the West, many leaving their cars at the border. The very extensive media coverage made it clear to the Eastern European population that the Iron Curtain had partially broken open, that the Soviet Union was not intervening, and that the governments in the East were increasingly losing power due to indecisive action.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R0518-182, Erich Honecker](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R0518-182%2C_Erich_Honecker.jpg)
East Germany's
Erich Honecker
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts ...
told the ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
'' about the picnic, "Habsburg distributed pamphlets right up to the
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
border, inviting East German holiday-makers to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given presents, food, and
Deutsche Mark
The Deutsche Mark (; English: ''German mark''), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was ...
s, before being persuaded to go over to the West." Through this statement, the astonished public became even more aware of the powerlessness of the hitherto brutal rulers in their own area.
In the GDR political office (Honecker was absent due to his illness –
Günter Mittag
Günter Mittag (8 October 1926 – 18 March 1994) was a German member of parliament, secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), and a central figure in East Germany's command economy.
Biography
Born to a working-class family in St ...
was the chairman), Habsburg's and Pozsgay's Paneuropean Picnic was one of the rare topics of discussion. Slogans were made such as: "The enemy's counterrevolution and its front-line reporting is at work", "The GDR is the tower in battle", "We must further counter the underhand attacks of the GDR's enemies", "We mustn't be hypnotized by the western media. The enemy has a big concept, he wants to smash everything of ours. We have to attack the enemy. This is imperialism in the FRG. Those are the real culprits." But no action was taken.
In Budapest and around
Lake Balaton
Lake Balaton () is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the largest inflow of water to the lake, and th ...
, thousands of East Germans hesitated to cross the border. Over the next few days, the Hungarian government increased the number of guards patrolling its western border and a relatively small number of refugees reached the West. Another picnic spontaneously planned by an employee of the West German television station
ZDF
ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...
for August 23, 1989 was forcefully prevented by Hungarian security forces at the border.
The Pan-European Picnic was organised by four Hungarian opposition parties: the Hungarian Democratic Forum, the
Alliance of Free Democrats
The Alliance of Free Democrats – Hungarian Liberal Party ( hu, Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége – a Magyar Liberális Párt, SZDSZ) was a liberal political party in Hungary.
The SZDSZ was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats ...
, Fidesz, and the
Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party
The Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party ( hu, Független Kisgazda-, Földmunkás- és Polgári Párt), known mostly by its acronym FKgP or its shortened form Independent Smallholders' Party ( hu, Független Kisgazdapárt), ...
. Its patrons were
Christian Social Union in Bavaria
The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German: , CSU) is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic ...
, Otto von Habsburg, and Hungarian Minister of State and reformer Imre Pozsgay.
Later developments
The Hungarian government restored normal border controls after the picnic. In August, 6,923 people were arrested at the border; of those, 5,527 or eighty percent were East Germans. The Hungarian government feared that laxness would lead to hard-liners assuming control in the
Kremlin
The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...
, leading to a ''coup d'état'' against Gorbachev. During the night of 21–22 August , a 36-year-old East German from
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
, was killed. Németh said later:
On 22 August Németh flew by
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
to
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
to meet with West German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...
and Kohl's foreign secretary,
Hans-Dietrich Genscher
Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 March 1927 – 31 March 2016) was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affa ...
. There, Németh "dropped a bomb on their table":
Németh assured Kohl that the Hungarians would handle the border situation, and permission from Gorbachev was unnecessary. Kohl telephoned Gorbachev, informing him of Németh's decision, and Gorbachev assured Kohl that the Hungarian premier "was a good man". On 11 September the border was opened, and 30,000 East Germans fled to the West.
Walter Momper
Walter Momper (born 21 February 1945) is a German politician and former Governing Mayor of Berlin (West Berlin 1989–1990, reunited Berlin 1990–1991). Whilst Governing Mayor, he served as President of the German Bundesrat, President of the B ...
, mayor of Berlin in 1989, expected the Berlin Wall to open and said: "We expected that one day the storm would come across the border from behind, actually, since Otto von Habsburg and the Pan-Europa-Union had the pan-European picnic on the border between Hungary and Austria on August 19, 1989 in Sopron. Hundreds of them came. It was stupid that people from the GDR should cross the border via Hungary and Austria, if there was a border crossing right by them."
After the East German regime tried to block the Hungarian route, thousands fled to the West via
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
and there was a massive popular uprising. On 17 October Honecker was relieved of his position as head of state, and on 9 November the gates to West Berlin were opened.
After his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in relation to the summer of 1989, “this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin."
Today
![Picnic Melocco](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Picnic_Melocco.JPG)
The picnic site is commemorated with a monument by , a bell from the city of Debrecen, a
pagoda
A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...
from the Association of Japanese–Hungarian Friendship, and a wooden monument unveiled by the organisers in 1991.
In 1996 a stainless steel sculpture by the sculptor
Gabriela von Habsburg
Archduchess Gabriela von Habsburg (born 14 October 1956) is an abstract sculptor, working mainly in stainless steel as well as stone-printed lithography. She was the ambassador of Georgia to Germany from 2009 to 2013. She is the granddaughter o ...
was erected in Fertőrákos near Sopron. It symbolizes a set up piece of barbed wire, which from a distance has the shape of a cross.
In 2009, EU Commission President
José Manuel Barroso
José Manuel Durão Barroso (; born 23 March 1956) is a Portuguese politician and university teacher, currently serving as non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He previously served as the 11th president of the European Commi ...
paid tribute to the “peaceful picnic on the Austro-Hungarian border near Sopron”, which “helped to change the course of European history”. This event led to the "iron curtain briefly opening" and thus contributed to its "final fall and the reunification of Germany". This marks the beginning of the end of the division of Europe through the Cold War.
The Pan-European Picnic is considered a significant milestone on the road to
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
, and commemorative ceremonies are held annually on 19 August at the border.
In 2009
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...
(who grew up in East Germany) attended festivities commemorating the picnic's 20th anniversary, thanking the Hungarians for their courage and foresight: "Two enslaved nations together broke down the walls of enslavement... and Hungarians gave wings to East Germans' desire for freedom."
Hungarian President
László Sólyom
László Sólyom ( hu, Sólyom László, ; born 3 January 1942) is a Hungarian political figure, lawyer, and librarian who was President of Hungary from 2005 until 2010. Previously he was Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of Hungary f ...
unveiled a white marble monument in memory of those who risked their lives to cross the Iron Curtain,
and Swedish Foreign Minister
Carl Bildt
Nils Daniel Carl Bildt (born 15 July 1949) is a Swedish politician and diplomat who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994. He was the leader of the Moderate Party from 1986 to 1999. Bildt served as Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs ...
said: "We must remain an open Europe of open societies and open minds, open to others beyond our present boundaries".
In August 2019, Chancellor Merkel and Hungary's Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán
Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between 20 ...
recalled the Pan-European Picnic that took place 30 years ago and its importance for the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall.
On the northeast corner of the
Reichstag building
The Reichstag (, ; officially: – ; en, Parliament) is a historic government building in Berlin which houses the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament.
It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (german: Reichstag) of the ...
in Berlin, a memorial plaque commemorates the pan-European picnic.
There are still some ambiguities about the exact sequence of the picnic, in particular the agreements between Otto von Habsburg, Miklos Nemeth, Imre Pozsgay and Helmut Kohl. Kohl is said to have remarked "It was all agreed beforehand." It is assumed that in addition to the local organizers and the Pan-European Organization, the West German secret service BND and the Order of Malta, which is close to the Habsburgs, were also involved in the decisive distribution of the leaflets to the East Germans.
The Pan-European Picnic is now referred to as a "great moment of mankind (German: Sternstunde der Menschheit)".
See also
*
Austria–Hungary relations
Neighbourly relations exist between Austria and Hungary, two member states of the European Union. Both countries have a long common history since the ruling dynasty of Austria, the Habsburgs, inherited the Hungarian throne in the 16th century. ...
*
Removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria
The removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria occurred in 1989 during the end of communism in Hungary, which was part of a broad wave of revolutions in various communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The border was still closely ...
*
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...
Literature
* Stefan Karner/ Philipp Lesiak: ''Der erste Stein aus der Berliner Mauer. Das Paneuropäische Picknick 1989'', Graz: Leykam 2019 (Kriegsfolgen-Forschung; 30), .
References
External links
* Longer article on the Pan-European Picnic.
* .
{{Fall of Communism
1989 protests
1989 in Austria
1989 in Hungary
Peaceful Revolution
Eisenstadt-Umgebung District
Austria–Hungary border
Germany–Hungary relations
Sopron
1989 in East Germany
Austria–Hungary relations
August 1989 events in Europe