From the DW:
“Secrets of 'Pan-European Picnic'
still shrouded in mystery 30 years later”
(Johann Göltl, left, and Arpad
Bella both did their parts to let 700 East Germans cross into Austria)
A picnic in a meadow on the
Hungarian-Austrian border: That was the plan. But the symbolic event, a show of
support for a united Europe, enabled the first exodus from behind the Iron
Curtain. Unintentionally — or not? History's great moments sometimes start out
small — like on August 19, 1989. The day certainly didn't seem promising:
Heavy, gray clouds filled the sky near the Hungarian town of Sopron, just a
short walk from the Austrian border. A picnic had been planned — but not any
ordinary picnic. This was to be a "Pan-European Picnic," a political,
symbolic gathering right by the border fence, a show of support for a Europe
free of barriers. The barbecues and beer were indeed a washout. A heavy
downpour extinguished the barbecues before they had time to heat up. The day
would not even merit a footnote in the annals of history, had a rare
combination of opportunity, chance, and determination not come together and
fired up all the people there. By the end of the day, almost 700 East Germans
had crossed over from Hungary to the West. They stormed the flimsy wooden gate
at the border and stumbled to freedom in the Austrian town of Sankt Margarethen
im Burgenland.
Hansi and Arpi caught, quite
literally, in the middle
In 1989, Austrian Chief Inspector
Johann "Hansi" Göltl and Hungarian Lieutenant Colonel Arpad
"Arpi" Bella were on duty on opposite sides of the Austrian-Hungarian
border. Reminiscing to journalists 25 years later, Göltl said, "We had Glocks.
Nine millimeter! The Glock's a disaster; it discharges far too easily, and we
had to leave the safety catch off while we were on duty." To this day, the
two men are puzzled by what swept over them like a force of nature just before
3 p.m. that day. They were standing at the border, waiting for the arrival of
the political picnickers they'd been told to expect. It was difficult to survey
the meadow on the Hungarian side; a hill obstructed the view. All of a sudden,
hundreds of men, women and children appeared, marched down the hill, then they
sped up, ran past Arpi and a handful of other border guards, pushed open the
border gate, and seconds later found themselves standing in Austria. They'd
reached the West. Thousands more would follow. In the summer of 1989, East
Germany was on its last legs. The country was in economic free fall; even as
Erich Honecker and his government disseminated propaganda celebrating the 40th
birthday of the "workers' and farmers' state," the people were
already protesting. East Germans started to vote with their feet.
The beginning of the end
On May 2, 1989, Hungarian officials
tore down the fences at the Austrian border. The fences were corroded and Prime
Minister Miklos Nehmet didn't want to pay for their replacement. In any case,
the Hungarian government was unhappy about the security installations: Two
years earlier a report had already described them as technically, politically
and morally outdated. In August 1989, tens of thousands
of East Germans had gone on holiday to the area around Lake Balaton in Hungary,
the westernmost of the Eastern Bloc countries. Rumors were circulating that the
border with Austria was porous. In fact, there had already been a symbolic
cutting of the border fence in May by the two countries' foreign ministers,
Austria's Alois Mock and Hungary's Gyula Horn. For the East Germans, it seemed
like an opportunity — so much so that many people allowed their Hungarian visas
to expire and stayed on, secretly preparing for their own great escapes. Local
Hungarians provided tips on which watchtowers guards sometimes left empty and
the best way to approach the border unseen. The day of the Pan-European Picnic,
an idea that sprang from Otto von Habsburg, the son of the last
Austro-Hungarian Kaiser and president of the Paneuropean Union — was an ideal
opportunity to flee East Germany.
Who helped them escape?
Hungary had already taken
significant steps to water down its Socialist state doctrine. A year before the
historic picnic, the government in Budapest had granted its citizens the
freedom to travel. In 1988, the Hungarian minister of state, Imre Pozsgay, described
the Iron Curtain as "morally and politically outdated." Hungary did
not want to have to go on acting as "minder" for the tens of
thousands of East German vacationers coming to Lake Balaton. Even 30 years on,
the question of who orchestrated the events of August 19, 1989, remains
unanswered. Was it the newly formed Hungarian opposition? Or the Kaiser's son,
in absentia? Otto von Habsburg was represented at the picnic by his daughter,
Walburga. Or the secret service? Or perhaps some combination of all three? Hungarian border guards needed to decide which
picnickers to focus on — and checked the Austrians' papers. Walburga von
Habsburg said her father came up with the idea of the political picnic, and
that permission was expressly obtained from the Hungarian government. However,
many people still support the theory that the barbecue was organized by the
newly formed opposition alliance, the "Hungarian Democratic Forum"
(MDF), to test Hungary's democratic process. One very intriguing piece of the
puzzle is that the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta were
contacted in the run-up to August 19 by one of the picnic's patrons — none
other than Minister of State Pozsgay. The Knights of Malta were looking after
the East German tourists who had come to Lake Balaton not to swim but to try
and escape to the West. Pozsgay conveyed the message that the border would be
open for a few hours and that the East German holidaymakers "would be able
to find the way if they happened to be in the area."
The remarkable proliferation of
leaflets
The Hungarian opposition and the
Paneuropean Union agree on one point: To this day, they're both amazed at how
that afternoon's events developed a momentum of their own. Many suspect there
were other forces discreetly, but effectively at work behind the scenes. Laszlo
Nagy, a former MDF activist, said he found it surprising that a chauffeur at
the West German Embassy in Budapest distributed sacks full of leaflets around
Lake Balaton in advance of August 19 — "invitations" to the picnic
printed in German and Hungarian. The undercover role of West Germany's
intelligence service and other security services is now regarded as an open
secret. With so many machinations in the background, Arpad Bella and his fellow
Hungarian border guards faced a dangerous dilemma. It was their job to stop the
fugitives, if necessary by force of arms. Allowing them to pass was a serious
dereliction of duty. But Bella found a mischievous way around the problem: The
Hungarians turned their backs on the 700 people storming towards the gate and
focused on meticulously checking the Austrian picnic guests' documents.
But was it a daring act of
heroism or a calculated piece of acting?
Did political leaders like Kohl, right, and
Hungarian Prime Minister Nemeth Miklos know what was going on all along? When
Austrian guard Göltl, who experienced the storm of East Germans from the
western side of the border, told the former West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
years later about Bella's daring move he said the Hungarian was immediately
subjected to disciplinary proceedings. Kohl reportedly replied by calling
Bella's boss an idiot: "It was all agreed beforehand."
^ Regardless of the reason and whether
it was pre-planned or not the fact that the Hungarian Communists opened their
border with non-Communist Austria helped not only the East Germans, but
everyone living behind the Iron Curtain. It really was a major step that led to
the collapse of Communism throughout all of Eastern Europe. ^
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