“Unwelcome Heroes”: East Germans’ Role in the Collapse of the Soviet Order

摘要

This article looks back on the twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappointment of many aspirations in the process of German and European integration that ensued. It attempts to do justice to the crucial role of the East German protest movement. They have a right to claim their own peaceful revolution, which brought down not only the East German regime, but ultimately the entire Soviet order.