Prague Spring
In 1968 Warsaw Pact states, with the tacit support but not direct involvement of East Germany, invaded Czechoslovakia and deposed Alexander Dubček in what came to be known as the Prague Spring.
This invasion appalled people all over the world, but especially East Germans, many of whom felt guilty for letting their government support it. Following the Prague Spring, many young East German men refused to serve even in Baueinheiten, as they felt that something akin to another Prague Spring could be just around the corner, and they wished to play no part in it.
Read more about this topic: Conscientious Objection In East Germany
Famous quotes containing the word spring:
“For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the seasons of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)