Pan-European Picnic - Background

Background

The situation in the year 1989 in Central Eastern Europe was tense. While formally still under dictatorships, the peoples of Central Eastern Europe more and more confidently called for democratic elections, freedom of speech and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The physical manifestations of the Iron Curtain remained a dominant factor in the movements to tear down the walls and unite Europe. Whereas some countries faced a severe communist power structure, some of them – like Hungary – assumed a more reform-oriented approach. Supported by Gorbachev´s new policies, the communist leadership realized the necessity for change. The newly founded organisations of civil society and political parties played an immense role in moving towards a democratic multi-party system. In the year 1989, in several Central and Eastern Europe countries, round-tables had been organized to consensually shift the system. In February 1989 formal Round Table discussions began in the Hall of Columns in Warsaw. On 4 April 1989 the historic Round Table Agreement was signed legalising Solidarity and setting up partly free parliamentary elections to be held on 4 June 1989 (coincidently the day following the crackdown on Chinese protesters in Tiananmen Square). A political earthquake followed. The victory of Solidarity surpassed all predictions. Historians talk about the “revolution at the negotiation-table”.

However, there still have been orthodox hardliners who did not believe in democracy and human rights, but proclaimed the leading role of the communist party and thus their dictatorial regime. These regimes badly needed to keep their people in, so citizens were only allowed to travel to the “West” every three years, and not allowed to travel with more than a few dollars. In Germany, this led to the Berlin Wall (1961-1989), which only pensioners could pass through. While these backward forces were predominant in Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania, the Hungarian situation was more relaxed: Since 1988 Hungarians possessed so-called “world-passports”, enabling them to travel relatively freely.

Starting in 1989, many Romanian citizens escaped the dictatorship in their country and were filling refugee camps at the Hungarian-Romanian border, near Debrecen. In early summer 1989, some 30-40,000 people were seeking asylum in Hungary. As the Hungarian government was bound by a bilateral agreement, it legally should have sent these people back to Romania, certainly exposing them to revenge by the Romanian authorities. A solution was found by Hungary formally joining the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CRSR) in 1989, giving a legal base not to deport them back to their country of origin.

Since the financial situation was tense, not only in Hungary, the reform-oriented government of Miklós Németh decided to revise the system of border protection at the Western borders. They believed it was no longer necessary to lock down the country as Hungarians were allowed to freely travel anyhow and the leadership did not intend to renew the “anachronistic” massive and brutal border protection at the country´s Western borders. This was, however, not the case at the BRD (Germany)-GDR border, which was a virtual dead zone, where several hundred people were killed, and border guards were instructed to shoot escaping people. The last such victim was Chris Gueffroy who was killed in February 1989.

Simultaneously, Eastern German citizens – who often spent their summer holidays in Hungary, at Lake Balaton, where they could meet their relatives and friends from Western Germany – accumulated in Hungary during the course of summer 1989, obviously not intending to return back to East Germany.

On 20th June 1989, Otto von Habsburg, heir apparent of the former Habsburg dynasty and long-time MEP from 1979-1999, visited the university in Debrecen, where he addressed the interested Hungarian audience about the question of how Europe would look without borders, and what impact the European Parliament elections had on the people of Central Eastern Europe. The speech, which was warmly welcomed, was followed by a dinner where two representatives of the local MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum, the conservative party of later Prime Minister József Antall), Mária Filep and Ferenc Mészáros surprised the attendees with the idea of arranging a picnic at he Austro-Hungarian border to demonstrate the ridiculousness of such borders those days. They were also inspired by the dramatic situation around Debrecen, where several tens of thousands of people from Romania gathered in camps.

While the national leadership of the MDF had doubts as to whether this might really be a good idea, Mária Filep took intensive action to recruit participants and to find the exact location suitable for such an event. She was supported by local groups of FIDESZ and MDF. Her suggestion was to involve the guests of the “common destiny camp”, a gathering of intellectuals and opposition activist from the CEE countries taking place in Martonvásár (close to Lake Balaton) with a planned end date of 20 August 1989. Finally, it was agreed to host the picnic next to Sopron, in Sopronpuszta, at the old Bratislava Road, which has been a border since 1922.

From its conception, the picnic was intended to be an informal gathering of international participants, with special regard to Austrians and Hungarians who should be coming together directly at the border, at the meadow, to grill, eat and interact. Permission to open a short-time border station for just three hours was granted so that pedestrians from both sides of the border could meet and share their dream of a European continent without borders. The organisers even managed to engage Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay (a reform-oriented member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers´ Party MSZMP and Minister of State) as patrons of the event, which clearly demonstrated the will of all sides involved to work for the goals of the event (open borders, free Europe).

Though it is unclear how, the flyer advertising the picnic was distributed to Eastern German citizens planning to somehow find a way to defect to Western Germany via Austria. Under communist German law, they were not allowed to travel to the “West” at any point, but had to write an official “petition” to the Eastern German authorities; they observed the rapid developments in Hungary with curiosity and growing hopes. 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 the “GDR” on 7th October 1989, were keen to hide the problems and were silent about the mass exodus of their own people.

Given all this, the picnic was just the seam where the pressure cooker would burst. Several hundred “GDR” citizens conducted a “run” to the picnic site, literally overrunning the old wooden gate and getting to Austria. The border guards around Árpád Bella did not hinder them, thus enabling them to fulfill their dreams to live in a free world. The picnic organisers made history – the gate was opened and the first brick from the Berlin Wall was knocked out in Hungary. “The soil under the Brandenburg Gate is Hungarian soil”, Helmut Kohl rightly pointed out. Subsequent events led to a total and unconditional opening of the Hungarian borders on 11th September 1989, to the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November 1989, and, finally, to the end of the Iron Curtain.