German president to mark opening of Iron Curtain in Hungary
Commemoration events marking the 35th anniversary of the Pan-European Picnic, a gathering at the Hungarian border in 1989 that set the stage for the fall of the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain, are taking place in Hungary on Monday.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is due to hold an address in the town of Sopron, where the historic event took place, in the afternoon, in which he will thank Hungary for its contribution to ending the divisions in Germany and Europe.
The event is being attended by Hungary’s president, Tamas Sulyok, but not by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has often called the value of European unity, as symbolized by the Picnic, into question.
What happened at the Picnic?
In August 1989, the Austrian chapter of the Pan-European Movement and the newly formed Hungarian Democratic Forum jointly organized an event for August 19 in Sopron, which is located at the Austrian-Hungarian border.
The event included a symbolic opening of the border between Austria and Hungary, then still in the last throes of communist governance, aimed at allowing people from both countries to celebrate together in a foretaste of hoped-for wider European unity.
East Germans from the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) on holiday in Hungary saw publicity leaflets for the event, and almost 700 of them crossed into Austria without hindrance from border guards.
The incident was highly embarrassing to the East German government, which largely collapsed only three months later.
tj/rc (dpa,
