Ostrocker Toni Krahl and the Prague Spring: "Say what you think"

On the morning of August 21, 1968, Toni Krahl, 18, switched on the radio in East Berlin. It's a big vacation. He wants to listen to music, meet later with his buddies or go to the outdoor pool. But the news disturbs him. The suppression of the counter-revolution is mentioned in the State Broadcasting of the GDR, a great victory of socialism.

"Today I would say, at my age: I had blood pressure," says the now 68 -year-old frontman of the rock band City in the SPIEGEL TV documentary "The Prague Spring and the Germans," which runs on Tuesday at 20:15 clock on ZDFinfo , "I got excited."

Tanks and troops from the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary occupied Czechoslovakia exactly 50 years ago. They deposed the leadership of the Communist Party, which had made a spectacular turn. With freedom of speech and freedom of the press, with civil rights and privatization plans, reform communists around party leader Alexander Dubcek had tried to revive socialism and thus challenged the concrete workers in the Eastern bloc.

It can not stay the way it is

Toni Krahl remembers as if it had been yesterday. He experienced the Prague Spring in 1968 in the capital of Czechoslovakia - feeling the sensation of freedom, listening to music with like-minded people from the West and the socialist brother countries, celebrating in clubs, enjoying a life without compulsion: "We wanted to take this home and away also experience here. "

TV documentary: The Prague Spring and the Germans - from dream to trauma

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In 1968, SED Secretary General Walter Ulbricht looked with horror at this "socialism with a human face" in the GDR, as the development in Prague is now called. He agrees with the Politburo that at all costs one must prevent "importing rotten eggs into the GDR". And so the state-controlled media are bickering against "counterrevolutionary machinations".

Toni Krahl sees this as a "hate" against the development in Czechoslovakia: "It was defamation of the entire state apparatus, an unbearable propaganda, which was completely contrary to what we have experienced in Prague."

After the devastating news of the invasion, he meets with friends on August 21, 1968 and considers what they can do now. Unlike the students in the west of the city who demonstrate against the Vietnam War and the establishment, the East Berlin youths have no experience of protest culture.

With flags in CSSR colors

But one thing they know: it can not stay the way it is. The hope that comes over from Prague must not die. Free people want to be her. The dangers ignore her.

Spontaneously they go to the embassy of the CSSR, but only get a hecticized party decision in their hands. Disappointing. For the GDR youth it is a deeply emotional matter, less a political question. Toni Krahl has an idea: "Let's make a silent rally, a rally in front of the most recognizable player of this occupation - in front of the Soviet Embassy, ​​where we will express our protest."

Chronicle of the Prague Spring - the invasion and the long winter

A short dream: The Prague Spring actually began in the winter of 1968. From January, the communists in Czechoslovakia ventured a series of liberal reforms to give socialism a "human face." On the night of August 21, 1968, troops of the Warsaw Pact invaded. This Soviet transporter in Prague overthrew young protesters.

The face of change was Alexander Dubcek (left), who was elected on January 5, 1968 Secretary General of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KP). He was not concerned with a "third way" between communism and capitalism, not even with turning away from socialism. He saw himself rather in the role of a gentle innovator of the original left ideals, from which one had strayed in practice. Changes in economic policy were particularly urgent; Since the beginning of the sixties, Czechoslovakia had been in a deep economic crisis. Critical voices from writers, intellectuals and some party cadres have since become louder.

End of patience: Moscow let Dubcek first grant. He was trusted to get a grip on the situation. In February 1968 he lifted the press censorship. This led to critical texts such as the enthusiastically received "Manifesto of the 2000 words": Writer Ludvik Vaculik wrote in June of "errors of socialism" and attacked the CP hard. Moscow sensed a "counter-revolution", but waited for more months - and then sent on August 21, 1968 tanks.

Familiar Scenes: After 1953 in the GDR and 1956 in Budapest, the Soviet Union attacked for the third time forcibly in the fate of one of their "brother countries". Half a million soldiers finished the Prague Spring; Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary also sent troops from the Warsaw Pact countries. The CIA predicted such an invasion as early as May 1968, combined with the advice: "No action". In the midst of the Cold War, the US did not want to risk an uncontrollable conflict.

Unequal duel: At least the fight for symbols and pictures won the insurgents. David vs. Goliath, Reform Against Stone Age communism - morally, the world saw the demonstrators in the right. Several civilians died: 58 dead, 22 of them in Prague, were already on the first day of the invasion. The fight was particularly bloody in front of the Prague radio station when unarmed citizens surrounded the tanks and demonstrated for freedom.

Wounded in Prague: Heinrich Böll, his wife Annemarie and his son René also happened to experience the restless days. The family was in Prague at the invitation of the Czechoslovak Writers' Association. "We also knew that history is being written here and now," recalled René Böll in "Zeit". "Stalinism had awakened again and hit mercilessly, and it was clear to all who experienced the tanks in Prague in August 1968 that an ice-age would set in again for a long, long time."

Desperate demonstrators: the people of Prague appealed to the world by all means not to accept the invasion; but soon they felt abandoned. Initially, some printers could even publish uncensored photos. In the West, many people persecuted the drama in the media and suffered. For here, not in Czechoslovakia, the hopeful notion of the "Prague Spring" had been coined. Now you had to helpless experience the end of the political thaw.

Dark memories: Many Prague felt in 1968 remembered the invasion of the Wehrmacht in 1939. Swastikas were compared with hammer and sickle, Ulbricht with Hitler. There were no troops of the GDR invaded, the Soviet leadership had renounced it. Rumors of a secret deployment of NVA soldiers, however, persisted. Only decades later, historians like Rüdiger Wenzke were able to expose this as a myth: The SED leadership had been insulted because of the non-consideration, which seemed like a degradation. So she acted as if the NVA had fought.

No chance: Dubcek and the CP had called for no military resistance, which they considered futile. The population, however, resisted with civil disobedience. For example, it misled the attackers with twisted street signs or mocked them on banners. Some of the often young soldiers lost their nerves and shot. According to an investigation by the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, from August 21 to the end of 1968, a total of 108 Czechs and Slovaks were killed by the occupiers, more than 500 injured.

Anger and disappointment: Dubcek's reforms had been hotly debated not only in the socialist states but also in the West. Many left-liberal Democrats had high hopes, but some Communist factions condemned Dubcek's policies. When Moscow stifled the attempt to reform in 1968, demonstrations took place in many cities, as here in Berlin.

Stranded: The Czechs and Slovaks fled in droves in front of the tanks and the rigid policy they announced. Austria received the most refugees with almost 100,000 people; Many had simply not returned from their summer vacation in the suddenly occupied home.

Everything on top: Alexander Dubcek was put down after the crushing of the Prague Spring. President Ludvik Svoboda, later "Hero of the Soviet Union", negotiated with Moscow. In the end, almost all reform ideas were withdrawn. For security, Moscow left thousands of Warsaw Pact soldiers permanently in Czechoslovakia. This photograph of 16 October 1968 shows the signing of the troop deployment agreement. The Soviet Union was once again in control - at least for two decades.

They write little notes with the time and place of action: 25th of August, 5 pm, Unter den Linden in front of the USSR embassy. They distribute them in youth clubs, at dance events and in the outdoor pool. They hope to activate such like-minded teens.

On Sunday, five of them head towards the city center. They wear American parkas and jeans, have painted small flags in the colors of Czechoslovakia and have attached themselves like party badges. Near the embassy they meet similar groups, a few dozen young people want to protest.

Denounced as ringleader

But just as numerous have taken men there with military short haircut position. Although the sun is shining, they wear anoraks and umbrellas that can serve as batons. Suddenly crew cars of the People's Police appear, begin with passport checks. Toni and his friends run away as fast as they can - and depend on the pursuers. They do not worry about possible consequences.

What happens then can be read in Toni Krahl's Stasi files, which have been preserved. An informal employee of the Ministry of State Security learns from a participant who is behind the protest action. She denounced Toni on August 29, 1968 as a ringleader.

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At school, extraordinary gatherings are designed to get the youngsters on track. Toni Krahl no longer takes any risks and lets the teachings endure. Then on 12 September he receives a summons to the police headquarters: "to clarify a situation".

His father, editor of the party newspaper "Neues Deutschland" (ND), advises him to be lenient. It is about the socialist cause, while unity is the most important thing. Toni Krahl sets off the next morning. "I've been fairly unprejudiced," he recalls in the TV documentary, "I thought it's actually nice weather, then you're there at eight, you can be in the pool at ten, you can go to school - but it was It was not a clarification of a fact, but an interrogation from the beginning. "

"Do my parents know where I am?"

Instead of trivializing the whole story, the 18-year-old self-confidently defends his actions. The "democratization process" in Czechoslovakia was a "good thing", he says, according to the interrogation protocol. He wished, he adds courageously, "that even in the GDR there are aspirations to be able to say what one thinks everywhere and at any time".

The interrogators are unperturbed. Krahl: "First and foremost it was always about who guided us, who guided us, the biggest charge was that I was led or that we had not acted of our own accord, but that some imperialist Western powers had controlled us remotely and incited to counterrevolution. "

After a 14-hour interrogation, Toni Krahl was taken into custody and detained for "incitement to the state": "The arrest warrant was read, into a car, I did not know where or how long, ended up in the detention center, standing there in the dark cell and then I first tried to think straight, what happened now, anti-state hate, what's that, how come on it, what does that mean, do my parents know where I am, are others affected? These were all questions that came to my mind, and I think I almost did not sleep that night. "

"Homecoming in the socialist human community"

For weeks, Toni Krahl is detained in the State Security Detention Center in Pankow and repeatedly interrogated. Finally, a court sentenced him to three years in prison. The sentence is shortened a short time later to two years probation. At Christmas 1968 Toni Krahl is free again.

His parents are now marginalized by the comrades and have moved. The father was first on leave, then transferred to the ND archive. The authorities send the son to the brigade "Hans Marchwitza" - to "re-education and homecoming in the socialist human community," as he writes in his memoirs.

Toni adapts as best he can. But he dreams his dream of a career as a rock musician. "A negative influence of the activity as lay musician on the work morality is not to be overlooked", it is laconically in a report in the Stasi file.

In 1975 Krahl lands as a singer at City - and soon afterwards with "Am Fenster" a hit that also makes the band known in the West. He remains optimistic that one day in the GDR something will change. Like then, 1968, in the Prague Spring.