Abstract

Typically, revolutionary unrest will start in the capital of a country and in autumn of 1989 there were in fact impressive demonstrations in East Berlin. Yet, the decisive event was the success of the 70.000 demonstrators in Leipzig, in the evening of Monday, 9th of October 1989 followed quite often by demonstrators demanding to restore the former East German “Länder” which in 1952 the communist regime had replaced by districts. Such wishes in 1989/1990 became louder. In March 1990 the GDR parliament, the People’s Chamber, first time was democratically elected. The new government headed by Lothar de Maizière promised to restore the “Länder”. Since the political aim was to regain German unity by joining the constitutional order of the Federal Republic, it was understood that the new East German “Länder” would become responsible for cultural life, for school education and academic teaching. Taking Saxony, one of the oldest German “Länder”, the author, former Minister of State for Culture and Science, explains how in the years from 1990 to 1994, the newly elected “Landtag” and the Saxon government in Dresden, headed by Kurt Biedenkopf, started the new era for the universities and for other academic institutions.

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