Dr. Mark Jantzen, who served in East Berlin as both a theological student at the Humbolt University between 1988 and 1991, was also serving as the eyes and ears of the Mennonite Central Committee and for the Mennonite Churches of Europe at the time of greatest change in modern Eastern European history. In his book, The Wrong Side of the Wall: An American in East Berlin During the Time of the Peaceful Revolution (1993), Jantzen noted that the massacre of youthful seekers of democracy left its imprint in the peaceful movements for democratic change in East Germany throughout the rest of 1989.
In short, as October and November 1989 rolled around, the ghost of Tiananmen would float like a phantom over "the river of history" in the minds of those involved with the decisions for making peaceful protest as well as in the hearts of East German communist leadership alike.
Poland responded in 1989 by quickly producing stamps recognizing the victims of Tiananmen Square.
Meanwhile, East Germany was celebrating the 40th anniversary of its existence in 1989, so the totalitarian government led by Communist Erich Honaker was expecting a visit in October 1989 by the Soviet Premier Gorbachev.
Everyone wondered throughout the summer of 1989 how Honaker and his communist cohorts would respond to similar student and youthful protests if such protests were permitted to arise there.
One response to both Tiananmen and the opening up of Poland to Democracy was soon clear, though.
East Germans began to vote more-and-more with their fee t starting that May 1989.
First, taking advantage of changes in Hungary's relationship with the West over the previous decade, the Hungarian Communist leadership and neighboring Austria had taken down their barbed wire fences by late Spring 1989.
Suddenly, thousands of Eastern Germans in summer 1989 decided it was a necessary or important junction in the river of history to try and flee the despotic state East of the Elbe, known in the West as East Germany.
http://www.osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/27-6-114.shtml
However, the East German's voting for a life in the west involved a rather circuitous route most of 1989 would be indirect. First, many tried to get to West German through Hungary and Austria. Then others tried Poland. When that option was closed off by the East German authorities, the East German citizens tried to leave through Czechoslovakia.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-7953421.html
In conclusion, on the one hand, people in Eastern European lands feared a crackdown, like in Tiananmen Square.
On the other hand, the fear emboldened some even as it made cowards of a few others.
Some East Germans chose to flee their homeland. Others decided to fight harder than ever to change the system that had run their lives for so long.
