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Picture 35:
A central square in Leipzig in spring 1960. The board shows a huge portrait of the Soviet
leader, Nikita Krushchev. Above his head are the words: "What do we want: PEACE. PEACE. "
The word "PEACE" appears once more in even larger letters at the bottom of the board.
Fifteen years after the end of the second World War, the word "peace" must have had strong
emotional connotations for people passing by. But the contemporary background of the slogan
was Cold War power play - Krushchev's Berlin-memorandum of November 1958 (see Pictures 32
and 33). The square, originally called Augustplatz (after the Saxonian Elector August), was
called Karl-Marx-Platz at the time the picture was taken; the name was changed back after
1990. In September and October 1989, the first large protest demonstrations in the GDR, which
gave the signal for a "peaceful revolution", took place in Leipzig. The demonstrators marched
across this square.
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