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The official emblem of the Pan-European Picnic in Hungarian The border crossing where the Pan-European picnic took place. The Pan-European Picnic (German: Paneuropäisches Picknick; Hungarian: Páneurópai piknik; Slovak: Paneurópsky piknik; Czech: Panevropský piknik) was a peace demonstration held on the Austrian-Hungarian border near Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989.
The border was still closely guarded and the Hungarian security forces tried to hold back refugees. The dismantling of the electric fence along Hungary's 240 kilometres (149 mi) long border with Austria was the first fissure in the "Iron Curtain" that had divided Europe for more than 40 years, since the end of World War II.
Scene at the Helmstedt–Marienborn border crossing into East Germany in November 1989, after the freeing of travel restrictions. Fall of inner German border, also known as Opening of inner German border (German: Öffnung der innerdeutschen Grenze), rapidly and unexpectedly occurred in November 1989, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The opening of the border had a profound political and psychological effect on the East German public. For many people the very existence of the GDR, which the SED had justified as the first "Socialist state on German soil", came to seem pointless. The state was bankrupt, the economy was collapsing, the political class was discredited, the ...
The Pan-European Picnic at the Austro-Hungarian border followed on 19 August 1989. This was a celebration of more open relationships between east and west, near Sopron, but on the Austrian side of the border. The opening of the border gate then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR or an Iron ...
The initially inconspicuous opening of a border gate of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary in August 1989 then triggered a chain reaction, at the end of which the GDR no longer existed and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.
The Hungarian outer fence became the first part of the Iron Curtain to be dismantled. After the border fortifications were dismantled, a section was rebuilt for a formal ceremony. On 27 June 1989, the foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn, ceremonially cut through the border defences separating their countries. [79]
South African Border War; Part of the Cold War and decolonisation of Africa: Clockwise from top left: South African Marines stage for an operation in the Caprivi Strip, 1984; an SADF patrol searches the "Cutline" for PLAN insurgents; FAPLA MiG-21bis seized by the SADF in 1988; SADF armoured cars prepare to cross into Angola during Operation Savannah; UNTAG peacekeepers deploy prior to the 1989 ...