Pan-European Picnic (1989): The Border Opening at Sopron

The Pan-European Picnic was a peace demonstration held on 19 August 1989 on the border between Hungary and Austria near the Hungarian city of Sopron. A border gate was due to be opened symbolically for three hours, but several hundred East Germans who had been waiting nearby pushed through and escaped to Austria. The event was the largest breach of the Iron Curtain since 1961 and an early crack in the system that collapsed with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Background

Since the late 1940s the Iron Curtain had divided Europe between the communist East and the democratic West. In Hungary it took the form of a fortified border with Austria, including an electric signal fence. By the late 1980s Hungary’s reform-minded communist government, led from late 1988 by Prime Minister Miklós Németh, judged the fence outdated and too costly to maintain.

On 2 May 1989 Hungary began dismantling the fence. On 27 June the foreign ministers of Hungary and Austria, Gyula Horn and Alois Mock, cut through a section of wire for the cameras. The images spread across Eastern Europe.

East Germans could travel relatively easily to Hungary, a fellow communist state, and many spent their summer holidays at Lake Balaton. In the summer of 1989 thousands of them came hoping to cross to the West. However, the border was still guarded, and a 1969 agreement obliged Hungary to return East German escapees. Many waited in camps and at the West German embassy in Budapest.

Planning the picnic

The idea for the picnic came from Hungarian opposition activists in Debrecen, linked to the Hungarian Democratic Forum, after a meeting with Otto von Habsburg, the son of the last Austro-Hungarian emperor and president of the Pan-European Union. The plan was a friendly gathering of Austrians and Hungarians on the border, with an old road crossing between Sopronpuszta and Sankt Margarethen opened for three hours as a symbol of a Europe without borders.

Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay, a leading reformer in the Hungarian government, became patrons. Neither attended on the day; Habsburg was represented by his daughter Walburga, and Pozsgay by an associate. Leaflets advertising the event were distributed in Hungarian, German and English, and many reached East Germans waiting in Hungary. Historians still debate how far the reformers in Budapest deliberately used the picnic to test the Soviet and East German reaction.

The day of the picnic

On the afternoon of 19 August 1989 a crowd gathered near the border. Before the official ceremony began, a large group of East Germans, men, women and children, rushed towards the wooden gate and pushed it open. They ran across into Austria, many in tears, some leaving cars and belongings behind.

The Hungarian border guards on duty were few in number and had no orders for such a situation. Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Árpád Bella, decided not to use weapons and to let the crowd pass, a decision he later said he took on his own responsibility. Austrian officials and aid groups received the refugees, who were soon taken on to West Germany.

Most accounts give the number of escapees as around 600 to 700, although estimates range from about 600 to over 900. Further groups crossed in the following days at other points along the border.

Aftermath

The picnic showed that Hungary would not use deadly force to stop East Germans and that the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev would not intervene. Pressure built as more East Germans arrived in Hungary. After secret talks with West Germany, the Hungarian government announced on 10 September 1989 that from midnight East German citizens could leave freely to any country that would accept them.

Within days, more than ten thousand East Germans had crossed into Austria, and tens of thousands followed in the next weeks. The exodus, together with mass protests at home, shook the East German regime. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall was opened, and less than a year later Germany was united, as described in German Reunification.

Legacy

The picnic site near Sopron is now a memorial park with a preserved section of fence, a watchtower and sculptures. Major anniversaries have drawn German and Hungarian leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, who attended commemorations in Sopron in 2009 and 2019. German politicians, including Chancellor Helmut Kohl, repeatedly credited Hungary with knocking the first brick out of the Berlin Wall.

In Hungary the picnic is remembered alongside other turning points of 1989, such as the reburial of Imre Nagy in June. Together they mark the country’s peaceful exit from communist rule.

Timeline

• 1989, 2 May: Hungary begins dismantling the fence on its border with Austria.
• 1989, 27 June: Foreign ministers Gyula Horn and Alois Mock symbolically cut the border fence.
• 1989, 19 August: Several hundred East Germans escape during the Pan-European Picnic near Sopron.
• 1989, 10 September: Hungary announces it will let East Germans leave freely from midnight.
• 1989, 11 September: The border opens and thousands of East Germans cross into Austria.
• 1989, 9 November: The Berlin Wall is opened.

Why it matters

The Pan-European Picnic turned a symbolic gesture into a real escape route and proved that the Iron Curtain could be crossed without bloodshed. It helped trigger the exodus from East Germany that, within three months, brought down the Berlin Wall and changed the map of Europe.