MML Computer-Assisted Translation

Exam 2000 - Charles S. Maier

Silke Mentchen

Could [1] the events of 9 November 1989 [2] have ended in violence? The authorities had expected clashes, prepared the hospitals, and were ready to use guns, whilst the demonstrations were getting ever [3] larger by the day [4]. At the station in Dresden, where trains carrying [5] East Germans [6] from Prague to the Federal Republic had passed through, 1000 people assembled on October 4th. The police used water cannon against them, the furious demonstrators replied by [7] hurling stones. The next day even more people took to the streets [8]; violence seemed close at hand. Yet the more interesting [9] question is not whether repression might have been attempted [10], but whether under the prevailing conditions it could have brought more than temporary peace. This is doubtful: violence would only have delayed the denouement and made the upheaval even [11] worse. Crucially, the ageing East German leadership lacked resolution, and so the border guards were left without orders as on November 9th crowds passed across a frontier that had been so deadly up to a few hours earlier, and young people began to dance on the Wall.