Mühlhausen and the last days of the old regime
October 28,1989: The SED accused of corruption. At the first big meeting in the Marienkirche the Socialist Unity Party, the real power behind the state, was represented by the First Secretary of the local SED, Ralf Werner, and nine other functionaries, who on arrival at the church, faced boos and catcalls and angry accusations during the discussion. The party leadership was accused of numerous kinds of corruption and abuse of power but what enraged people more than anything was the way they had, like their leaders in Berlin, secured for their members some of the best houses in the City, while by-passing the official allocation system at a time when much of the population had to content itself either with old and neglected buildings or with small flats in large prefabricated blocks.
Ralf Werner, the First Secretary, was so shocked by the attacks that he became became seriously ill and played no further part in political developments. Not long afterwards he was excluded from the party and in response to public demand removed from his post as First Secretary. Other leading members of the local party were either dismissed or left, pleading sickness. The ordinary membership, too, was dwindling. The SED, which had once had 11,000 members in Mühlhausen and 115 full-time employees, was showing signs of disintegration.
Following one of the big meetings at which the new political parties addressed the public on November 21 a demonstration proceeded round the City on the now familiar route via the Stasi headquarters, the Soviet Army barracks, to the SED headquarters where some of the young people climbed onto the ground floor window bars and attached a large banner calling for the building to be given over to a much-needed polyclinic. The rest of the demonstrators stood lighted candles all round the building and sang to the tune of a popular folksong their calls for the First Secretary to resign. Almost exactly two months later on January 29,1990, the handover of the building took place.
