Leipzig's Communist Legacy Part 2... Uprisng on June 17, 1953

On Friday, I returned to Leipzig by S-Bahn. Like Thursday, it was terrifically hot, and Germans aren’t known for cranking up the AC. My initial plan was to eat some currywurst and head directly to the “Runde Ecke” Museum. But I decided I would walk around for a bit to get oriented first, hugging whichever side of the street provided more shade.

That’s when I stumbled onto this:

Tank tracks in Leipzig

At first I thought the bronze tank track imprints were some kind of access grates. Instead, they memorialize the 1953 Volksaufstand (or Arbeiteraufstand—both are equally valid names). When I saw the memorial, I assumed it made reference to the events in East Berlin along the Stalinallee. I didn’t realize that the uprising spread to multiple East German cities! Later, I purchased two books on the topic at the Runde Ecke Museum. 

The extent of the Uprising

There were multiple factors that contributed to the uprising: increased defense spending alongside reparations to the Soviet Union combined with higher taxes, scarcity of consumer goods, and the increasing suppression of political opposition. However, the event that appears to have triggered the protest was a threat to cut the pay of Berlin workers constructing the Stalinalle. By the following morning workers were striking throughout the GDR and demanding more than a reduction in production quotas--now many demanded that the government resign.  Walter Ulbricht turned to the Soviets for aid. Tanks flooded the cities and in many instances used live ammunition to disperse the crowds, killing up to 125 East Germans. 

In 1990, I was actually considering writing about the June 17 Uprising. Robert Koehl was my Senior Thesis advisor at UW-Madison, and he encouraged me to research and write about the SS instead. I’m glad he did. First of all, there was there not enough information in general circulation (the East German authorities insisted for years that the event was a provocation coordinated by fascists and the CIA). In addition, there’s no way I was prepared to read multiple German sources. 

A crowd of Leipzigers carries a protester’s body past a Soviet tank