Published in TraveLife Magazine, July 2014

On a bright autumn afternoon, I’m nursing a warm cappuccino at a café in Old Leipzig’s pedestrian-friendly heart. Hard to believe just across the plaza, in St. Nicholas Church a movement began that would bring German communism to its knees.

Monday “peace prayer” groups had long been meeting in the pretty, while-columned church. Just a dozen-odd people at first-- no big deal-- but word spread, and crowds grew until, overflowing the church, they spilled out onto the streets. By October 9, 1989 they numbered 70,000.

“Wir sind das volk!” they chanted (“We are the people!”), riffing on the heavy irony of life in the German Democratic Republic. Like rotten fruit, the forty- year -old system fell. Today, “The Great Candle Revolution” is marked each October 9 by a Festival of Lights. Two hundred thousand attended its 25th anniversary in 2014.  A graceful white column topped with green palm fronds heralds the church where this “peaceful revolution” achieved liftoff.

What would you do on the day you woke up and realized you were free? “When communism ended,” the manager of a 16th century beer cellar tells me, “I realized I could travel. So I went to London, home of my idols, the Sex Pistols.” Leipzig has changed, but the stories you hear remain as vivid---and surprising--as ever.  For some it’s as simple as the thrill of crossing a border, after a lifetime of being denied that pleasure.

Of course the city’s rich musical history predates the punk scene by several centuries. A new Music Trail leads visitors to places associated with Germany’s classical giants: Johann Sebastian Bach was choirmaster at St. Thomas Church (1723-1750) and premiered his St. John’s Passion at St. Nicholas Church on Good Friday, 1724. Felix Mendelssohn’s   house still brings joy to music lovers with its Sunday concerts.  Clara and Robert Schumann, Wagner, Telemann—all called Leipzig home.

This Saxony city of 543,000 souls, 150 km south of Berlin, offers visitors an astonishing mix: a stellar artistic heritage and a still-fresh triumph over communism. For Cold War buffs, Leipzig is catnip. As the regime entered its death throes, citizens rushed the secret police (STASI) headquarters in the Runde Ecke (Round Building) interrupting officials in the act of destroying the files they kept on nearly everyone. Seizing the headquarters, townsfolk claimed its contents for posterity.

Today the hated Stasi headquarters is a museum, displaying those same torn dossiers, along with bundles of files, tapes of conversations and near-comic disguises. What looks like a miniature cement-mixture producing globs of mortar turns out to be the main file-destroying device.

Ordinary Germans were the main targets of the state spy agency. A tour guide tells me she investigated—as so many have done—the secret police files on her. One existed because she spoke English, another because a man whose advances she’d spurned had decided to “inform” on her.  Among the disguises are fake mustaches, wigs, make-up—even a fake belly with a hole for the navel through which photos could be snapped.

Glass jars fill another case, each containing pieces of felt swiped after a suspect had sat down or touched something, so that tracker dogs could identify the scent should the suspect decide to flee. Much scarier than this B-movie spy craft are the narrow interrogation cells one side of the corridor where prisoners were shot.

Little wonder that in today’s Leipzig, lies are simply not on the menu. In pedestrian Old Town, a sculptural frieze shows a group of town fathers under communism: each figure squirms, looks away, down, anywhere but straight ahead.  “Germany started World War Two,” reads the first sentence in the Museum of Contemporary History, a window onto life under communism. Uprisings occurred and were brutally suppressed; underground leaders were jailed, executed. 

Major exhibits—especially fascinating to locals locked behind the iron curtain--showcase shoddy East Bloc consumer goods, the highlight being an iconic “Trabi” (Trabant) automobile, a “luxury” item that took years of waiting to acquire. How much has changed in twenty-five years?  For starters, owning a Trabi has acquired a certain cachet. Colourful shops line the once-grey streets; restored “Innerhof” (inner courtyards), showcases for wares during Leipzig’s 17th-19th century trading heyday, have been transformed into chic spots to meet, shop and dine.

Unable to speak freely for over forty years, Germans in the former East now talk all the time. (A recent debate questions whether Communist Art can be considered Art at all.) The uneasiness and distrust felt when Germany was reunited took time to mend, but mend it has. A recent Wall Street Journal story heralds Leipzig’s new automobile plants—luxury Porsches and sporty electric BMWs—as examples of its growing economy. With low rents and funky student bars, says the WSJ, Leipzig is “verging on hip.” 

With a student population of almost 30,000 (Leipzig University dates from 1409), an opera house and a modern zoo, Leipzig has also been named “the most livable city in Europe.” The food is excellent, the beer (5000 choices) a delight, the mood youthful. Leipzig University graduates include Goethe, Leibniz, Nietzsche—and current German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. In the 18th century, all-round genius Johann Wolfgang von Goethe studied law here, hanging out at Auerbachs Keller, a 15th century beer cellar and bistro that’s still going strong.

It seems the city is well on its way to reclaiming its roots as a cultural centre and student town. At night folks sit outside (overhead heaters dispel the chill), sipping coffee, drinking beer, eating chunky fries with mayonnaise. Techno-rock pulses out of trendy bars that happily share old streets with distinguished venues like Coffe Baum, a glorious period piece from 1690, with its own third floor coffee museum.

Having flung open the iron curtain, Leipzig “volk” are more than ready for the world stage.

If You Go: The best tool for visitors planning to go to Germany: www.germany.travel