ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the Joachim C. Fest's article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 30 December 1989, under the title hweigende Wortfuhrer: Uberlegungen zu einer Revolution ohne Vorbild. He was born in 1926, has since 1973 been editor of the daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. One of the most striking things about 1989 was the silence with which the intelligentsia of the Federal Republic and the GDR met the year's revolutionary events. This became a silence compounded by despondency when the results of the first free election in East Germany were declared. The words that poured out ad nauseam on the bicentennial of the French Revolution only made the silent response to the current revolution all the more audible. The intellectuals, whether from East or West Germany, unlike those of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania, did not prepare the ground for the revolutionary nights of last November.
