East Germany's leaders sponsored town meetings, although participants in the East Berlin affair jeered local officials and demanded explanations for misdeeds and blunders.
At least 20,000 people attended Sunday's rally in the East Germany capital, some standing before an open mike and saying things that might have landed them in jail several weeks ago.The gathering, like similar meetings organized across the country by Communist officials, was called to address demands for reform that have reached a fever-pitch this month.
At the request of a person who stepped up to one microphone at the gathering outside East Berlin's old City Hall, the crowd observed a minute of silence for those killed while attempting to escape over the Berlin Wall.
"We have to remember those who lost their lives in the minefields and along the barbed wire and in the waters of the Spree River just because once in their lives they wanted to see another part of the world," said the unidentified man.
It was the first such public mourning since Communist authorities built the wall in 1961 to prevent East Germans from escaping to the West.