"1989 certainly represents one of those moments. yet, when IPRA held its
12th General Conference in August 1988, few of the participants imagined that
within the space of 13 months popular social movements would topple socialist
regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the German Democratic
Republic.Nobody imagined the Berlin wall or the wire fence between Hungary and Austria being dismantled. Even fewer contemplated the overthrow of the
Ceaucescu regime in Rumania, pluralistic politics in Bulgaria, a single German
economy or a reunited Germany."