Thursday, 25. January 1990

The government decides to permit complete business freedom. Limitations on enterprise size and importation of tools and materials are rescinded. The CDU pulls its ministers out of the government in order to open the way for negotiations with new parties and groups in the run-up to the elections.

At the city Round Table, Magdeburg's Mayor, Werner Nothe, demands that the SED-PDS immediately cease all political activities in the vicinity of the city of Magdeburg. Nothe himself belongs to the party and was a delegate to the special SED Party Conference in East Berlin in December. He believes the party should dissolve itself.

The guard dogs offered to West Germans are dangerous to inexperienced owners, according to the Association of German Shepherds. According to the organization, dogs like these, which have had little social contact with humans, are difficult to integrate into families when they are older and cannot really be retrained for normal everyday activity. The association says the German Animal Protection Society has done »a disservice« with its ad campaign for the roughly 2,500 retired East German guard dogs.

Twenty thousand people demonstrate in Erfurt for a complete end to the security police; in Gera, 15,000 call for the dissolution of the SED-PDS and a united Germany. Additional demonstrations and warning strikes take place in 25 towns.