What German slogan became 'We are one people' after the Wall fell?

The slogan was “We are the people,” or “Wir sind das Volk” in German.

It became the defining chant of East Germany’s peaceful protests in autumn 1989. The words asserted that ordinary citizens—not the ruling Socialist Unity Party—were the legitimate source of political authority. Protesters used the slogan alongside demands for free elections, freedom of speech, freedom to travel, and an end to state repression.

After the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November, the wording increasingly shifted to “Wir sind ein Volk,” meaning “We are one people.” That revised slogan expressed the growing demand for German reunification, linking East Germans and West Germans as one nation. The change is therefore a useful marker of the movement’s changing goals: from reform and popular sovereignty inside East Germany toward national unity.

The two phrases are often mixed up because they appeared within weeks of one another and were sometimes shouted together. “We are the people” is the earlier democratic protest slogan; “We are one people” is the later reunification slogan. The stored answer identifies the original phrase correctly.