In 1989/1990, the political system in the GDR collapsed under the run of a dissatisfied population and dissident democratic activists. This chapter describes the influence of these developments on the astronomical institute in Potsdam-Babelsberg and, at the same time, the involvement of post-doc scientists in bringing about the end of the party command. Free elections to an internal Scientific Council and a new institute management replaced the old polit astronomy with a science-oriented working structure of highly motivated employees and brought the GDR astronomers back into their international community overnight, as if nothing had happened meanwhile.