Stock Photo - 17 June 2023, Berlin: Bärbel Bas (M, SPD), President of the Bundestag, and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier talk with Günther Dilling at the central memorial service for the victims of the June 17, 1953, popular uprising at the Seestraße cemetery. June 17, 1953 is considered a symbol of the workers' uprising in the GDR. Between 500,000 and one million people protested against the SED dictatorship throughout the GDR in June 1953. The GDR leadership had the uprising put down by the People's Police and Soviet tanks. Dilling was a 19-year-old strike leader at the VEB Holzwerk Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. He was arrested on June 18, 1953 and sentenced to five years in prison. After eleven months in prison, he was released in 1954. He was to work for the Stasi as an informer and fled to West Berlin three months after his commitment. Photo: Joerg Carstensen/dpa. - Berlin/Berlin/Germany