On 10 September 1989, two months before the Wall fell, thirty East Germans published the founding call of the Neues Forum, the New Forum. Its first sentence was: In unserem Land ist die Kommunikation zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft offensichtlich gestört. (In our country, communication between state and society is evidently disturbed.) It asked for a democratic dialogue in aller Öffentlichkeit, gemeinsam und im ganzen Land, in full public view, together and in the whole country. On 21 September, the state news agency called the group hostile to the constitution and the state. By the end of 1989, about 200,000 people had signed the call.