 Many opposition activists in East Germany hoped that the Peace March might herald a more relaxed approach to political demonstrations by The Party.Earlier demonstrations had been violently suppressed, whereas the Olof Palme Peace March triggered only sporadic attacks on the peace activists.However, it soon became apparent that the authorities' strangely permissive reaction to this Peace March had resulted above all from the unusual circumstances presented by Honecker's visit to Bonn, and the government's unwillingness to risk the loss of face implicit in highly publicised assaults on peace marchers in the east while the eyes of the world's media were focused on Honecker's diplomacy in the west.