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—— ON THIS DAY ——
NOVEMBER 9, 1989
Berlin, East Germany
37 years ago
The fall of the Berlin Wall on the night of November 9, 1989, when East German border crossings were opened and crowds poured through after twenty-eight years of division
On the evening of November 9, 1989, an East German official named Günter Schabowski held a routine press conference in East Berlin. Near the end he was handed a note about new travel regulations that had been drafted that day and that he had not read properly. He announced that private travel abroad could be applied for without preconditions. An Italian journalist asked when this took effect. Schabowski leafed through his papers, looked up and said, as far as he knew, immediately, without delay.
The regulations had actually been intended to take effect the following day, with an orderly application process. West German television carried the announcement within the hour, and East Berliners heard it. By late evening thousands were pressing against the checkpoints, demanding to be let through. The guards had received no instructions, could not reach anyone who would give them, and faced a crowd that was growing by the minute.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The Berlin Wall, the fortified barrier built in 1961 to stop East Germans fleeing to the West, which divided the city for twenty-eight years.
The first crossing to give way was at Bornholmer Strasse, where the officer in charge, Harald Jäger, repeatedly phoned superiors for orders and got none. At about half past eleven at night he decided on his own authority to lift the barrier and let people through without checking papers. Other crossings followed within the hour. Berliners from both sides climbed onto the wall at the Brandenburg Gate, and people began chipping at the concrete with hammers.
The wall had been thrown up overnight in August 1961 to stop an exodus that was draining East Germany of its working-age population, and had been built up into a system of concrete, watchtowers, dog runs, tripwires and a cleared strip patrolled by armed guards. At least 140 people are documented as having died at the Berlin border trying to cross. For twenty-eight years it had been the most concrete image of the division of Europe.
The opening was the product of months of pressure rather than one man's slip: Hungary had opened its border with Austria in the summer, thousands of East Germans had fled through Czechoslovakia, mass demonstrations in Leipzig had grown week by week, and the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev had made clear it would not send tanks. Still, the actual breach happened because of a misread note and a border officer who decided not to shoot. Germany was formally reunified on October 3, 1990, less than eleven months later, and the Soviet Union itself dissolved at the end of 1991.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
It marked the practical end of the Cold War division of Europe. The wall was the most physical symbol of the split between East and West, and its opening set off the sequence that produced German reunification within a year and the dissolution of the Soviet Union within two.
It happened through confusion rather than decision. No authority ordered the crossings opened. A badly briefed spokesman and a border officer acting alone under pressure produced an outcome that governments on both sides were not expecting that night.
It reunified a country and a city at enormous cost and effort. Bringing together two states with different currencies, economies, legal systems and political cultures was a generational project whose economic and social effects are still visible across Germany.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
A spokesman who had not read his notes said the new travel rules took effect immediately. Crowds went to the checkpoints that night. Nobody in authority gave an order, and at about half past eleven one officer at Bornholmer Strasse raised the barrier because he could not think what else to do. Germany was one country again within a year.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“As far as I know, immediately, without delay.”
— Günter Schabowski, asked when the new travel rules took effect, November 9, 1989
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the press conference that triggered it, the officer at Bornholmer Strasse, and the reunification that followed?
