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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Contents of this path:

People gather near a part of the Berlin Wall that has been broken down, November 10, 1989. The anthem of the reunification of Berlin established itself in the west of the city over the weekend, and it was neither a political speech nor a verse from Deutschland Uber Alles. It was the amicable, scooter-like chugging of thousands upon thousands of little Trabant cars, brimful with families map-reading their way through the biggest weekend party of the 20th century.
A demonstrator pounds away at the Berlin Wall as East Berlin border guards look on near the Brandenburg Gate, November 11, 1989. Hundreds of youths last night clambered up to dance atop the Berlin Wall near the most potent symbol of the divided Germanies, the Brandenburg Gate. West Germans, carrying hammers to chip away at the surface, rushed forward to greet them. The fall of the Berlin Wall (German: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, preceded by the Solidarity Movement in Poland. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later and the German reunification took place in October the following year.
East and West German people celebrate the end of cold war on top of the Berlin Wall, November 10, 1989. Two million East Germans invaded West Berlin, making history with a good day out. The cork-popping on the Berlin Wall at the end of last week had been portrayed to the world as the symbolic theatre of reunification. All over the city, seven-hour queues crammed the pavement, waiting for each visitor’s DM 100 gift from the government. In the banks, they collected a white slip of paper, walked over to the Kasse and exchanged it for either a blue note or two brown ones.
West Berliners crowded in front of the Berlin Wall on November 11 1989, watching East German border guards demolishing a section of the barrier. Another border crossing to the south may have been opened earlier. An account by Heinz Schäfer indicates that he also acted independently and ordered the opening of the gate at Waltersdorf-Rudow a couple of hours earlier. This may explain reports of East Berliners appearing in West Berlin earlier than the opening of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing
West Germans scale the Berlin Wall before East German guards, November 1989. Excerpts from Schabowski press conference were the lead story on West Germany's two main news programs that night—at 7:17 p.m. on ZDF heute and at 8 p.m. on ARD's Tagesschau. As ARD and ZDF had broadcast to nearly all of East Germany since the late 1950s and had become accepted by the East German authorities, the news was broadcast there as well simultaneously. Later that night, on ARD Tagesthemen, anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, "This November 9th is a historic day. The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide."
Günter Schabowski, the party boss in East Berlin and the spokesman for the SED Politburo, had the task of announcing the new regulations. However, he had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated. Shortly before a press conference on 9 November, he was handed a note announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards. But this starting time delay was not communicated to Schabowski.