November 9, 1989 – The Fall of the Berlin Wall

On August 13, 1961, the East German government (GDR) closed the border between East and West Berlin.

Germany had already been a divided country for sixteen years, since the end of WWII. But during the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin became a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans could flee to the democratic West. In response, the GDR decided a wall was necessary.

Having obtained the agreement of the Soviet Union a few days previously, and with the support of the Soviet troops in the GDR, the regime closed off the last route for escape. In the early morning of August 13, border police started ripping up streets in the middle of Berlin, and pieces of asphalt and paving stones were piled up to form barricades. Concrete posts were driven into the ground and barbed-wire barriers erected. A few days later, groups of construction workers started replacing the barbed wire with a wall made of hollow blocks.

Construction of the Wall at Berlin’s central Potsdamer Platz square on August 18, 1961, with GDR guards looking on

The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to obstruct the “will of the people” who purportedly aspired to build a socialist state in East Germany. (The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart.”) In practice, the wall served to stem emigration and defection that plagued East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan famously implored Mikhail Gorbachev, the head of the Soviet Union, to “tear down this wall.”

Reagan speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, June 12, 1987

On this day in history, November 9, 1989, Günter Schabowski, newly appointed as Communist Party spokesman for the GDR, gained worldwide fame by inadvertently precipitating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Shortly before that day’s press conference, Schabowski was handed a text containing new, temporary travel regulations. The text stipulated that East German citizens could apply for permission to travel abroad without having to meet some previous stipulations necessary for those trips, and also allowed for permanent emigration between all border crossings — including those between East and West Berlin. Schabowski didn’t know that the new rules were subject to all sorts of fine print, including the requirement to obtain visas. The text was supposed to be embargoed until the next morning, when the rules would have been clarified.

Schabowski in 1982 (age 53)

Schabowski, on a cigarette break, had missed that part of the instructions. Accordingly, he read the note aloud at the end of the press conference. One of the reporters asked when the regulations would come into effect. Schabowski assumed it would be the same day based on the wording of the note, and replied after a few seconds’ pause: “As far as I know — effective immediately, without delay.”

After the press conference, Schabowski sat down for a live interview with NBC’s Tom Brokaw. When Brokaw asked him if it were indeed true that East Germans could now travel without having to go through a third country, Schabowski replied in broken English that East Germans were “not further forced to leave GDR by transit through another country,” and could now “go through the border.” When Brokaw asked if this meant “freedom of travel,” Schabowski replied, “Yes of course,” and added that it was not “a question of tourism,” but “a permission of leaving GDR.”

The news spread like wildfire, and tens of thousands of East Berliners converged on Checkpoint Charlie and other crossing points to West Berlin. They demanded to be let through. The crowds vastly outnumbered the surprised border guards who initially tried to stall for time, having received no instructions on what to do. However, no one was willing to order deadly force when Germans from both sides began climbing the wall. Finally, at 11:30 pm, Stasi officer Harald Jäger decided to open the gates at the Bornholmer Straße border crossing and allow people into West Berlin. And so the Berlin Wall came down.

Over the next few weeks, souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. On 13 June 1990, the East German military officially began dismantling the wall. Virtually every road severed by the Berlin Wall and linking West Berlin to East Berlin was reconstructed and reopened by August 1, 1990.

The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III observed, “Ask any American who brought down the Berlin Wall, and nine of 10 will say Ronald Reagan.” The truth, he went on to say, is that “we had hardly anything to do with it.” The great events of 1989 were ultimately a triumph of ordinary people, individually and collectively.