Part 1: 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall: A Personal Story

Part 1: 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall: A Personal Story November 9, 1989
Part 2: Barbed Wire
Part 3: Checkpoint Charlie
Part 4: A Run Through”17th of June”
Part 5: Joy and Disbelief

By Barbara Cole
(Article begins below the video)

November 9, 1989
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of an event that holds the honor of being one of the single most significant occasions in German history: the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the night of November 9, 1989 when the news broke of unrestricted travel permits for East German citizens to the West, the proverbial crack in the dam released months of political and social pent-up pressure. This seemingly miraculous occurrence transpired that evening almost as a casual aside as the East German (i.e., German Democratic Republic,) Socialist Unity Party Chairman, Günther Schabowski commented at the conclusion of a press conference that unrestricted travel permits would be granted to all GDR citizens. When a long silence followed in a room full of journalists who ordinarily jockey for airspace, he may well have just announced that the world would come to an end, effective tomorrow. American correspondent Tom Brokaw broke the journalists’ stunned silence when he asked when this would take place. Schabowski retorted simply, “immediately.” That Schabowski had made this announcement was done so without initial clearance with other Party cabinet members. The cabinet had deliberated how to stem the tide of westward bound defectors through the now open borders of Hungary to Austria as the nation was rapidly losing its mostly young, skilled and talented labor. Schabowski had inadvertently snagged a memo that was up for mere discussion among the leading elite, which approval and details had not yet been clarified. And so it came about that an offhanded comment irretrievably ended 28 years of imprisonment for 17.2 million GDR citizens.

The fall of the infamous Berlin Wall was all the more astonishing as it was fully unanticipated, it ended the division of an entire nation after 28 years and, not of least significance by any measure, conclusively ended the Cold War. That this event transpired on the 9th of November is even more intriguing as some of Germany’s most momentous occasions took place on this day. On this very date in 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm the Second fled the country at World War I’s end to the Netherlands, thus abdicating the throne and permanently ending the monarchy in Germany. In 1923, also on November 9, Hitler catapulted himself to fame with his Beer Hall Putsch when he endeavored to take over the Bavarian Government and failed. Then, even more ominously, on this same date, November 9th in 1938, the Reichskristallnacht, or Crystal Night, occurred, thus marking the first pogrom against the Jews during the Third Reich. All of these events share not only the common date, but they comprised a major departure from Germany’s past, for good, as in the end of Monarchism, or, in the cases of the Beer Hall Putsch and Crystal Night, for horrific evil.

Next: Part 2: Barbed Wire