The Time Machine

London Herald front page, November 11, 1989

Germany is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell; the day East Germans came in from the cold and walked into west Berlin in their droves.

The fall of the wall created a chain reaction of events that altered the political landscape of Europe and led to the reunification of the country.

Most of us can remember where we were when significant global events happened during our lifetime. I’m not quite old enough to remember anything about the second world war but I do remember exactly where I was when I heard about the:

• Assassination of John F Kennedy November 22, 1963
• Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill January 30, 1965
• England World Cup victory July 30, 1966
• The Moon landing July 20, 1969
• Invasion of Kuwait August 2, 1990
• 911 September 11, 2001

Memories of these momentous world events stay with you all your life. I, like millions of others, experienced these events through radio reports or television footage – history by proxy you might say.

What if you could be there when one of these major events took place? Feel the mood and taste the atmosphere as events unfolded?

There is one major world event that I ‘almost’ experienced first hand, the fall of the Berlin Wall. An event which symbolises the reunification of Germany and a supremely important watershed for eastern and western Europe.

Building the Berlin Wall.

How it happened

The reunification of Germany began in the summer of 1989 when Hungary dismantled its section of the Iron Curtain opening its borders to West Germany.

It provided a route for a mass exodus of East Germans to the west and sparked a chain of events over the next few months culminating in the ‘Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany’.

By November 1989 the wave of refugees had massively increased with people finding their way from East Germany to West Germany via Czechoslovakia. The decision was made by the politburo, led by Egon Krenz, to allow direct crossing between East and West Germany (with controlled permission and identity checks) starting on November 10.

The new regulations were hastily put together and on November 9 a note was handed to Günter Schabowski (Party Secretary for Propaganda) just before a scheduled press conference. He was not told how to handle the information.

The ink was barely dry as Schabowski made the announcement at the end of the conference. Pressed by journalists he made the error of adding that the regulations would be effective “immediately, without delay”.

Continue reading Where were you when The Wall came down?