Where were you when The Wall came down?

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”.

Tens of thousands East Germans watched and heard Schabowski’s live statement on TV and radio. They immediately swamped the Wall’s checkpoints demanding entry to West Berlin. Faced with massive crowds, bewildered border guards, unable to establish official sanction, had no option but to open the checkpoints. East Berliners surged into West Berlin with little or no border control.

Emotions ran high as West Berliners greeted them on the other side. The east and west borders were now open for good and all celebrated November 9, 1989 as the day the Wall fell.

The following days and weeks saw whole sections of the Wall crumble as people used chisels, sledgehammers and whatever tools they could lay their hands on to chip away and smash off pieces of the Wall.

At that time I was in Oban, a coastal port in the west of Scotland also known as the “Gateway to the Isles”. It’s a beautiful place and I was there with my wife for a well-earned break.

This was before the children arrived and my career as a freelance photojournalist and my wife’s commitment as an Irish dancer with a well known folk band meant we spent little time together. This was one of those rare occasions when we both had some time to ourselves. Of course, when we arrived at our hotel room and flicked on the radio, there was literally wall to wall reports about Berlin.

My knee-jerk reaction was to grab my cameras, notebooks and passport and head off to the nearest airport for a flight to Berlin… However, after close consultation with my wife, who informed me that should I go she would immediately relieve me of a couple of prized anatomical possessions (without anaesthetic), I relinquished the idea forthwith. Alas, my plans to document this historic event were not to be.

That was almost 20 years ago and I remember it well.

A recent ‘Time Machine’ article about the Berlin Airlift prompted one Time Machine reader to contact me and it came to light that they were actually on the spot, in Berlin, when the wall came down.

This unique perspective is a must read as far as I’m concerned so with kind permission here’s a brief account from our fellow reader who was at that time in Germany working for an aviation company.

“Working and living through that period, it was hard to conduct normal activities.

“The emotions of folks both east and west must have been at an heightened state as events happened so quickly.

“Actually, like everyone else we were shocked and stunned that this had happened so quickly. There was no protracted lead-up.

“As far as state of mind is concerned; Being part of the German community, we were excited, incredulous, amazed and bewildered at the speed of events. Overcome by the ‘Ossis’ flooding into the city in their ‘Trabants’… thousands of them, crowding into shops to see the merchandise they had never seen in their lives before. Of course they did not have money to spend.

“We lived in north Berlin, originally in a flat and almost in the forest at Fronau, overlooking the wall, which at that point was a double wire fence with a ‘No man’s land’ in between.

“Later we moved to an apartment in the village of Tegel in a totally German community close to the river Havel on the edge of the forest. This was the French sector.

“The atmosphere was so emotional, families being reunited and events that people really didn’t expect to experience during their lifetime.

“The initial interaction between eastern and western Germans was brilliant, euphoric even. Later, it was realised that life in Berlin would never be the same and some resentments did develop.

“I’ve a piece of the graffiti covered wall at home that I hammered out by the Brandenberg Gate.”

——

Click the audio button below to hear John F. Kennedy’s famous address at The Wall, June 26, 1963

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