 "35 years of Fall of the Berlin Wall: How it happened and left Germany forever changed")
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.
Like the murder of John F Kennedy or a man stepping foot on the Moon, it was one of those ‘where were you’ when it happened moment.
Tomorrow, Saturday (November 9), is the 35th anniversary of the fall.
But how did it happen? And how did it leave Germany forever changed in its wake?
Let’s take a closer look:
The Berlin Wall
Germany had split into East Germany (German Democratic Republic) and (West Germany) the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.
The Berlin Wall – which divided the two independent states – became a symbol of the differences between the two.
As per The Atlantic, it was communist East Germany, backed by the Soviets, that began putting up the wall in 1961.
East Germany’s leadership had already sealed off the country’s main frontier with West Germany, snaking from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia, in 1952.
This was the final gap in the border between east and west.
On August 13, 1961, East Germany shut down its border with West Germany.
As per Library of Congress, around 1 am, the boundary between the two halves of Berlin and the checkpoints between West Berlin and Brandenburg were shuttered.
Rolls of barbed wire soon went up – with the East German soldiers and police supervising.
Soon, two-meter barbed-wire fences were constructed.
East Germany then expanded the Wall into an increasingly elaborate fortification snaking through the city and around the capitalist enclave of West Berlin.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe idea behind the wall was to stop people from East Germany, which had close ties to the Soviets, defecting to West Germany (which was backed by the West).
As per IWM.org, the Berlin Wall actually comprised two separate walls.
It was 155 kilometres long and 13 feet tall.
The wall itself saw an immense transformation over the decades.
Initially made out of wood, it turned into a massive concrete structure with buffer zones called “death strips,” as per The Atlantic.
As per the Library of Congress, the wall had moats, security perimeters, lighting and alarm systems, watchtowers, and even dog runs.
Protected by a special unit of the East German army, it was officially called an “anti-fascist protective barrier.”
By 1989, it had 302 watch towers, as per IWM.org.
However, in most cases, the main East-West German border outside Berlin consisted of heavily fortified fences rather than walls.
There were a few exceptions, however: most famously in the village of Moedlareuth, divided between Bavaria and the eastern region of Thuringia, which earned the nickname “Little Berlin.”
The wall was immensely successful at its main objective.
After it went up, just 5,000 people manage to cross from east to west.
Over 100 people were killed while trying to do so – a majority of them by East German border guards, as per The Atlantic.
How did it fall?
As per The Atlantic, protests in East Berlin and massive defections through Hungary and Czechoslovakia led up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In 1989, around 200,000 East Germans had fled through neighbouring Czechoslovakia – 50,000 of those in just a matter of days.
East Germany was in turmoil.
The previous month, Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany since 1971, had resigned.
It had been witnessing daily street protests for weeks with 40,000 people attending one event in Neubrandenburg alone calling for free and fair elections.
The regime was on the brink as the people called for reforms on the lines of those implemented by Soviet leader Mikhail S Gorbachev.
Egon Krenz, who had just assumed power weeks, purged much of the old guard from the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo – reducing its 21-member body was reduced to 11.
Krenz replaced aging hard-liners with reformers in a desperate move to counter daily public unrest and the mass flight of tens of thousands of East Germans to the West.
Krenz and Politburo spokesperson Günter Schabowski both then called for free and democratic elections – which the main demand of a widening opposition movement.
On that day in 1989, the Bornholmer Strasse crossing in Berlin was the first to give way.
East German border guards, who hadn’t received orders to let anyone pass, buckled under pressure from a large crowd demanding to be let through after an off-handed announcement of new regulations by Schabowski.
Schabowski, who at the time was also a member of the ruling Politburo, had said East Germany it was opening its borders to the rest of the world and that its citizens could travel or emigrate anywhere, including through the 28-year-old Berlin Wall.
“Private travel outside the country can now be applied for without prerequisites,” was quoted as saying by BBC.
However, Schabowski had added that those who want to visit other countries and then return would still need a visa, but that the visa requests would be handled without delay.
“As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay,” he said as per Time Magazine.
Anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, “This 9 November 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.”
Harald Jäger, the commander of the border crossing, in 2009 told Der Spiegel in 2009 he took in the press conference in confusion.
Then, a massive crowd arrived and demanded to be let through.
Jäger reached out to his bosses, but was given no concrete instructions.
As per Time Magazine, no one wanted to take the responsibility of have given the order to use lethal force.
Around 11 pm, Jäger gave his people the order to let the crowds through.
“People could have been injured or killed even without shots being fired, in scuffles, or if there had been panic among the thousands gathered at the border crossing,” he told Der Spiegel in 2009_._
“That’s why I gave my people the order: Open the barrier!”
After the East Germans broke through, many of them openly celebrating and weeping with relief, West German citizens attacked the wall with hammers and tools while chanting Tor auf!— which means open the gate.
The images, which were widely shown by the media around the world, became instantly iconic.
The event way to mass celebrations.
Over two million people from East Berlin visited West Berlin over that weekend alone, as per Time Magazine.
How did it change Germany?
The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for the reunification of Germany.
The East German government, which was already teetering, was left fatally weakened.
On October 3, 1990, Germany was reunified.
It had been 11 months since the border opened and the wall fell.
According to CFR, though the reunification was an expensive proposition beset by political problems, it laid the foundation for Germany to become the economic powerhouse of Europe.
However, as per Library of Congress, some ill-feelings remain.
Some Germans still refer to a Mauer in den Köpfen – a wall in people’s minds.
Decades later, many east Germans still consider themselves second-class citizens.
Today, the Wall has largely disappeared.
Much of the former “death strip” — between the exterior wall that faced West Berlin and an interior wall that faced east — has been built over.
Among the exceptions is a strip of the former border at the Bernauer Strasse memorial site in downtown Berlin, and there are fragments dotted around elsewhere in the city and on its edges.
Part of Moedlareuth’s border can still be seen today.
With inputs from agencies
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