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 The fall of the Berlin Wall had begun with
the building of the Wall in 1961.
However it took about three decades until the Wall was torn down.
Several times people in the Communist countries rised up against the
Communist system but they failed.
The victims of the uprisings against the Communist dictatorship
in Berlin 1953, Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968 will never been forgotten.
In 1989 the first free labor union was founded in the communist
Poland. The end of the communist system had begun.
The Soviet Union could control their satellites yet but with the new
leader Gorbatshov their politics changed in 1984.
Gorbatshov's reforms, Perestroika and Glasnost should renew the
stalinistic system in the Soviet Union but not replace the communist
system.
The reforms in the Soviet Union also had its effects on the other
communist countries, especially in Poland and Hungary.
On August 23, 1989 Hungary opened the iron curtain to Austria.
Months before East German tourists used their chance to escape to
Austria from Hungary and in September 1989 more than 13 000 East
German escaped via Hungary within three days. It was the first mass
exodus of East Germans after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Mass demonstrations against the government and the system in East
Germany begun at the end of September and took until November 1989.
Erich Honecker, East Germany's head of state, had to resign on October
18, 1989.
The new governement prepared a new law to lift the travel restrictions
for East German citizen.
At 06.53 pm on November 9, 1989 a member of the new East German government was
asked at a press conference when the new East German travel law comes
into force.
He answered: "Well, as far as I can see, ... straightaway,
immediately."
Thousands of East Berliners went to the border crossings. At
Bornholmer Strasse the people demanded to open the border and at 10.30
pm the border was opened there.
That moment meant the end of the Berlin Wall.
Soon other border crossing points
opened the gates to the West
In that night the deadly border was opened by East Germans peacefully.
Bibliography:
The Cold War by Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing
The Berlin Wall by Thomas Fleming
Leipziger Demotagebuch by Wolfgang Schneider
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External sites:
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Chronik
der Wende - Chronical about the Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Cold War -
CNN Interactive's COLD WAR Web site
Ten
Years after -The Fall of Communism - Radio Free Europe
Fall
of Berlin Wall - The Russia Journal
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