The Berlin Wall fell on a single night when an East German press spokesman, slightly confused by his own briefing notes, told a journalist that new travel regulations took effect 'immediately.' Crowds gathered at the checkpoints; the border officers opened them on their own initiative. What date?
Günter Schabowski misread his briefing notes at the 9 November 1989 press conference. The officer who actually opened the Bornholmer Straße checkpoint that night was Harald Jäger, a Stasi officer who couldn't reach anyone in authority and made the call himself. The other dates are real but later: 3 October 1990 is German Unity Day (the formal reunification, now Germany's national holiday); the Soviet Union dissolved on 26 December 1991; Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate was two years earlier.
Read the full facts →The Berlin Wall fell on the night of 9 November 1989 when, following weeks of escalating East German political crisis and the announcement of relaxed travel regulations, East German border guards opened the checkpoints between East and West Berlin to the crowds gathered on both sides. The event is the conventional symbolic end of the Cold War and the trigger for the rapid political reunification of Germany in 1990.
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