A quiz question · hard
Whose press-conference slip on 9 November 1989 opened the Berlin Wall within hours?
Schabowski announced the relaxed travel regulations and, asked when they took effect, said 'immediately, without delay.' The Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint commander Harald Jäger opened the gate at about 10:45 p.m.
Read the full story →From the story
The November 1989 East German Press Conference Mistake That Opened the Berlin Wall Within Hours East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski announced relaxed travel regulations at a 9 November 1989 press conference. Asked by a journalist when the changes took effect, he consulted his notes and said "immediately, without delay." East Berliners gathered at the wall checkpoints within an hour. The checkpoints could not get authorisation to refuse passage. The wall opened on the evening of 9 November 1989.
Related questions
- 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?
- The Berlin Wall — the concrete-and-barbed-wire barrier that had divided East from West Berlin since 1961 — was opened to crossings on the night of?
- On the morning of 14 July 1789 a Paris mob stormed the medieval fortress that has given France its national holiday ever since. They were expecting to free hundreds of political prisoners. They actually found seven. Who were the seven?
- How many prisoners were released from the Bastille when the crowd stormed it on 14 July 1789?