November 9 - the day the Berlin Wall fell: Questions and answers. What is the Berlin Wall, when was it erected and when was it demolished, and also what the Germans celebrate on November 9th.
When I started learning German at school, the Berlin Wall had been gone for 4 years (and by the end of my studies - 10 years). But we studied from old Soviet textbooks, and in the texts about Berlin, of course, it was about its Eastern part. Therefore, the main sights of Berlin in my brain were imprinted Alexanderplatz, Treptow Park, University. Humboldt and the main street Unter den Linden
Naturally, later I learned about the Berlin Wall, and about Wiedervereinigung (reunification), and even about Ostalgie (Osten + Nostalgie - nostalgia for the GDR).
But only after visiting Berlin, seeing both its zoos, both universities and both opera houses (east and west), the western central Kurfürstendamm street, Potsdamerplatz square, which was closed during the existence of the wall, the remains of the wall itself - I realized that once Berlin was divided into two parts, and the importance of the fact that now it is again a single city.
- What is the Berlin Wall?
The Berlin Wall is called East German border with West Berlin, this is an engineering-equipped and fortified structure. By the way, the official name of the Berlin Wall was Antifaschistischer Schutzwall.
- Why and why was it erected?
From 1949 to 1961, more than 2.6 million inhabitants of the GDR fled to the FRG. Someone fled from communist repressions, someone was simply looking for a better life in the West. The border between West and East Germany had already been closed since 1952, but escapes through the open border sectors in Berlin were possible with almost no risk to the fugitives. The GDR authorities saw no other way out to stop the exodus to the West
- On August 13, 1961, they began building the Berlin Wall.
How long did construction take?
On the night of August 12-13, 1961, the border between West and East Berlin was cordoned off in a few hours. It was a public holiday, and many Berliners were asleep when the GDR authorities began to close the border. Early Sunday morning, the city was already divided by border barriers and rows of barbed wire. Some families were cut off almost overnight from their loved ones and friends living in the same city. And on August 15, the first section of the wall was already built. Construction continued for quite a long time in different stages. We can say that the wall was expanded and completed until its fall in 1989.
What was the size of the Berlin Wall?
155 km (around West Berlin), including 43.1 km within Berlin
Why was the border opened?
One can argue for a long time that a peaceful revolution in the GDR has been brewing for a long time, that perestroika in the USSR became a prerequisite for this. But the facts themselves are more striking. In fact, the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 was the result of coordination errors and non-compliance with orders. This evening, journalists asked the representative of the government of the GDR Günter Schabowski about the new rules for foreign travel, to which he erroneously replied that, "as far as he knows", they come into force "immediately, already now."
Naturally, at the border checkpoints, where thousands of East Berliners began to flock that same evening, there were no orders to open the border. Fortunately, the border guards did not use force against their compatriots, succumbed to pressure and opened the border. By the way, in Germany they are still grateful to Mikhail Gorbachev for the fact that he also did not use military force and withdrew troops from Germany.
- The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, then why is German Unity Day celebrated on October 03? Initially, the holiday was planned to be scheduled for November 9, but this day was associated with dark periods in the history of Germany (Beer Putsch in 1923 and the November pogroms of 1938), so they chose a different date - October 3, 1990, when the actual unification of the two German states took place.
Aigul Berkheeva, Deutsch-online
Do you want to learn German? Sign up for a Deutsch Online school! To study, you need a computer, smartphone or tablet with Internet access, and you can study online from anywhere in the world at a convenient time for you.25 years ago, on November 9, 1989, the leadership of East Germany announced the opening of the border with West Germany. The next day, the East German authorities begin the destruction of certain sections of the Berlin Wall. The famous fall of the Berlin Wall took place. Historical material about how the Berlin Wall was built. Some of the photos have not been published before in runet.
In 1959, the border between eastern Germany and western Germany looked like this.
Before the construction of the wall, the border between the western and eastern parts of Berlin was open. But on the morning of August 13, 1961, the inhabitants of Berlin were surprised to find that the western part of the city was separated from the eastern part by a cordon of soldiers and military equipment. The living wall stood until a real one grew in its place. Two days later, the city was cut by a barbed wire fence with checkpoints.
The wall started with a line.
Then they made a temporary fence. In the photo, soldiers are building barbed wire fences. From West Berlin, the citizens are watching this process with curiosity and amusement. By August 15, the entire western zone was surrounded by barbed wire, and the actual construction of the wall began.
On August 13, four lines of the Berlin underground - U-Bahn - and some lines of the city railway - S-Bahn were also blocked (during the period when the city was not divided, any Berliner could move freely around the city).
The construction of the wall, from West Berlin, many curious citizens are watching the process, while in East Berlin people were forbidden to approach the wall under construction, as it was a secret facility.
The 44.75 km dividing line (the total length of the border between West Berlin and the GDR was 164 km) ran straight through the streets and houses, canals and waterways.
In this place in Berlin, the role of the wall was temporarily performed by Soviet tanks.
View of the Brandenburg Gate from West Berlin, August 13, 1961. The wall has not yet been built, but there is a border.
After a couple of months, the view changed to this.
The Brandenburg Gate in the fog, the Berlin Wall and a man on a watchtower, November 25, 1961
At this point, the wall ran right along the tram tracks. Soviet specialists were not at all worried about the fact that they complicate life in the first place for their citizens.
The "protection" of the workers far exceeded the number of the builders themselves.
Soldiers from the National People's Army of the GDR monitor the construction and order.
August 22, 1961 Two builders from East Germany are working on a huge wall almost five meters high and placing pieces of broken glass on top of it to prevent East Berliners from escaping.
When the wall was built, no one knew what would happen next. Many people feared that the wall would serve as a provocation to turn the cold war into a hot one.
The border between the British zone and the Soviet. The poster reads "You are leaving the British Sector".
Discussion of the parties on the correctness of the construction of the wall, September 1961
The construction of the wall continues, residents of neighboring houses are watching the process from the windows, September 9, 1961.
Some sections of the wall passed through a park and forest, which had to be partially cut down, October 1, 1961
The lack of a clear physical boundary between the zones led to frequent conflicts and a massive drain of specialists in Germany. East Germans preferred to get an education in the GDR, where it was free, and to work in the FRG.
A typical picture: the windows are bricked up to prevent escape attempts. The reverse side of the house overlooks West Berlin, this side and the sidewalk is already East Berlin. October 6, 1961
October 16, 1961 An attempt to escape from "communist happiness". Unfortunately, it is not known how successful the attempt was. It is known that the police and the military of the GDR usually fired to kill in such cases.
By the way, in the period from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989, there were 5,075 successful escapes to West Berlin or the FRG, including 574 cases of desertion ...
On October 26-27, the Americans tried to break through the wall. This incident is known as the Checkpoint Charlie Incident. Several bulldozers approached the wall. They were covered by 10 tanks, as well as soldiers who arrived in three jeeps. On the opposite side lined up Soviet tanks of the third battalion of the 68th Soviet Guards Tank Regiment. The combat vehicles stood all night. As the coordinator of the French special services of those years, K.K. Melnik-Botkin, the world was close to nuclear war. When the Soviet ambassador in Paris was informed that NATO was ready to use atomic bombs, he replied: "Then we will all die together." Still would! After all, the USSR held in its hands the ace of trumps: the most powerful weapon ever created on the planet - a 57-megaton thermonuclear bomb.
The superpowers had the prudence not to start World War III. On October 28, Soviet tanks nevertheless left their positions, after which the Americans immediately withdrew. The wall remains.
American military police on the roof of the house, October 29, 1961, near the border of Friedrichstrasse.
American soldiers anxiously look over the wall at the "Soviet" military, November 20, 1961.
The Brandenburg Gate in the fog, the Berlin Wall and a man on a watchtower, November 25, 1961.
Western high-ranking military officers watch the construction of the wall from the French zone, December 7, 1961
Construction and refurbishment of the wall continued from 1962 to 1975. By 1975, it had acquired its final form, turning into a complex engineering structure under the name Grenzmauer-75.
Older people who remember well the events of the so-called "perestroika", the collapse of the Soviet Union and rapprochement with the West, probably know the famous Berlin Wall. Its destruction has become a real symbol of those events, their visible embodiment. The Berlin Wall, the history of the creation and destruction of this object can tell a lot about the turbulent European changes of the middle and the end of the 20th century.
Historical context
It is impossible to understand the history of the Berlin Wall without refreshing the memory of the historical background that led to its creation. As you know, the Second World War in Europe ended with the Act of Surrender of Nazi Germany. The consequences of the war for this country were deplorable: Germany was divided into zones of influence. The eastern part was controlled by the Soviet military-civilian administration, the western part went under the control of the administration of the allies: the USA, Great Britain and France.
Some time later, on the basis of these zones of influence, two independent states arose: the FRG - in the west, with its capital in Bonn, and the GDR - in the east, with its capital in Berlin. West Germany became part of the "camp" of the United States, the east turned out to be part of the socialist camp controlled by the Soviet Union. And since the Cold War was already in full swing between yesterday's allies, the two Germanys found themselves, in fact, in hostile organizations separated by ideological contradictions.
But even earlier, in the first post-war months, an agreement was signed between the USSR and the Western allies, according to which Berlin, the pre-war capital of Germany, was also divided into zones of influence: western and eastern. Accordingly, the western part of the city was supposed to actually belong to the FRG, and the eastern part to the GDR. And everything would be fine if it were not for one important feature: the city of Berlin was located deep inside the territory of the GDR!
That is, it turned out that West Berlin turned out to be an enclave, a piece of Germany, surrounded on all sides by the territory of “pro-Soviet” East Germany. While relations between the USSR and the West were relatively good, the city continued to live a normal life. People moved freely from one part to another, worked, went to visit. Everything changed when the Cold War gained momentum.
Construction of the Berlin Wall
By the beginning of the 60s of the 20th century, it became obvious that relations between the two Germanys were hopelessly damaged. The world was facing the threat of a new global war, tension between the West and the USSR was growing. In addition, a huge difference in the pace of economic development of the two blocs became apparent. Simply put, it was clear to the layman: living in West Berlin is much more comfortable and convenient than in East. People rushed to West Berlin, and additional NATO troops were transferred here. The city could become a "hot spot" in Europe.
To stop such a development of events, the GDR authorities decided to block off the city with a wall that would make it impossible for all kinds of contacts between the inhabitants of the once single settlement. After careful preparation, consultations with the allies and mandatory approval from the USSR, on the last night of August 1961, the entire city was divided in two!
In the literature, you can often find the words that the wall was built in one night. Actually this is not true. Of course, such a grandiose structure cannot be erected in such a short time. On that memorable night for Berliners, only the main transport arteries connecting East and West Berlin were blocked. Somewhere across the street they raised high concrete slabs, somewhere they simply put up barbed wire barriers, in some places barriers with border guards were installed.
The metro was stopped, the trains of which used to move between the two parts of the city. The astonished Berliners found in the morning that they would no longer be able to go to their work, study or just visit friends, as they had done before. Any attempt to penetrate West Berlin was considered a violation of the state border and severely punished. That night, indeed, the city was divided into two parts.
And the wall itself, as an engineering structure, was built more than one year in several stages. Here it must be remembered that the authorities had not only to separate West Berlin from East, but also to protect it from all sides, because it turned out to be a “foreign body” inside the territory of the GDR. As a result, the wall acquired the following parameters:
- 106 km of concrete fence, 3.5 meters high;
- almost 70 km of metal mesh with barbed wire;
- 105.5 km of deep earthen ditches;
- 128 km of signal fence, energized.
And also - a lot of watchtowers, anti-tank pillboxes, firing points. Do not forget that the wall was considered not only as an obstacle to ordinary citizens, but also as a military fortification in case of an offensive by a NATO military group.
When the Berlin Wall was torn down
As long as it existed, the wall remained a symbol of the separation of the two world systems. The attempts to overcome it did not stop. Historians have proven at least 125 deaths while trying to cross the wall. About 5 thousand more attempts were crowned with success, and, among the lucky ones, GDR soldiers prevailed, called upon to protect the wall from crossing by their own fellow citizens.
By the end of the 1980s, so many grandiose changes had already taken place in Eastern Europe that the Berlin Wall looked like a complete anachronism. Moreover, by that time Hungary had already opened its borders with the Western world, and tens of thousands of Germans freely left through it to the FRG. Western leaders pointed out to Gorbachev the need to dismantle the wall. The whole course of events clearly showed that the days of the ugly structure were numbered.
And it happened on the night of October 9-10, 1989! Another mass demonstration of residents of two parts of Berlin ended with the soldiers opening the barriers at the checkpoints and crowds of people rushing towards each other, although the official opening of the checkpoints was to take place the next morning. People did not want to wait, besides, everything that happened was filled with special symbolism. Many TV companies broadcasted this unique event live.
On the same night, enthusiasts began to destroy the wall. At first, the process was spontaneous, looked like amateur performance. Parts of the Berlin Wall stood for some time, completely painted with graffiti. People were photographed near them, and television people filmed their stories. Subsequently, the wall was dismantled with the help of equipment, but in some places its fragments remained as a memorial. The days when the Berlin Wall was destroyed are considered by many historians to be the end of the Cold War in Europe.
On November 9, Germany will celebrate the reunification of the GDR and the FRG. On this day in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. The English-language website RT has prepared a number of facts about the creation and history of the wall.
1 . Between 1945 and 1961, more than three million East Germans fled to West Germany, representing a third of the population of the GDR. Mostly they were young educated people, which caused discontent in Moscow, and the future Soviet leader Yuri Andropov told the leadership of the GDR that they were not able to speak the language of the intelligentsia.
2 . Berlin's 50,000 residents commuted every day to work in the western part of the city, earning higher wages and living in subsidized housing. The Western Deutschmark cost six times more than the Eastern one. The difference in the exchange rate was also so great because of the socialist model of the economy of the East, which subsidized key goods, and also because of the high demand for Western currency. Thanks to this, the inhabitants of West Berlin on the black market could exchange money and buy goods in East Germany at low prices, naturally they were ready to give up Adidas sneakers or Volkswagen cars.
3 . The division was not only economic, but also ideological. To imagine West Berlin in the center of a communist camp was like putting half of Seoul in the center of Pyongyang or part of London in Tehran. The difference was so great that it clearly showed the shortcomings of each of the modes.
4 . Berlin Mayor and future Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Social Democrat Willy Brandt dubbed the building the "Wall of Shame", which was quickly picked up by the Western media.
5 . On August 13, 1961, the inhabitants of both parts of Berlin woke up and saw that the dividing line had been cordoned off, and preparations were in full swing for the construction of a permanent structure. People in the east looked at all this in bewilderment and understood that it would no longer be possible to escape.
6 . Some statistics: by the end of its existence in 1989, the length of the wall was 155 km, of which 127.5 km were with electric or sound alarms. The building had 302 observation towers, 259 dog playgrounds, 20 bunkers, which were guarded by more than 11 thousand soldiers.
7 . The wall was not built as a pre-designed single structure. It was a series of four different walls, starting with two barbed-wire fences and then two concrete walls.
8 . The so-called "death strip", which was laid across East Berlin, was from 30 to 150 meters wide. It was equipped with searchlights, guarded by soldiers with dogs. Signal wires, barbed wire, spikes were used as obstacles. Next was a trench and anti-tank hedgehogs, which were installed in case of an armed conflict. Sandy strips were also poured, along which no one could pass unnoticed.
9 . Ironically, in the path of the wall stood a 19th-century temple called the Church of Reconciliation. Since the authorities decided that it blocked the view from the watchtowers, the temple was blown up in 1985. After the fall of the wall, the church was restored in its original place as a symbol of a united Berlin.
10 . The first person to be shot while trying to cross the wall from east to west was Günter Litfin, a tailor's apprentice and member of the Christian Democratic Union, banned in the GDR. Litfin worked in West Berlin, rented an apartment there and planned to move permanently. Günther had to postpone his move after his father's death in order to support his family. But after the construction of the wall began, his hopes were dashed. Litfin tried to cross the railroad tracks, but was spotted by the police and shot in the head. The GDR authorities first tried to hush up the death, and after rumors spread around the city, they said that Litfin was a homosexual who fled because of his crimes.
Günther Litfin became an iconic figure for the West - one of 136 victims of "East German manhunters" who died trying to cross the wall.
11 . The guards of the wall themselves tried to take advantage of their official position and move to the West when no one was watching. In the first two years of the structure's existence, when locks were not yet installed, which required several people to open, more than 1,300 soldiers from the GDR illegally crossed the border.
Subsequently, the protection was entrusted only to the most loyal soldiers and complex security systems were installed.
12 . It is estimated that during the existence of the wall approximately 10,000 people tried to escape, and about five thousand succeeded.
13 . We can say that the fall of the wall in 1989 was already purely symbolic, since it ceased to fulfill its function. The first "hole" in the iron curtain was made earlier in the year by the Hungarian authorities when they opened the border with Austria.
14 . According to reports, Mikhail Gorbachev was sleeping peacefully in Moscow at the time of the destruction of the wall. The Soviet leader had witnessed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and had no intention of invading Eastern Europe. Earlier, he told the leader of the GDR, Erich Honecker, that he was not keeping up with the times.
During his visit to Germany in 1989, Gorbachev declared that every nation has the right to choose its own political and social system, and Moscow will respect the right of citizens to self-determination. In addition, in the summer the leaders of the USSR and the United States held talks, during which Moscow was promised economic support in exchange for non-interference in events in Eastern Europe.
15 . The Berlin Wall ceased to exist, in a sense, by chance. The official representative of the East German regime, Günter Schabowski, at a press conference on November 9, 1989 at 18:53, announced the liberalization of the travel regime. When asked about the timing, he replied: "Immediately!".
Later that day, the GDR government tried to play the situation back by stating that residents should make an orderly appeal to the migration service the next morning. But it was already too late.
The West German media broadcast Schabowski's press conference live and interpreted his words literally, as did thousands of people on both sides of the wall.
16 . Both residents of East Berlin and West Berlin came to dismantle the checkpoint. The border guards were so unprepared for the situation that the authorities decided to simply open the gate.
17 . After the fall of the wall in the East, everyone expected rapid economic growth, abundance, a large number of marriages and a baby boom. But the forecasts turned out to be far from reality. Nine months after the divided citizens were able to move freely, the birth rate in East Germany fell by 40% and did not recover until 1994. The euphoria of the first days turned into a failure.
18 . Today, only a few original sections of the wall remain on the streets of Berlin. One of them has been turned into the largest piece of street art in the world.
19 . For the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, two German artists, the Bauder brothers, decided to recreate it with 8,000 illuminated balloons simultaneously released into the air along the most significant segments of the wall. The action is scheduled for November 9th.
20 . In a survey last month, three-quarters of East Germans said their lives had improved since the fall of the wall, and only 15% said they didn't. By comparison, only half of West Germans believe they have benefited from historic reunification.
The Berlin Wall is the most odious and sinister symbol of the Cold War
Category: BerlinAs a result of World War II, Germany was divided into four occupation zones. The eastern lands went to the Soviet Union, while the British, Americans and French controlled the west of the former Reich. The same fate befell the capital. The divided Berlin was to become a real arena of the Cold War. After the proclamation of the German Democratic Republic on October 7, 1949, the eastern part of Berlin was declared its capital, and the western part became an enclave. Twelve years later, the city was surrounded by a wall that physically separated the socialist GDR from capitalist West Berlin.
The difficult choice of Nikita Khrushchev
Immediately after the war, Berliners were free to move from one part of the city to another. The separation was practically not felt, except for the difference in living standards, which was visible to the naked eye. Store shelves in West Berlin were bursting with goods, which could not be said about the capital of the GDR. In the capitalist enclave, the situation was better with wages, especially for qualified personnel - they were welcomed here with open arms.
As a result, a massive outflow of specialists from East Germany to the West began. The part of the ordinary population that was dissatisfied with their life in the "socialist paradise" did not lag behind. In 1960 alone, more than 350 thousand of its citizens left the GDR. The East German and Soviet leadership was seriously concerned about such an outflow, in fact, an exodus of people. Everyone understood that if you do not stop him, the young republic will inevitably collapse.
The appearance of the wall was also caused by the Berlin crises of 1948-1949, 1953 and 1958-1961. The last one was especially stressful. By that time, the USSR had actually transferred its sector of the occupation of Berlin to the GDR. The western part of the city still remained under the rule of the Allies. An ultimatum was issued: West Berlin must become a free city. The Allies rejected the demands, believing that in the future this could lead to the accession of the enclave to the GDR.
The situation was aggravated by the policy of the East German government at home. The then leader of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, pursued a tough economic policy along the Soviet lines. In an effort to "catch up and overtake" the FRG, the authorities did not disdain anything. Increased production standards, carried out forced collectivization. But wages and the general standard of living remained low. This provoked the flight of East Germans to the West, which we mentioned above.
What to do in this situation? On August 3-5, 1961, the leaders of the Warsaw Pact member states urgently gathered in Moscow on this occasion. Ulbricht insisted that the border with West Berlin should be closed. The Allies agreed. But how to do that? The head of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, considered two options: an air barrier or a wall. We chose the second. The first option threatened a serious conflict with the United States, perhaps even a war with America.
Split in two - in one night
On the night of August 12-13, 1961, the troops of the GDR were brought up to the border between the western and eastern parts of Berlin. For several hours they blocked its sections within the city. Everything happened on the declared alarm of the first degree. The military personnel, along with the police and work teams, simultaneously set to work, because the building materials for the construction of barriers were prepared in advance. Until morning, the city of 3 million was cut into two parts.
Barbed wire blocked 193 streets. The same fate befell four lines of the Berlin underground and 8 tram lines. In places adjacent to the new border, power lines and telephone communications were cut off. They even managed to weld pipes of all city communications here. The stunned Berliners gathered the next morning on both sides of the barbed wire. The order was given to disperse, but the people did not obey. Then they were dispersed within half an hour with the help of water cannons ...
The wrapping of barbed wire around the entire perimeter of the West Berlin border was completed by Tuesday, August 15th. In the following days, it was replaced by the actual stone wall, the construction and modernization of which continued until the first half of the 70s. Residents of border houses were evicted, and their windows overlooking West Berlin were bricked up. They also closed the border Potsdamer Platz. The wall acquired its final form only in 1975.
What was the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (in German Berliner Mauer) had a length of 155 kilometers, of which 43.1 km were within the city limits. German Chancellor Willy Brandt called it a "shameful wall", and US President John F. Kennedy called it "a slap in the face of all mankind." The official name adopted in the GDR: Anti-fascist defensive rampart (Antifaschischer Schutzwall).
The wall, which physically divided Berlin into two parts along houses, streets, communications and the Spree River, was a massive structure made of concrete and stone. It was an extremely fortified engineering structure with movement sensors, mines, barbed wire. Since the wall was the border, there were also border guards who shot to kill anyone, even children, who dared to illegally cross the border into West Berlin.
But the wall itself was not enough for the GDR authorities. A special restricted area with warning signs was equipped along it. Rows of anti-tank hedgehogs and a strip dotted with metal spikes looked especially ominous, it was called "Stalin's lawn." There was also a metal mesh with barbed wire. When trying to penetrate through it, flares were fired, notifying the border guards of the GDR about an attempt to illegally cross the border.
Barbed wire was also stretched over the odious structure. A high voltage current was passed through it. Observation towers and checkpoints were erected along the perimeter of the Berlin Wall. Including from West Berlin. One of the most famous is Checkpoint Charlie, which was under the control of the Americans. A lot of dramatic events took place here, connected with the desperate attempts of citizens of the GDR to escape to West Germany.
The absurdity of the idea with the "Iron Curtain" reached its climax when it was decided to wall the Brandenburg Gate - the famous symbol of Berlin and all of Germany. And from all sides. For the reason that they were in the way of an odious structure. As a result, neither the inhabitants of the capital of the GDR, nor the inhabitants of West Berlin could even approach the gate until 1990. So the tourist attraction became a victim of political confrontation.
The fall of the Berlin Wall: how it happened
Hungary unwittingly played a significant role in the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Under the influence of perestroika in the USSR, in May 1989 she opened the border with Austria. This was a signal for the citizens of the GDR, who rushed to other countries of the Eastern bloc in order to get to Hungary, from there to Austria and then to the FRG. The leadership of the GDR lost control of the situation, mass demonstrations began in the country. People demanded civil rights and freedoms.
The protests culminated in the resignation of Erich Honecker and other party leaders. The outflow of people to the West through other countries of the Warsaw Pact has become so massive that the existence of the Berlin Wall has lost all meaning. On November 9, 1989, Günther Schabowski, a member of the Politburo of the SED Central Committee, spoke on television. He announced the simplification of the rules of entry and exit from the country and the possibility of immediately obtaining visas to visit West Berlin and Germany.
For the East Germans, this was a signal. They did not wait for the official entry into force of the new rules and rushed to the border in the evening of the same day. The border guards at first tried to push the crowd back with water cannons, but then they yielded to the pressure of the people and opened the border. On the other side, West Berliners had already gathered, who rushed to East Berlin. What was happening was reminiscent of a folk festival, people laughed and cried with happiness. Euphoria reigned until morning.
On December 22, 1989, the Brandenburg Gate was opened to the public. The Berlin Wall was still standing, but nothing remained of its sinister appearance. It was broken in places, it was painted with numerous graffiti and applied drawings and inscriptions. Citizens and tourists broke off pieces of it as a keepsake. The wall was demolished a few months after the entry of the GDR into the Federal Republic of Germany on October 3, 1990. The symbol of the "cold war" and the division of Germany ordered a long life.
Berlin Wall: today
Accounts of those killed while crossing the Berlin Wall vary. In the former GDR, it was claimed that there were 125 of them. Other sources claim that there are 192 such people. Some media, referring to the Stasi archives, cited the following statistics: 1245. A part of the large Berlin Wall memorial complex, opened in 2010, is dedicated to the memory of the dead (the entire complex was completed two years later and occupies four hectares).
At present, a fragment of the Berlin Wall, 1300 meters long, has been preserved. It has become a memory of the most sinister symbol of the Cold War. The fall of the wall inspired artists from all over the world who flocked here and painted the rest of the site with their paintings. This is how the East Side Gallery appeared - an open-air gallery. One of the drawings, a kiss between Brezhnev and Honecker, was made by our compatriot, artist Dmitry Vrubel.
