20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” American President Ronald Reagan famously demanded in 1987 in front of the Brandenburg Gate. The Soviet leader didn’t exactly rush forward at the controls of a bulldozer, and whether the speech had an effect or was simply an example of surfing on the tides of history, with the collapse of other soviet satellite states and mass demonstrations for reform in East Germany, the Berlin Wall did come down, marked on November 9 of 1989. The Berlin Wall wouldn’t be officially demolished until the summer of 1990, but an off-hand answer to the question of an Italian journalist by a GDR Public Information Officer that “free passage” through all border crossings would be allowed, sent Berliners to test the barriers that evening. The answer was a response to Hungary ending border restrictions, effectively opening a back door to the West.

East German hardliner Erich Honecker had resigned after mass public demonstrations a month before and a temporary crossing through the wall was opened at the Brandenburg Gate on December 22, just before Christmas. The wall separating east and west Berlin was first constructed in 1961, went through four generations of reconstruction, but today is almost entirely vanished except for a sometimes recognizable path marked by information stands and a few remaining sections left as an art project. For 2009 in Berlin, a series of special events and exhibitions celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the “peaceful revolution” that lead to the reunification of Germany and a divided Berlin.