Why berlin wall fell

It began with demonstrators rallying for freedom in the centre of the city of Leipzig. On 9 October, within days of East Germany celebrating its 40th anniversary, 70, people took to the streets. There were calls for free elections from West Germany, and talk of reform from East Germany's new communist leader Egon Krenz. No-one knew the fall of the Wall was weeks away. In late October parliament in Hungary, which had been among the first to hold mass demonstrations, adopted legislation providing for direct presidential elections and multi-party parliamentary elections.

And then on 31 October, the numbers demanding democracy in East Germany swelled to half a million. Mr Krenz flew to Moscow for meetings - he recently told the BBC that he had been assured German reunification was not on the agenda. Find out more about East Germany, On 4 November, a month after the East German protests had begun, around half a million people gathered in Alexanderplatz in the heart of East Berlin.

Three days later, the government resigned. But there was no intention to give way to democracy and Egon Krenz remained head of the Communist Party and the country's de facto leader.

He would not be there long. Five days later, Mr Schabowski gave his world-changing press conference. Earlier in '89, Beijing demonstrators in Tiananmen Square who had called for democracy in China were crushed in a major military crackdown. The USSR had used its military to put down rebellions before. So why not now? Within the Soviet Union itself, it did, killing 21 pro-independence protesters in the Soviet republic of Georgia.

But elsewhere in the communist bloc, they did not. In a break with Soviet policy, Mikhail Gorbachev decided against using the threat of military might to quell mass demonstrations and political revolution in neighbouring countries. Student demonstrators in Prague clashed with police, triggering the Velvet Revolution which overthrew Czechoslovak communism within weeks. In Romania, demonstrations ended in violence and saw the fall of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

A new government took over as the ousted leader fled his palace and angry crowds stormed it. This effort, known as the Berlin Airlift , lasted for more than a year and delivered more than 2. The Soviets called off the blockade in After a decade of relative calm, tensions flared again in Summits, conferences and other negotiations came and went without resolution.

Meanwhile, the flood of refugees continued. The following month, 30, fled. In the first 11 days of August, 16, East Germans crossed the border into West Berlin, and on August 12 some 2, followed—the largest number of defectors ever to leave East Germany in a single day. That night, Premier Khrushchev gave the East German government permission to stop the flow of emigrants by closing its border for good.

In just two weeks, the East German army, police force and volunteer construction workers had completed a makeshift barbed wire and concrete block wall —the Berlin Wall—that divided one side of the city from the other. Before the wall was built, Berliners on both sides of the city could move around fairly freely: They crossed the East-West border to work, to shop, to go to the theater and the movies.

Trains and subway lines carried passengers back and forth. Eventually, the GDR built 12 checkpoints along the wall. At each of the checkpoints, East German soldiers screened diplomats and other officials before they were allowed to enter or leave. Except under special circumstances, travelers from East and West Berlin were rarely allowed across the border.

It was amid that atmosphere of reform that, on the evening of Nov. Since the late s, the two stations broadcast to nearly all of East Germany, and the programs appeared there as well.

The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide. This was all the East German populace needed to hear. Citizens flocked to the border en masse sometime around pm and found that, after initial confusion, the border guards were indeed letting people cross.

This was a crucial flashpoint in the history between the two sides, as the guards could have easily fired on the crowd. However, according to historian Mary Elise Sarotte in her book The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall , no one among the East German authorities wanted to take the personal authority of issuing orders leading to the use of lethal force. By pm, Harald Jager, the commander of the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing, let the guards open the checkpoints, allowing people to pass without their identities checked.

To Jager, it was obvious that the five dozen men guarding the border were grossly outnumbered. He repeatedly attempted to contact his superior, Rudi Ziegenhorn, in order to ascertain how to handle the increasingly chaotic situation, as more and more people gathered at the gates.

He was unable to get any clear guidance on how to proceed, but a superior in the background called Jager a coward for being unable to handle the situation. After 25 years of loyal service to the regime, according to Sarotte, Jager felt insulted and pushed to his limit. Jager was instructed by his superiors to let the biggest troublemakers through on a one-way ticket.

As they celebrated with champagne, music, and tears, Berliners began to literally tear down the wall with sledgehammers and chisels. Less than a month later, the GDR collapsed entirely, and in , Germany reunified. Today, a double row of cobblestones marks the place where the wall once stood. All rights reserved. Share Tweet Email. Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city Caracals have learned to hunt around the urban edges of Cape Town, though the predator faces many threats, such as getting hit by cars.

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