The Berlin Wall purportedly came down by

mistake on November 9, 1989, thanks to East German Politburo member, Guenter

Schabowski. While explaining the contents of a revised travel law

approved by the Politburo during an interview, he said, “Private travel into

foreign countries can be requested without conditions (passports or family

connections); permission will be granted instantly.

The following day, the East German

leadership, judging it impossible to return to the previous state of affairs, ratified

overall travel liberalization. The communist regime risked international

criticism and the established Berlin Wall fell in an instant. This

historic example proves that there is always the possibility of sudden change

in any situation.

Schabowski’s

Announcement

At 6:55 PM on November 9, 1989, at the end

of a tedious hour-long daily press conference, Schabowski began to explain the

revised travel law. Prior to his announcement he had not reviewed the

contents of the document, having only been handed it just by Party Secretary

Egon Krenz, and after reading the first half, he proceeded on to do a rough interoperation

of the latter portion, announced, declaring, “Private travel into foreign

countries can be requested without conditions (passports or family connections)

and permission will be granted instantly. Permanent relocations can be done

through all border checkpoints between the GDR [German Democratic Republic, or

East German] into the FRG [Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany].”

When asked by an Italian reporter when the regulation would take effect,

he replied, “As far as I know this is effective immediately–without

delay.”

Fielding follow-up questions from reporters

as to if this also applied to West Berlin, he replied, “This applies to

all border crossings between the GDR and the FRG and West Berlin,” a rash statement

and huge blunder on his part. Follow-up questions continued, but there

were no further replies and the conference ended with innumerable unanswered questions.

Collapse

of the Berlin Wall

After the end of the press conference, the

reporters were naturally very curious about the unforeseen circumstances, but

there was no official statement. New reports varied drastically, with reporters

taking a great deal of creative license in their interpretations. At 7:05 PM, the

Associated Press was the very first to report that East Germany had opened the

border followed by a report corroborating this by West Germany public

broadcasting channel ARD during their 8 P.M. news broadcast.

Many East and West Germans witnessed

firsthand Schabowski’s press conference and the TV news report. According

to their accounts, rumor quickly spread that “all travel restrictions have

been lifted and exit visas are no longer necessary.”

East Germans crowded at the border post to

inquire about the validity of the announcement, but the guards were unaware and

unable to form coherent replies. As the evening wore on, the number of

people crowding around the Wall grew from a few thousand to tens of thousands, demanding

that the border be opened. Amid escalating tension with the citizens, border

guards acquiesced to their demands and lifted the barricade at 10:30 PM, having

received no orders from their superiors to halt. Concurrently, citizens from

both sides were scaling, and then

smashing, the wall together.

Even the Minister of Internal Affairs, who

received the report from the border guards, did not know about the situation,

but followed their decision. Around

midnight, nearly every border crossing opened and Berlin erupted into a festive

atmosphere, with horns, dancing and cheering. Over the next three days,

East German soldiers drilled holes in the wall and made new border crossings.

For two weeks three million people visited West Berlin and West Germany. The FRG bestowed DM 100 worth of “welcome money” to visitors from the GDR.

In order to receive these funds, throngs of East Germans flooded into West

Germany and West Berlin; 4.3 million people cross over in three days in the first three days with

only a simple passport check. The

following 10 days would see 50 different locations open for crossing along the

border.

The East German government’s original

intention was to expand the methods to grant travel permission, in response to the East German citizens’ complaints, and decrease

the number of people illegally leaving the country. They never intended to

grant complete freedom to travel. This is why General Secretary Egon Krenz

promised Gorbachev , during his November

1st visit to the Soviet Union, that he

would not limit East Germans from traveling to foreign countries so long as

they did not carry cash with them. Originally, it was the responsibility of

Erich Mielke, head of the Ministry of State Security in

East Germany, to draw up a revised bill for the travel law, but he had been

fired just a few days prior. Instead, two government officials from the

Ministry of State Security, and two government officials from the Department of

Interior, submitted a complete draft of this bill on November 8th, which

stated, “Application for personal travel to foreign countries is now permitted,

without any special prerequisites.”

This regulation only greatly simplified the

procedure for passport and visa issuance; it did not permit going to foreign

countries without a visa. Because one must hold a special visa to go abroad,

even if one has a passport in East Germany, it was thought that the process for

visa issuance would regulate the speed at which people may gain freedom to

travel. Furthermore, the new travel law

said nothing about the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was constructed after World

War II and was under the management of four major powers, and so East Germany

was not in any position to decide anything about it. On November 9th the

central committee for the Socialist Unity Party passed the draft of the new

bill for the travel law. Immersed in preparations for a special committee that

would take place in mid-December, Krenz gave the bill to Gunter Schabowski,

showing off his achievement. At the time, the East German government’s plan was

to first create a rules of operation for the new travel law and give orders

about the law to guard posts on the border before making an official

announcement about the law. Krenz had told Gorbachev when they met on November

1st that the new travel law would be in place before Christmas with this plan

in mind.

The manner in which the East German border was

opened was not in accordance with the government’s original intention, but

Krenz acted as though it had been the plan all along. It was difficult to

reverse the situation, and Krenz himself had not long been in office. He was

worried that his popularity would drop. Krenz called the Soviet Embassy on

November 10th to explain, and Ambassador Kotschemassow reprimanded him asking

how the situation could suddenly be this chaotic. Krenz protested that opening

the East German border was the plan all along and that the Soviets had known

that. “But this wasn’t supposed to

happen,” Kotschemassow retorted. “You opened the border between East and West

Germany, but the Berlin Wall is under the jurisdiction of the four major powers

after World War II.”

“That’s a theoretical issue,” Krenz

responded, hesitantly. In the end, East Germany and the Soviet Union had no

choice but to go along with the situation.



The West German leaders crowded around the

Wall itself, but after a few days there was not one East German leader who went

to go visit the Wall. The East German government’s mistake brought the

incompetence of its communist regime to light and control of the situation went

into the hands of the protesting public.

Background

of the Opening of the Berlin Wall

The opening of the Berlin Wall can be

directly attributed to the personal mistakes of First Secretary of the East

Berlin chapter of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany [SED] and member of the SED Politiburo, Schabowski, but

there are underlying reasons that lie with the Communist leadership of East

Germany.

First off, the East German leadership never

stabilized. Krenz was sworn in as head of Ministry of State Security, and three

weeks later Willi Stoph was fired from the Cabinet. The day before that, the

central committee ordered a large-scale reshuffling, but a responsible

leadership with experience in managing the Affairs of State never took shape.

The mistaken Schabowski, known as a member of the reformist party together with

Prime Minister Hans Modrow, had been appointed as press secretary of the

Politburo two days prior. He did not attend the central committee meeting

regarding the travel law, did not know what happened at the meeting, and had no

experience with respect to that law.

Second, the East German leadership

underestimated the situation. There was not one person that thought that the

opening of the wall would mean the start of the end of East Germany. In fact, Schabowski

thought that since this policy was very popular, the East German citizens would

start to trust their government and everything would become stable.

Third, Krenz thought that the only way to

soothe the complaints of the East German citizens was to allow freedom to

travel. He worried that closing the border would cause a dive in his own

popularity. He was not well known amongst the general public and heard

criticisms that he was just “more of the same”. He wanted to be known to the

public as a reformist, and even told Schabowski that the bill would be a hit.

Krenz did not want to tarnish his image.

Fourth, Krenz could not turn the situation

around, so he decided to use the policy to try to escape from the situation.

The open border could raise his popularity, and through the policy he hoped to

get billions of Deutche Mark [DM] from the West German government in financial

aid as a cost for the open border. He also hoped that there would be a limit to

how many East German immigrants both the West and East could accommodate, an

assertion that West Germany’s Social Democratic Party of Germany had made

before. Therefore, he decided to announce that the plan to open the wall had

been his own idea. But his hopes were dashed when the wall fell and the

communist regime collapsed due to the demands of its own citizens.

* The views expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.