The unthinkable may happen: a reflection on the fall of the Berlin Wall

When the Berlin Wall came down, I was studying in the US. In those days before the Internet, my news arrived via CNN and, more importantly, via German short-wave radio. On November 9, too, I tuned in to the German news in the evening. Reports from Europe had been exciting for weeks and months, but nothing had prepared me for the headline of the day: It was midnight in Germany – and people were dancing on the Berlin Wall.

People were dancing on the wall. The news was stunning. Like so many others, I kept watching the images broadcast by CNN and could not believe my eyes.

People were dancing on the wall! The full import of this statement will not be immediately clear to those who did not live through the years of the Cold War in Europe and through the events that led up to November 9. Built in 1961, the Berlin Wall – in the newspeak of the East German dictatorship the “Anti-Fascist Protection Wall” – served to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to West Germany. It was the tangible symbol of the division of Germany and Europe and a constant reminder that, backed by the Soviet Union, the socialist regime of East Germany was ready to use deadly force against its own people. 

With hindsight, it is easy to see that 1989 marks a turning point in the contemporary history of Europe – a turning point for which the crumbling of the Berlin Wall stands as a striking symbol. But it is much harder to imagine today how sudden it seemed, how sudden it was, when the Wall came down. 

There were, to be sure, unmistakable signs of profound change in Central and Eastern Europe, then dominated by the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader since 1985, promised far-reaching reforms and worked to defuse the nuclear standoff between Nato and the Soviet bloc. As early as 1987, Gorbachev also hinted at rescinding the doctrine by which the Soviet Union claimed the right to intervene in countries under its control if the socialist order was threatened. By mid-1989, Gorbachev had given explicit assurances that he would not interfere even with regime-changing reforms in the socialist countries.

At the start of 1989, however, the German Democratic Republic (or GDR) – as East Germany styled itself – seemed stable and as conservative as ever. Indeed the East German regime could reasonably claim some grounds for self-confidence. After all, the country’s economy passed as the most successful in the Soviet bloc, and compared with the growing poverty in neighboring Poland, the GDR certainly appeared prosperous. Living standards, it is true, had not kept up with those in West Germany; there were serious environmental problems; and as a result of declining investments, the East German industry could not undertake necessary modernisations. But the socialist regime remained confident. In January 1989, Erich Honecker, the leader of the country, declared that the Berlin Wall would “still be standing in 50 or even 100 years”. There was no question for Honecker about the continued existence of the GDR.

The East German regime overestimated its own strength. In May 1989, the GDR held local elections. Turnout and “yes” votes may both have reached about 90 per cent, but like dictators elsewhere, the socialist regime could not bear the expression of dissent, however limited. The published election results were doctored so that both voter participation and approval of the list was close to 99 per cent.

The manipulation of the poll results served as a catalyst for a growing protest movement. The East German regime reacted to this challenge and to the new climate of openness and reform in the neighbouring countries with increasing intransigence. This response proved woefully inadequate. As many East Germans took to the streets to protest, thousands of others gave up on the GDR and fled to West Germany. 

On October 7, 1989, the GDR marked its 40th birthday with socialist pomp and pageantry. Falling victim to the propaganda of his own regime, Honecker still took the staged celebrations as a sign that the majority of the people were happy with the socialist system. But Mikhail Gorbachev, who was visiting East Berlin on the occasion, had a stern warning for the East German leadership: “Life punishes those who are late.” 

In the following weeks, mass protests engulfed large parts of the country. When Honecker was replaced in mid-October, his successor began his tenure with a trip to China – an ominous decision given that, just a few months earlier, the Chinese government had used deadly force against students demonstrating on Tiananmen Square. The East German regime appeared as determined as ever to ward off demands for change.

As late as the afternoon of November 9 itself, nobody foresaw that the Wall would come down that very night. In the early evening, G?nther Schabowski, a member of the inner circle of the East German leadership, met with journalists at a press conference. At the end of the meeting, Schabowski announced that the government of the GDR had decided to lift all travel restrictions. Someone asked when the change would take effect. Schabowski’s answer came somewhat haltingly: “Immediately – as far as I know, immediately.” When the news spread around the country, an ever-growing wave of people converged on the borders, implementing the new travel policy there and then. By midnight, the crossings to West Germany were open, and people were dancing on the Wall.

It is a truism that history means tradition and continuity as well as change. But all too easily we mistake what is for what will always be. November 9, 1989 demonstrates the short-sightedness of such a belief. An order that was decades old, an order that everybody took for granted, an order that was literally set in stone, disappeared almost overnight, in the sudden culmination of a crisis whose depth and extent few had fully realised. The unthinkable may happen – this is one of the lessons to be drawn from the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

 

Claus K Meyer is a historian and lecturer at the Social Science Division of Mahidol University International College.