The mistake that toppled the Berlin Wall

If you know anything about the fall of the Berlin Wall, it could be this Mr. Gorbachev tears down this

wall

or this one or maybe these moments were huge in unifying Berlin and undermining the physical symbol of a divided Europe during the Cold War, but they don't top this one in the final minutes of an otherwise uneventful press conference. On the 9th of november. 1989 as a phlebotomist, nothing Auslan Canon or Napoleon calls for our sets unless it's philosophy which is minor, it may not seem like it, but this is the time when the Berlin Wall was

mistake

nly obsolete after the Allied powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War II.

They divided the country into four parts, each controlled by a separate power, which were formed into two new countries in 1949, Democratic West Germany and Soviet-controlled communist East Germany, officially called the German Democratic Republic or GDR during the 1970s. 1950. West Germany prospered as a free and hard-working society. member of Europe and hundreds of thousands of East Germans began to migrate west in search of new opportunities to stem the tide. The GDR erected a barrier along the internal German border separating the two countries with checkpoints guarded by barbed wire and in many places defensive measures such as land mines. but there was a loophole in Berlin and it dates back to when the four allied powers controlled Germany.

Even though the German capital was within the Soviet zone, the Allies divided control of it equally to match the rest of the country, and when East and West Germany was formed the same as East and West Berlin even when The internal German border fortified Berlin had no physical barrier dividing it. East Germans could simply walk or take public transportation to the western part of the city and travel freely from there. The island of West Berlin became the starting point for the free highway to the west, this brain drain came at an enormous cost to the East German workforce in 1961, more than three and a half million East Germans, approximately Twenty percent of its population had fled west, most of whom were young. and well-educated, but Berlin's loophole was closed on August 13, 1961, when the city woke up and East German soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder along the invisible line dividing East Berlin and Western.

Without warning, they began unwinding miles of barbed wire through the middle of the city. city ​​where they were building the Berlin Wall by breach until no contact but a friendly wave, travel out of East Berlin became strictly regulated, no one could leave unless they met strict requirements and those who did not faced a almost insurmountable barrier complete with floodlights and watchtowers. There were armed border guards patrolling day and night with orders to shoot and kill anyone who tried to cross illegally and it remained that way for 28 years, but the change came in late 1989. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced social reforms aimed at relaxing oppressive practices and open discourse.

Between the people and the government, these changes unintentionally sparked massive peaceful uprisings in all Eastern Bloc countries, including East Germany. Things had been heating up throughout the summer of 1989. Catherine Baumbach was a young translator working for the East German news agency in the world of the famous Monday demonstrations in Leipzig, actually my university town, initially thousands , then tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, freedom of speech and freedom of travel were key demands and pressure on the GDR to relax travel restrictions only grew as neighboring countries, particularly Hungary and Czechoslovakia, relaxed their border laws, sparking a massive protest.

Exodus of East Germans to the South In early November 1989, more than 40,000 East German refugees had arrived at the West German embassy in Prague hoping to travel to the West. The GDR was facing a crisis. There were forces in the government that realized that something had to be done. It wasn't sustainable, so lifting the travel ban was a way to quell protests and make people happy. In November 1989, GDR official Gerhard Lauter was tasked with drafting more flexible travel rules aimed at temporarily relieving pressure. The new rules were less finalized. more than a day later and read private trips abroad can be applied for without conditions permits are issued at short notice without conditions that is the key phrase here this meant that the strict application requirements were removed and anyone who wanted could leave Germany from This and return that afternoon The updated regulations were delivered to government spokespeople.

They arrived at Chbosky just as he was about to start a routine press conference and, as we all know, something didn't go quite right there, he didn't have time to review them before sitting in front of cameras and, as you can see on his sheet of the press conference's handwritten route, he scribbled a reminder to announce them at the end and on live television at 6:53 p.m. On November 9 he read aloud the relaxed travel laws for the first time, as it implies nothing. It seemed totally unreal, but it was Scherbatsky who said it was broadcast on official television, so it had to be true.

There were people around me, older colleagues, who immediately said. this is the beginning of the end watch a confucian boskie shuffle his papers as a reporter asks a simple follow up question the thing is, if chbosky had had time to read the new rules, he might have seen this on the last page, the new regulations were scheduled to come into effect the next day in an orderly manner, when passport offices were open, so close, in particular, what happened next can only be described as a chain reaction at 7:05 p.m. The AP cable had already gone out.

The GDR opens borders and the nightly news programs in East and West Germany announced the surprising policy change. These Berliners began to gather next to the

wall

and security officers tried to slowly let them pass, but the final nail in the coffin came at 10:42 p.m. When this broadcast triggered a massive avalanche, he anointed the November stand, his high attack was made by a lead guitarist Gilligan, snapshots of Fox waves manga of the mutant Torah in the mawashi in vital, they actually weren't yet, but at this point there was no turning back. Tens of thousands of Berliners stormed a wall, saying they had heard on the news that they could cross the border in numbers.

The East German border guards were completely overwhelmed, somehow they hadn't gotten the message or they didn't know what to do or they were afraid, who knows. but they basically opened the border and thousands of people entered West Berlin during its 28-year history. At least 140 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall. November 9, and the unification a year later, was the most decisive event in my life. It basically went from one political system to another and the changes happened very quickly and happened unintentionally, as a result of a hasty plan and a botched announcement delivered in a small room at the end of a boring press conference, just a procedure on and on.