Berlin Wall Falls: Cold War Division Ends

East German border guards stepped aside at the Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint in Berlin on the night of November 9, 1989, and thousands of people surged through the opening in a wall that had divided their city for 28 years. Within hours, crowds on both sides were attacking the concrete barrier with hammers and pickaxes, embracing strangers, and dancing on top of the structure that had killed at least 140 people who tried to cross it. The Cold War's most potent symbol was being demolished by hand. The wall's fall was triggered by a bureaucratic accident. East German Politburo spokesman Gunter Schabowski, handed a decree loosening travel restrictions, announced at a live press conference that East Germans could cross the border "immediately, without delay." The decree was supposed to take effect the following day with orderly processing. Schabowski, who had not been fully briefed, gave the wrong timeline. Television broadcast his words across both Germanys, and within hours, tens of thousands of East Berliners had gathered at crossing points, demanding to be let through. The Berlin Wall had been erected on August 13, 1961, to stop the hemorrhage of East Germans fleeing to the West. Between 1949 and 1961, roughly 3.5 million people had left East Germany, draining the country of its youngest, most educated, and most skilled citizens. The wall sealed this exit with concrete, barbed wire, watchtowers, and a "death strip" patrolled by guards authorized to shoot anyone attempting to cross. The opening unleashed a cascade of events that remade Europe. East Germany held free elections in March 1990 and formally reunified with West Germany on October 3, 1990. Communist governments in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria fell within weeks of the wall's breach. The Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1991. The Soviet Union itself ceased to exist on December 26, 1991. A press conference error had cracked the first stone in an edifice that brought down an empire.