The End of the Berlin Wall

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Gorbachev's speech in December 1988 indicated some willingness to change from the Soviet Union. Protests began in East Germany in Summer 1989 and the Berlin Wall fell. This was a symbolic marker of the fall of communism.

Why did the Berlin Wall fall?

In an interview in 2009, Gorbachev said 'If the East German leader Erich Honecker had not been so stubborn, he would have introduced democratic changes. But the East German leaders did not initiate their own perestroika. Thus a struggle broke out in their country.'
At a parade in East Germany on the 7th October, representatives of twenty-eight different regions of East Germany were marching in front of Gorbachev. He says 'They’re talking about democracy and change. They’re saying, ‘Gorbachev, stay in our country!’" Then Rakowski remarked, "If it’s true that these are representatives of people from twenty-eight regions of the country, it means the end." I said, "I think you’re right."'

The summer of 1989

Throughout the summer of 1989, demands for change had been growing across East Germany. The most notable protests happened outside the Stasi (secret police) headquarters in Leipzig.

The collapse of the wall

7th October 1989 - Gorbachev attends the parade and believes that 'it means the end'. He sees people marching for the democratic reforms of glasnost and perestroika, but the East German leader Honecker was resisting.
The first section of the Berlin Wall was taken down by protestors on the 9th of November 1989.
The governments in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria would collapse before the end of 1989.

Krenz and the mistake

Honecker resigned and he was replaced by the more moderate Egon Krenz.
- East Germans could already travel to West Germany through Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
In a press conference, an East German government official incorrectly announced the opening of the checkpoints through the Berlin Wall, with no directives as to how this should be carried out.

The importance of the wall's collapse

The Berlin Wall, forcibly keeping people in East Germany, was one of the strongest symbols dividing East and West. Its collapse was symbolic of the wider thaw in relations between the USA and USSR globally.