jan 9, 1989 - Fall of the Berlin Wall

Description:

On November 9th, 1989, the Berlin Wall, which separated Eastern communists from the Western democrats and prevented travel between the two, fell as a result of Soviet reform by Mikhail Gorbachev, done with the intention of easing Cold War tensions. This reform included the disarmament of nuclear weapons and a decrease in censorship of the press, as well as a looser control of economics. Part of the reform was a Soviet inability or unwillingness to continue the communist regime in Eastern Europe, caused partly by a decrease in power/control. This loosened grip on the Iron Curtain would eventually lead to the fall of the soviet union.
More directly, the event was triggered when Gunter Schabowski, an official of the German Socialist Unity Party of Germany, announced during a press conference that “Permanent relocations,” he said, “can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR [East Germany] into the FRG [West Germany] or West Berlin.” When asked when this took effect, he mistakenly replied immediately, and this triggered a rush of East Berlin citizens to the Berlin Wall, where they arrived in confusion. The guards of the border were not supposed to let people through this early, but tensions were rising, and guards were unwilling to fire into the crowd, so the border was indeed opened that night.



-Oliver May

Works Cited
Hasic, Albinko. “What Happened the Day the Berlin Wall Fell.” Time Magazine, 7 November 2019, https://time.com/5720386/berlin-wall-fall/. Accessed 3 February 2026.
Office of the Historian. “The Berlin Wall Falls and USSR Dissolves - Short History - Department History.” Office of the Historian, 2024, https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/berlinwall. Accessed 3 February 2026.
Schäfer, Heinz. “Fall of the Berlin Wall.” Wikipedia, 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall. Accessed 3 February 2026.
Wikipia. “Günter Schabowski.” Wikipedia, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Schabowski. Accessed 3 February 2026.

Added to timeline:

Date:

Images: