On the night of 9 November 1989, crowds of East Berliners pushed through the checkpoints of the Berlin Wall after a botched announcement suggested that travel restrictions had been lifted. Within hours people were standing on the Wall and chipping at it. The opening of the border, part of the Revolutions of 1989, led less than a year later to the end of East Germany and the reunification of Germany.
The Wall and the exodus
The East German state called the Wall an "anti-fascist protection wall". By 1989 it consisted of two concrete barriers, each about 4 metres high and some 155 kilometres long, separated by a guarded and mined "death strip" with 302 watchtowers. Guards were authorised to shoot anyone trying to cross.
In 1989 the Iron Curtain began to fray elsewhere. Hungary opened its border with Austria, and the Pan-European Picnic of 19 August let East German holidaymakers slip west. Thousands more crowded into the West German embassy in Prague; on 30 September the West German foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, told them from the balcony that they could leave. The flight of citizens, combined with mounting debts, placed the government in East Berlin under heavy strain.
A regime in trouble
On 18 October the long-serving party leader Erich Honecker stood down in favour of Egon Krenz, but protests continued; a large demonstration filled the Alexanderplatz on 4 November. A draft travel law published on 6 November offered only cosmetic changes and was widely derided. On 9 November the leadership agreed new rules allowing citizens to apply for foreign travel without the old conditions and to leave permanently through any crossing, including those into West Berlin. The rules were meant to take effect the following day.
The press conference
That evening the party spokesman Günter Schabowski held a televised press conference. He had not taken part in drafting the rules and had been handed a note shortly beforehand. At 18:53, prompted by a question from the Italian journalist Riccardo Ehrman, he read out the new regulation, and when asked when it applied he said that, as far as he knew, it took effect immediately. West German news programmes, watched across most of East Germany, broadcast the story that night.
The border opens
East Berliners gathered at the six crossings into West Berlin and demanded to be let through. The guards had no clear orders, and nobody in authority was willing to sanction the use of force. At Bornholmer Straße, at about 22:45 (some accounts say 23:30), the commander Harald Jäger gave way and opened the gate. Crowds poured across, were welcomed by West Berliners, and climbed onto the Wall itself.
Demolition and reunification
Souvenir hunters, nicknamed "wallpeckers", hacked away pieces in the following weeks, while the authorities opened new crossings at places such as Potsdamer Platz. The Brandenburg Gate opened on 22 December 1989, when the West German chancellor Helmut Kohl was met there by the East German prime minister Hans Modrow. Official demolition by East German border troops began on 13 June 1990. On 1 July East Germany adopted the West German currency, and on 3 October 1990 the country was dissolved and reunited with the Federal Republic. Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand had both voiced fears about a larger Germany, and Thatcher had privately asked Mikhail Gorbachev to help prevent it. The fall of the Wall became the defining image of the end of the Cold War.
On our maps
Our 1985 map shows Germany divided into two states, with the East in the bloc led by the Soviet Union; our 1994 map shows a single reunited Germany.
In pictures
1 images · scroll →From the atlas
Fall of the Berlin Wall in time and on the map
Fall of the Berlin Wall took place in 1989. The nearest maps from before and after are 1985 and 1994; compare them side by side.
Living through it, among others on this site: Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006), Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), Desmond Tutu (1931–2021), Elizabeth II (1926–2022), Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989), Fidel Castro (1926–2016), Hafez al-Assad (1930–2000), Hirohito (1901–1989), Idi Amin (1925–2003) and John Rawls (1921–2002).
Other events of the same years: Satsuma Rebellion (1877–2005), Nahda (1900–2000), Cold War (1945–1991), Dirty War (1955–1989), The Troubles (1960–1998), Guatemalan Civil War (1965–1996), Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), Operation Condor (1975–1989) and Nicaraguan Revolution (1978–1990).
Next to it in time on this site: before, Singing Revolution (1987–1991) and Baltic Way (1989); after, Revolutions of 1989 (1989–1992) and Romanian Revolution of 1989 (1989).
Quick answers
- When did Fall of the Berlin Wall happen?
- In 1989.
- Where did Fall of the Berlin Wall take place?
- East Berlin and East Germany.
- How did the map change?
- Compare the atlas’s maps of 1985 and 1994 side by side.