25 years ago tonight: "Did you just hear what I just heard?"

[DFW]

My wife and I had parked the kids with friends of theirs for two nights, and we went up to Hamburg for the weekend, which we sometimes used to do in those days. I had to work on the weekends there twice a year, and so she liked to come up with me, as we both like the city.

It was a time of upheaval in Germany, as the East was bleeding people over the Hungarian-Austrian border, and people East Germans in Prague, which they were allowed to visit, were climbing in droves over the gates of the West German embassy in Prague, so they could technically be on West German soil. It was getting to the point where it was no longer practical to box their people in any more, even though the shoot-to-kill order was still in force at the Berlin Wall and at the border.

We saw a re-broadcast of a televised press conference in East Berlin. Erich Honecker had already fled to Chile, and Egon Krenz was nominally in charge, although his authority was crumbling. Günter Schabowski, an East German member of the Politburo was reading out a decree in such a monotone that it took a few seconds to sink in. "Freedom to travel to the West for all citizens of the German Democratic Republic," or DDR as it was called there. Asked if this meant free travel to West Berlin as well, he said yes. Asked when this decree was to go into effect, he said, "as far as I can tell, immediately."

My wife and I looked at each other dumbfounded. WHAT????? Did we just hear a top East German official announce then end of the wall? West German TV commentators were going nuts trying to figure it out, and East Germans, who watched Western TV started gathering at border crossings (where they would have been shot for this just that morning), trying to convince the border guards that they should stand aside and let them cross. The border guards, who did NOT watch western TV had gotten no such notification, and at first refused to open the borders. But when the crowds started to get massive, they called in to their bosses and said the crowds were just too big, something must be up, and they couldn't just gun down hundreds or thousands of ordinary people. one gusty border guard threw in the towel, and let the people through. The other border crossings followed, and we watched, stupified, as crowds of East Germans surged through the border. This was the night of Friday, November 9, 1989.

The next morning, Saturday, November 10, Hamburg, which was only 30 miles from the old border, was inundated with East Germans, who were getting their first look at Western opulence (or decadence, depending on what they saw). It was West German practice to give East Germans visiting for the first time "Begrüssungsgeld," or "greeting money," so they could buy food and take public transportation when they came. It was 100DM, or about $65 per person, which was a decent bit of change back then.

We knew we were in the middle of history happening around us. It was hard to grasp just what we were living through, but we knew that Germany had just changed overnight before our eyes. East Germans in Berlin were shaking hands and giving pats on the back to the border guards who, as far as they knew, still had orders to shoot to kill anyone who tried to cross to the west. But none of them did. They sensed that something had changed, too. German TV showed the live news tapes from that night again this weekend. Maybe the Eastern border guards didn't know their country was about to dissolve within a year, but they definitely knew that their jobs would never be the same after that night.

Like such momentous events as the births of our children, this event is as fresh in our memories today as it was then. Everyone knew that the euphoria would die down, that reunification politically and economically would be monstrously expensive, and come out of the pockets of resentful westerners. Everyone knew as well that reunification in the minds of everyone old enough to talk would be a much slower process. But THAT night, no one was thinking about all that. Everyone was just thinking that a page of history had turned, and that there would be no going back. In that, they were correct.

[randome]

1. If only Gorbachev could have remained at the helm.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[DFW]

3. It would have been better, no doubt

He remained a CPUSSR loyalist, if an enlightened one. Had he been able to morph out of that, and stay at the top, Russia would have been MUCH better off. The attempted coup of Rutskoi and Hasbulatov would have been a disaster if it had succeeded, and Yeltsin was so besotted with alcohol, he was pretty much useless soon after taking power. Putin was surely gearing up for his reign way before it actually happened. I think Raissa was already seriously ill by 1991, and Gorbachëv just didn't have his heart in it any more.

He is still considered a hero by the East Germans (except "Die Linken," the unofficial SED successor), for not interfering with the events of November 9. An American friend of mine was invited to his 80th birthday party 3 years ago, and she didn't have to think twice about accepting the invitation.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Thank you, my dear DFW, for your vivid story! You were there!

It must have been electrifying to witness.

Every now and then, the creaky doors of history are shoved open by the people and change happens, literally overnight. This was such a time.

K&R

[DFW]

4. It was an astounding event

Just mouths hanging open and saying "wow......"

[NBachers]

5. I've said it before- Thank you for taking us along to this significant time in history.

[DFW]

7. It's very difficult to convey verbally

The whole country was just electrified. NOTHING else was on anyone's mind. There was some anticipation and apprehensiveness, but most people were just relieved that the whole Wall stigma was over. There was always the possibility that they'd take it all back, of course, but since Gorbachëv had given his tacit blessing, no one expected a reversal. It was sort of a 180° version of the Chicago police riot of 1968. There, they shouted "The whole world's watching," meaning shame on our country.

In Germany, that night, the attitude was also "The whole world's watching," but with an undercurrent of "we can do this without a shot being fired, just watch us." And so they did.

[2banon]

6. Interesting, thank you..

[Voice for Peace]

8. Thank you for this moving story.. and history keeps happening:

http://www.juancole.com/2014/11/palestinians-apartheid-commemorate.html

Palestinians Break open Illegal Apartheid Wall to Commemorate Fall of Berlin Wall

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Palestinian activists affiliated with local popular resistance committees in the villages northwest of Jerusalem on Saturday broke open a hole in the separation wall to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“No matter how high walls are built, they will fall. Just as the Berlin Wall fell, the wall in Palestine will fall, along with the occupation,” the popular committees said in a statement.

The activists said that their aim in destroying the wall was also to stress that Jerusalem is an Arab and Palestinian city, and that neither the construction of the separation wall nor Israeli military reinforcement could prevent Palestinians from reaching Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque.

The activists also called upon Palestinians to unite and take part in the battle for Jerusalem, and to defend the al-Aqsa mosque and all Islamic and Christian holy sites. (more at link)

[DFW]

9. "The activists also called upon Palestinians to unite and take part in the battle for Jerusalem"

There's the difference right there.

Battle means bloodshed. The Germans accomplished the removing of their wall without a battle. The more the Palestinians call for a battle, the more the likelihood they'll get one. The remarkable thing about November 9th is that it happened without a shot being fired.

[Scootaloo]

20. The Germans accomplished it without a battle because the guards were ordered to stand down

Imagine the fall of the Berlin wall.

Now imagine one guard - just one - accidentally pulling the trigger.

You get a very different, and probably very terrible event instead of the one we actually got.

[DFW]

30. There is an interview going on right now with the main guard at the first border crossing to fall

There WERE no orders. The main guy at Bornholmer Strasse was frantically calling for instructions, and in the meantime, a crowd of a few hundred had grown to over 15000. By then it was clear that he couldn't keep back a mass of that size with his 16 uniformed border guards. Getting no instructions from higher up, he threw in the towel. He had seen the press conference on East German TV, too, and knew that it would happen sooner or later anyway. He wasn't going to be the one responsible for a useless massacre. So, instead, he became the one responsible for preventing one.

[Scootaloo]

31. Same difference, really

Either way, the lack of "battle" was due to the non-action of the guards at the wall. One gunshot could have given a totally and brutally different result to the scenario.

[DFW]

33. One shot would have resulted in a very damaged border guard

A hundred shots would have changed the course of the history of that night. But the station head at Bornholmer STrasse looked at the 15000 people, and knew it was up to him, and knew he wasn't going to be the one to give such an order. He was asked in the interview about 15 minutes ago what he would have done if he had found himself in a situation (before the regime started to crumble) where he had been required to shoot, or to give the order to shoot. He said he honestly was very grateful that he had never been placed in a situation where he would have had to find out.

[Scootaloo]

35. It's in instance of groupthink

You have these nervous, armed guards who don't know what to do. A shot goes off. Suddenly the other guards know what to do. That shot gives them direction; orders are to fire. either that, or they are under fire themselves. either way, they turn their guns on the crowd.

Have a look at some events in US history; the Boston Massacre, Wounded Knee, Kent State, all happened the same way.

[Voice for Peace]

22. but lots of shots had been fired, for many years.. looking ahead, one day all these walls come down.

[rurallib]

10. what an incredible thrill to be an eyewitness to this

edit to add a video: (just chose one at random)

[90-percent]

11. Just what the hell did Frank Zappa have to do with all this?

"But Zappa has a lesser known legacy: He inspired revolutions." - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/news/legends-and-legacies/frank-zappa-revolutionary/1726/#sthash.Kz7PoSWQ.dpuf

As Frank has been an inspiration in my life, apparently he was also an inspiration to people in oppressive Communist Countries yearning for freedom. He did not know until decades later he helped inspire what it took to "watch communism die".

Just a pertinent and little known piece of info about my hero.

-90% Jimmy

[Jim Lane]

16. Thanks, great article!

I particularly noted that Zappa helped resistance to authoritarians on this side of the Iron Curtain, too:

Zappa was also outspoken in the U.S. He was a fierce defender of free speech and waged a public battle against the Parents Music Resource Center and its proposed ratings system. Speaking to a Senate committee in 1985, he called the group's plan an "ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design."

[mcar]

12. We've forgotten what a momentous event this was

Thank you for reminding us.

[DFW]

15. You are 100% correct

It changed history forever.

Several things have happened in my lifetime of this magnitude. The assassination of JFK was another.

For that matter, the shooting of Gabby Giffords was one, too. I think she could have been our first woman president. I knew her for years before she was shot. She could have done it.

[lastlib]

13. (If only we could think of Citizens United as our own Berlin Wall, and push it over.........)

eom

[DFW]

14. You read my mind

The trouble is, everyone saw the wall, and everyone saw the armed guards at the border crossings.

No one "sees" a "Citizen United," and no one realizes what a danger it is to them--until it is much too late, that is.

When your family gets cancer from methane in your fracked drinking water because your local God Squad Republican voted for it to happen, and also voted for you not to have any health insurance to treat the cancer, it's a little too late to realize what you have done to them.

[Diclotican]

17. DFW

DFW

I was still in grade school in 1989 - after, in fact been on a Holiday to Bulgaria - one of the east european states who was on the wrong side of the iron curtain.. and even there in a more or less Holiday resort we could hear the summing of something else going on... In the small City of Zozopol, many song songs who was not on the "official accepted program" without the authorities do anything to stop them doing so... They just piped it down when the police was there - and then song again when the police was out of the area... It was a whole different "vibe" in the air than just a few years before.....

And in the fall of 1989, the impossible happened - in front of everyones ayes so to speak - and it culminated in the wall being teared down - not as an result of a war - but as an result of people just getting tired of it all - and the people was kind of doing it on their own - without violence from the authorities, who was on the sideline with no clue about what to do...


I remember it, because it was supper-time - and usually it was when the news was on - in the living room - me and my brother was in the kitchen - and then the sound got little louder - and my foster-mother said to me - you who are so interesting in history - you have to come in - it is history in the making... I kind of "yeah sure:..." and well - the supper got cold - and we all was kind of struck by the impossible about what was happening right in front of us.... And as it was directly from the scene - for the next hour or so - the News got all the air time they was able to put together - to try to show what was happening in Berlin that night.... 25 years ago... At that time we had just one channel - and it was no 24 hour news service as it is today....

What happend 25 years ago - it something I wil rembember as long as I live.... It was a time of great triupf for the human - a time when history shanged - for the better we belived it to be.... What would become of the future was kind of not in our minds at the time when THIS happened - when the world history shanged so dramatically as it id - and witouth violence....

[Hekate]

18. I got chills all over again reading your first-hand account....

...just as I did by watching it unfold from my home in California, where the events moved me to tears. The Wall went up when I was 13, and I never ever thought it would go down in my lifetime, much less that the USSR would fly apart without a bloody revolution.

It's so good to be reminded of this moment of change. Thanks.

[itsrobert]

19. Don't forget the Democrats put the Marshall Plan in place

That's why the Russians and the East put up the wall to begin with. They couldn't let East Germans see how fast West Germany was turning around.

[MattSh]

24. Not exactly...

The wall went up in 1961, 16 years after the end of the war, and 13 years after the Marshall Plan.

The wall went up because East Germany was losing too many skilled workers to the west. By the time the wall went up, East Germany had already lost over 10% of it's population.

Plus, I'm not aware of any Russian involvement.

[itsrobert]

26. They were losing people to the West, because the West was recovering

as a result of the Marshall Plan. Of course things didn't change overnight. 13 years, recovering from devastation is not that long.

[ReRe]

21. Thank you so much for...

... taking us back to the jubilant moment that the wall came down in 1989. That's the kind of joy I wish for all mankind in all nations. The joy of freedom.

K&R

[Brigid]

23. Wow.

I've never read a first-hand account of this from someone who was there. Thanks for sharing!

[DFW]

37. My wife is German

In those days, I wasn't a full time resident of Germany, and so we took off for weekends together when we were in the same country at the same time whenever we could. This one time happened to be a momentous day in history--something we obviously never foresaw when we took the train up to Hamburg that afternoon.

[shenmue]

25. I remember, it was one of those "sit and stare in front of the TV" moments

Like when Sadat died, and when Lennon died, and what my parents told me about when Pres. Kennedy died.

They said, "Put on the news," and we did, and we said, "Wow... look at this... what is going on?"

We all thought this would never happen without a third World War.

[Liberal_in_LA]

27. kick

[steve2470]

28. hi my friend, hope you and your family are doing well !

That was a wonderful account. In 1989 I was also riveted and very thrilled for the German people !

[DFW]

36. Oh, we're chugging along

The usual trials and tribulations. Can't wait for it to be December 27th!

[grahamhgreen]

29. Oh, I thought you meant:

The Music Never Stopped"

There's mosquitoes on the river Fish are rising up like birds
It's been hot for seven weeks now,
Too hot to even speak now, Did you hear what I just heard?

Say it might have been a fiddle or it could have been the wind
But there seems to be a beat now I can feel it my feet now
Listen here it comes again!

[DFW]

32. An unusual thing happened to the tapes of a West german TV reporter filming at Bornholmer Strasse

The news tapes of the barrier going up have been declared as world cultural heritage by UNESCO.

AND---all the details we are seeing as we watch are just as we remember them EXCEPT: it was a Thursday night, not a Friday. We couldn't believe it, but my wife must have gotten an extra day off from work, as we never went up to Hamburg until after she was home from the office, and that was almost always on a Friday afternoon. But everything else is just as we remembered it.

The faces of the East German border guards as they saw thousands of their citizens streaming westward is something to burn in your memory. Something of which they had been indoctrinated all their lives suddenly crumbled before their eyes. The Wall was not to keep "fascists" out, but to keep their own people in. They finally had to admit it. Imagine all the Republicans in the USA being informed beyond any doubt that Fox "News" had been deliberately lying to them since its inception, and that it soon wouldn't exist any more. THAT'S what was on the faces of the East German border guards as they saw their people streaming westward, even though most of them only wanted to go and have a look and get home the same night.