The mistake that toppled the Berlin Wall

if you know one thing about the fall of the Berlin Wall it might be this mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall or this or maybe these moments were huge in unifying Berlin and undermining the physical symbol of a divided Europe during the Cold War but they don't top this one the last few minutes of an otherwise uneventful press conference on November 9th 1989 as a phlebotomist nothing Auslan Canon or Napoleon phone for our sets unless on philosophy that's minor one particular it might not look like it but this is the moment the Berlin Wall became obsolete completely by mistake [Music] after the Allied powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War two they divided the country into four parts each controlled by a separate power these formed into two new countries in 1949 Democratic West Germany and Soviet controlled communist East Germany officially named the German Democratic Republic or GDR through the 1950s West Germany prospered as a free society and industrious member of Europe and hundreds of thousands of East Germans began emigrating west in search of new opportunities to stem the tide the gdr erected a barrier along the inner German border separating the two countries with barbed wire guarded checkpoints and in many places defensive measures like land mines but there was a loophole in Berlin and it goes back to when the four Allied powers controlled Germany see even though the German capital was well inside the Soviet zone the Allies divided control of it equally to match the rest of the country and when East and West Germany formed so did East and West Berlin even as the inner German border fortified Berlin had no physical barrier dividing it East Germans could simply walk or take public transportation to the western part of the city and travel freely from there the island of West Berlin become the staging point for the free road to the west this brain-drain took a huge toll on East Germany's labor force by 1961 more than three and a half million East Germans about twenty percent of their population had fled to the west the majority of which were young and well-educated but the Berlin loophole closed on August 13th 1961 when the city woke up to East German soldiers standing shoulder-to-shoulder along the invisible line dividing East and West Berlin unannounced they began unrolling kilometers of barbed wire through the middle of the city they were building the Berlin wall by break until no contact but a friendly wave travel out of East Berlin became strictly regulated no one could leave unless they met strict requirements and those who didn't face a nearly impassable barrier complete with floodlights and guard towers were armed border guards patrolled day and night with orders to shoot and kill anyone trying to cross illegally and that's how it remained for 28 years but change came in late 1989 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced social reforms meant to relax oppressive practices and open up discourse between people and government these changes unintentionally sparked massive peaceful uprisings throughout Eastern Bloc countries including East Germany things had kind of heated up all summer in 1989 Catherine Baumbach was a young translator working for the East German news agency in the world of famous Monday demonstrations in in Leipzig actually my college town initially thousands then tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands freedom of expression and freedom to travel were key demands and pressure on the GDR to loosen travel restrictions only grew as neighboring countries particularly Hungary and Czechoslovakia relaxed their border laws prompting a mass southward exodus of East Germans by early November 1989 more than 40,000 East German refugees had arrived at the West German Embassy in Prague hoping to travel to the West the GDR was facing a crisis there were forces in the government that realized something had to be done this was not sustainable so lifting the travel ban was one way that they thought they could quell the protests and make people happy on November 1989 GDR official Gerhard lauter was tasked with drafting looser travel regulations meant to be a temporary pressure release the new rules were finalized less than a day later and read private trips abroad can be applied for without conditions permits are issued on short notice without conditions that's the key phrase here this meant the strict application requirements were eliminated and anyone who wanted could leave East Germany and come back that afternoon the updated regulations were handed to government spokesmen come to Chbosky just as he was about to begin a routine press conference and as we all know something kind of didn't go quite right there he didn't have time to review them before sitting in front of cameras and as you can see from his handwritten roadmap of the press conference he scribbled in a reminder to announce them at the very end and on live TV at 6:53 p.m. on November 9th he read the relaxed travel laws for the first time out loud as implies nothing it seemed totally unreal but it was Scherbatsky saying it was broadcast on official television so it had to be true there were people people around me older colleagues who immediately said this is the beginning of the end watch a confucian boskie shuffle his papers when a journalist asks a simple follow-up question the thing is if Chbosky had had time to read the new rules he might have seen this on the final page the new regulations were meant to go into effect the following day in an orderly manner when the passport offices were open so close in particular what happened next can only be described as a chain reaction by 7:05 p.m. the AP wire had already gone out GDR opens borders and both East and West German nightly news reports announced the stunning policy reversal these Berliners began gathering at the wall and security officers tried to let them through slowly but the final nail in the coffin came at 10:42 p.m. when this broadcast triggered a mass rush he's anointed November stand his tallish attack did it a hot lead guitarist Gilligan snaps of Fox agita manga of mutant the Torah in the mawashi in vital they actually weren't yet but by this point there was no going back tens of thousands of Berliners stormed a wall saying they heard on the news that they could cross the outnumber East German border guards were completely overwhelmed somehow they hadn't gotten the message or they didn't know what to do or they were afraid who knows but they basically opened the border and thousands of people streamed into West Berlin [Applause] over its 28-year history at least 140 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall November 9th plus unification a year later it was the most decisive event in in my life I basically went from one political system to another and changes happened very quickly and it happened unintentionally the result of a rushed plan and a botched announcement delivered in a small room at the end of a boring press conference just a so forth one procedure [Music]

Channel: Vox

Views: 3,399,626

Keywords: berlin wall, cold war, gunter schabowski, east germany, west germany, berlin, germany, the berlin wall, berlin wall explained, fall of berlin wall, berlin wall coming down, berlin wall documentary, hasselhoff berlin wall, cold war history, german history, GDR, Ronald Reagan, german democratic republic, fall of the berlin wall, berlin wall falls, reagan berlin wall, berlin wall anniversary, Berliner Mauer, berliner mauerfall, berlin wall 30, mauerfall 30, unverzüglich

Id: Mn4VDwaV-oo

Length: 8min 11sec (491 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019

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[u/karlothecool]

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