Berlin Wall – The Fall

With the increasing economic crisis and the failure of the USSR’s initiative to intervene in relation to the individual communist states, came the loosening up of a series of threads one-by-one. Which further bred the end of the Soviet Union. Well, the end-blast result came, thanks to the events that took place in the late-80s. Started with:- 

• The fall of Poland’s Parliamentary Elections, 1989.
• Then the surprisingly opening of the Austria-Hungarian border gate on 19th August 1989, which led to the fleeing of more than 10 thousand of East Germans to the West via Hungary, the government stopped any further travel and allowed those who already fled to return.
• This event ignited a similar one in Czechoslovakia but this time the government allowed travel but only by train.
• Following came the mass demonstrations throughout East Germany, protestors were repeating “we want out!”, “We are staying here!” which was the starting of the “peaceful revolution” of late 1989. This is similar to Satyagraha Movement by Mahatma Gandhi.

The number of refugees fleeing from East to West kept on mounting. By November, they started reaching Hungary through either Czechoslovakia or through the West German Embassy in Prague. The newly came Krenz government was tolerating this havoc.

However, it was already too late for the movement to be tamed so to control it on 9th November 1989, the government allowed the pass-throughs for the refugees including the Berlin border. Later, at night the same day, Günter Schabowski while attending a press conference announcing the changes, which included the official opening of the border including the East-West Berlin border. As soon as the words went out, they spread throughout the country. On the evening of the same day, people started gathering at the Wall with hammers and chisels and swarmed through the Wall.

Finally, after a long time of hatred was brought to an end and the new wave held with new hopes blew everywhere across the country. Families once separated were united again. Now they could foresee a new future, a bright and better one.

Berlin Wall was a series of concrete walls built during the Cold War dividing East and West Berlin and the surrounded whole of West Berlin denying entry from either of the sides situated in East Germany. It was demolished by the 1989-fall, well the fragments of the wall still exist in the Topography of Terror Museum in Berlin, Germany.

The Wall was more than just a geographical divider, it separated millions of people, which means many families, and friends were unable to visit each other. There was a major Job-loss in East Berlin and approximately 2 dozen of people died along the border with West Berlin in the first 10 weeks of the walls’ establishment.

It had a great impact on Cold War too and prevented the further influence of the West Side on the East side and became the most iconic image of the Cold War.