WHEN THE BERLIN WALL FELL
On the evening of November 9, 1989, the Wall
fell in Berlin – and with it the frontier that had divided Germany for 28 years. The
very same night, thousands of GDR citizens rushed to the border with West Berlin. Although
they had no official order, the border guards opened the crossings. Complete strangers
from East and West fell into one another’s arms, spontaneously celebrating the
opening of the Wall together. Germany experienced a night of jubilation, a night that was
to change the world.
Willy Brandt, the honorary chairman of the
SPD, appeared at the Brandenburg Gate the next morning and announced a little later in
front of Schöneberg City Hall: "Now what belongs together will grow together."
The newspaper headlines read: "Berlin is again Berlin" and "Germany cries
tears of joy".
Exploring the West
In the days that followed, millions of GDR
citizens headed westward in their Trabi and Wartburg cars – many of them travelled to
the Federal Republic for the first time in their lives, visited relatives, explored cities
and landscapes – as well as western "shopping paradises" with 100 marks of
"Welcome Money" from the Federal Republic in their pockets.
What had happened? On November 9, shortly
before 7 p.m., during an international press conference, Günter Schabowski, a member of
the SED Politburo, had hesitantly announced a new, liberal exit rule live in front of
television cameras. In reply to a question, Schabowski explained that as far as he was
aware the policy would come into effect "immediately, without delay." This news,
which had not been approved in that form by the GDR government, spread throughout the GDR
at lightning speed and triggered the opening of the border crossings in Berlin – and
the fall of the Wall.
This historic day had been preceded by mass
exoduses from the GDR during summer 1989 (via Hungary and Czechoslovakia) and remarkable
demonstrations by the opposition movement within the GDR in which civil rights activists
had publicized their criticisms and their demands for the first time (for example, during
the Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig). Both these put a massive strain on the GDR’s
structures, especially when it soon became clear that on this occasion the Soviet Union
did not have any interest – unlike in Hungary in 1956, Prague in 1968, or Poland in
1980 – in putting down the protest movement by force. The "gentle
revolution" produced a kind of paralysis within the GDR government authorities. On
October 18, 1989, the resignation of Erich Honecker, the man who had been SED general
secretary and chairman of the State Council for many years, triggered a collapse of the
SED regime that his successor Egon Krenz was also unable to stabilize.
However, the collapse of the GDR and German
reunification 11 months later, on October 3, 1990, would have been practically
inconceivable without the changes that had occurred in the Soviet Union from the mid-1980s
onwards. The new state and party leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had introduced wide-ranging
reforms in the USSR. Gorbachev also forswore the Soviet Union’s hegemony over the
Eastern Bloc. Above all, Poland and Hungary seized the new opportunities. In May 1989, the
Hungarians began cutting a substantial hole in the Iron Curtain. The complete opening up
of the Hungarian frontier to the West then followed on September 11, 1989.
Following the peaceful revolution in the GDR,
the reunification of the two German states moved nearer – an event that many people
had no longer believed possible. Before that, however, the first free elections to the
People’s Chamber were held on March 18, 1990. The main issues during the election
campaign were the method for and the speed of the desired unification with West Germany.
On May 18, 1990, the Treaty on Economic, Monetary and Social Union was signed. Since the
GDR’s economic system was no longer capable of reform, the GDR assumed the economic
system of the Federal Republic on July 1, 1990. Soon afterwards, consultations began in
Berlin on the future shape of a unification treaty. Even before these negotiations were
concluded, in a special session on August 23, 1990, the People’s Chamber resolved
that the GDR should accede to the jurisdiction of the Basic Law on October 3, 1990.
The reunification
Because of the rights and responsibilities of
the four Second World War victor nations towards Germany as a whole and Berlin,
reunification could not be accomplished without their consent. In February 1990, the
victor powers agreed to joint negotiations with the two German states. The Treaty on the
Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, September 12, 1990, regulated the international
legal aspects of reunification. Germany thereby regained its full sovereignty.
During the evening leading up to October 3,
1990, thousands of people celebrated the GDR’s accession to the territory of the
Federal Republic in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin. Finally, after four
decades, Germany’s national unity was restored.
(Courtesy: Deutschland Magazine,
Embassy of Germany, Kathmandu) |
