On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. It all happened by accident when a senior official of the East German Government at a hastily arranged press conference read from a document that people could cross to West Berlin taking effect ‘immediately'.
Streams of people arrived at a Berlin crossing point. The guards on duty were taken by surprise, hesitated for moments, then decided not to open fire, the gates were opened and East Berliners ran across the frontier in total shock, not believing what was actually happening.
But for many months before the collapse of the Wall people in Leipzig were carrying out weekly demonstrations at a Protestant church. At one stage the authorities were going to intervene and send troops to break up the peaceful demionstrations. They phoned Berlin for instructions but the phone was never answered.
What followed with the fall of the Wall gave Europe a great moment of hope, East and West would join hands in comradeship and fraternity.
Who’s to blame for what has happened? Did the West treat Russia with respect? Was Nato unwise in moving eastwards? Who created the former KGB agent based in Dresden into the man he is today?
‘If all the ifs and buts made pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers’.
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