Thirty years ago today German foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher appeared on the balcony of the West German embassy in Prague and said what is probably the most famous half-sentence in recent German history: "Dear fellow Germans, we have come to you in order to inform you that today, your departure…" The rest was drowned out amid the cheers that erupted.
At 7.30pm the first people left the Lobkowicz Palace. Three minutes earlier, the GDR news agency broadcast a statement from the foreign ministry in East Berlin. For humanitarian reasons, the government had decided to expel the people illegally occupying the embassies of West Germany.
At 8.50pm the first "freedom train" left Prague, heading for Dresden. Four more trains departed at two-hour intervals, headed for the Bavarian border town of Hof.
The first brick of the Berlin Wall falls.
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