Now, the Berlin Wall was finally being made redundant. Berlin was de facto being “reunited.”
Plain curious, East Berliners began spilling out into the streets of West Berlin, popping their noses into bars, strip joints and night clubs for a horn-honking bash that continued until well past dawn.
Most of the revelers returned home later.
“I’m just happy that at last I can visit places beyond the Wall and, that finally, I can now visit other states instead of just seeing them on TV or hearing about them,” a 53-year-old engineer from Berlin’s Prenzlauerberg district said.
Egon Krenz, briefly East German head of state in 1989, had given his blessing earlier that day to a set of new travel regulations designed to pacify the state’s disgruntled citizens, thousands of whom had fled to the West via Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the turbulent summer and autumn of 1989.
The plan was not for the new regulations to go into force at once, but the following day, Nov. 10.
However, government spokesman Guenter Schabowski had missed large parts of the meeting where the decision was made. Therefore, when he appeared at a regular press conference for updates on the East German government’s attempts at reform, he was unaware of the timing of the new policy.
Which meant when reporters asked him toward the end of the conference when the easing of the travel restrictions would go into force, Schabowski was left to reply, somewhat hesitantly: “As far as I’m aware, immediately.”
Thus, Schabowksi “accidentally” triggered one of the most momentous events of German history — the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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