With that in mind, he began trying to clear the roads and finding directions to get them to refugee facilities elsewhere in the city.
“On my side, I had 5,000 people ... and the Easterners just wanted to get through,” he said. “The word that was used a lot for that night is wahnsinn [craziness], and that’s how it was.”
When the first Trabis came through, however, the passengers said to a man that they just wanted to see some sights and then get home, since they had to work in the morning. Bornstein quickly trashed his maps and sent an officer to East Berlin — a major breach of protocol — to arrange an orderly border opening.
When Schertz reached Invalidenstrasse, he found one of his officers sitting on the Wall to help direct traffic. Since the Wall was technically in East Berlin, he called immediately for his officer to return to the West, but an East German officer who Schertz had seen before called over: “Don’t worry, we’re handling this together.”
“I couldn’t believe my ears,” Schertz said.
At some point, Bornstein thought to ask how the situation was at the Brandenburg Gate and was shocked to find that the handful of people who had been there earlier had grown into a mass of people.
Schertz said that location, which had no proper crossing, was almost a major problem.
“For about 24 hours, the situation there was hanging by a thread,” he said. “Then things turned euphoric and the situation calmed down.”
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