The Fall of the Berlin Wall

At a press conference on the evening of 9 November, an East German spokesman read out new travel rules he had not been briefed on and, asked when they applied, answered: immediately. Television carried it, and thousands walked to the crossings.

At Bornholmer Straße the officer in charge, with no orders and a growing crowd, raised the barrier at about half past eleven. Nobody was hurt. The wall had stood for twenty-eight years; within a year Germany was one country again.