20 years ago tonight, the Berlin wall came down. Not literally, but it didn’t take long after the opening of the border that people from both sides started hacking holes and gaps into the infamous building.
It was, without a doubt, one of the most emotional and fortunate moments of our history.
I’m not sure how widely it is known that the people’s irrepressible longing for freedom was just one factor that triggered this event. The other was bureaucratic incompetence. Here’s the short version.
Three communist officers were advised to draft a new border law. They soon left their outlined path by saying: ‘We can’t just allow people to leave forever, but punish those who want to return after a short trip to the west. That would make people lynch us.’ So, they planned to hand out visa to everyone one requesting one. The new law was supposed to be made public the next morning when people were at work, so passport offices would have time to adapt.
The central comitee of the Communist Party passed the motion without further ado, as if they didn’t know what they had just concluded. New head of state Egon Krenz passed the paper on to his spokesman who was on his way to his daily press briefing. Not even having read the new rules (and firmly ignoring the blocking period), Günter Schabowski stammered the now famous words: “As far as I can see, this is… at once… without delay.”
And so, it became prime time news that the wall was open (which it wasn’t at the time), and people flooded the border crossings in their thousands. Border police had no idea what to do and tried to get some orders from above. But as those ‘in power’ were too busy discussing the future of socialism, and the people waiting in front of the barriers got angrier and angrier, someone at Bornholmer Straße finally opened the gate.
The rest is history.
Today’s picture shows you the last wall of the old Schlosshotel, a listed building supposed to be “renovated” and turned into luxury private homes. Surprisingly, the building company found out just how shaky the old substance had become, so all that’s left of the old building now is this wall here. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come down, too. Whether the future building will still be “the” Schlosshotel or something completely different, is open to philosophical debate. I just wonder how fast the company adapted to the new situation. I have a gut feeling that they planned to tear down most of the building in the first place.
Here’s a sligthly different angle with a tad more scenery.
