Great Moments in Socialist Bureaucracy
How the Berlin Wall opened up, as related by John Lewis Gaddis in The Cold War: A New History:
Gaddis's book, by the way, is one that I recommend -- it's pretty short (~300 pages) and a quick read, and it covers a lot of ground. You'll take a lot away from it if you read it without knowing much about the Cold War. Gaddis puts a lot of emphasis on the competing ideologies, which provides some good narrative cohesion. Whether this goes too far, I don't know enough to question; on the other hand, he seems to write strongly about the starker geopolitical side of things too. And even if he's a little too friendly to Nixon (seeing dirty tricks as less important than his strategic brilliance) and Reagan (taking his '80s rhetoric to have history-heralding clarity) he seems to write fairly, too.
After returning from Moscow [Egon] Krenz [Chairman of the Council of State] consulted his colleagues, and on November 9th [1989] they decided to try to relieve the mounting tension in East Germany by relaxing -- not eliminating -- the rules restricting travel to the West. The hastily drafted decree was handed to Günter Schabowski, a Politburo member who had not been at the meeting but was about to brief the press. Schabowski glanced at it, also hastily, and then announced that citizens of the G.D.R. were free to leave "through any of the border crossings." The surprised reporters asked when the new rules went into effect. Shuffling through his papers, Schabowski replied: "According to my information, immediately." Were the rules valid for travel to West Berlin? Schabowski frowned, shrugged his shoulders, shuffled some more papers, and then replied: "Permanent exit can take place via all border crossings from the G.D.R. to [West Germany] and West Berlin, respectively." The next question was: "What is going to happen to the Berlin Wall now?" Schabowski mumbled an incoherent response, and closed the press conference.This is, natürlich, up on the You Tube (about a minute into the link); English transcript here (PDF). The video cuts off the last bit of Schabowski's final comments, when he's visibly sinking into his chair:
Question: Mr. Schabowski, what is going to happen to the Berlin Wall now?Good answer! So then you had crowds gathering at the Wall crossing points until the confused guards at one of them took it upon themselves to open the gates.
Schabowski: It has been brought to my attention that it is 7:00 p.m. That has to
be the last question. Thank you for your understanding.
(um . . .) What will happen to the Berlin Wall? Information has already been provided in connection with travel activities. (um) The issue of travel, (um) the ability to cross the Wall from our side, . . . hasn’t been answered yet and exclusively the question in the sense . . . , so this, I’ll put it this way, fortified state border of the GDR. . . . (um) We have always said that there have to be several other factors (um) taken into consideration. And they deal with the complex of questions that Comrade Krenz, in his talk in the -- addressed in view of the relations between the GDR and the FRG, in ditto light of the (um) necessity of continuing the process of assuring peace with new initiatives.
Gaddis's book, by the way, is one that I recommend -- it's pretty short (~300 pages) and a quick read, and it covers a lot of ground. You'll take a lot away from it if you read it without knowing much about the Cold War. Gaddis puts a lot of emphasis on the competing ideologies, which provides some good narrative cohesion. Whether this goes too far, I don't know enough to question; on the other hand, he seems to write strongly about the starker geopolitical side of things too. And even if he's a little too friendly to Nixon (seeing dirty tricks as less important than his strategic brilliance) and Reagan (taking his '80s rhetoric to have history-heralding clarity) he seems to write fairly, too.
1 Comments:
The way I was taught, in Berlin, this past summer, was that it was an Italian journalist that asked the question (although my general aversion to youtube keeps me from knowing, really, whether he was Italian or not (I'm too busy using my computer headphones to listen to MF Doom)). The part I found interesting, from the lectures I heard, was that most of the East Berliners that crossed the walls did so planning on walking back to their own houses (in the East) once they were done with their revelry. For whatever reason, that strikes me as incredibly fascinating.
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