The collapse of the Berlin Wall is an unmatched historical event.

The Cold War ended and authoritarianism over democracy vanished with the collapse of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Berlin was literally and metaphorically split by the Wall for almost thirty years, as well as the Western world’s divide from Eastern Bloc, the latter under the Jew of the Soviet Union. The fall of the Wall was a success for freedom, solidarity, and the universal cry for human rights, not only a physical destruction of a barrier. Looking at the historical context, the circumstances preceding the fall, then the actual historic event itself, and the continuity of the impact today, helps one to appreciate its significance.
Constructing the Berlin Wall: An Interpretive Review of Events

Germany was split into four zones run under control of one of the Allied powers (UK, France, the US or the USSR) following World War II. Berlin was divided in the same way even though it was a town separated under Soviet control between East and West Germany. From the ideological differences between the Soviet Union and Allied Western forces soon sprang the Cold War—a time of military buildup, espionage, and proxy action. These distinctions resulted in what Winston Churchill jokingly referred to as the “Iron Curtain,” which turned out to be a real one separating Europe.
East Germany was under Soviet rule by the late 1950s, but it was also unhappy with the oppressive rules and poor economic conditions and started a mass exodus. Soviet officials replied on August 13, 1961, erecting a reinforced barrier now known as the Berlin Wall on which were rolling concrete blocks, barbed wire, guard towers and across Berlin spanning roughly 27 kilometers. Although this wall halted the huge exodus separating East from West Berlin, it uprooted friends and relatives produced by it.

The Berlin Wall developed very quickly to become a highly iconic representation of the division between capitalist West and communist East. Such a portrayal was a sobering reminder of the lack of freedoms imposed on the Eastern Bloc, including physical isolation of course but also the constraint of human freedom.

Change’s path: political and social demands

Changes of the 1980s would eventually erode Eastern Bloc foundations. Mikhail Gorbachev replaced his predecessor in the Soviet Union in 1985 and initiated the glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) programs, intended to modernize the Soviet system by means of measures of openness and limited market reforms. Ideas of economic and liberal reforms by Gorbachev started to affect East German and other Eastern Bloc citizens who started to want similar rights.
Lech Wałęsa’s solidarity movement confronted Poland’s communist government for reform at the same time. The Polish labor movement and the last semi-free elections in Poland in 1989 delivered a message in Eastern Europe that change was possible. Hungary was also undergoing reforms, and so started to tear down their section of the Iron Curtain, so signally opening their border with Austria in May 1989. The East German leadership was under great pressure, and their workload reflected this.

Protests Rising in East Germany

People in East Germany grew more unhappy with Erich Honecker’s leadership as they watched their neighbors acquire liberties and as their own income dropped. Originally called as the “Monday Demonstrations,” the weekly demonstrations took place in Leipzig and in early 1989 they demanded reforms, freedom of movement, and free elections. Official attempts to stop these protests, however, had little impact; their count only increased to hundreds of thousands until October 1989.
The country’s autocratic practices were especially underlined by media reportage that attracted international interest. Gorbachev had made it clear, though, that the Soviet Union was not about to meddle in domestic matters of its satellite republics. This was the “Sinatra Doctrine,” or more precisely, a warning that, should East Germans employ force to quell their population, they would not gain the support of the Soviets The East German administration was finding itself locked out from handling the growing demand for reform more and more.

November 9, 1989: Celebrated Day of Uncertainty

Actually almost unintentional, the fall of the Berlin Wall was followed by public dissatisfaction, political mistake and uncertainty. The evening of November 9, 1989 became infamous when East German official Günter Schabowski mistakenly declared during a disastrous press conference that East Germans may travel into West Germany. Schabowski answered “immediate, without delay” when reporters asked when the new policy will take effect as he was not familiar with the exact details of it.
News traveled fast, and hundreds of East Berliners had turned up to the Wall, requesting to be let through within hours. Eventually, the overburdened border guards opened the gates without direction or authorization. No ideas were coming to me about what to do. East and West Berliners embraced one another in scenes of happiness, laughing, tears, as they surged across the checkpoints, words that were hopeful falling from lips, triumphant falling from shoulders, jubilant falling from eyes. People chipped away parts, ascended the Wall, and wrecked it with their own hands, angrily protesting it.
Declared globally, the fall of the Berlin Wall not only marks Germany’s reunion but also the end of decades of Cold War conflict. Celebrations on this historic evening, a wave of relief as people realized they entered a new century of freedom and togetherness.

Consequences and the road to German reunion

And once the Berlin Wall fell, Germany was formally reunited on October 3, 1990. Combining two highly different political, economic, and social systems was a challenging process in this reunion. Major infrastructure and economic investments were needed in East Germany as West Germany in order to bring the national currency back into circulation on the ground there, hence forming the West German Deutsche Mark.
The more general Eastern Bloc fall was anchored on Germany’s reunion. But other Eastern European countries started veering toward independence from Soviet influence right away when the Wall fell. World affairs shifted and evolved when the Cold War came to an end and the Soviet Union itself split up in 1991.

Berlin Wall Legacy: Fall’s Effects

Changing history permanently and reminding us with a great force of the power of peaceful action that people have to freedom, the Berlin Wall fell marks. That showed how easily one may get over apparently insurmount challenges. With its fragments stored in museums all around as symbols of both division and reconciliation, an icon of unity, democracy and hope, the collapse of the Wall has evolved.
A legacy of the fall of the Berlin Wall is learning the human cost of oppression and the resiliency of the human spirit. From ideology to religion to political conflict, the “Walls” in between people have a lyrical counter weight in the memory of November 9, 1989, when a city and a globe did what appeared impossible: destroyed a wall we all thought to be insurmount.

All in all

The fall of the Berlin Wall was more than just a political triumph; it was a sign of change driven by people, and so were the values of freedom and solidarity that permeate every revolution, in any location on earth. Then, for those yearning freedom and a warning tale of separation, this event has also become a call to arms. Still a symbol of optimism, the fall of the Wall represents even the most firmly ingrained challenges if fortitude can be summoned then they too can be eliminated.