Carlux: That is a really interesting BBC documentary that I wished I had seen. I wonder if INGO or other people who lived in Germany through that time period have heard of such a recap.

Yes, that's quite accurate. Mr Schabowski wasn't informed well himself too. It wasn't intended to enable the people to visit relatives, but make it possible to leave the GDR for good. The party didn't want those "troublemakers" to return.

I'm just glad Nancy and her astrologer gave Ronnie permission to go to Europe and give his marvelous line reading.

Of course we idiots know that economics had nothing to do with "ending" the Cold War...how could anyopne possibly think it wasn't Ronnie who did it all by himself with his threats?

I remember reading a London Times front page article written by the former head of the KGB in Britain stating that Reagan caused consternation and terror in Moscow when he pushed through the Starwars initiative. The author claimed that the Soviet leaders were convinced that the USA might attack shortly. And the rest is history.

His words, not mine. You can check it out. Article written in 1990 or 1991.

Jinx Hoover

Hi Palenq. I must say that on our last visit to Berlin, in March, we finally got round to visiting the East Side Gallerey on foot (as opposed to seeing it from a bus) and were very disappointed - most of the original artwork has been spoiled by just plain old graffiti added more recently.

Gosh, don't people have short memories?

Early in the evening of November 9, 1989 (9/11 to many of us at the time, and still 9/11) an announcement that Schabowski had said they could go appeared on Teletext in a London bar I was drinking in. Anyone with the slightest interest in the world around (which meant practicaly everyone in the bar) then spent the next four hours glued to their TV sets, as it became clear that did indeed mean the wall would have to be breached.

The real heroes? First, and above all others, the 70,000 people of Leipzig who a month earlier, and only 3 months after the Chinese had massacred umpteen thousand at Tien An Men, assembled to demonstrate. Especially Pastor Ulrich Seidel who addressed them, persuaded them to be non-violent and knew the risk he was taking.

How did he know? Well, a couple of weeks before, I'd been in an East Berlin Ratkeller, nibbling the sawdust sausages and sipping the gnatspiss beer that were all they had. The local daily ran two pages of stories glorifying the "socialist heroism" of the Chinese leaders and the "manly realism" in the industrial-scale murder of their own citizens. Seidel and the Leipzig 70,000 must have read that too: like the sawdust sausages, it was the only thing on offer.

The other heroes? The 260 British soldiers, sailors and airmen whose deaths in the Falklands we're commemorating the 25th anniversary of at present. For the first time since we halted Communist expansion in Malaya in 1960, the West had demonstrated it was prepared to stand up to foreign bullies, and had the leadership and public support to stick at it till the bullies had been soundly thrashed and sent home packing.

Reagan's bombast in Berlin contributed nothing to that. His firmness back home contributed greatly.

Caroline Edinburgh - that's sad that graffiti types could not appreciate the art on the Eastside Gallery - those portraits often said a 1000 words themselves.

Funny how various folks can have hardened impressions about such a silly thing as bonzo's Tear Down That Wall statement - reports are that he had said the same thing for years. NPR interview with Weekly Standard or some other right-wing rag was pointing to the speech as being THE reason the wall came down.

I'd rather listen to theories of those who actually lived on the other side of the wall - and like flanner says the Heroes of Leipzig, whose successful protest it seems was a domino effect to smashing down the wall.

And from what i read i'm not sure everyone from the old East Bloc is better off - not nearly as many have descended into poverty, health care gone down, etc. - the poor workers left behind after the cradle-to-grave security was taken away. The successor to the Communist Party of the DDR still i think gets 25% or so of the ex DDR vote.
Some, not a few, appear worse off, but hopefully this will only be in the short term as these countries gain a prosperity on par with much of Europe and this could only be achieved with the fall of the Ancien Regime, who refused to change with the times.

Flaneruk: I think it was 400 thousand protesters in Leipzig by November. Honestly, I'm not sure how many of us in the US were aware of the details on how and why the walls came down, but we knew we had won the cold war, thanks to Reagan's clever starwars strategy. That summed up my perception at that time since there was no news/details of why it happened.

On Nov 9, 2003, George W. Bush commemorated the Fall of the Berlin Wall by signing a declaration that November 9 shall be celebrated as World Freedom Day in conjunction with his efforts to work with other nations to bring more freedom throughout the world.

I remember it well. The 9th November is my birthday. It made the evening go with a bang.

My recollection of the fall of communism is that it was people power that finally brought it down. The large numbers of East Europeans who went to Hungary - who had opened their borders. The very brave German protestors with their candle lit parades and so on.

That was the point at which the likes of Honaker realised it was all over and decided to go gently

How did we get to the point where this could happen?

Step forward Margaret Hilda Thatcher, for whom communism was the ultimate evil. It was her who put some backbone into Reagan, her who allowed the USA to station it's cruise missiles within striking range. Her who destroyed the Russians proxies in our trades unions. Her who showed that the West could actually fight a war and hadn't gone soft after Vietnam. Her who allowed the USA to take off and land in Britain when it bombed Libya and so on.

Blair's not fit to lace her scotch.

Bbbb BbblllaatthherThatcher!

I loathe everything Margaret Thatcher stands for or stood for - son Dennis and Africa? Corrupt on both ends.

Global warming from the UK would be much less if Maggie hadn't practically dismantled British Rail - a latter day Beeching - and neglected transport systems like London's Tube so that it can't cope now to do the job and with an estimated 1,000,000 more folks residing in London in the next decade or so will be inadequate to cope with the influx on an already beleagured public transport.

Thatcher being responsible for the fall of Communism, which imploded because of its own shortcomings - Thatcher - an evil evil force in the world IMO

Bob - you've been drinking paint again haven't you.

Thatcher had nothing to do with rail privitisation - that was major.

London has had a labour administration almost solidly since the war - they run the tube, not thatcher and in any case the labour party have been in power for 10 years now. They can't keep blaming the Tories. That's the equivelent of "a big boy did it and ran away".

And the reason that so many people want to live in London is because of the reforms she put in place. Briitain pre-thatcher was not an attractive place to live.

She is a living saint.

And Margaret Thatcher gave the police big pay rises so that they would fight on her behalf against the miners and anyone else who got in her way.

you say that like it's a bad thing!

Audere - with a vested interest.

A Saint She Ain't

Under her 'regime' the railways were allowed to deteriorate and also public transit systems when funds were cut.

Britain has had an unparalleled (in post Colonial Days - propserity during the Blair decade - something like 28% growth - so why not give credit where credit is due.

of course the paint i'm drinking is pink

Pal: i think you've put too much turps in the paint.

Public spending went up under Mrs Thatcher.

The current "economic success" is simply us Brits mortgaging our futures for a happy time now.

Poor old Gordon Brown (texture like sun) is going to inherit the most unholy mess - mind you it's his fault too. So sod him

<Public spending went up under Mrs Thatcher.>

yes probably defense and to fight that silly war, which flanner by the way i believe the US invasion of Granada may have been a prior war the West won to recover its military prowess after Viet Name fiasco.

texture like sun...Excellent

Emptying the mental hospitals onto the streets was a neat Thatcher trick.

audere est farce: don't you have someone to arrest?

There's a pint in my local that I may have to take into protective custody.

DAX, like logos said, this BBC report is 100% accurate. The fall of the wall on 9/11 was really by accident. Schabowski misinterpreted the actual decision of the leading politicians in the DDR. They meant to allow every citizen of the DDR a visit of the West after going through a procedure (getting passport, visa etc.) and he said that everyone could go right then without any restrictions.

It's still amazing to me what happened that night. One of the greatest miracles at all.

The number of demonstrants in Leipzig was between 70 000 and 100 000 before that day. Later it increased to somewhere near 400 000. Some weeks later about a million demonstrated in Berlin.