A Hug Saved My Life Another Knocked Down A Wall

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It has built new houses, hotels, hospitals, schools, bridges, farm buildings and power plants, and renovated grand old palaces and castles the communists allowed to fall into disrepair. As a result of improvements the average life expectancy for women has gone up from 77 to 83 and for men from 69 to 77 in the old east. But the united Germany remains a work in progress. The economic strength of east Germany remains two thirds of that of the west and parity in all things will still take many years to achieve.

And neo-Nazism continues to stalk the bleaker east German towns, many of which suffer from a shortage of younger women because so many have moved west. For all its menace, its significance as a flashpoint, its sheer physical presence, it was actually the guardian of nothing. A book published two years ago showed how the vaunted country, with its steroidmuscular female Olympians and its supposedly powerful army, was so drunk for most of its existence that it was not fit for much at all.

How The GDR Drank by Thomas Kochan is both amusing and tragic, a chronicle of how every person in that country — from child to pensioner — drank more heavily than those in any other country in the Soviet empire. The book, named after a 40 per cent vodka produced by the state, details how the country of 17 million lacked basic foodstuffs, building materials, clothes and consumer goods of every type — but was awash with booze. It became the narcotic which dulled the senses to the drab life that the GDR forced upon its unwilling citizens.

But Kochan notes that it was a sober East German mass movement of demonstrators who defied the state in such cities as Leipzig, Dresden and East Berlin, and eventually tore down the wall and the country that built it. One only has to look back at the drinking done atop the wall when it fell to see that their thirsts had returned with the whiff of freedom on the cold night air.

The wall passed into history amid wild celebrations more than 28 years after it was built. During its grim existence it had seen heroic escapes over it, under it and through it. The wall was the last act of the Second World War. It was officially referred to as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart.

The reality was that it went up on August 13, , to imprison its own unwilling people. When the wall fell it was swiftly dismantled and flogged off around the globe. Now bits of it can be seen everywhere in the world. That cost has been borne by every German taxpayer and many others in the EU. This ninth of November is a historic day. The GDR has announced that its borders are, starting immediately, open for everyone.

Hanns-Joachim Friedrichs on air, November 9. Right up at the Western barrier, East German guards with megaphones ran to and fro, shouting preposterously at photographers to stop taking pictures as families streaming tears kissed and hugged and Western revellers climbed onto the electrically-controlled metal barriers.

Going through the pedestrian gate I had used a thousand times before was a strange and unforgettable experience. He is greeted by his son, who tells him that the Interior Minister has called several times. All I was thinking about was now was how to avoid bloodshed. If a panic started, people would have been crushed. I had been given instructions not to use them, but what if one of the men had lost his nerve? Even a short in the air…I cannot imagine what reaction that would have provoked.

He is allowed to go through, but the huge, drunken throng of West Berliners makes this difficult:. The control area between the barriers had meanwhile filled with cars. One party of Third World diplomats, completely uncaring about the history unfolding before them and more concerned about getting to their favourite West Berlin nightclub, fumed at the helpless troops…I was not sure if the crowds dancing in the gap ahead of me were angry or happy, but I knew one thing: I did not want to be responsible for the first casualty of the ngiht by running over someone.

As the son of legendary VfB goalkeeper Otto Schmid, he has a particular stake in their historic victory. He gets through to the office in Hamburg and asks how long the winner interviews should be. For the first time since , and the last time until , VfB Stuttgart have defeated Bayern Munich. But their moment of glory has been surreally overshadowed. And at every goal - this was something my mates had put me up to — I had to drink a shot.

Because that November 9th, everything else being normal, it was my 18th birthday. Today, when someone asks me about November 9, , I always answer: I spoke to the border guard in charge who would give no further details about the apparent dramatic change in attitude other than to confirm they were letting GDR citizens through.

As a foreigner, I would have to go to Checkpoint Charlie. Cursing Prussian pedantry to the last, I ran back to the car and drove the kilometre or so distance, taking with me, piled into the Merc, a group of East Berliners who had despaired of the queue. The Central Commitee meeting, which has kept the East German government from realising what's happening, finally concludes. Only when the meal is over does he have a chance to speak to his underlings in Bonn. When they tell him that the Wall is falling, he asks if they're drunk.

When they say no, he starts considering his return.

By the end of the night, he will be on his way back to the West. Right now, his aides crack open a bottle of fine Soviet sparkling wine. There is now little hope that Bayern Munich can catch up. Bush , the US president, makes a speech. And of course, I welcome the decision by the East German leadership to open the borders to those wishing to emigrate or travel. And if the GDR goes forward now, this wall built in '61 will have very little relevance. And it clearly is a good development in terms of human rights.

But Bush tries to keep it cool. Checkpoint Charlie, shown later in the night from the Western side. As it comes back down, Hartmann catches it on his right foot, takes his time, then drives it in. Schabowski has no idea. A map of the Bornholmer Street crossing, with the 'pre-control area' at 4, the main barrier at 2, and the bridge into West Germany at 3.

Everyone remembers the traumatic days of , when the construction of the wall split families in half overnight. Now it seems to be happening again. Then, when others start asking for the same, he disobeys again. He wonders if he should tell Colonel Ziegenhorn, but then he thinks: The Berlin Wall and all that it represents are crumbling, even as the communist state which built it crumbles too.

But we should not do anything at this point which might needlessly add fuel to the fire. The victims will have their passports stamped, invalidating them, and be thrown out into West Berlin. This, it's hoped, will cool the crowds. But the plan backfires tremendously. Word spreads among the crowd that people are getting through, which only worstens the situation.

Emboldened by their numbers, they pushed within a few meters of the barricades. Guards stood nervously with their weapons. If things got out of hand, I wondered, would they shoot? Inside his lighted,glass-walled command post, the beefy Doberman of a post commander stood dialling and redialling his telephone…. Suddenly, a breakneck run by VfB and poor marking by their opponents transforms into a powerful cross. Fritz Walter leaps up, heads it straight into the goal, and runs off with both fists in the air. But when Ziegenhorn explains the situation, one of the ministers asks: For close to two hours he had been dealing with an unprecedented and threatening situation.

He had received no substantive replies to his urgent, repeated requests for guidance. He had been on duty for a dozen hours and would be there, at a minimum, all night….

He had provided twenty-five years of loyal service at Bornholmer…he also knew the GDR was in trouble, yet he remained willing ton a dark November morning to put on his uniform and report for a twenty-four hour shift. Now his superiors were questioning his ability to provide an accurate situation report and suggesting he was a coward.

A man who had not disobeyed an order in nearly three decades had, with that insult, been pushed too far. At this point Jager is scared of himself and his men. All of them carry pistols, and there are machine-guns ready for use. How long will it be before one of his people gets nervous? He has been in the eastern city of Rostok to cover a demonstration and is still driving back to Berlin. This being East Germany, the roads are empty. I turned on the car radio and I almost fainted.

Berlin Wall: How the Wall came down, as it happened 25 years ago

I felt for a surreal moment as if I had crossed into an alternative universe. They had abandoned the music. At this time, of course, no border crossings have been opened. It's unclear if Millar is misremembering the event, or if the news misreported it. A police car uses its loudspeaker to tell them they must go and get a visa, but few listen. Along the length of the wall, at Checkpoint Charlie , the Sonnenallee , and elsewhere, thousands of people are trying to get through.

VfB Stuttgart, the home team, are very much the underdogs against the powerful Bayern Munich. Coach Arie Haan plays a squad including Berlin-born Guido Buchwald , who marked Maradonna out of the World Cup final, and played on the side which brought Paul Gascoigne to tears that same year. One photographer even sends out a picture of them captioned as East Germans celebrating their successful crossing.

An aerial view of the Wall in the s.

Stasi agents observing their position note their powerful spotlights switching on. Now Tom Brokaw and his team are preparing to film.

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The problem is, nobody is crossing. The borders aren't actually open yet. As one, the members stand up and applaud. Earlier in the mess hall, he watched Schabowski's press conference , yelling "bullshit! He has called his boss, Colonel Rudi Ziegenhorn, who told him that nothing has changed. Only now there are people queuing up at the checkpoint's Eastern entrances. Within minutes of Schabowski's announcement, ten or twenty turn up.

The Bornholmer Street bridge in The Party spokesman's English is not good. Asked if his words meant freedom of travel ofr East Germans, he says: As he comes out of the interview, all the other journalists ask him if it's true.

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Brokaw shouts over his shoulder: The Wall is coming down. One complains that the travel application offices are all closed. Another calls to ask whether they are allowed to leave by train. Stasi phone-tapping logs will later show that journalists are still confused about just what the announcement meant. At this moment, he makes a motto for the rest of the night: As the historian Mary Elise Sarotte later writes:.

Act as if the Wall were open. In dealing with the various Communist governments in this period, there was always a high degree of scepticism about anything they said that they were going to do, because very often they would simply make promises that they were not going to fulfil. I thought this was potentially something, but we had to see what the real practical effects were going to be. Suddenly, his driver and a newspaper editor burst into the awards ceremony and run up to him to tell him what they think they've heard. Momper immediately goes backstage to watch a video replay of the conference.

Egon Krenz, the newly-installed Party secretary, who thought the new travel regulations would save the regime. Reuters is first, with the report:. What will happen to the Berlin Wall? Information has already been provided in connection with travel activities. Surely the debate about these questions um will be positively influenced if the FRG and NATO also agree to and implement disarmament measures in a similar manner to that of the GDR and other socialist countries.

Thank you very much. Schabowski looks at his papers and finds to his surprise that it is. Finally, the Telegraph's Daniel Johnson stands up and asks: After a pause, he says: This is the last question, yes, please understand! The papers say nothing about the 4am embargo, nothing about November Nobody has explained to him that this means "immediately tomorrow".

Everyone is clearly very excited about something. He stalls while he checks the paper, claiming the press have already received a copy they have not. He starts reading through the regulations very rapidly. Grounds for denial will only be applied in particular exceptional cases. Therefore um , we have decided today um to implement a regulation that allows every citizen of the German Democratic Republic um to um leave the GDR through any of the border crossings. Years later, he will admit that he has been tipped off to ask it by the head of the East German news agency.

Um We know about this tendency in the population, this need of the population, to travel or to leave the GDR. And um we have ideas about what we have to bring about Earlier today the veteran anchor has been speaking with Jens Reich, a professor who leads the unofficial opposition in East Germany. It just seemed like a run-of-the-mill thing. These things were always important to watch, because signals were being sent. I would love to be able to tell you that I knew it was going to happen, but no one did.

Two years ago, editor Max Hastings told him: Now he is back, having flown out just the previous day. But already he is bored.

We all trooped into a dreary hall at the international press centre in the Motzstrasse. Most of the questions came from tame East German journalists and the wait for a chance to get the microphone was almost unbearable. It seemed like a non-event.

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