THREAD: Big change happens when little people make big errors. Say, the fall of the Berlin Wall, which began 30 years ago today. (1/20)
You may think of it as a decision by Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War after a speech by Ronald Reagan demanding he "tear down this wall." It was not. It was in fact a bumbling comedy of foolishness and misunderstandings that changed the world forever. (2/20)
The border that the new East German government intended to address was the border with Czechoslovakia, which East Germans were crossing in droves. (3/20)
West Germany was frustrated because East Germans were turning up at the West German embassy and seeking asylum in numbers too great for West Germany to handle. So they wanted the border closed. (4/20)
East German leader Egon Krenz issued a set of vague and unsettling regulations which West Berlin’s mayor called "complete trash." West Germany wanted the tide of fleeing East Germans stopped, and Krenz's fumbling caused ⅔ of the Politburo and the prime minister to resign. (5/20)
Krenz asked his travel minister to prepare a new policy. They added one new crossing to allow permanent emigration of refugees, but that seemed unfeasible to those administering it, so they allowed people who were already approved to emigrate to do so at ANY exit. (6/20)
Later the ministers tacked on that non-permanent travel could also be requested at those border crossings. They allowed the Council of Ministers to determine when it took effect. (7/20)
Satisfied that they had stemmed the tide, they passed this on to the party boss in East Berlin to hold a live news conference about it. That boss, Günter Schabowski, had not been briefed on the regulations, and Krenz gave him no instructions on how to handle it. (8/20)
He announced that West Berlin had exhausted its capacity for refugees, so new rules were being issued to allow permanent emigration at any crossing, and seemed surprised when reporters asked him when they would take effect. (9/20)
"As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay," he guessed. When asked if that applied to Checkpoint Charlie and the other five Berlin crossings, he read a bit further down and concluded it did as well. Satisfied at a job well done, he left the room. (10/20)
Within minutes, around 8 pm, a West German news agency announced that East German citizens could cross the border immediately. An anchor proclaimed "The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide." (11/20)
Now, television waves don't stop at border walls. Everyone inside East Berlin heard that. So they all showed up at the Wall with bags packed, ready to leave. (12/20)
No one had told the guards. (13/20)
Faced with the largest mass of people ever to attempt to storm the gates of Berlin, the guards tried to get clarity on what to do. At first they were told to give the most aggressive people permanent revocation of their citizenship and send them to West Berlin. (14/20)
Okay, but there were still many thousands of people angrily demanding the passage they'd been promised. The likely response was machine gun fire. But among all of the East German high command, no one wanted to be the one history recorded as calling for a massacre. (15/20)
So the troops stood down, and the gates all opened. Wessis greeted their brethren with flowers, and started jumping on the wall. They began taking it apart with devices called "wall woodpeckers." (16/20)
Now, if the East German guards did not have permission to murder East Germans trying to get out, they sure didn't have permission to murder West Germans dismantling the wall. So throughout the night, the Wall became so compromised, there was nothing that could be done. (17/20)
East German officials hurriedly announced ten new border crossings, and bulldozers showed up. Germany was reunited without a shot being fired. (18/20)
Nobody planned this. A cavalcade of fools opened the door to a massive revolution. Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand tried to stop Mikhail Gorbachev from ratifying the mistaken East German policy, but he threw up his hands. This was the way the world was going. (19/20)
So the lesson to dictators is: When the people demand change, and you don't want it, you better be on your game. Because you make one slip, and your wall's coming down. (2020)
P.S. I did not forget the slash in that last post.
P.P.S. I wrote a more expanded version of this here. link.medium.com/wGNsIhYwu1
