East Germany's 'accidental liberator' dies

[Surf n Turf]

A good communist finds his place in history

SnT

East Germany's 'accidental liberator' dies

Günter Schabowski, the East German official who inadvertently announced the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 died on Sunday aged 86, media reported.

The former spokesman of the Politburo central committee of East Germany’s ruling communist party, Günter Schabowski, died in the reunified capital, his widow told news agency DPA.

His death came just days before the 26th anniversary of the joyous border opening.

After months of mass protests against regime in 1989 and amid a widening exodus of citizens to the West via Hungary, the Politburo asked the government to prepare a law loosening restrictions on travel outside East Germany.

It was nearly 7:00 pm on November 9 when Schabowski pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and read out a decree stating that visas would be freely granted to those wanting to travel outside or leave the Stalinist state.

"As of when?" asked an Italian journalist.

Schabowski hesitated and then improvised: "As far as I know... as of now."

The press conference was carried live by television networks and within minutes news bulletins were proclaiming that "The Wall has fallen".

Thousands of East Berliners started streaming towards checkpoints leading to West Berlin, where baffled East German border guards, unsure what to do, kept phoning for instructions.

Eventually as the crowds grew ever larger, one barrier went up and bewildered East Berliners, who had been unable to cross freely for 28 years, staggered into the West.

Officials had intended to phase in changes the next day, but the mass of people hastened the Wall's rapid fall.
The measures were intended to stem an exodus to Hungary amid mass protests.

Less than one year later, on October 3, 1990, East and West Germany reunited as one country, ending four decades of Cold War division.

http://www.thelocal.de/20151101/berlin-wall-liberator-dies-aged-86

[Richard]

Less than 2 months after this event, I was with the DAO at the US Embassy-Bonn, and this is pretty much what was told to my partner and I a couple of months later in mid-1990 when we met with Rezzo Schlauch, the leader of the Green Party in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament in Stuttgart.

When this happened, Mr Schlauch had just returned from Leipzig where a meeting of the various groups protesting the DDR's policies and seeking a relaxing of the IGB's transit restrictions had taken place, and their estimates were a 3-7 year effort to bring this about. But due to one of those quirks of History which we most often see only in hindsight, Mr Schlauch had been back in the FRG less than 48 hours when this event took place on 9 November 1989.

However, some necessary information missing from the news article:

* The NVA/VoPo (East German Army and National Police) were present in large numbers, but - after the recent events in Poland and Czechoslovakia - were instructed to keep a 'low profile' away from the crowds and cameras pending orders to the contrary. They were nearby, but located in staging areas as a sort of RDF.

* The East German political 'decision makers' had left parliament immediately upon voting to approve a phased lessening of the IGB travel restrictions, but had left their spokesman with vague instructions...and, importantly as it would turn out, were out of contact for further clarification when the spokesman was being pressed for details of the decision.

* When the spokesman told the crowds 'now' and the people began moving to and climbing and tearing down 'The Wall' in front of CNN and the world, the army and police commanders took no action because they received no instructions to do so.

* When the heads of the government's central committee were finally able to be contacted and reassemble, it was too late to reverse the course of History and their efforts to slow it all down would prove to be fruitless.

Those were the days - a series of events that we who had grown up during the Cold War and had become 'Cold Warriors' committed to bringing down the so-called 'Iron Curtain' could not have imagined would ever occur in our lifetimes.

May Mr Schabowski rest in peace.

And so it goes...

Richard