Toppled: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall By Paul Vidich

On the evening of November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall, an enduring symbol of the Cold War, came down. It was a momentous night. No shots were fired and no lives were lost, but it was the beginning of the end of the forty-year long Cold War. The repressive East German government fell and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later. 

The fall of the Berlin Wall is central to my new novel. I chose Berlin because I was fascinated by the Stasi at the end of the Cold War. When East Germany fell in 1990, the Stasi ran a comprehensive surveillance organization that employed 91,000 people and managed a network of one million informers. One in seven East Germans spied on friends, family, or neighbors. Across the Berlin Wall, West Berlin was a cosmopolitan home for artists, writers, bohemians, punk rockers who enjoyed their freedoms, and moved back and forth through border checkpoints. 

Few people know the unusual circumstances surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall, and how two men, a mid-level East German government bureaucrat who made what he thought was a clarifying change in a press release, and a loyal Stasi border control officer who disobeyed orders, helped shape the peaceful outcome that night.

Construction of the Wall began on August 13, 1961 in an East German effort to stem the flight of its population. More than a sixth of East Germany’s population had fled West for a mix of political, economic, and personal reasons. The Wall effectively cut Berlin in half. In the 28 years the Wall was in place, more than 140 people died trying to cross it.

By the summer of 1989, voices of discontent were being raised across East Germany, but particularly in East Berlin. Huge music festivals became peaceful political demonstrations, and as is the case everywhere, a generation of rebellious youth rose up and demanded more freedom to travel to the West. Two cities, side-by-side, one prosperous and free, the other grim, gray, and poor. East Berliners got West German television and they had only to open their eyes to see the magnitude of their deprivation.

On November 4, half-a-million people attended a massive demonstration in the heart of East Berlin demanding eased travel rules. The East German Politburo sought to defuse the tension by re-writing the travel restrictions and allowing people to emigrate, but the catch was, if you left you couldn’t return, and an exit visa was still required. These so-called “new” rules were intended to appeared relaxed, but the onerous visa requirement meant there was no real change.

There is always an incident, isn’t there? The unexpected event that in hindsight begins the unraveling. The press release announcing the change was written by Gerhard Lauter, a loyal, mid-level bureaucrat, who feared one-way emigration would destabilize the government. He inserted into the text an unauthorized reference to temporary travel. Gunter Schabowski, the dour, older politburo member who read the release at a crowded press conference, had not reviewed the script in advance he faithfully read the release with its reference to temporary travel.

One reporter shouted the crucial question, “When does this take effect?”

Schabowski scanned the unfamiliar text in his hands and picked out the words he saw printed: “Right away.”

Incredulous journalists left the room and reported that the Berlin Wall was now open.

Thousands of East Berliners, hearing those reports, walked to the fortified and heavily guarded border crossing at Bornholm Bridge, the major checkpoint between East and West Berlin. Harald Jäger, the loyal officer in charge, had watched the press conference in disbelief. No one had alerted him to the possible change in travel rules. 

Jäger immediately called his supervisor at Stasi headquarters who said that everything remained the same, without change, and the gate was to remain closed. Jäger and his men were stunned by the swelling crowd and Jäger kept calling Stasi headquarters, trying to get instructions, but his boss replied every time that it was business as usual. Jäger placed over 30 calls over the course of the night, all in a fruitless attempt to get instructions on how to handle the crowd’s demand that the gate be opened. At one point, he was quietly added to a Stasi headquarters conference call and he overheard one Stasi superior, not knowing Jäger was on the line, say, “Is this Jäger capable of assessing the situation realistically, or is he simply a coward?”

Jäger felt a wave of anger. He had been on duty for twelve hours, he was exhausted, and the crowd at the checkpoint had grown to tens of thousands, filling all the approach streets. Loud chants of, “Open the gates,” erupted regularly.

Jäger looked at his dozen frightened, heavily-armed officers and said words to the effect of, “Should we shoot all these people, or open up?” Jäger called his commanding officer and said, “I am ending all controls and letting the people out.”

The Berlin Wall opened at about 11:30 pm. NBC camera crews were on the West Berlin side. NBC producers had decided to air Tom Brokaw’s Nightly News from Berlin weeks before. Brokaw interrupted himself a few minutes into the broadcast, glancing over his shoulder, to see the first East Germans summit the Wall, arms raised and waving, faces bright with joy. The historic moment was broadcast live and seen around the world.

The Matchmaker: The Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press) Out Now.

Berlin, 1989. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker - a high level East German counterintelligence officer - who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead. The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?

More information about the author can be found on his website. You can also follow him on Twitter @paulvidich and find him on Facebook.