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  • 1945-1961: from WWII to the Wall
  • 1961-1989: the years of the Wall
  • 1989: the Wall falls
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The fall of the Wall live

On 9 November 1989, the Wall fell: a historic event which received massive media coverage.

As the American historian, John D. Popkin, wrote in his article on Media and Revolutions: "It was spectacular to have been able to turn on my television here in Kentucky and watch the Wall fall live before my eyes, when 200 years ago it took months before the news of the storming of the Bastille reached what was then the furthest frontier of the Western world".

Video:  Destruction du mur de Berlin (source: ina.fr)

The whole of the world's press covered the event that became a symbol of the collapse of communism and of the end of the Cold War. A new era was beginning. It was the end of a war of images between East and West Europe. The Wall by itself seemed to represent in the media the frontier between the two blocs.
Egon Krenz, President of the GDR yielded to the pressure of the public protests, and opened the frontier during the night of 9 November 1989.

Immediately huge queues formed at the various checkpoints.

Thus the frontier between East and West Berlin was no more. Soon the separation of the two Germanys which had lasted since 1949 would also end.

The shock was enormous, in the East as well as in the West.

In the West the fall of the Wall was unexpected whereas in the GDR it was the result of a peaceful mass revolt conducted over a period of months. The slogan of the demonstrations in Leipzig "Wir sind ein volk" (we are one people) had become a reality.

Germany was on the road towards reunification. The Wall then became a "memorial".

Europe would find a new political equilibrium, and the movement set in motion by the reunification would soon spread through the rest of the continent.