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But 30 years after the fact, the debate is still raging: was the sudden demise of the Berlin Wall, a prelude to that of the entire communist bloc, an accident of history, a slip of the tongue? Was it the result of a misunderstanding in the communist hierarchy, caught flat-footed by events, or a calculated gesture by the East German dictatorship which had reached the end of the line?
In the corridors of power in East Berlin, inside the opulent villas in the leafy northern suburb of Wandlitz which the apparatchiks called home, the mood has been on a knife-edge for weeks. How to salvage the situation? The East German population, trapped behind the Iron Curtain since , is "voting with its feet". Since August , Hungary and Czechoslovakia have been turning a blind eye to a flood of refugees escaping the east for West Germany. Meanwhile since early September, hundreds of thousands of East Germans have taken to city streets to protest each week, chanting against the regime "We are the people!
The crisis has reached the tipping point. And the GDR can no longer count on the Soviet big brother to intervene. In Moscow the tone has changed and Mikhail Gorbachev is speaking of "perestroika" change or reform and "glasnost" openness, transparency. The Soviet leader had only just warned East German strongman Erich Honecker in early October that "Life punishes those who are too late. A few days later, on October 18, Honecker, who had applauded China for "crushing the counter-revolutionary uprising" in Tiananmen Square, was gone, making way for Egon Krenz.
The Soviet Union was falling apart, but Mr Gorbachev made one last ill-fated attempt to reform it by calling together the leaders of the 15 Soviet republics. Hardline communists opposed to his reforms pre-empted him, attempting a coup while he was on holiday in Crimea in August and putting him under house arrest. The coup was defeated in three days as pro-democracy forces rallied round Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic. But it was the death knell for the USSR, and one by one its constituent republics declared independence.
By the end of the year the Soviet flag had flown for the last time. Newsnight: Fall of the Berlin Wall. Image source, Getty Images. How did the Wall come down? This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Archive: Brian Hanrahan reports on the rapid developments that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. There were emotional scenes as East Berliners entered the West. A turbulent year had reached a climax. Why did the Wall come down? Revolutionary wave.
Poland's Solidarity movement was successful in partially free elections. Many East Germans were overcome by emotion as they crossed into Austria. The Iron Curtain was buckling.
Czechs still shiver from Soviet invasion. East Germany rebels. Egon Krenz: "It was the worst night of my life". Why didn't the Soviets use force? A new chapter in European history. The Great Northeast Blackout began at the height of rush hour, delaying millions of On November 9, , in an event that would foreshadow the Holocaust, German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria.
The Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge by the state of Massachusetts regarding the constitutionality of the Vietnam War.
By a vote, the justices rejected the effort of the state to bring a suit in federal court in defense of Massachusetts residents claiming protection Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. In the second such antiwar incident within a week, Roger Allen LaPorte, a year-old member of the Catholic Worker movement, immolates himself in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York.
John Emil List slaughters his entire family in their Westfield, New Jersey, home and then disappears.
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