Today I completed reading a book – Brandenburg Gate by Henry Porter
Reading this book inspired me to know the importance of the Brandenburg Gate for the people of then East and West Germany. It was during 1980-1990 that revolutionary occurrence like this had happened. I should be studying in school then and I do not remember anybody during that period around me mentioning about this. In Eastern Berlin one in four people belonged to the Stasi (they act like spy's). The book that I have read has characters belonging to this group who play a very important role and few of them become defected.
My Research about this situation in brief -
West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany), developed into a western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government. West Germany was economically sound. Across the inner-German border, East Germany, (German Democratic Republic), established an authoritarian government with a Soviet-style planned economy. As West Germany's economy grew and the standard of living continually improved, many East Germans wanted to move to West Germany.
At midnight, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border and by Sunday morning, 13 August 1961, the border with West Berlin was closed.
Due to the closure of the East-West sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or immigrate to West Germany. Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs; West Berlin became an isolated enclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the wall. During the Wall's existence there were around 5,000 successful escapes to West Berlin. People got frustrated. There were many leaders who wanted the wall to go down. The protest of the East German’s is the West started by chanting “We are staying” started the trigger of the movement. Günter Schabowski the East German minister who returned back from his vacation unknowingly read the statement -East Berliners would be allowed to cross the border with proper permission but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. He assumed it would be the same day based on the wording of the note and replied "As far as I know effective immediately, without delay". Tens of thousands of East Berliners heard Schabowski's statement live on East German television and flooded the checkpoints in the Wall demanding entry into West Berlin. The surprised and overwhelmed border guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors, but it became clear that there was no one among the East German authorities who would dare to take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so there was no way for the vastly outnumbered soldiers to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. In face of the growing crowd, the guards finally yielded, opening the checkpoints and allowing people through with little or no identity checking. Ecstatic East Berliners were soon greeted by West Berliners on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. November 9 1989 is thus considered the date the Wall fell. In the days and weeks that followed, people came to the wall with sledgehammers in order to chip off souvenirs, demolishing lengthy parts of it in the process.
