Free downloads: Day the wall came down
Our front page from Saturday, November 11, reported that “amazed East Germans, some still in night clothes, watched as building workers joined border troops to tear down a section blocking Eberswaldestrasse”.
The deconstruction of the wall in those last weeks of the decade, and the fall of Communism across Eastern Europe, was one of the defining events of the second half of the 20th Century.
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Hide AdConstruction of the 96-mile concrete barrier which separated East and West Germany began in 1961, and formed the backdrop to impassioned presidential speeches by John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
In 1989, the hurriedly excavated holes became a gateway from the German Democratic Republic to the forbidden West, with the East German Communist Party chief Egon Krenz remarking that the leadership had learned “a major lesson we won’t forget”.
What he meant was that by opening the wall, people who were given the freedom to travel would actually return.
• We would like to hear about your memories of the momentous events of 1989.
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