Opening of the Berlin Wall. East Germany opens its border with West Germany. In the late 1980s, East Germany’s communist Prime Minister Erich Honecker had resisted Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberal reforms, which he considered subversive. In the summer of 1989, Honecker’s conservative regime was swept away by the wave of democratization sweeping Eastern Europe. Pro-reform East Germans staged mass demonstrations, and thousands fled to the West via recently liberalized Hungary. In October, another old-school communist, Egon Krenz, replaced Honecker, but by then it was too late to save communism in East Germany. On the evening of November 9, 1989, East Germany announced the easing of restrictions on border crossings with the West, and thousands of people demanded to cross the Wall. Faced with growing demonstrations, East German border guards opened the borders. Jubilant Berliners climbed the Berlin Wall, painting graffiti on it and carrying away fragments as a sign of remembrance. The fortified barrier\u2014the most famous symbol of the Cold War\u2014had divided Berlin since 1961. In 1990, East and West Germany were officially reunified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Opening of the Berlin Wall. East Germany opens its border with West Germany. In the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-627877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-e-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n