Crowds bear witness to the fall of the Berlin wall in November of 1989.

An event that changed the world

The Berlin Wall was cracked open almost accidentally. “Mass media were reporting that [Socialist Party speaker] Gunter Schabowski had said the border to West Germany was now open,” recalls Christoph Links, then a young book editor. “The Wall hadn’t actually been opened, but so many people came and pushed toward it, that the guards felt they had no choice but to let them through.”

East Germany immediately started to crumble. First, censorship was abolished, allowing Links to start the Links Verlag, today Germany’s leading publisher of books on the GDR and German reunification. Soon East Germany left the Warsaw Pact, the military organization to which all Soviet-bloc states belonged. And very soon, the Warsaw Pact itself crumbled. The Cold War was over.

“The fall of the Berlin Wall was about so much more than a wall coming open,” notes Links. “It also was much more important than a potential opening of the border between North and South Korea would be. The collapse of the Berlin Wall changed the entire world order.”

‘Our problem was a lack of political nimbleness’

Nov. 13, 1989: The Berlin Wall had fallen four days previously. The East German leadership, taken by surprise by the popular revolution, is in complete disarray. The party elects Hans Modrow, the party chief of Dresden, prime minister. But Modrow, a metalworker who received his political education in the Soviet Union, takes over a country that is disintegrating. East Germans are fleeing to the West.

Known as a reformist, Modrow soon invited opposition groups to form a new government. Several months later Modrow resigned as head of government; on Oct. 3, 1990, East and West Germany were reunited. Today Modrow, a former member of the European Parliament, is honorary chairman of the socialist party Die Linke and an elder statesman of German socialism.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, you tried to stave off the demise of the GDR. Could the GDR have been saved?

No. The events in 1989 and 1990 weren’t just about the GDR but about the whole socialist bloc.

Many East Germans were killed trying to escape the GDR via Berlin. Were the Wall shootings necessary?

The countries in the Warsaw Pact secured their borders according to the rules of the Soviet Union. All the victims, both refugees and soldiers at the border, were part of the tragedy of the Cold War, and I have deep sympathy for them. With the 1975 Helsinki accords [to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West] there was a chance to fundamentally change the situation at the border and prevent more fatalities. But the two sides unfortunately didn’t use  this opportunity.

What was the GDR’s most important accomplishment?

It created an anti-fascist Germany in the Soviet occupation zone. The GDR made an important contribution to world peace.

What went wrong?

Our problem was a lack of political nimbleness. We had some ability to introduce reforms, but those  were stopped by the Soviet Union. The fall of the GDR was not merely a result of East German problems.

Was building the Berlin Wall the right decision?

In 1961 it was the only possible decision. But people focus on the Wall and forget that the whole border from the North Sea to the Black Sea was closed.

Was Perestroika helpful?

Perestroika was a push for people to think differently, and initially I was a big supporter. But at the end of the day it wasn’t helpful because it addressed only political aspects, not economics. Politics alone can’t solve problems.

In a recent survey, a majority of East Germans said that life was better in the GDR. Was it?

After reunification, our East German health care system was dismantled, even though it was a lot easier to navigate than the system we have now. In many ways our primary education system, too, was better. Today East Germans are treated like second-class citizens, but you can’t divide Germany between “good West Germans” and “bad East Germans.” I was the only GDR citizen in my family, and my life experience is as valid as theirs.

Standing guard: E. German saw a need for wall

Frank Godniak knows the Berlin Wall better than almost anyone else. For many years, he guarded it.

“When people tried to escape to West Berlin, I reacted the way I had been taught,” Godniak says. “First we called out ‘Stop! Border! Freeze or I shoot!’ If they didn’t, we’d shoot a warning shot in the air.”

If the person still didn’t freeze, Godniak and his colleagues could shoot him or her, though Godniak’s unit was instructed to avoid killings.

Godniak belonged to the Grenztruppen, the unit that guarded the Wall.

“Serving at the Berlin Wall could be very dangerous. People threw rocks at us, and soldiers on the West German side used us for target practice.”

Though they were soldiers and lived in barracks, the Grenztruppen took pride in their unique duties and status within the military. Young East German males were drafted to the armed forces and could be stationed at the Wall, but officers could — and often did — request a border assignment.

“Whether you were selected for border duty depended on factors like whether you had relatives in West Germany,” explains Godniak.

“And of course SED [Communist Party] membership was important, though not mandatory. But 90 percent of the officers were SED members.”

Sergeant Godniak himself had a grandmother in West Berlin, and could easily have fled the GDR while serving at the Wall in the 1980s. But he stayed.

“After 1990 so many lies were spread about us border guards,” says Godniak. “And some of my colleagues were put on trial, even though they had only done their duty. In no country in the world is it permissible to cross borders illegally. Every country secures its borders with armed soldiers or police. And many countries have border partitions that are very similar to the border between East and West Germany.”

Today Germany honors the victims of the Wall — but not all, Sgt. Godniak points out:
“Of course, a single person who died at the Wall is one too many. But it’s paradoxical that Germany honors the people who made the Wall necessary, but not the soldiers who gave their lives there.”

Julia and Katarina Hesse were born Nov. 9, 1989.

A birthday the world won’t forget

As the Berlin Wall fell, 80 children were born in East and West Berlin. A Volks­wagen executive got an idea: Why not celebrate their birthdays together?

For the next 18 years, the Wall Children did.

“For the kids’ first birthday, we had a puppet theater show,” recalls Dietrich Pusch, the Berlin VW dealers’ spokesman, “and then disco as the kids grew older. Families left Berlin, but they always came back for the birthday party. It was very interesting to watch the children’s different social backgrounds. Of course, they’re a reflection of society as a whole.”

In 1997, on their 18th birthday, the Wall Kids, had their last joint birthday party. They're now legally grown up — as is post-Wall Germany.

The Hesse twins age 2 in reunited Germany.

They share a date with meaning

As the Berlin Wall fell, Julia and Katarina Hesse were making their entrances into the world at a West Berlin hospital.

“My mother missed the whole thing, but my father and brother watched it and later they brought home pieces of the Wall,” says Julia Hesse.

Though she has no memories of divided Germany, Julia loves her birth date.

“It’s really nice to be born on Nov. 9, 1989,” she explains. “Because on that day something good happened. People feel positive about that day.”

Hesse’s high school graduation exam, this summer, focused on the end of East Germany.

“It was curious spending so much time discussing my birth date. And when people learn my birth date, they recall what happened on that day. They get more interested in history just by speaking with me.”