Twenty-Five Years Ago Today, the Berlin Wall Came Down

NPR
profiles Harald Jaeger, the East German border guard who—25
years ago today—looked out at a throng of 10,000 people trying to
swarm across the Berlin Wall and gave the order to let them
through. Jaeger was a loyalist who says he “cheered” when the wall
went up in 1961, seeing it as a “rampart against fascism.” But when
the crowd wanted to cross, he stood down:

To ease the tension, he was ordered to let some
of the rowdier people through, but to stamp their passports in a
way that rendered them invalid if they tried to return home.

Their departure only fired the crowd up more, and pressure mounted
on Jaeger from above and below to avert a riot. Despite orders from
his higher ups not to let more people through, at 11:30 p.m.: “I
ordered my guards to set aside all the controls, raise the barrier
and allow all East Berliners to travel through,” he says.

It’s an order Jaeger says he never would have given if [Politburo
member Guenther] Schabowski hadn’t given the press conference four
hours earlier [mistakenly saying there was a new policy allowing
East Germans to visit the west, effective immediately].

He estimates that more than 20,000 East Berliners on foot and by
car crossed into the West at Bornholmer Street. Some curious West
Berliners even entered the east.

People crossing hugged and kissed the border guards and handed them
bottles of sparkling wine, Jaeger recalls. Several wedding parties
from East Berlin moved their celebrations across the border, and a
couple of brides even handed the guards their wedding
bouquets.

But Jaeger says he refused to leave East Berlin.

“I was on duty,” he explains with a laugh. East German officers
didn’t get permission from their government to cross into the West
until just before Christmas, he adds. Red tape involving his travel
documents delayed the trip another month.

Read the rest
here. If you want a soundtrack for the story, try this: