How one mistake destroyed the GDR
It was a routine press conference for the East German authorities. But because of it, an entire country collapsed. In just a few hours, the Berlin Wall would fall. And in a few months, the GDR itself would disappear.
Germany was then divided in two. The West became a NATO member and a US ally. And the East was socialist, allied with the Soviet Union. Protests were already underway in the GDR. And people were fleeing en masse to the West.
If you're wondering why, I made a long video about how Germany was divided. About the confrontation between West and East.
And then, the authorities wanted to calm the situation. So they came up with a new law that supposedly opened the border. But not immediately and not for everyone. In reality, the secret services wanted to keep everyone inside and keep the situation under control.
Party spokesman Günter Schabowski was supposed to announce the new law at the press conference. But the problem was that Schabowski simply didn't have time to read the text in advance. And he casually said that the border was open to everyone right now. Watch him search for an answer to a journalist's simple question:
That same day, tens of thousands of people crossed the border, which had been closed for decades. And it became clear that the GDR was doomed.
The two parts of Germany are still very different, even though the country reunified in 1990. But before that, for 40 years, it was divided into the FRG and the GDR. The Berlin Wall became their border. It was one of the most tense points on the map during the Cold War between the US and the USSR.
What was life like in the GDR? How did the Berlin Wall fall? How was Germany reunited? And how is it living today?
Watch the big video!