The Night the Gate Opened: Where It Happened, Episode 6
On the evening of 9 November 1989, Günter Schabowski read out a new travel rule at a press conference in East Berlin and said it applied immediately. I tell the story of what happened next at the Bornholmer Straße crossing: the officer who got no new orders, the first people let out with stamped papers, and the barrier that went up around half past eleven, before about 20,000 people crossed the Bösebrücke within the hour. Take the S-Bahn to Bornholmer Straße and stand on the Platz des 9.
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In this episode
0:00 The paper in the press hall
1:28 Leipzig, the Wall and a rushed draft
4:39 The officer at Bornholmer Straße
7:26 The barrier goes up
11:36 The morning after
14:06 The square today
Where to stand today
Platz des 9. November 1989, Bornholmer Straße. Take the S-Bahn to Bornholmer Straße and walk up to the square at the Bösebrücke. Read the metal reliefs in the pavement in order, then the three information boards, and stand with the reliefs at your feet and the bridge in front of you.
The inner-wall remnant and the guard tower foundation. Both are on the same square, a short piece of the border the crowd was facing that night.
The Bösebrücke. The bridge the first people crossed. Check whether its footpaths are open before you plan to cross it on foot.
Read the full guide
The episode tells the story. My written guide covers the same subject in more detail: The Berlin Wall: Where It Stood and What's Left.
Transcript (text)
The paper in the press hall
According to Orte der Einheit, at six o’clock on the evening of 9 November 1989, journalists were gathering in a press hall in East Berlin for a statement by Günter Schabowski, a member of the ruling party’s Politburo. Schabowski had a sheet of paper with him. He took it out of his papers and began to read, and the paper set out a new regulation on travel. Riccardo Ehrman, an Italian journalist, finally asked about the travel regulations, according to Orte der Einheit. Then another journalist asked when the new rule would take effect. Schabowski’s answer, as the Federal Government’s transcript records it, was that it applied immediately, without delay: “sofort, unverzüglich.”
According to Orte der Einheit, Peter Brinkmann asked the decisive follow-up questions. The regulation the room was hearing was about private trips abroad. Private trips could be applied for without any preconditions, the text said, and permits would be granted at short notice. Permanent departures could take place through all of the GDR’s border crossings to the Federal Republic. The rule was about applications and permits, not about an open gate. Asked when it would take effect, Schabowski answered that, as far as he knew, it applied at once, without delay.
Leipzig, the Wall and a rushed draft
The pressure had been building for weeks before that evening, and the news from Leipzig was part of it. Prayer services had been held regularly in the city’s Nikolaikirche since 1982, according to bpb, the Federal Agency for Civic Education. On Monday 2 October 1989, 20,000 people had already taken part in the demonstration. On 9 October, at least 70,000 took to the streets, and the security forces did not step in. Rumours had spread beforehand that the protests would be crushed by force, and the marchers went out anyway. The march had shown that a crowd could gather without the state stepping in. A month later, the same kind of pressure had reached the Berlin border.
The border itself had a long story behind it. Between the founding of the GDR in 1949 and the building of the Wall in 1961, about 2.7 million people left for the Federal Republic, according to bpb. The Wall went up in August 1961. After that, a crossing point was set up at Bornholmer Straße, and Berlin’s heritage office describes it as the crossing that linked Pankow in the East with Wedding in the West. The Stiftung Berliner Mauer, the memorial foundation, says the checkpoint later ran from the Bösebrücke to Malmöer Straße, and that it was meant for citizens of the Federal Republic entering East Berlin.
The regulation had been drafted that same day. According to bpb, representatives of the interior and state-security ministries worked on it in the morning of 9 November. It was meant to take effect on 10 November, so that the border posts could be informed first. In the afternoon, Egon Krenz read the draft to the Central Committee. At half past five, according to the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung in Baden-Württemberg, Krenz handed the draft and a press release to Schabowski. Schabowski had not been at the Central Committee discussion, and he did not know the wording, or when the rule would apply. Orte der Einheit adds that Krenz pressed the paper into his hand before the conference.
The press conference went out live on East German television, and the Federal Government’s account says many East Germans followed it that evening. The Federal Government’s archive describes the statement as made in front of running cameras. Schabowski announced the new rules for private trips a few minutes before seven. The Berliner Zeitung gives 18:53 and bpb gives 18:57, and the difference is small enough to leave it at a few minutes before seven. According to bpb, crowds gathered quickly at the checkpoints along the Wall, which are normally deserted in the evening. The memorial foundation says that at this crossing the first East Germans could leave for West Berlin that night. The Federal Government’s transcript gives the question and the answer.
The officer at Bornholmer Straße
At Bornholmer Straße, the officer in charge, Harald Jäger, immediately asked for new instructions, according to Orte der Einheit. German Wikipedia says he tried to learn more about the new rule by phone, and Orte der Einheit says his superiors knew nothing of any change. German Wikipedia names his superior as Oberst Rudi Ziegenhorn, and says that Ziegenhorn made clear the old rules still applied. So the man at the barrier had a regulation that had been read out at the press conference, and a superior telling him that nothing had changed. No new instructions reached the crossing, and the people waiting at the barrier were getting more numerous. That is the order of the evening so far: a press hall, a paper, a phone call, and a barrier with people still arriving at it.
At about twenty past nine, the first people were let through, after their identity cards had been stamped invalid, according to the Federal Government. The Berliner Zeitung also gives 21:20 as the time the crossing at Bornholmer Straße was first opened in the GDR. Orte der Einheit says Jäger received the order at 9:20 to release the most rebellious and to stamp their photographs. German Wikipedia says supervisors allowed certain people, the loudest of them, to leave from about 21:20, and that the stamp sat half across the photo in the identity card, so that the holder could not come back into the GDR. The people were not told what the stamp meant.
The Stiftung Berliner Mauer speaks of passports, and says the stamp expatriated the holders without their knowledge. The Federal Government speaks of identity cards, so here they are simply papers. By half past nine, Das Parlament, the publication of the German Bundestag, counts between 500 and 1,000 people at the crossing. German Wikipedia gives nearly 1,000 by the moment the barrier opened, citing the historian Hans-Hermann Hertle. The first people had left with stamped papers, the crowd was still growing, and the barrier was still down. On the other side of it, the officers had to decide what to do. What orders did they have, and who would give them?
The barrier goes up
Harald Jäger was a lieutenant colonel, according to Das Parlament, and the officer in charge of the crossing that night. Around half past eleven, he gave the order to open the barrier. Das Parlament says he did it because of the pressure of the crowd. German Wikipedia says he acted on his own initiative and against his orders. So the gate that opened that night was opened by an officer who had no answer from above, and who decided at the barrier itself. Orte der Einheit says that his superiors knew nothing, and that the commanders had received no information or orders from above on the matter.
Late that evening, the Tagesthemen was on the air, and its presenter Hanns Joachim Friedrichs said: “Dieser 9. November ist ein historischer Tag.” This 9 November is a historic day. The line is quoted in the Federal Government’s archive and in German Wikipedia. Three accounts give three minutes for the barrier: 11:14 p.m. from the Federal Agency for Civic Education, 11:29 p.m. from German Wikipedia, and half past eleven from Das Parlament. German Wikipedia’s account of Jäger also cites 23:07. The exact minute is open to argument. The evening is not.
Thousands pressed against the guards, according to the Berliner Zeitung, and the guards stepped aside at a codeword. The Berliner Zeitung describes the crowd as pressing the soldiers to finally open the way to the West after the announcements on television. The memorial foundation records the words “Wir fluten jetzt” at that moment, which means something like “now the floodgates open”, and says the barrier was raised after that. The foundation counts two hours from the first stamps to the moment the barrier rose. The Berliner Zeitung places the opening late that evening, around half past eleven. Each of these minutes belongs to the same evening: 21:20 for the first stamps, and around half past eleven for the barrier.
The barrier went up, and on the bridge the people who had crossed were now heading into Wedding, on the western side. The Stiftung says that in the hour that followed around 20,000 people crossed the Bösebrücke without a check. The Berliner Zeitung gives more than 20,000 in the first hour. German Wikipedia’s account of Jäger gives 23:30 to 00:15 for an estimated 20,000 people crossing into West Berlin, and Orte der Einheit gives the same order of size in the three quarters of an hour after the opening. Those figures agree on the scale. From here the night moves in minutes, and the minutes matter, because the crowd at the barrier was still arriving.
At the Brandenburg Gate and on the Kurfürstendamm, the Federal Government describes a large gathering, with people embracing one another. The Federal Government’s photo series also carries a picture captioned “Sofort! Unverzüglich!” and dated 9 November 1989. The words are the ones Schabowski had used in the hall, and the photo series gives no clock time for the caption. The Brandenburg Gate was a different place from the Bornholmer crossing, but on this evening the same news reached both of them. Keep the Brandenburg Gate in mind beside the bridge, because both places were part of the same night.
By midnight, the other border crossings in Berlin were also open, according to Orte der Einheit. Berlin’s heritage office says Bornholmer Straße was the first of them to open, and that the rest followed during the night. The Federal Government’s account says the guards opened the crossing under the pressure of the crowd, and Das Parlament says the officer did it because of the crush at the barrier. Both accounts put the crowd at the centre of the decision, and both name the pressure of the people as the reason the gate moved.
The morning after
The next morning, 10 November, the Federal Government’s photo series describes thousands of people gathered in front of and on the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate. The people who climbed onto the wall are called Mauerspechte in that account, which means wall woodpeckers. The East German People’s Police officers facing them are described as at a loss, and the photo series speaks of the many people on top of the wall. The photo series adds that more and more people continued the work the next day, and the photo series dates the wall scene to the morning after the opening. The photo series does not name the first people who climbed onto the wall.
On the morning of 10 November, the Bundesarchiv’s photo caption at Bornholmer Straße shows another scene. The caption, dated 10 November 1989, says that pupils from the West Berlin district of Wedding formed a lane on the Böse-Brücke at Bornholmer Straße, and gave the visitors from the GDR a first welcome. Wedding lies on the western side of the old border. The Bundesarchiv’s description of the photograph adds a crowd with banners and a Trabant on the Böse-Brücke. The photo agency credit on the picture is ADN, and the Bundesarchiv notes that original captions can be outdated, so the date and the words stay as the caption gives them.
The crossing had a place in the story before the children formed their lane. According to the district’s page, this crossing was the first to open again for citizens of the GDR. The Stiftung Berliner Mauer adds that the first East Germans could leave for West Berlin here that night. The bridge that carried the first people over is the same bridge the children lined on the following morning, and the crossing that had been built after 1961 became, in those hours, the place where the border first gave way. So the first night ends at a bridge, and the next day begins with children lining it. Was that the whole night, or only the opening move?
The square today
Now the place itself. The Platz des 9. November 1989 sits at the Bösebrücke end of Bornholmer Straße, right in front of the bridge where the crossing used to be. The Bezirksamt Pankow describes metal reliefs set into the pavement. They depict the events of that evening, from Schabowski’s press conference to the first border opening forced by citizens. The Stiftung Berliner Mauer calls the square an open-air exhibition on the historic events. So the place is more than a memorial. It is a set of pieces you can read in order, and each of them is about the same night. Walk along the reliefs slowly, and you will see the evening laid out from the press conference onward. Take the reliefs in order from the first to the last, then turn around and walk back slowly.
Three illuminated information boards on the square tell the story of the Wall and of the crossing point that stood here from 1961 to 1989. Beside them stays the remnant of the inner wall, called the Vorlandmauer, which framed the crossing. The foundation of a guard tower is also still there. Berlin’s heritage office describes the inner wall stretch as a listed monument, under protection since 2001, and it is a short stretch you can touch. The boards swivel, so you can turn them to read each side, and the remnant is the part of the border that is still standing.
Eight Japanese cherry trees stand on the square. The district says they symbolise the crowds of citizens and their joy at the opening of the border. The trees are part of a wider planting. According to the same district page, Japan gave money in 1990 for a green band of Japanese cherry trees along the former death strip, and more cherry trees line the routes from the Mauerpark through Rosenthal. The trees on the square are the ones that mark the crowd, while the reliefs mark the evening. Stand among the trees for a minute, and let the reliefs and the trees tell you the same story from different sides.
The bridge itself has a longer history than the border. The Bösebrücke was built in 1916 under another name, the Hindenburgbrücke, according to Berlin’s district site, and a second source gives the same name and date. In 1948 it was renamed after Wilhelm Böse, a communist anti-fascist who was murdered in 1944. The Wall ran close to it for twenty-eight years. In November 2014, a temporary installation called Lichtgrenze, a line of illuminated balloons, followed the old border through the city, and the Böse-Brücke at Bornholmer Straße was one of its planned sites for 7 to 9 November. Between the bridge’s opening in 1916 and the Wall in 1961 lie forty-five years of ordinary traffic.
Start at the S-Bahn station Bornholmer Straße, which sits at the Bösebrücke. Walk out toward the bridge and the square, and take your time before you reach the reliefs. Read the reliefs one after another, and let them show you the evening in order. You do not need to read every line to understand the place. The square is the right place to stand, and the bridge is the thing you see while you do. When you come up from the platform, you are already close to the square. Before you plan to cross the bridge on foot, check whether its footpaths are open on the day you visit. You can see the bridge from the square without walking onto it, and the square gives you enough to picture the crossing that night. Take a moment with the inner-wall remnant and the guard tower’s foundation, which are part of the same border line that the crowd faced.
What is left today is a square, eight trees, three boards, a piece of the inner wall and a guard tower’s foundation. That is little for the length of one night. The people who were stamped that evening went on with their lives, and most of them do not appear in the record past the crossing. The square marks where those stories began, and it leaves the rest of them to the people who lived them. Stand in the one place where the wall, the trees and the reliefs are close together, and let the night come to you in order.
The place to stand is the square itself, close to the reliefs, with the bridge in front of you. Look back along Bornholmer Straße toward Prenzlauer Berg, the side the crowd came from. Then turn and look at the bridge that carried the first people over. Stand there at about 9:20 in the evening, the time the Federal Government gives for the first opening, and let the reliefs show you what the evening looked like from that spot. The night ended the next morning with children on the bridge, and the square is where you can start that morning from.
Sources
The podcast is narrated with an AI voice; the short breaks are read in my own voice.
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Image credits
Source and licence details for the photograph used on this page.
Cover: Bösebrücke, Bornholmer Straße, 10 November 1989, photo by Gerd Danigel, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 3:2 and resized; no other changes.