November 9, 1989: The Fall of the Wall. The fall Hungary effectively disabled its physical border defenses with Austria on 19 August 1989 and, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped …More
November 9, 1989: The Fall of the Wall.
The fall
Hungary effectively disabled its physical border defenses with Austria on 19 August 1989 and, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped through Hungary to Austria.[75] This set up a chain of events. The Hungarians prevented many more East Germans from crossing the border and returned them to Budapest. These East Germans flooded the West German embassy and refused to return to East Germany.[76]
The East German government responded by disallowing any further travel to Hungary, but allowed those already there to return to East Germany. This triggered similar events in neighboring Czechoslovakia. This time, however, the East German authorities allowed people to leave, provided that they did so by train through East Germany. This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself. Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to leave to …More
The fall
Hungary effectively disabled its physical border defenses with Austria on 19 August 1989 and, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped through Hungary to Austria.[75] This set up a chain of events. The Hungarians prevented many more East Germans from crossing the border and returned them to Budapest. These East Germans flooded the West German embassy and refused to return to East Germany.[76]
The East German government responded by disallowing any further travel to Hungary, but allowed those already there to return to East Germany. This triggered similar events in neighboring Czechoslovakia. This time, however, the East German authorities allowed people to leave, provided that they did so by train through East Germany. This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself. Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to leave to …More
Guiharan
In May 1955, the Crusade of Reparation of the Holy Rosary, through the intercession of its Patron, Our Lady of Fatima, was graced with a miracle: the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Austrian soil. americaneedsfatima.org/articles/expelled-by-the-rosary
Günter Schabowski, the Man Who Opened the Wall
www.nytimes.com/…/gnter-schabowsk…
We often think of history as somehow inevitable, the culmination of great, grinding geotectonic forces. What to make, then, of Günter Schabowski, who died this week at age 86. Few people will mark the passing of this improbable man of destiny, who made Cold War history with a shrug.
It was the evening of Nov. …More
www.nytimes.com/…/gnter-schabowsk…
We often think of history as somehow inevitable, the culmination of great, grinding geotectonic forces. What to make, then, of Günter Schabowski, who died this week at age 86. Few people will mark the passing of this improbable man of destiny, who made Cold War history with a shrug.
It was the evening of Nov. 9, 1989. A few weeks earlier a band of Communist Party reformers ousted the hard-line boss of the German Democratic Republic, as the eastern part of Germany behind the Iron Curtain was then known. Faced with mass protests in Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin, they sought to project a new face of change. And that night, Mr. Schabowski, an obscure functionary, became that face — and changed the world in a most unlikely manner.