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Moments in TV history
“Immediately, immediately”: a single sentence brings the wall to collapse
On the evening of November 9, 1989 at 7.30 p.m., GDR television provided information about the new travel regulations in the “Current Camera”. SED Politburo member Günter Schabowski (center) had previously announced the sensational news at a press conference that all borders with the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin would be opened to GDR citizens with immediate effect.
© DB // Picture Alliance
A thoughtless remark at a press conference brought the wall down in 1989 – and made Günther Schabowski world famous.
November 9, 1989 is a historic date. A day that changed world history, but certainly also German history. Because on that Thursday the Iron Curtain fell, which divided the city of Berlin for more than 28 years – and which at the same time ran like a tear through the country and through all of Europe.
But in the 40th year of its existence, the GDR had become so rotten that a single sentence was enough to bring the wall and with it the entire state to collapse. It was Günther Schabowski, at the time something like the government spokesman for the GDR, who brought about the end.
The then 60-year-old presented the new travel regulations that the Politburo had enacted on November 9th. They should enable every citizen to go to the West via GDR border crossings – so that those wishing to leave the country do not continue to flee via friendly third countries such as Czechoslovakia or Hungary. Actually, these regulations should only apply from the following day. But when a journalist asked when the law would come into force, the now famous words followed: “As far as I know, it will happen immediately, immediately.”
This sealed the end of the GDR. Because the press conference was broadcast live on GDR television – so the news of the opening of the border spread like wildfire. That same evening, thousands of GDR citizens streamed to the border with West Berlin – which was clearly overburdening the border officials. They did not withstand the pressure for long. Around 9:20 pm, the first East Germans passed the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing. The wall had fallen. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
It didn’t end well for Günther Schabowski. In 1997 he was held jointly responsible by the Berlin district court for the order to shoot the Wall and sentenced to three years in prison for manslaughter. On November 1, 2015, he died after a long illness at the age of 86.
November 9, 1989, however, made him immortal: the sound recordings of the press conference are now part of UNESCO’s world document heritage.