The fall of the Berlin wall

The fall of the wall was not planned beforehand. It happened in the midst of Gorbachev's perestroika campaign, which, however, the leadership of the GDR refused to join, considering it a threat to ''real socialism''. Faced with the Czechoslovakian complaints about the huge traffic of refugees from the GDR, Foreign Minister Fischer felt forced to open one ''crossing point'' in the German-German border (outside Berlin). Due to some failure of communication between East Berlin and Moscow and - not least - between GDR officials, things went wrong as regards: the point of time of opening; the categories of persons allowed to leave; the number of crossing points; and - not least - the inclusion of the border between East and West Berlin. The latter point automatically made the opening into a matter for the Four Powers. But no message about this went to Moscow. And then were no new instructions given to the frontier guard officers on either side of the border. (Luckily enough, no guard officer followed the old ones!). The Russian embassy, however, was able to contact the embassies of the Western powers, securing their assistance in calming down the situation.