ANALYSIS: Unexpected fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 still resonates

Oct 20, 2009, 13:37 GMT

Berlin - Nobody expected the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Certainly, there had been rumours that something was changing. Polish voters had kicked out their Communist leaders and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had essentially said that it was time for a change in the region.

But in the first few days of November 1989, there was no reason to think that the Wall would not still be standing by the end of that month, just as it had for 28 years.

Thus, when it came down, no one really knew what to do.

Just days before, East Germany's secret police had been preparing for business as usual. The international media was certainly caught by surprise.

Analysts had mapped out scenarios of Communist-lite governments, but nothing like the changes that would spill out across Eastern Europe, symbolized most effectively by the, admittedly, confused and confusing decision to open the Wall on November 9, 1989.

'It was completely unclear. It was completely open (what could happen),' says Stefan Wolle, research director at Berlin's DDR Museum.

If that one event was unforeseen, then certainly analysts did not know to prepare for the subsequent events of 1989.

Following in the path of Poland and East Germany, various nations shrugged off their Communist leaders, a domino effect that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

'We remember it as one big event, but it was a series of events,' said Andrew Wilson, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. The biggest change over the course of the year was that, in January, people assumed the status quo - or something close to it - would prevail.

'By the end of 1989, there were no more set expectations.'

In hindsight, some of the events have become simplified, but Wilson stresses that the outcome was never clear. The ruling elites could have hardened their positions and refused to yield power. The Soviet military could have undermined Gorbachev and reasserted control across the region.

'Clearly, even the demonstrators were surprised by the radical course of events that took place.'

The fall of the Berlin Wall remains the most iconic event in the fall of Communism across the region, but it was only one in a series. Wilson notes that, in many ways, the Polish election of 1989, in which the Communist party was wiped out of power, started the ball rolling.

Later on in the year, Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu's vain, televised efforts to quiet an unruly crowd were another sign that the end was truly coming for Communism.

These events would lead to the start of a 20-year adventure that continues to this day. An entire region had to unlearn dictatorship and hit the ground running with democracy and capitalism. Nations in Africa, Asia and the Americas had to learn to deal with the loss of benefactors and new international political fault lines.

And all the while, the people of the region had to learn to look to the new, while asking themselves what they wanted to save from the past. The question has created a niche industry based on nostalgia for items that, if not from the good old days, at least remind people of days when things were sometimes simpler.

There were also disappointments. Some wanted to retain Socialism, just without the dictatorial bent exercised in the 20th century. The economic lessons were hard at first, and many of them are being relearned in the wake of the ongoing financial crisis.

Whatever one's attitude, one thing is clear: there can be no going back.

'Once they opened the Wall, purely technically it would have been possible for the GDR (East Germany) to close it again,' notes Wolle. 'But they lacked the political backing from Moscow.'

Wolle was not in Berlin when the Wall opened, but hurried back the next day to explore West Berlin.

'When I heard the news, I was working under the assumption that the Wall would close again,' he said. But then it remained open. 'That's when it became clear to me that this was the absolute end of the GDR.'