Timothy Snyder: The Berlin Wall never fell

by Timothy Snyder, a distinguished American historian, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, a Professor of History at Yale University 

Source: Snyder on Substack

Thirty five years ago today, the Berlin Wall did not fall.

I realize that I am running against the torrent of anniversary remembrances here. And no doubt you are thinking: he means this metaphorically; he means that some mental barrier remains between East and West, or perhaps between eastern and western Germany.

No, I mean that, quite literally, the Berlin Wall did not fall. It did not fall thirty-five years ago today. It never fell. The “fall of the Berlin Wall” is a literary device, not a historical event. 

And that we have chosen a false image to stand for a moment of liberation reveals a problem.

But first, a reminder of what did happen. At the time, East and West Germany were two different countries. Berlin was a special island inside East Germany, itself divided between Western and Eastern parts. A physical wall did indeed separate the two, built by the East German regime to keep their people in.

In summer and autumn 1989, amidst Gorbachev’s perestroika and reforms and gestures among neighboring communist countries, East Germans were finding ways to visit or to emigrate to West Germany. The East German regime, in turmoil itself amid protests, was trying to formulate a new set of rules for the border. Amidst a great deal of confusion, a regime spokesman seemed to announce, in response to a question by an Italian journalist, that the border posts at the wall would allow East Germans to depart for the West.

That was on November 9th, 1989. The Berlin Wall did not topple over because of that press conference. What happened was that tens of thousands of East Berliners took advantage of the pronouncement and crowded the border checkpoints, one of which eventually opened. People rushed through to forbidden West Berlin, where they were greeted with champagne and flowers. It was a night that changed the history of Germany, which would unify less than a year later.

But no wall actually fell. 

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