Berlin Wall – Accident has always shaped human destiny.

Excerpts of a blog post from a Newsweek reporter that was in Berlin on the 9th of November, 1989. The full text can be found here:

Egon Krenz, the Communist boss of the German Democratic Republic, called it a “botch.” He was savoring a rare moment of triumph when his party spokesman stopped by in the late afternoon of November 9. “Anything to announce?” asked Günter Schabowski, innocently. Krenz hesitated, then handed him a press release. It was to announce a major initiative he had forced through parliament only hours earlier, and which the country’s restive people had been demanding in the streets for weeks: the right to travel. Krenz intended to give it to them – but only the next day, November 10.

Oblivious to this critical fact, Schabowski went off and read it out to the world in a now-famous vignette. “When does it take effect?” reporters asked. Confused, Schabowski neglected the all-important date: “ so fort ,” he said. “Immediately.” In a heartbeat, the damage was done. Astounded East Germans surged like a human sea to the crossing points to the West. Border guards, receiving no instructions and not knowing what else to do, opened them up. The rest is history.

Accident has always shaped human destiny. Even so, it is worth asking, What if Schabowski had not messed up? Imagine that, the next day, Krenz’s travel laws had taken effect in an orderly and efficient German way.

Strictly speaking, the Wall would not have fallen. It would have been opened, not breached. The Communists, not the people, would have done it. Change might have come by evolution, not revolution. Might Krenz and the Communist reformers who had seized power just weeks earlier have been able to channel popular unrest, or even defuse it? Instead of a unified Germany today, could there still be two Germanys, East and West?

The “what if” game can be played out endlessly. Without the drama of that night at the Wall, with all its inspiring visuals, would the Velvet Revolution in Prague have come one week later? Would Romanians have found the courage to rise against Nicolae Ceausescu a month later? The dominoes of Eastern Europe might have toppled differently. A few might not have toppled at all.