The Wall Came Down

Michael Hedges November 9, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Rumbling was felt in Berlin for several weeks in 1989 as summer turned to autumn; stronger at times, subsiding, shaking again. East Germany – the German Democratic Republic – was twisting and turning in its final danse macabre. When the gates finally opened late the night of November 9th television brought the news to Germans and the world.

“The gates of the wall are wide open,” announced ARD Tagesthemen anchor Hanns Friedrichs. “This ninth of November is a historic day.”  The news program, originating from Hamburg studios, was 12 minutes late, delayed to 10:42 that evening by a football match. When Freidrichs handed off to a reporter live at the Brandenburg Gate nothing was happening. Within an hour, that would change.

News crews on hand in Berlin expected a mostly quiet day. The day before, November 8th, had been uneventful, except for the mass resignation of the East German Politburo, the second reshuffle in a month. Most reporters would attend a late afternoon press conference with GDR Central Committee press spokesman Günter Schabowski. The Central Committee had that morning revised rules on private visits to the West.

At the end of the press conference, broadcast live by ARD, ANSA Italian news agency journalist Riccardo Ehrman ask Schabowski if he thought the new travel law “was a big mistake.” Schabowski seemed shaken by the question, according to reports at the time, and more confused by questions that followed. During one rambling answer he said the regulation granting travel across the borders on short notice without exit visas would take effect immediately. ARD’s 8:00 pm newscast led with that story. East German television, on its 7:30 pm Aktuelle Kamera newscast (pictured), only reported that travel rules would be changing. 

Schabowski’s stammering at the press conference became part of popular legend. More recently it’s been learned that he had alerted Berlin mayor Walter Momper to the inevitability a few days earlier, reported Die Welt (April 17 2009). Reporters on the scene in Germany hesitated; the East German government being unpredictable.  

US television network NBC, through what former Nightly News executive producer Bill Wheatley called “persistency and good luck,” moved a crew to Berlin a week earlier. NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Jerry Lamprecht “persuaded” Wheatley and anchor Tom Brokaw that “developments were unfolding quickly,” Wheatley recalled for MSNBC (November 5). Brokaw attended the Schabowski press conference and was, said Wheatley, “bored” until it was clear – or reasonably so – the wall had effectively fallen. Brokaw phoned New York and said he needed to go live, which would be from Brandenburg Gate.

Long into the night Berliners from both sides came to the checkpoints to see for themselves if the wall had fallen. By midnight nearly every checkpoint along the East and West German border was awash with television cameras and lights. Through the next weekend over 2 million East Berliners trekked to the West. It was a celebration.

“The Western media consumed in the East helped spur on the masses,” said former East German TV reporter Harald Haendel to Deutsche Welle (January 7, 2009).  “They saw what an effect they could have, and they also realized how ineffectual the system was. None of us saw this peaceful revolution coming, and I believe it would never have happened had the West German media not reported on it, while the East German media ignored it.”

Through the next months all events European became high priority for Western media. Global news agencies and networks streamed into a ‘new’ Europe filled with change. Journalists and editors passed freely into and out of the East with stories of aspiration and hope.

Europe now slips on and off the geographic radar of global news organizations. Bureaus set up in the 1990’s have closed or been scaled back. The Middle East has taken priority… and Asia.

At the same time European media changed. Within European media there has never been more strength of news coverage. For the next two decades, audience demand fueled prosperity and more changes. Little else has been constant.