Reeng t wl s a accinta cbiti o scmucaonyhe et geanovnmt dhe efrtofitenfr et d stern. Iss ouone r. Re, elthk u mh fo miu t h abo ismangene llsethacdealpeng of t berli ll. I m ryele roe. M rmivina arme clatt i avising pesrat hrv haar i wa gat t be rvd d ithcarie mmitwhe wrethi bo. Ers mere rouesr ateld wtehi b. So tnsk um oeans tisabutrins o ts bo, e ass atheoa anat allhaso d wth, mypriookcaled 89 e ruleo ea ptld rerophe the oks actllinhe rersrder 19al wh e ren litheaulttheal o ectul bein ll. Bli heolps i outthe fall ofhebeinal thnebo ia pruel. W did athan . Y th bk as citen t foigpocyhafoow t ok of thbein w. Eneroi t tbotas wod t aday acienal engfheein wll. An oenou ntveet toh sntnc. Somebyodnterrtend y, tmeou wht do u mnhecdta opin o tebia . At wshpit vrson soetes aoo yuen storn dont yno tatridt rega oenedheeinal e h wnt t brln je of19 a sid m. Oracv, tello te wll tath llpe iot tatutn s mny tme eiz tt ia n a effutn tttas a depl hldee here. Ers ctaly aaoon th n yrkrbt it. Ita mn reain aai te to hsahr, a i c is te fllg,ea dnh one oeiaiohetr dotame, ah al ve hpi erfr. Uno whotnen it on w yrkrao auulhon. Touhtor te th tairryfh fll ofhahehle goodook i englshbt tis pi iea germn. I lve ieia ihg if ddntea gmn, wh wod i rdnni . Tho iood,eaze e wsone godoo o th oenng o te wlln enlih. E t mre i touht aout rlizedha ooo o thisack on acurat cntame tnu storanrt. Th blifhhenied stte sng hndidle oen th wlafct o u. Rgolyo tsay. Hs te eec oanh unedtas tinhat sigl hnddlpeth wll thili ad ltle cst andaeath gneal ro,reio bghad whchas fqutayng i wahingtn i 201 al gveito a vry trumha aitebt th rnal ,o emp, aheeoge. W bshrintliary, you sehistue oors stuefoesaong e cnk o teei wl, on thermfhe amic wldevh beinal esilar sate t te nadeanredetil br its mhilra f, siglan oh bllha i prncsss io tink aou th eyeatringre o ral esten suter cliora, y sddnl rei how mht a anr hllop i deicedo thiemia itsa ohral ragn edeia lbrry send ls hsra ste ,he a jst t o t mish estnh une sats. Threr myofhe e on mssur,umr shgtn,c. Eill eboimntfheee a t ut sats ope th wl. T aho o tis een a n reat. An wn i atull lokd t e eidnch ictll tvw t pop woer er tata nhe sor i w. Thre aangnni, cs h mnyaer th oengfheei wll su sccss sooa terrea, mny fahes,ndorhe 2h 25h nnerry cido yoet te atulae dotrs o t eenpk inhr o vices. So tan ye mcho tain t tme t cmeu toig ad hlpe tllhr stris. Te sll tlk aou fmos op fr muto set te nx ofose teoext, teol ronxt tuppoer contetasrilmptant. Tn imoi t tllo abtheilfhe oenng tal cllgh. E cnttee mkhail gobahe,heef t vi unio tme mgainsan hee,imaze m the dad maof tean9 aan ofheed i19 ahe wetnohe nbe pac pre an auer ootrwds heam t pwe anited rerm ma ceah svi tks wold stooin itoae euop, aha donen pond a hngyndas gemaynha. Mdele h wntd rfo oe trrf t dy. Thaastngo oen th wll. Itrte teoilyh itan on bot tca reliyfhe opi. O cure a wthis amrin cunrpt pesdet nadeanndredet ore w. U, w pevus bcong peside w c prsinteorgh. Bhnd rean, and h h aeesf mteis wh nd regan bthid ntel inn aeen tp t wal,vehohhghhe r aremets aouar no ih pesdet or w buho ofi i nry 199,tus o tt hdnnre dfen tu. A wsnefheies risfyeah,a dicoerghea tath buh amiisraio wen yu tda imaibo gergh. Bh,h41 41t reidtfhuned at, othonogrg w bshh4d pesdef th uit ste egr wu tok fe,vhg iuic thyai vyinhgsbo th darnridt ragn, ineralyheo w vy diert sonrl, esde bh, wheneo ofin9, esnal sepdn te brke. Ad h tm touht tt gobahe mhto b frea an mghern t lllhe itdtent flsee scutyn tey dna brp b t rse thea tnyhc ha fore bteod b spse wh a snge ulet dh sieniepe te caabliyo dstoyhenied as soitr w,itreas ker fe, ethay te stasha. Eew bhe tughe ed tee wy o hp. Teew bhe dcido ay cea hus iac wa. Potil sieti aen a inerstd teio o th prid, jstntert i th chnim o plica trnsti,oow one pridtldntrio swch tnh,ti isrsi fomeao us aneo hstlever, asauit a eeras pt ithe bsh amisttn o,ir erod an t ierliui ow w. Cty bkeaed aou rega hlderho we inaplef tinnghings aa,hehiina msh dhueaeeo reto aeran scuty so tsnnsref amrin svit rpracen coes toa uerhe bsh anrtn soesot mki poges o panopheei wl tr mate o fctt sare acuay eed te pctef anua smmtsi gorbchv. Imsike aew cll i reurin t teo wr, a en enorrhtinlyn epn aue o 189 thre ares roghut cha. As mti nibbeiin ue,inh harofei, er cinsert sudntui aodssfecryho stesoa ihfaen tinienqre os w vit tqre kw istui n lge ter oue,n june98 t peplsliraon amytt oi a t pope. Es tqr efose theaus imgefowf tks hltg iln fon oha aan wh iownosana lo dmostatr ho iso hale ayo nt n wer. Eae i t smmer o 19 ads dplcy i lkeouorh rmand m tko kep te if anenni i tanme uenou hds beno te edigf te bli ieel bhe pop i i tal abt,heele t sretsonnoh. Th iag tya i tei n o tanen suae. Ereer aradha t prctcefoustem usngoe t dfe isefs soetng tat wl b rpete cld wrup a wl. , teyont kow ih i gongoaeno temro ,fou can jteeha kidf sns o unriy i yo mneisabo t re ohe eent wlel yo udestdhe mntlod dom ws t couagf t oe i dscibg. T smmr o98 ter r o cureres i resel thodiomt poan uereeh o elctcanc, hsri cotiuecosttuefor i la. Itas arualra blin mveenfrree acosaeup ahe sumef9tet te liem tgr tem freltns m fee. Itelctlli oh 10 stst alod to ntt. Ttas ttl sar pwe wihhous rgie. Itee leh mghe th woar vylo pocshe t fmsr o hndldu ila theor. Atit bohgos aer eop bu tnothg vry epete pn th hngrinem i i sonrte i rfo,he hugaiaem did tu le i te ion cta. It olyor i o cize. Did t on te rdr fouarns trs ito si whth dot aticipa i thttrasupes a st grmnsi t tonk ou trohhe hes as wll an t hngrinoren i bondy tat tas grmny n leta grmsu it cnly mkehi dciio fo itswn citien. Fstt hs t rstaind n bkh est grmsnd do sit fcend thers ennas grm wosie inrtfis wfen cil augutf9,rygoet ou vaua. Dtecesug csind th wst grmnhcl, lm kla t t ladr hgr i hvern w nas u lheaeau d myan wllee gd o te hngrieared toe te etea o i ptbe o 189 ane st gma bnk imeial afterward aeer vy gd unry aakos t hugary. ,ow tersol i t irn crtn. A iaen i est gemasre gngoh trogh e sq sovca tspe vi bk ioes grmny whel o pope gngow dproa grmnyo t eoovia tou hngy d ckp ioeea, dhi ofirshea rn rem esehseesbledng eh so taserneme tie cok ofretoua, andhanel ew crishhs rfuee plig i te sternms i ae tas grmnaiak eesno sl te boer tasean te. Isur ot oe hge mitae. Ur et grmnyn eu cke threshr oi ude ctspha hlp eplin i. Coin t teofouiv uneriariou baiclyav trehce h toouc yur le. Loaly,x,roe an wthes i ethr u cn jsteol adu tpi d iot cmpai, an syuiet icadaedungon peio ia grmisry y c eit yo cn t t fee aohe e bdeped,eee huarn aor, sddly extemen oti. E wnhas grm rgie ad fasea, eit waidwndol sme no lng terl s tnl reaiin optinasoer ost ansohe sar b sveres,arcuary tohn prtf est gean rgi hsticl noet sxoy,eus pp ha ben tyig t g t ecslvaian hngynd ge suc tre elho heinp ethg,ut eerhi taen evytng tyan i to oksanhrhire tey eeu a a n gin t go hme yuar t sen this gn hug nmbrsfres. Thye prtcurllgin i cy, teif lipig ainany rli tsit ardo eheex yu. N ndo sh eac wods ifourentesdnhe tl felr t buhe bok. Tet m jt pinu ae isooer ur seioa hern th cityeer thti res wre al meieala ws i ad en w tnowtasued ino rgo. Rshe mn tintip r wh sarsoae i te t o lipig ar t b lgerest eil curh,nhe presr ceutf te e met at thco t gthrerathe sua, dhry te a fr odheioad, aoudh cy oezi a pssblnd th picnd estea sere eploys o tem i kepaeng ainn a aheoc asg cangelfionc ad r popehoupnhe u reiolee at bom pe tvyenvve thth nht ocb 199,cb 9 i gngoe thhoow,ndne ohe gsturesn m sr ihgn hs m pridalyelan aleay itn bokbo i on oerh bggstures whnotnheeet lierds, laloc cds taeaeme wa panin aiinel en i lipignheigf ocobr tm. Gueu twadsht wet ot. Machiesue ot. ar ta eaclyow nyut aet,0ery rs dpled sbl or0,0. Hopialtfero t cme in bin eralders st sffa laves ncle. Hlsiie kds erl buinse snt popeom r. Eeme pevte fregn jonas fmongohe ciy bau tyita th wrl shher ain th dssen ivoeded th nede d tohgs o r teyeed th u i sv nmbsohh reotfi an sfe iue i hge ct irdoet aar arnd th rgi a pssbl. Oe sal gupf diidt dcidhe suld setnls e soudr ti wta hapengohoae wt haped,f ias boohe n mate wt ten wrl wul se it tyo flmioase ansein sugletutnhe m inhm o dinh wsh ner pozeor toorui ofhho it a eteaneet le pot tenioi knwldg o pmii. s actullar o sie wolod etesilyy th scrtoc a hutt to me, amot lkeavg werdiyfou o le yu dtreeuhe mpteer oiay vesor mta a phto heseefhr riaehos heee iga. T hsac t t cer dow hesnh riaeho an te ras t sekri poceoodim heced eay t fghhemeas wihnrtn. Httangio sstsf evinmt us d hum rgh ausn stte suglinghe ot t th wt,o fiedn t st wooed a aweer teevsiti. Dhh wulh b oca. And trn htwaely gd tis so ia h acualyasai so mh moey i tes aid journalis h owedasnis og wc bca aroem beaueisrndad t p i fo h. D sre plie re usatdyhean tiesndh olyeo e ddnt pt hm ia i thy fgud houn sb bai a mh trbl b h ahe ws casig. E fgudea t he doen oelrsoiy inlungee iteigc agnces ad teyedehe wodoo hmnnrrat hi b n aretimeus th wntoahim mti wihi hlpersot cul rth a wl. E pobm shely w i tsosy o sw o th hpfwo oerrind he scrtole ul onl flli vu wultdnh cortar oie builin an foll huteeret wi t hlpves din kowh 0oe lve cnsan fr o aret and costtear tat tiv en o meoonim arou wul sea h cer, bu iitae tht sri ihealf 199. So ihe fall o 189 ocobr thhe lve i rn a a fie g t lipg did ohe rof o chchnheohn c eino aoudh cty cetefez. A teirnd a gahei t mrc,th sal cou dwnnion ngn ahc rfnd er tihaves gogo hppn,nn te od,hrotesrssme anomhig aazgae. Spitevyenongh i wsoi t bh tinien ihe darese op we tr y sen e nte tnihts cin. Depi alfhatet 00 pploiy mre sh u tres dhem do epet a an tey aso minin sri nonc sohe ge n cse the seurty fceo atak,hh gd, bcaeherded idf yre aacdore alow ttck ineoe soh rgh 000 pope asemlend ty start to acos t rngo,omh loaloae tay mnd o te goud,on o wat to he ih pty cmmnd alea iomnehi exec te i crg tat nihtel w actullhe cdayectay. Ea w ws uposd t b hge ws tir pty serear, b he hd,nd i no mkihi u yuaot kth u hae i sik tatit dohe sco prt serear sdeyod hmslf hgfhiepymnt thetet,0 pssbl r ameen d t panas ihrm ntrot soph potst t curh,ha sph omatrig a mvigphe ri rad t panaso atac tm th ete kot shrpen i t rd. Dhedha w srt beaue te radoo sch shrpe tenrars haeo sow dn. Sohela wso ata hre theaser kotnd ahe crdfelettong tordheaste kothe co prt scrar sdy deidd eone t dnl did t clla beli aday a w ral gongoo ts . He itti toy hs i t u. Desogoae a blodt dh wlle ted rar cim o wrs hcasaei te a hch adene o t bi prtoes o te pon ana,ree ralyoi t dohi ndhshheresrs e aut5 mnuswro eaerknt,ndhi pa bsayllal yu bak. Dhe h dest dohendayea ofe,s te cowse rcsig,hehone flso rig,eginsoee i bin se up ase ard t reret. Coie o ttrr teea rve an s terier tes pll bak. Ssul bckut i ur tke y ctitck. So is cucalmrnth thresrs mntn nvleceecseh cul il he gttn sotf tey dnny wtcd bthe deelpmnt th dssenload rkd ry,ea teu evrye,eveon, intesainemys yi u oy nnvolce a or. ,it te prmssnf zgg iancayho aie ioriedol fom the nit. A hrid anhe ro o tehc thyao ieahhere gongo se, boda wth secuty fo oh. Llhow y teoa o a teyeongrnh rv [souing] [wisle [souin] wh teou ahtg isoe aybodypk grmn . A tros a sutg is rnor oi und oi tt t scuty rsn is atulyorng ash seengcrshe a gdul teery rsrettngsihr wean a jingnhe ost yo cneen a mmehe metas tow bcae eocn a rficy pihethen oen main aioh teysme we scrt plie aened e sddlya t dk. [shouting] whchnts sithi t er tele ua sh cmewa ld bcae teyern t coerphe lghnhe me t a void detext. Avoid detection. Can you sew where that was yep. So that footage was actually made from the reformed church on the northern, a of the ring road of leipzig on the night of october 9th. And the filmed the whole demonstration. Its so long, two hours. After that they wait for another hour because they dont want to be arrested as soon as the come down but finally they come down and are able that night to smuggle the video cassset out to west berlin where it is then shown on western television stations, announced as the work of an italian camera team to protect them. So that is hugely important. This is a still photo of the same event because two things have now happened. Number one, the regime has retreated and, number two, that retreat was broadcast, and both of those things are important. Both the protesters and their chroniclers are important. Because that footage is then broadcast back into east germany, other east germans throughout the country see and it are emboldened and start protesting in their own cities as well. Now you have a peaceful revolution in full swing in east germany. And gradually that those massive protests claim a victim. The very top boss, a man named eric hon nick kerr, is ousted. He in response to what i just showed you, wanted to escalate the violence yet again. He actually called for aerial attacks. In the second world war, dresden was fire bombed from the air. Unthickable even to his colleagues they would do that. So there is an internal palace coup and the top box is ousted. He is replaced by man who becomes head of the east german ruling regime, the socialist unionist party. And he takes over and decides to use a different approach because this approach of steadily ask lating violence is selfdefeating. He decided he is going to talk a good game in public, but not actually change much in private. So he is going to make it sound like hes going to copy gorbachev and institute reforeigns without actually doing them, and most importantly, on the night of november 9th in 1989, in divide berlin, he decides to announce some relatively minor changes to immigration rules as a soft to the crowds. The regime still retains its ability to control the movement of people absolutely on a whim. It still has the berlin wall. Still dart ted berlin wall. Nothing changed. The bottom line has not changed. Hes going to announce a reform that sound goods in public. But the problem is that, at the press conference to make this announcement, the member of the politburo who announces it botches the announcement and makes it sound as if the changes are real. And in the superheated atmosphere, where people are mobilized and energized, have lost their fear, this announcement has an amazing reactions. The politburo member making a mistake, that is nothing new. They made mistakes all the time. But in the context of a superheated atmosphere of 1989, people have an amazing response and decide to charge the checkpoints in the wall ask that was new. I find this amazing, the interaction between individual mistakes and broad societal forces and what happens is as a result of this press conference, thats the member of the politburo who mistakenly makes it soundathe wall is open before the assembled media, including tom brokaw, after he makes the announcement, people go to the checkpoints in the berlin wall. Let me just describe to you a little bit about berlin. You see a map here of the city of berlin. Also in my book. And west berlin consisted of the french, british, and american sectors, the soviet sector was east berlin. The west berlin had a wall around it entirely. Of course because all of berlin is an island inside east germany. This made west berlin the only city in the world with an exact outline viz able to astronauts but a the wall is fully lit along the entire helping at all hours of darkness. So west berlins outline was visible frontal outer space. To go into east berlin or jest germany you had to do to a check point. Those are the little dots. The key Border Crossing that night was this checkpoint ryan here, the northernmost inner berlin check opinion. Why that checkpoint . The other ones were in more design locations and the party had generally given the real estate nearby to secret agents, military officers, loyalists, people who wouldnt storm the wall. But the street is in a bad neighborhood, because there are lot of dissidents, actually where ziggy, the man who made the video footage, lived. He and his friend were among the first to go to the check point. When i interviewed his friends, other dissidents about the moment when they heard the press conference i naively thought they would say great things about the press conference. I would say, wasnt that a great moment when you heard the wall was open and the dissent would say, it was fantastic, i knew i had my freedom. Instead something very different happened. They said, that guy was an idiot but it was useful because it was leverage. We could make the Border Guards lives miserable. So they went to the crossing in huge numbers and made the Border Guards lives difficult. At the top it says overview of Border Crossing. The orientation is the same. So east berlin is down here, west berlin is up here. You come through the buildings here, the car lanes are over here, and this is the final guard post and the final bridge. And the man in charge that night, the senior stasi officer on duty that night is this man, Harold Yeager. Harold yeager is the man who opens the berlin wall. Harold yeager is an unlikely candidate for that title. He is a complete loyalist. Hes been working there for 25 years. He had an additional three years of service before that. He actually with helped to build the wall. I pulled his entire Service Record that still survives from the former stasi, and he had in all of those years of service one minor demerit and a rath of awards. A raft of awards. He said he believed the wall was tragic but necessary because if we had not, there would have been world war more, so it was world war iii. So this was a man who was very committed to his job. This was not a man who was secretly trying to bring down the regime. But in the course of that night, he finally, the course of that night he becomes the man who, as i said, opens the wall. So how does that happen . Well, let me go back to that image of the Border Crossing. He actually sees the press conference on television. Hes on a 24hour shift that started in the late evening and went through the night into the next day. So he watches television at the Border Crossing on the job. And when he sees that press conference, he cant believe it. He simply cannot believe it. He calls his superior officer and says and hes using some expletives that i wont repeat here he says what just happened . I have no orders. What did he just announce . And his superior officer says its business as usual, keep the gates closed. Then he calls back and says, you know, ive got a dozen people here telling me the wall is open. His superior officer saids business as usual, keep the gate closed. He calls back again, its getting to be more like a hundred people. His superior officer says keep the gates closed, business as usual. He told me, i interviewed him twice, he told me he made 30 phone calls over the course of the next four hours, and he never got any useful instructions. Only once did he get anything other than keep the gates closed, and what he got actually made matters worse. After hed been calling for a couple of hours, one of his his direct superior finally said im tired of your phone call. Be quiet, im going to patch you into a call with my boss so you can hear what im telling you is true. So he gets patched in, and he hears them saying this guy yeagers reporting hundreds of thousands of people, is he delusional . Is he an idiot . Is he even capable of assessing the situation accurately . And the phone line goes dead. This gets his back up. He thinks, you know, theyre going to call me a coward and ask if i can file an accurate situation report . And what they dont know is hes also going through a cancer scare. Now, it turns out he doesnt have cancer, but he thought he did. Hed had a number of tests, and he actually has a doctor appointment scheduled the next day to get the test results. And so for that night he feels like he may be a dead man anyway. And then what really tips him over is what happens when his boss finally calls him back. His boss calls him back and says, all right, all right, we finally have a suggestion for you. Go to the eastern side of the wall and pick out the biggest troublemakers, the people who are really screaming to get out, and actually let them out because, hopefully, the rest of the people will just quiet down without those really big loud mouths. So what you should do is you should pull them aside, take their passport, stamp their face, let them out, dont tell them theyve just been expelled forever. So, of course, unsurprising one of the loudest groups is ziggy and is his friends. They get pulled aside, they get their faces stamped, their passports are now in museums, and they get let out. And they dont know theyve just been expelled forever. This causes two problems. People on the eastern side figure out the system. If you get loud, you get out. [laughter] and so it ups all the volume and the tension on the eastern side. And then a new and really serious problem emerges on the western side. Among the people let out first were some young parents, and no one expected that the people let out would turn around and come back. And so the young parents didnt actually want to emigrate, they just wanted to have a quick look. And they come back to the western side and say were back, we just wanted to look, we want to go home, our kids are home in bed. And theyre told youve been expelled forever. You cant go home. Now, i know that sounds like a bad joke, but you have to remember when the berlin wall went up, it actually did split families immediately, and they didnt see each other for years or even a decade in some cases. And so these young parents, as you can imagine, are beside themselves. Once they realize the guards are serious, they start screaming, they start crying, they do what you would do if you were suddenly told youre never going to see your children again. And the guards on the eastern side cant handle it, and they call for Harold Yeager, they say, sir, youre going to have to come deal with these people. So Harold Yeager goes out, and when faced with these grieving parents, Harold Yeager snaps. Harold yeager, for the first time that i can find, disobeys a direct order and lets those parents back in. And when i interviewed him, he said that was to me personally the key moment. That was the beginning of a slippery slope of disobedience. Because then more people want to come back, and the guards say, sir, and he says, fine, let them back in. And then westerners start showing up, and he finally says, fine, just let them in. So theres this whole cascade where he just starts one by one to tear down structures of his professional life and his mental world and, finally, by about 11 30 hes got what he estimates to be 20,000 people on the east, hes already disobeyed more orders in one night than his whole career. He finally looks around at his fellow guards and says either were going to shoot all these people, or were going to open up. So Harold Yeager, fortunately for history, makes the decision to open up, and here is the result of his decision. So that is the homer street Border Crossing. Heres the final guard tower, heres the bridge, beyond is west berlin. You see the people flooding across, and you see cameras capturing it, his colleagues looking on up here in the guard tower. And once again both the event itself and the chronicling of the event are important. The wall is open, and because people are filming it, that gets broadcast. And so now its not just some members mistake. Now at homer street the wall really is open. And when the other Border Crossing checkpoint guards see this, they think oh, well, maybe i should open up too. So in an ad hoc, uncontrolled fashion, one by one the other Border Crossings open. Now, its not kilt. There are hard liners its not consistent. There are hard liners. For example, at the branden burg gate, there is no checkpoint. Theres actually no way to get through, so people have to go up and over the wall, and the stasi actually reseals this area. So actually by the early hours of november 10th, they have retaken the gate, and theres also military units trained in combat and urban terrain that are mobilized to retake the city. But because the wall because the opening caught everyone by surprise, because it was in the middle of the night, a number of the Decision Makers who needed to okay a really massive military response, particularly the ones in moscow like gorbachev, are actually asleep. And so by the time the next, early the next morning that moscow wakes up, there is a military Response Committee organized, its too late. By that point there are millions of people. Not just thousands or tens of thousands, there are millions of people in transit, and its too late to reseal the berlin wall. So the wall stays open, and i think in closing its important to keep in mind the actions and the courage of the locals. So you remember this, i talked at the beginning about this assumption of american authorship. Let me now show you bourne homer street today, the site ive been describing. This is actually bourne homer street, and you can see how unspectacular it is. This is actually my personal photo. The white lane lines are the leftover lane lines from the bourne homer street border cross, and the reason i took this photo is because i got a tip that they were going to tear up the whole site and put in a Discount Grocery store. So if you go there now, theres a Discount Grocery store there. I ran around and took as many photos as i could of the Border Crossing. This was in the year 2010. Now, a Historical Society did protest this, and they did put up some informational panels, but theyre nothing like the massive american monuments. As you can see, this one has already fallen prey to weather, and somebody put a sticker in the middle of it and peeled it off. Thats supposed to be a picture of the crowds going across the bourne homer street bridge, but you can see whats happening to it. Theres a few others, but theyre not really very substantial. Now, in some ways i actually find this low key approach to bourne homer street in some ways more, more less problematic than the triumphalist american response. The germans prefer lower key monuments dotted along the path of the wall that memorialize individuals who died trying to escape, that tried to sort of remember the individual human stories. And i actually find that better than this assumption that it was the United States singlehandedly that did it and they can singlehandedly go from berlin to baghdad. One of the and ill conclude with this. One of the interviews i did in the book was with this woman. Her name was marianna, an important dissident. And after the wall came down, she went on to a career in politics in united germany. She actually became a successful politician, and then she became head of the stasi archive, the collection of documents that survives from the fall of the wall. Now, thats a very important post in germany. The first head is now actually the president of the whole country. And she was the second head of the stasi archive. And i interviewed her, and she was very happy to talk to me even though shes very busy. She said, you know, so glad youre going to tell this story in the west to english speakers, she said, because, you know, so off if i meet people from the west, they seem to assume that the wall opened and the opening of the wall gave us our freedom, and in reality it was the other way around. We fought for our freedom, and then, because of that, the wall fell. So thank you very much for your attention. Im happy to take a few questions about the process, the interviews. Thank you very much for coming out tonight. [applause] because its on television, if you could just wait until the mic comes over to you when you ask your question, and if you could identify yourself and speak toward the mic, that would be good. Hi, im eileen [inaudible] hi. Thank you so much. Fascinating. I have family on both sides. Im wondering what happened to, i think it was a man, who as you said, botched the announcement oh, yes. [laughter] um, was there anything that happened to him . What became of him . Yes. His name, his name was hes this man sitting here. His name is, hes still alive although unfortunately hes very ill and i hear he has dementia, so i was not able to interview him, his name is gunther. He was a member of the politboro, the leading body of the ruling party, and he was responsible for media affairs. But despite that title, how shall i put this . Being a member of the politboro, you didnt have much incentive to develop media skills. When you have a regime that can censor all the newspapers, and in east germany they would actually just write the headlines in the news stories, you dont really need to understand how to deal with journalists or anything like that. So he had very little experience in westernstyle press conferences. So this was a new development. And he, his lack of experience really showed on the night of november 9th when he gave this press conference. For example, that announcement that he botched, he didnt even bother to read it until he was live on air, even though he had it in advance. So he just assumed that he knew what was in it, and when he pulled it up and he mumbles his way through it, its almost, its almost impossible to follow him. I viewed this videotape over and over again. But certain words pop out at you, and the words are things like permission to cross the border, possible or every east german, including west berlin. Theres all kinds of other phrases, but its harder to hear that. And so the journalists in the room heard these key phrases, and the wire reporters for the young ones in the room, the fastest way to get news before the internet, the wire reporters run out of the room before he even finishes speaking, and the first wire report saying the wall is open actually goes out at 7 02 p. M. Now, he starts to realize somethings going horribly wrong, and he starts to back pedal as best he can, but the reporters are already out. Its too late. The reporters are already reporting. Now, as i said, a politboro member making a mistake is nothing new. They make mistakes all the time, but the bottom line was always the same, right . There was a border, there was a wall, and there were armed Border Guards in front of it. What really changes matters is the power of the peaceful revolution coming up and crashing against the wall and forcing people like Harold Yeager to deal with them. So gup they are cant believe whats gunther cant believe whats happening. He actually goes on a sort of forlorn drive during the course of the night to see whats happening, but he doesnt issue any orders or anything, and he eventually ends up being tried in the united germany, and he is convicted because of the regimes participation in the deaths on the borders, and he is one of the few members of the politboro who does show a sense of responsibility. And he serves his time and then basically lives quietly and becomes very ill and now, as i said, has dementia and is reportedly in a home. So he is a tragic figure after this evening. Another question . Yes, over there. Wheres yeager . The question is where is Harold Yeager today. Yeah, Harold Yeager is now, Harold Yeager i was able to interview. I interviewed him twice. By opening the berlin wall, he put himself out of a job. The man had 25 years of experience in guarding the berlin wall, and he had just opened it. And so he put himself out of a job, and he never again held steady employment. He had a bunch offed jobs. He actually of odd jobs. People would get in the taxi and say take me to where the wall used to be. He and i can just imagine that scene in the taxi. I can just imagine him saying, you know, i used to work there, and the person sitting in the back saying, yeah, sure he did. And he actually owned a newspaper store, and then he worked as a security guard, and now hes retired. He lives near the german polish border in a small cottage thats moment to be a summer cottage, but hes winterized it. Under the complicated provisions of german unification, he is able to receive some fraction of his pension from his time from the service, so he lives on his pension. And he is one of the few Border Guards who is willing to talk to scholars, so is im very grateful to him that he made the time to talk to me, and i think the world is grateful that he didnt decide to shoot. Again, this is another one of those accidents. His direct colleague could have had night shift that night, was reportedly much more of a hard liner, and Border Guards at other Border Crossings did call up reinforcements with armed, with machine guns. So i think it was a very happy accident that he was the person on duty at bourne homer street Border Crossing that night. Yes, a question. So thanks a lot, this is a great story. I went through checkpoint charlie in the summer of 1969 69. So im glad its not there anymore. [laughter] its previous incarnation. I have a question, couple questions about communication which are intriguing to me. One would be about how communication, um, happened between the crossing that youre describing and other crossings if people were hearing what was going on there, how were they hearing, you know, when it was happening. You mentioned maybe later there might have been reports on, you know, western television or something. But the earlier theres another question about the film that you showed, and its also about the press conference. To what you know, there are networks. I mean, the u. S. Agencies, intelligence agencies would have had an interest in Something Like this maybe facilitating it, not that they made it happen, of course, by any means. How did that film, you said it got out yep. To the west. How did it get out to the west, and also and in the past the cia have had assets in the associated press, for example, all thats documented over many years. Is it at all conceivable that somebody was eager to rush out of the press conference with a partial characterization of particular characterization of the wall is open . What is the evidence, if there is any, about those linkages that might have helped sport this . Support this . Yep. So i tell a lot of those details in the book, so if youre interested in the details obviously, i would say this because i wrote the book, but even if i hadnt, its an hay amazing story. Amazing story. The video on the night of october 9th. It has to do with something called the conference on security and cooperation in europe which was an agreement involving the United States, the soviet union and the countries of europe to try to improve human rights in europe. Now, the soviet union had signed it because it also in the eyes of moscow guaranteed the borders in eastern europe, which is something moscow had hoped to get in a world war ii peace treaty. But, of course, that peace treaty had never happened, so the soviet union signed the csce final act which it saw as the next best thing. But it didnt realize how dangerous the human rights provisions in that treaty were. And among other provisions, they allowed for special Border Crossing privileges for western journalists in eastern europe. Some of these were worked out in subsequent conferences, not in the final act itself. And so there were west german journalists stationed in east berlin, and they were allowed to cross the border without a search. And so i tell the story of one of them who worked very closely with ziggy and became his main courier. And so that night when ziggy and his friends make the video, they get back to berlin, they get the videocassette to this west german journalist who then crosses into the east and delivers it to a television station, and its then broadcast as, quoteunquote, the work of italian journalists which, of course, its not. So i tell the story of how that is smuggled out. Then moving Forward Communication on the night of the press conference it, obviously, its possible that there were intelligence operatives masquerading as journalists at the press conference. Thats certainly possible. I dont have information on that one way or another. But even if they had sort of had a plot to report the wall was open, they had so much help from the actual journalists there that they hardly needed to lift a finger because so many journalists i mean, you can imagine, right . Its the story of your life. So many people reported the wall was open in so many languages that its possible one of them was working for an intelligence agency, but the net effect was cumulative from all reporters. And finally, the communication thats a very interesting question. I discussed that with Harold Yeager, the head officer, and he said that they because it was such a centralized system, he said they were very strongly discouraged from talking to each other. So it was a spoke, you know, a hub and spoke system. So you call the central, and well call other people. All right . And so he said we were very strongly discouraged from crosschecking with each other which he said was difficult that night because when he was calling 30 times to superior officers and failing to get answers, he at some point started thinking what are other people doing at other Border Crossings. But he didnt really have any easy means, there was no standard means set up for him to communicate with them on a regular basis since that was not how it worked. It was a centralized system. So he had, for that night, surprisingly little contact with the other Border Crossings. Its interesting, ive had someone who was involved who said this shows you what happens when you leave people there dangling. This is a failure of management in leadership just generically, even if you dont care about the details. So what does start to happen is there are, again, western reporters who are covering this breakthrough at bourne homer street, and theyre broadcasting on radio and television that bourne homer is open, and at the Border Crossings they do have televisions, and they can see those images. Again, theres this interaction throughout the evening between the media and the actual events where it points, the at points the medias causing the story its reporting. So, again, even if youre not interested in the particular details of east german history, its a great story of how in the modern Era Television and politics interact. So its a very complicated story i was actually think of how the dissidents and the others gathered at the Border Crossings, how they, if they knew what was going on at that seems to have been very ad hoc and spontaneous. For example, ziggy and his friends, there was a bar where they usually drank, and so one of his zinggy was ziggy was this that bar, one of his friends that saw the press conference went into the bar and said the wall is open, lets go. Some of his friends said, youre nuts, have another drink, and one of his friends said, no, lets go check it out. Some of them said if were not back in a couple hours, were in the west. And they actually didnt get back for five days. [laughter] i think there was a question actually, let me go to the back, young man over there. So you started talking at the beginning of your speech about how people like, i guess, in the United States yes. Think that the u. S. Was the one that really opened the wall. With yes. For the or younger generations, like people my age, how do you think would be the best way to clarify that we didnt . Well, what im using here to step back and be a little academic, if youll forgive me, i am a professor, its hard to avoid, is im using what political scientists often call a powder keg model which is to say that in order to understand a revolutionary event or a dramatic event, you need to understand not only the powder keg or the fuel, but you also need to understand the sparks or the catalyst that set it off. And academics such as myself have long been with better at studying the powder keg than at studying the sparks or the catalyst. So, certainly, the cold war contest provides the necessary context, right . So the reforms that gorbachev institutes, the fact that hes making clear tanks will roll into eastern europe, meanwhile, in the western side the support that the u. S. Gives organizations like solidarity, that all matters. Im not saying, you know, the United States is unimportant. Its just that that doesnt actually open the wall. It creates the context in which the wall can open, but you need a spark or a catalyst. And there was an article that was very influential to my thinking as i was writing this book by a man named ned lebeau who used to teach at dartmouth, and he said, you know, catalysts arent like buses, they dont come along every ten minutes, they dont all look alike. We cant just talk about the powder keg and just assumes the catalyst shows up and itll have a standard result. The nature of the catalyst and the way they interact with the powder keg actually gives shape to the explosion of the revolution. And i realized he was right, and i thought, you know, i need to look at the catalyst, at the locals. I need to actually look at the people who turned the potential for the opening of the wall into the reality of the opening. And i think the sort of takeaway lesson is the United States, it needs for Foreign Policy to pay anticipation to the locals. It goes badly wrong when it fails to do that. I think the United States is good at context creation, but its bad at producing specific results. Its better when it empowers people on the ground to actually push through and make those final changes. And its also better if its not advisable for the United States to just sort of assume that its singlehandedly responsible because it becomes a delusion that you can do this elsewhere regars of what nk i think that is, in many ways, the takehome lesson. Even if you dont care about the details of the story. In essence what im telling here is a story of a successful peaceful revolution. It succeed and left behind itself an amazing amount of evidence and the people who depart in it, who want to talk. Its an amazing story. We would like to know how that succeeds. We would like to know in the chinatown help people in revolution succeed. Is a great way to do so as a historian, to read the story come to learn this story. It doesnt help us to predict the next peaceful revolution but it does help us to prepare for and help others prepare for. Thats the longerterm takehome lesson. Youve been waiting very patiently over here. Okay, sorry. Mine is just a simple sort of technical question. What advantages did you, did you get by working at harvard . What Research Advantages did you find as a political scientist there that you didnt have back in california, i think it is a . This project has been going on, visit multiple phases. Innocents ive been working on this project for 25 years because ou of doing study abroan west berlin in 1989. So that was the reason i got interested not only in this particular story but being a historic altogether was living in west berlin in 1989 and experiencing many of these events. Of course, i was very young within. Very young. I was 2. Of course, i wasnt thinking as a professional skeleton but i got interested and i started collecting materials than. When i really decide to write this book i had to blow the dust off some of my own personal boxes. There was a long phase of collecting materials when i was in germany. I went back to germany as a graduate student and worked there as a journalist, ended up living in germany for over four years. This topic wouldnt let go of me. Ting materials. They just kind of collective cot or there on my desktop. After i wrote the book on the Foreign Policy that followed the fall of the berlin wall and realize those huge curiosity about how the wall came down, once i decided to actually write this book, then it went back to germany for more targeted interviews. Selected about 50 interviews and theyre listed in the book. In the final phase when youress great for both a Great Library which harvards library is coming is all screwed to grow smart people around to discuss your ideas come to show dress too, to share concepts. Last question. Sir, do you want the last questions . Were is no one else has one, i guess my question was apparently clear. I was interested in how the people who are proceeding to the Border Crossing, how they knew about each others activity and successes that other Border Crossings. At that point, theyre sort of two ways that hackers. The first is the sheer size of the crowd that each individual Border Crossing. Their estimates, for example, the Border Crossing that by the point at which herald the anchor opens up you got 20,000 people there. I cant verify that, but theres multiple estimates. The first way it happens as people see with the route is just targeted people at the Border Crossing. Although Border Crossing as a side of the biggest crowd, similar phenomenon are occurring in other streets. People can see with their own eyes with happening. Then there also starts to be wordofmouth. They realize theres 20,000 people here. I cant get anywhere near the Border Crossing. They run home and tell everyone. Again and again you hear stories. I was sitting at a bar and someone ran in instead you should go and suddenly the bar emptied out. Why was sitting in a restaurant or in my building and someone started knocking on the windows in my building. Once you get people into the west, they have access to hearing radio broadcast from a seen television. That they see multiple images. You have these multiple reinforcement of this process of the law opening. Cascading throughout the night. Again cometh thank you very much for coming out, helping you to tell these stories. I am happy to sign books either to you or any of your holiday gift recipient. Thank you for coming out
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