Q+A
The accidental fall of the Berlin Wall
Published Nov 5, 2019When the Berlin Wall opened 30 years ago, it created a fracture in the Iron Curtain and safe passage out of Soviet territory. But the events that led to the wall's opening on Nov. 9, 1989, allowing thousands of East Germans to spill over the border into West Berlin, were the result of a series of bureaucratic blunders and miscommunications. It was never meant to happen in the first place.