Fall of the inner German border

The fall of the inner German border came rapidly and unexpectedly in November 1989, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The event paved the way for the ultimate reunification of Germany just short of a year later.

Just as an earlier generation of Germans had found that the way to defeat the supposedly impregnable Maginot Line was simply to go around one end of it, so too hundreds of thousands of East Germans found an escape route across the border of East Germany's erstwhile ally, Hungary. The inner German border's integrity relied ultimately on other Warsaw Pact states fortifying their own borders and being willing to shoot escapees, including East Germans, around fifty of whom were shot on the borders of Polish People's Republic, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Hungarian People's Republic, Socialist Republic of Romania and People's Republic of Bulgaria between 1947 and 1989. However, this meant that as soon as one of the other eastern bloc nations relaxed its border controls, the East Germans would be able to exit in large numbers.

Such a scenario played out in 1989 when Hungary dismantled its border fence with Austria. Hungary was at that time a popular tourist destination for East Germans, due to the trappings of prosperity that were absent at home – good and plentiful food and wine, pleasant camping and a lively capital city. At home, the desire for reform was being driven by East Germany's worsening economic stagnation and the example of other eastern bloc nations who were following Gorbachev's example in instituting glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform). However, the hardline East German leader, Erich Honecker – who had been responsible for the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 – remained staunchly against any reform in his country. Declaring that "Socialism and capitalism are like fire and water", he predicted in January 1989 that "the Wall will stand for another hundred years."

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