Editing Inner German border (section)

==Fall of the inner German border==
{{further|Fall of the inner German border}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1989-1106-405, Plauen, Demonstration vor dem Rathaus.jpg|left|thumb|250px|alt=A town square is filled with thousands of people, some holding large banners, looking towards a group of people on a platform in the left foreground. A man with a beard is in the foreground in front of microphones, addressing the crowd.|A demonstration in [[Plauen]] on 30 October 1989 calling for democracy, freedom of the press and freedom to travel]]
The fall of the inner German border came rapidly and unexpectedly in November 1989, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its integrity had been fatally compromised in May 1989 when a reformist Communist government in Hungary, supported by the Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]], began to dismantle its border fortifications. Hungary was already a popular tourist destination for East Germans.<ref>[[#Meyer|Meyer (2009)]], p. 68.</ref> Its government was still notionally Communist but planned free elections and economic reform as part of a strategy of "rejoining Europe" and reforming its struggling economy.<ref>[[#Meyer|Meyer (2009)]], p. 114.</ref> Opening the Hungarian border with Austria was essential to this effort; West Germany had secretly offered a much-needed hard currency loan of DM 500 million ($250 million) in return for allowing citizens of the GDR to freely emigrate.<ref>[[#Meyer|Meyer (2009)]], p. 105.</ref> Pictures of the barbed-wire fences being taken down were transmitted into East Germany by West German television stations.<ref>[[#Meyer|Meyer (2009)]], p. 90.</ref> They prompted a mass exodus by hundreds of thousands of East Germans which began in earnest in September 1989. In addition to those crossing the Hungarian border, tens of thousands of East Germans scaled the walls of the West German embassies in [[Prague]], [[Warsaw]] and [[Budapest]], where they were regarded as "German citizens" by the federal government, claiming "asylum".<ref name="Childs-67">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 67.</ref>

Czechoslovakia's hardline communist government agreed to close its border with East Germany to choke off the exodus. The closure produced uproar across East Germany<ref name="Childs-68">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 68.</ref> and the GDR government's bid to humiliate refugees by expelling them from the country in sealed trains backfired disastrously. Torn-up identity papers and East German passports littered the train tracks as the refugees threw them out of the windows. When the trains passed through [[Dresden]], 1,500&nbsp;East Germans stormed the main railway station in an attempt to board. Dozens were injured, and the station concourse was virtually destroyed.<ref>[[#Sebasteyen|Sebasteyen (2009)]], pp. 329–331.</ref>

The small pro-democracy [[Monday demonstrations in East Germany|Monday demonstrations]] soon swelled into crowds of hundreds of thousands of people in cities across East Germany. The East German leadership considered using force but ultimately backed down, lacking support from the Soviet Union for a violent [[Tiananmen Square protests of 1989|Tiananmen Square]]-style military intervention.<ref name="Childs-75">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 75.</ref> Reformist members of the East German Politburo sought to rescue the situation by forcing the resignation of the hardline Party chairman [[Erich Honecker]], replacing him in October 1989 with the marginally less hardline [[Egon Krenz]].<ref name="Childs-82-83">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], pp. 82–83.</ref> The new government sought to appease the protesters by reopening the border with Czechoslovakia. This, however, merely resulted in the resumption of the mass exodus through Hungary. On 8&nbsp;November 1989, with huge demonstrations continuing across the country, the entire Politburo resigned and a new, more moderate Politburo was appointed under Krenz's continued leadership.<ref name="Childs-85">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 85.</ref>

===Opening of the border and the fall of the GDR===

{{multiple image
| align             = right
| image1            = Grenzöffnung Kontrollpunkt Helmstedt 2 (G.Mach).jpg
| width1            = 200
| alt1              = East German Trabant cars driving between dense crowds of people. Metal gantries over the road and a watchtower are visible in the background.
| caption1          = Crowds of West Germans welcome East German Trabant drivers at the Helmstedt crossing, 11 November 1989.
| image2            = Grenzoeffnung bei heinersdorf.jpg
| alt2              = A large number of people of various ages standing and walking along a road in front of a high concrete wall, behind which houses and a church are visible in a wooded valley.
| width2            = 248
| caption2          = East and West Germans mingling in front of the newly opened border wall in Heinersdorf, Thuringia, 4 December 1989
}}

The East German government sought to defuse the situation by relaxing the country's border controls with effect from 10&nbsp;November 1989;<ref name="Hertle-147">[[#Hertle|Hertle (2007)]], p. 147.</ref> the announcement was on the evening of 9&nbsp;November 1989 by Politburo member [[Günter Schabowski]] at a somewhat chaotic press conference in East Berlin, who proclaimed the new control regime as liberating the people from a situation of psychological pressure by legalising and simplifying migration. Misunderstanding the note passed to him about the decision to open the border, he announced the border would be opened "immediately, without delay", rather than from the following day as the government had intended. Crucially, it was neither meant to be an uncontrolled opening nor to apply to East Germans wishing to visit the West as tourists.<ref name="Hertle-147" /> At an interview in English after the press conference, Schabowski told the [[NBC]] reporter [[Tom Brokaw]] that "it is no question of tourism. It is a permission of leaving the GDR [permanently]."<ref name="Childs-87">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 87.</ref>

As the press conference had been broadcast live, within hours, thousands of people gathered at the Berlin Wall demanding that the guards open the gates. The border guards were unable to contact their superiors for instructions and, fearing a stampede, opened the gates. The iconic scenes that followed&nbsp;– people pouring into West Berlin, standing on the Wall and attacking it with pickaxes&nbsp;– were broadcast worldwide.<ref name="Childs-88">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 88.</ref>

While the eyes of the world were on the ''Mauerfall'' (the fall of the Wall) in Berlin, a simultaneous process of ''Grenzöffnung'' (border opening) was taking place along the entire length of the inner German border. Existing crossings were opened immediately. Within the first four days, 4.3&nbsp;million East Germans&nbsp;– a quarter of the country's entire population&nbsp;– poured into West Germany.<ref name="Childs-89">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 89.</ref> At the Helmstedt crossing point on the Berlin–Hanover autobahn, cars were backed up for 65&nbsp;km (40 miles); some drivers waited 11 hours to cross to the West.<ref>[[#Jacoby|Jacoby (1989-11-08)]].</ref> The border was opened in stages over the next few months. Many new crossing points were created, reconnecting communities that had been separated for nearly 40 years. BBC correspondent [[Ben Bradshaw]] described the jubilant scenes at the railway station of [[Hof, Germany|Hof]] in Bavaria in the early hours of 12&nbsp;November:

{{blockquote|It was not just the arrivals at Hof who wore their emotions on their sleeves. The local people turned out in their hundreds to welcome them; stout men and women in their Sunday best, twice or three times the average age of those getting off the trains, wept as they clapped. 'These are our people, free at last,' they said ... Those arriving at Hof report people lining the route of the trains in East Germany waving and clapping and holding placards saying: 'We're coming soon.'<ref>Bradshaw, Ben (orally). BBC News, 12 November 1989. Quoted in [[#August|August (1999)]], p. 198.</ref>}}

Even the East German border guards were not immune to the euphoria. One of them, Peter Zahn, described how he and his colleagues reacted to the opening of the border:

{{blockquote|After the Wall fell, we were in a state of delirium. We submitted a request for our reserve activities to be ended, which was approved a few days later. We visited Helmstedt and Braunschweig in West Germany, which would have been impossible before. In the NVA even listening to Western radio stations was punishable and there we were on an outing in the West.<ref>[[#DWTrespassing|Deutsche Welle (2006-11-02)]].</ref>}}

[[File:Zonen-gaby.jpg|left|thumb|alt="Titanic" magazine cover showing a smiling young woman with a denim jacket and home-made perm holding a large cucumber peeled in the style of a banana|Zonen-Gaby's first banana: West German magazine cover satirising East Germans' banana-buying spree]]
To the surprise of many West Germans, many of the East German visitors spent their DM 100 "welcome money" buying great quantities of bananas, a highly prized rarity in the East. For months after the opening of the border, bananas were sold out at supermarkets along the western side of the border as East Germans bought up whole crates, believing supplies would soon be exhausted.<ref>[[#Adam|Adam (2005)]], p. 114.</ref> The rush for fruit made the banana the unofficial symbol of the changes in East Germany, which some dubbed the "banana revolution".<ref>[[#Rodden|Rodden (2002)]], p. 5</ref> Some West German leftists protested what they saw as rampant consumerism by tossing bananas at East Germans coming to visit the West.<ref>[[#James|James (1992)]], p. 10</ref> The easterners' obsession with bananas was famously spoofed by the West German satirical magazine ''[[Titanic (magazine)|Titanic]]'' on the front cover of its November 1989 edition, which depicted "Easterner Gaby (17), happy to be in West Germany: My first banana". Gaby was shown holding a large peeled cucumber.<ref>[[#Frohling|Fröhling (2007)]], p. 183.</ref>

The opening of the border had a profound political and psychological effect on the East German public. For many people the very existence of the GDR, which the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED]] had justified as the first "Socialist state on German soil", came to seem pointless. The state was bankrupt, the economy was collapsing, the political class was discredited, the governing institutions were in chaos and the people were demoralised by the evaporation of the collective assumptions which had underpinned their society for forty years. Membership of the Party collapsed and Krenz himself resigned on 6&nbsp;December 1989 after only 50 days in office, handing over to the moderate [[Hans Modrow]].<ref name="Childs-90">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 90.</ref> The removal of restrictions on travel prompted hundreds of thousands of East Germans to migrate to the West&nbsp;– more than 116,000 did so between 9&nbsp;November and 31&nbsp;December 1989, compared with 40,000 for the whole of the previous year.<ref>[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 100.</ref>

The new East German leadership initiated "round table" talks with opposition groups, similar to the processes that had led to multi-party elections in Hungary and Poland.<ref>[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 105.</ref> When the first [[East German general election, 1990|free elections were held in East Germany]] in March 1990, the former SED, which had renamed itself as the [[Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)|Party of Democratic Socialism]], was swept from power and replaced by a pro-reunification [[Alliance for Germany]] coalition led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Chancellor Kohl's party. Both countries progressed rapidly towards reunification, while international diplomacy paved the way abroad. In July 1990, monetary union was achieved.<ref name="Childs-140">[[#Childs|Childs (2001)]], p. 140.</ref> A ''Treaty on the establishment of a unified Germany'' was agreed on in August 1990 and political reunification took place on 3 October 1990.<ref name="Rottman, p. 58">[[#Rottman|Rottman (2008)]], p. 58.</ref>

===Abandonment of the border===
[[File:Pferdsdorf-Spichra 1990 Border 8 1.jpg|right|thumb|150px|alt=A patrol road, made of two parallel rows of perforated concrete blocks, performs a steep descent into a valley. To the right, running parallel to the road, is a continuous fence. The road and fence continue into the distance, crossing fields that are dusted with a light sprinkling of snow, and ascending another hillside on the far side of valley. Dark forests loom in the distance.|The abandoned border in Thuringia, December 1990]]
The border fortifications were progressively torn down and eventually abandoned in the months following its opening. Dozens of new crossings were opened by February 1990, and the guards no longer carried weapons or made much effort to check travellers' passports.<ref>[[#JacksonJO|Jackson (1990-02-12)]].</ref> The guards' numbers were rapidly reduced; half were dismissed within five months of the opening.<ref name=Koenig>[[#Koenig|Koenig (1990-04-22)]].</ref> On 1&nbsp;July 1990 the border was abandoned and the ''Grenztruppen'' were officially abolished;<ref name="Rottman, p. 58"/> all but 2,000 of them were dismissed or transferred to other jobs.

The [[Bundeswehr]] gave the remaining border guards and other ex-NVA soldiers the task of clearing the fortifications, which was completed only in 1994. The scale of the task was immense, involving both the clearing of the fortifications and the rebuilding of hundreds of roads and railway lines.<ref name="Rottman, p. 61">[[#Rottman|Rottman (2008)]], p. 61.</ref> A serious complication was the presence of mines along the border. Although the 1.4&nbsp;million mines laid by the GDR were supposed to have been removed during the 1980s, it turned out that 34,000 were unaccounted for.<ref>[[#Freytag|Freytag (1996)]], p. 230.</ref> A further 1,100&nbsp;mines were found and removed following reunification at a cost of more than DM&nbsp;250&nbsp;million,<ref>[[#TheWeekinGermany|''The Week in Germany'' (1996-05-13)]], p. 13.</ref> in a programme that was not concluded until the end of 1995.<ref>[[#Thorson|Thorson (1995-11-11)]].</ref>

The border clearers' task was aided unofficially by German civilians from both sides of the former border who scavenged the installations for fencing, wire and blocks of concrete to use in home improvements. Much of the fence was sold to a West German scrap-metal company. Environmental groups undertook a programme of re-greening the border, planting new trees and sowing grass seeds to fill in the clear-cut area along the line.<ref name=Koenig />