1989: The Wall Comes Down

6 Feb 1989 – 31 Dec 198965 items

cold warrevolution
East Berliners crossing back over the Bösebrücke at Bornholmer Straße, 10 November 1989. Photo: Gerd Danigel. CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
East Berliners crossing back over the Bösebrücke at Bornholmer Straße, 10 November 1989. Photo: Gerd Danigel. CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Months, not years

In February 1989 six countries between the Baltic and the Black Sea were ruled by Communist parties that answered to Moscow. By New Year’s Eve Poland had a Solidarity prime minister, Hungary had declared itself a republic, the Berlin Wall was open, a dissident playwright was president in Prague, Zhivkov was gone in Sofia and Ceaușescu was dead. Only in Romania was it done by force.

“The Wall will still be standing in fifty and even in a hundred years, if the reasons for it are not yet removed.” — Erich Honecker, 19 January 1989

How it is laid out

  • One band per country: Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, overlapping so you can see one revolution hand on to the next. Poland took ten months, Czechoslovakia six weeks, Romania ten days.

  • Zoom in on 9 November and the night is told hour by hour, from Günter Schabowski’s press conference to the gate at Bornholmer Straße.

  • Threads to filter by: poland, hungary, germany, czechoslovakia, bulgaria, romania, borders, protest, elections and migration.

Times are local, as the sources give them, and stored in UTC. Crowd sizes and death tolls are given as the ranges the sources give. For the wider story, see the Revolutions of 1989; for the Wall night by the minute, the Chronik der Mauer.

Items

  1. Poland: from the Round Table to the Third Republic

    10 months, 26 days

  2. The Polish Round Table

    1 month, 28 days · Namiestnikowski Palace, Krakowskie Przedmieście, Warsaw

  3. Hungary: the negotiated revolution

    8 months, 14 days

  4. Hungary’s party accepts rival parties

    Budapest

  5. Hungary starts to take down the Iron Curtain

    Hegyeshalom–Nickelsdorf border crossing

  6. East Germany: from the rigged vote to the open gate

    7 months, 19 days

  7. East Germany’s local elections are caught being rigged

  8. The “Big Excursion” from Bulgaria

    2 months, 25 days

  9. Poland votes

  10. Tiananmen Square, the same day

    Tiananmen Square, Beijing

  11. The Hungarian National Round Table

    3 months, 7 days · Parliament building, Budapest

  12. Imre Nagy is reburied

    Heroes’ Square, Budapest

  13. Horn and Mock cut the fence

    Austro-Hungarian border between Sopron and Klingenbach

  14. Kádár dies as Nagy is cleared

    Budapest

  15. Jaruzelski is president by one vote

    Sejm building, Wiejska Street, Warsaw

  16. The Pan-European Picnic

    Pan-European Picnic site, near Sopronpuszta

  17. The Baltic Way

    Tallinn – Riga – Vilnius

  18. Mazowiecki, the bloc’s first non-Communist prime minister

    Sejm building, Wiejska Street, Warsaw

  19. Leipzig’s Monday demonstrations

    3 months, 15 days · Nikolaikirche, Leipzig

  20. Hungary opens its border to East Germans

    Hegyeshalom–Nickelsdorf border crossing

  21. Genscher on the embassy balcony

    West German embassy, Lobkowicz Palace, Prague

  22. The sealed trains pass through Dresden

    Dresden Hauptbahnhof

  23. East Germany turns forty

    Palast der Republik, East Berlin

  24. Leipzig, 9 October

    Leipzig inner ring, Karl-Marx-Platz to Dittrichring

  25. Honecker falls

    SED Central Committee building, Werderscher Markt

  26. Republic of Hungary proclaimed

    Parliament building, Budapest

  27. The “Sinatra doctrine”

    Helsinki

  28. Ecoglasnost marches in Sofia

    National Assembly, Sofia

  29. Hundreds of thousands on Alexanderplatz

    Alexanderplatz, East Berlin

  30. Schabowski’s press conference

    1 hour, 1 minute · International Press Centre, Mohrenstraße, East Berlin

  31. “Immediately, without delay”

    International Press Centre, Mohrenstraße, East Berlin

  32. West German television: “GDR opens border”

  33. The crowd at Bornholmer Straße

    3 hours · Bornholmer Straße crossing, Bösebrücke, Berlin

  34. The “safety valve”

    Bornholmer Straße crossing, Bösebrücke, Berlin

  35. “The gates in the Wall stand wide open”

  36. “We’re flooding it now”: Bornholmer Straße opens

    Bornholmer Straße crossing, Bösebrücke, Berlin

  37. The other crossings follow

    Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin

  38. Bulgaria: the palace coup and after

    1 month, 21 days

  39. Zhivkov is ousted

    Party House of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Sofia

  40. Czechoslovakia: the Velvet Revolution

    1 month, 12 days

  41. Riot police beat the students on Národní třída

    Národní třída, Prague

  42. Sofia’s first great rally

    Alexander Nevsky Cathedral square, Sofia

  43. Civic Forum is founded

    Činoherní klub, Ve Smečkách, Prague

  44. Public Against Violence in Bratislava

    Bratislava

  45. Dubček returns; Jakeš resigns

    Wenceslas Square, Prague

  46. Letná

    Letná plain, Prague

  47. The two-hour general strike

    2 hours

  48. Czechoslovakia strikes out the party’s leading role

    Federal Assembly building, Wenceslas Square, Prague

  49. The Malta summit

    1 day · Marsaxlokk harbour, Malta

  50. Citizens take the Stasi’s Leipzig headquarters

    “Runde Ecke”, Stasi district headquarters, Leipzig

  51. Bulgaria’s opposition unites

    Sofia

  52. Husák swears in a new government and resigns

    Prague Castle

  53. Romania: ten days in December

    9 days

  54. A crowd guards Pastor Tőkés

    Reformed parish house, Piața Maria, Timișoara

  55. Troops open fire in Timișoara

    Timișoara

  56. Kohl in Dresden

    Ruins of the Frauenkirche, Dresden

  57. Timișoara declares itself free

    Opera Square, Timișoara

  58. Lithuania’s Communists break with Moscow

    Vilnius

  59. Ceaușescu’s last speech

    Central Committee building, Palace Square, Bucharest

  60. The Ceaușescus flee by helicopter

    Central Committee building, Palace Square, Bucharest

  61. The Brandenburg Gate opens

    Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

  62. Trial and execution at Târgoviște

    Army garrison, Târgoviște

  63. Bulgaria restores Turkish names

    Sofia

  64. Havel is elected president

    Prague Castle

  65. The Polish People’s Republic becomes the Republic of Poland

    Sejm building, Wiejska Street, Warsaw