1989: The Wall Comes Down
6 Feb 1989 – 31 Dec 198965 items
cold warrevolutionMonths, 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,electionsandmigration.
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.