When is Fall of the Berlin Wall in 2024? – That is the question, which can be answered by all German people, both men and women without any troubles and exceptions. Why? – The matter is that this day is considered to be rather important in the history of the contemporary European country.
Tragic prehistory
As it’s known well to all the history fans that after the finishing of the Second World War, Berlin was occupied by four countries. They are the US, Britain, France and the USSR.
But after the victory over the common enemy there appeared the confrontation between the USSR and the NATO bloc.
The situation began to develop in the new direction. And as a result, Germany in general and Berlin in particular, were divided into two camps: the socialist German Democratic Republic and the Democratic Federal Republic of Germany.
Since that time Berlin became bipolar. Of course, it should be noted that until 1961 the movement between the two parts of the former the same state was almost free. That is why the economical Germans managed to get free Soviet education in the GDR, but to work in the western country part.
The lack of a proper physical boundary between two divided zones led to frequent conflicts, production smuggling and massive immigration of specialists to the Western German part. It should be mentioned that in the period from January 1 to August 13, 1961 207 000 left GDR. Those people took their families with as they were not going to return. The local authorities claimed that the annual economic damage was about 2.5 billion marks. That was an incredible sum for the after-war ruined country.
Why was the wall built?
The question when is Fall of the Berlin Wall in 2024, calendar will tell you without any problems, but to understand the situation better we should discover some important historical events. The matter is that the facilities of the Berlin Wall construction were preceded by a serious aggravation of the political situation around Berlin. It happened that both conflict parties namely USSR and NATO claimed the city to be an important part of the newly formed states. In August 1960, the GDR government made some definite restrictions as to the visits of that territory by the citizens of East Berlin. It claimed that in such a terrible or even severe way they needed to prevent the influence of “the harmful Western propaganda”.
In response there were severed all commercial relations between the FRG and the GDR. Moreover, the worse thing is that both sides of the conflict as well as their allies began to accumulate the military presence in their regions.
Interesting Holidays:
Facing unexpected deteriorating of the situation around Berlin, GDR and Soviet leaders held an emergency meeting and decided to close the borders as soon as possible.
Very important project
Wall construction and strengthening lasted for a long period of time: since 1962 to 1975. By 1975 that border acquired the final appearance, turning into a complex engineering structure. It even got the special name Grenzmauer-75. The wall was made of a huge amount of massive and strong concrete segments. It was 3.60 m in height, equipped with almost insurmountable cylindrical sections. If necessary, the wall could be even increased in its height. Except for the new wall, it was made a decision to build some impressive guard towers, which were represented by special structures for professional and armed border guards. We also like to mention that the number of street lighting was also significantly increased and a whole complex system of barriers was created either. From the side of the Eastern Berlin just along the wall itself there was a special restricted area with warning signs.
Behind the walls there were rows of anti-urchins, or special dug rows, equipped with metal spikes, nicknamed “Stalin’s lawn”. And that is not everything, moreover, after that it was possible to find metal thing with barbed wire and flares.
The fall of the famous wall
Frankly speaking, it is not difficult to answer the question what day Fall of the Berlin Wall in 2024 is. This even has a constant and fixed date of its celebration. – That is November 9, 1989.
On that very day, the well-known representative of Politburo called Günter Schabowski announced that since that time the GDR citizens had been allowed to travel to the West without any restrictions. It is unlikely that the politician himself had expected that his simple statement would be the beginning of the GDR ending.
By the way, not everybody knows that press conference, broadcast in prime time, has been probably one of the most unusual in the history of the continent. Apparently, misunderstanding the question of the Italian journalist about the time when the new law would be valid on the territory of German Democratic Republic, that politician answered that the decision took an effect immediately. And because the press conference mentioned above was broadcast live and watched in both parts, i.e. in Western and Eastern areas, its consequences were really huge.
From the historical point of view, this event was turned to be one of the most significant events of the second half of the 20th century. Moreover, we can’t but mention hat there, in 1989, nobody was able to predict the appeared situation. Why? – The matter is that in January, the leader of the GDR, Erich Honecker declared that the Berlin Wall would still be on its place for about 50 or even 100 years. Its strength and invincibility were undoubted for that time contemporaries. But when in May 1989, Hungary opened all the borders with Austria, the Berlin Wall lost its proper meaning.
According to witnesses’ words and memories, the events of that period were so unpredictable, that even three hours before the wall falling, no one knew how it would be ended. Everything happened really very spontaneously. As soon as hundreds of thousands of people, who were East Berliners, heard the long-expected news that the control would be simplified, they rushed immediately to the Berlin Wall, which the GDR government called “Protective shaft from fascism.”By the way in the west territory of the modern Berlin, that border was referred to as the “Wall of Shame”.
What happened then?
After the famous Schabowski’s statement the border guards who hadn’t received any definite orders and didn’t know how to behave in the appeared situation, tried to push the huge crowd back. But then, yielding to the massive pressure of the coming and coming people, they were forced to open the border. The inhabitants and residents of West Berlin welcomed their guests really hearty, as they had been waiting for this meeting for a long period of time. Everything that was happening resembled national holiday. Perhaps the Berliners feelings could be described in one special word – euphoria. That was a terrific enjoyment. Thinking about it, we can understand, why it is not a surprise that the question “What is the day of Fall of the Berlin Wall 2024” can be answered by every person of the contemporary country.
Many modern historians declare that the Germany unification in the late 1980s, was just a matter of the time. However, we can’t ignore the fact that process was preceded by lengthy negotiations. The key role was played definitely by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the Germany unification. While many appreciate this event in quite a different way
The historical wall removing was made by both the inhabitants of East and West Berlin. Border guards were so not prepared for the situation that the authorities decided to just open the gate. Perhaps, it was the best and the most reasonable decision of all.
The answer to the question “What is the day of Fall of the Berlin Wall 2024?” is quite easy. For young people as well as for the memory reason the Berlin streets have had a few of the original sections of the wall. By the way one of them was turned into the largest object of the street art in the world.
