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Scene at the Helmstedt–Marienborn border crossing into East Germany in November 1989, after the freeing of travel restrictions.. The fall of inner German border, also known as the opening of the inner German border (German: Öffnung der innerdeutschen Grenze), rapidly and unexpectedly occurred in November 1989, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Immediately after news of East Germany's somewhat mistaken announcement on the removal of border controls by Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) official Günter Schabowski was broadcast at 8:00pm on 9 November 1989, [1] thousands of East Germans began gathering at the Bornholmer Straße border crossing, demanding that border guards immediately open its gates to let them through to West Berlin.
The official emblem of the Pan-European Picnic in Hungarian The border crossing where the Pan-European picnic took place. The Pan-European Picnic (German: Paneuropäisches Picknick; Hungarian: Páneurópai piknik; Slovak: Paneurópsky piknik; Czech: Panevropský piknik) was a peace demonstration held on the Austrian-Hungarian border near Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989.
Border controls were relaxed after the Wende during late 1989. The crossing was dismantled at midnight on June 30, 1990, exactly 45 years after its first opening. The former GDR buildings have been a listed building since October 1990, however the former GDR departures area was demolished when the A 2 road was expanded to six lanes. A rest stop ...
The Pan-European Picnic at the Austro-Hungarian border followed on 19 August 1989. This was a celebration of more open relationships between east and west, near Sopron, but on the Austrian side of the border. The opening of the border gate then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR or an Iron ...
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The border was still closely guarded and the Hungarian security forces tried to hold back refugees. The dismantling of the electric fence along Hungary's 240 kilometres (149 mi) long border with Austria was the first fissure in the "Iron Curtain" that had divided Europe for more than 40 years, since the end of World War II.
The initially inconspicuous opening of a border gate of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary in August 1989 then triggered a chain reaction, at the end of which the GDR no longer existed and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.