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The East German government sought to defuse the situation by relaxing the country's border controls with effect from 10 November 1989; [165] the announcement was on the evening of 9 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 ...
Hundreds of thousands of East Germans found an escape route across the border of East Germany's erstwhile ally, Hungary.The inner German border's integrity relied ultimately on other Warsaw Pact states fortifying their own borders and being willing to shoot escapees, including East Germans, around fifty of whom were shot on the borders of Polish People's Republic, Czechoslovak Socialist ...
From 4 September 1989 – Monday demonstrations in East Germany calling for the opening of the border with West Germany and greater human rights protections. [ 6 ] 7 October 1989, the day of the 40th anniversary of the GDR , about 15.000 residents of the Saxon city of Plauen were the first to take to the streets en masse to express their ...
Most travel routes from West Germany to East Germany and Poland also used this crossing. The border crossing existed from 1945 to 1990 and was situated near the East German village of Marienborn at the edge of the Lappwald. The crossing interrupted the Bundesautobahn 2 (A 2) between the junctions Helmstedt-Ost and Ostingersleben.
West Germans and West Berliners were allowed visa-free travel to East Berlin and East Germany starting 23 December 1989. Until then, they could only visit under restrictive conditions that involved application for a visa several days or weeks in advance and obligatory exchange of at least 25 DM per day of their planned stay.
In August 1967, East Germany erected 2,622 distinctive border markers or "barber's poles" (Grenzsäule or Grenzpfähle), each located about 500 feet (150 m) apart. They were made of concrete and painted with the black, red and gold colours of the German flag. Some can still be seen in situ today.
An 80-year-old former officer with communist East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, went on trial Thursday over the killing of a Polish man at a border crossing in divided Berlin 50 years ago.
The East German regime's distrust of its own citizens extended to its border guards, who were in a better position to defect than almost anyone else in the country. Many did in fact flee across the border; between 1961 and 1989, around 7,000 border guards tried to escape. 2,500 succeeded but 5,500 were caught and imprisoned for up to five years ...