Down with Big Brother (49 page)

“I don’t feel like I’m in prison anymore,” shouted another young man. Torsten Ryl, twenty-four, told reporters that he had come over to see what the West was like and intended to return. “Finally, we can really visit other states, instead of just seeing them on television or hearing about them.” To the cheers of the crowd, a West Berliner handed him a twenty deutsche mark bill and told him to “go have a beer.”
⁷³

In the meantime, dozens of youths from West Berlin had clambered on top of the wall at the Brandenburg Gate and had begun to taunt the police on the other side. The old Prussian memorial to victories past, a six-column arch topped by the Goddess of Victory in a chariot pulled by four horses, was regarded by many Germans as the symbol of German unity, a reminder of the country they had lost following their defeat in World War II. A few hours previously it was unthinkable even to approach the wall at this point because it was so heavily guarded. But now people began to dance on it, in full view of astonished television viewers around the world. At around 1:00 a.m. the
Wessis
(Westerners) were joined by
Ossis
(Easterners), at which point the East German police turned a water cannon on the revelers, a gesture that was greeted by derisory hoots and whistles from the crowd. One young man nonchalantly opened up an umbrella to protect himself from the shower of water.

“
So ein tag, so wunderschön,
” sang the crowds on both sides of the wall. “What a day, what a wonderful day.”

The next few days were a riotous street party as East Berliners poured into the forbidden city. Within forty-eight hours of the opening of the wall, nearly two million East Germans had crossed over into the West. Westerners showered them with flowers and chocolate and thumped the roofs of their decrepit Trabant cars in welcome. The sight of two-stroke “Trabis” choking the streets of West Berlin became a token of the new era, along with Mstislav Rostropovich playing his beloved cello by Checkpoint Charlie. In a flood of warm feeling toward their Eastern neighbors, some Westerners even began referring to the poisonous fumes emitted by the Trabis as the “perfume of freedom.” Soon the people of Berlin and Leipzig switched from chanting, “We are the people”
(“Wir sind das Volk”)
to chanting, “We are
one
people” (“
Wir sind ein Volk”)
.

Later the generosity and hospitality of
Wessis
wore off, along with the novelty of having their poor relations coming to visit. Familiarity bred suspicion, even contempt. The euphoria felt by
Ossis
at their sudden liberation was replaced by bitterness and anger toward their Communist rulers for having cheated them for so long. But for a few glorious days a city that had experienced so much sorrow and tragedy became the scene of unadulterated joy.

“For twenty-eight years, since the construction of the Wall on August 13, 1961, we have longed and hoped for this day,” the mayor of West Berlin, Walter Momper, told a rally in front of City Hall. “We Germans are now the happiest people in the world.”
⁷⁴

A
T THE
S
OVIET
E
MBASSY
on Unter der Linden, the elegant tree-lined avenue bisecting the Brandenburg Gate, diplomats had watched, spellbound and uncomprehending, as crowds of East Berliners took the wall by storm. For nearly four and a half decades the embassy had served as a kind of viceregal palace, the channel through which the Kremlin controlled its prize possession. Few decisions of any consequence in the German Democratic Republic were made without the Soviet ambassador’s being consulted or at least informed. But now momentous events were taking place on its own doorstep, and the Soviet Embassy knew less about what was going on than West German television.

Some eight hours after the wall had first been breached, the embassy received a panicky telephone call from Moscow. It was the desk officer for the socialist countries section of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. “What is happening at the wall?” he demanded. “Every news agency in the world is going crazy.”
⁷⁵

A political officer at the embassy briefly recounted the events of the past few hours, beginning with Schabowski’s extraordinary press conference.

“Has all this been agreed with us?” the desk officer asked incredulously.

The East German government had informed the embassy about its plan to allow would-be refugees to travel directly to West Germany without going through Czechoslovakia or Hungary. The ambassador, Vyacheslav Kochemasov, had in turn informed the Soviet Foreign Ministry, which had raised no objection to the plan. But the embassy knew nothing at all about the decision to permit ordinary East Germans to come and go as they pleased through the wall. It was inconceivable that the GDR authorities would fail to consult Moscow on such a delicate matter, particularly one that affected the four-power status of Berlin. Perhaps, the diplomat suggested delicately, this information had been conveyed through back channels, without the embassy’s being informed. It was also possible that Krenz had chosen to get in touch with Gorbachev directly, over the
vertushka
.

Inquiries were made, and it soon turned out that the inconceivable had in fact occurred. Nobody in Moscow knew anything. Half an hour later Ambassador Kochemasov received a telephone call from the East German Foreign Ministry.

“Last night’s decision was forced upon us,” a senior East German official explained apologetically. “Any delay could have had very dangerous consequences. There was no time for consultations.”

It took many months for Soviet and East German officials to piece together exactly what had happened that night and to explain the failure in communications. The original draft of the new travel regulations, the draft that had been shown to Soviet diplomats, had not addressed the issue of tourist visits at all. It had dealt exclusively with the problem of “permanent exits.” This had seemed anomalous to a team of four mid-level East German interior ministry officials and Stasi lawyers, who were charged with preparing the final draft. “We were supposed to come up with regulations for the citizen who wanted to leave the country forever, but we weren’t supposed to let out the citizen who just wanted to visit his aunt?” one of the Interior Ministry officials recalled later. “That would have been schizophrenic.”
⁷⁶
To make good this omission, on the morning of November 9, the officials inserted a vaguely worded paragraph opening the way for “private trips,” without going into detail about the accompanying formalities.

The new draft was submitted to the Politburo during its lunch break. The leaders had more pressing matters on their minds, such as their own political survival, and paid little attention to the wording. They approved the
draft, while sipping their coffee. At around 5:00 p.m. the resolution was presented to the policy-making Central Committee. Hardly any of the 213 members understood the text. There was only one question. “Has this been agreed with the Soviet comrades?” someone asked. “Yes,” replied Krenz, distracted by the excitement of the last few days.
⁷⁷

N
EWS THAT THE
B
ERLIN
W
ALL
had fallen came as a shock to Gorbachev, but he quickly adjusted to the new reality. For months he had been lecturing the ultraconservative East German leadership on the need for flexibility. “In politics life severely punishes those who fall behind,” he had told Honecker in October 1989, during ceremonies to mark the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the German Democratic Republic.
⁷⁸
The visit to Berlin gave Gorbachev a firsthand insight into the depth of Honecker’s political isolation. Standing on the podium for an anniversary parade, he could hear young East Berliners chanting, “Gorbie, help us.” Many of the demonstrators were members of the Communist youth organization.

Polish prime minister Mieczysław Rakowski was standing just behind Gorbachev. Since he spoke good German and Russian, he could act as the Soviet leader’s interpreter. “Do you understand what they are screaming?” he whispered into Gorbachev’s ear.

“Yes, I understand it.”

“This is the end.”
⁷⁹

On his return home Gorbachev told his Politburo colleagues that Honecker’s days in power were numbered.
⁸⁰
Sure enough, the old Stalinist was forced to resign less than two weeks later, a victim of his stubborn refusal to countenance any kind of serious change.

Soviet diplomats in East Berlin frequently complained that it was very difficult to get the Kremlin leadership to focus on the growing crisis in East Germany. By late 1989 Gorbachev was almost totally preoccupied with the deteriorating situation at home. At first he had not even wanted to attend the jubilee celebrations, as he did not believe there was anything he could do to influence the course of events. It was only as the result of very active lobbying by Kochemasov that he agreed to participate.
⁸¹

Gorbachev’s attitude to Germany was heavily influenced by the fact that he belonged to the postwar generation of Kremlin politicians. He was the first Soviet leader since Stalin not to be filled with atavistic horror by the thought of a reunited Germany outside the Soviet orbit. Indeed a divided Germany struck Gorbachev as unnatural and unsustainable over the long
term. Deep down he regarded the reunification of Germany as “inevitable,” even though he did not expect it to occur within the immediately foreseeable future.
⁸²
History itself would decide such questions, he liked to say. A week before the wall came down, he told East German leaders that reunification was “not a problem of current politics.”
⁸³

In reacting to events in East Germany, Gorbachev remained faithful to his precept that every Communist Party was responsible for events in its own country, a position that he had first enunciated at a meeting of East European leaders in 1986. During a visit to Moscow in June Honecker had complained that he was coming under increasing pressure from “government circles” in West Germany to make political concessions. “This pressure needs to be adequately countered,” he told Gorbachev in an indirect appeal for Soviet assistance. The Soviet leader expressed solicitude and said he had warned Kohl against “exploiting” the popular discontent in East Germany. But he made clear that the Soviet Union did not intend to get directly involved.
⁸⁴

As Honecker’s political authority began to unravel, Gorbachev adopted the stance of a detached bystander. His main concern was to keep the half million Soviet troops stationed in East Germany out of the crisis. In conversations with colleagues and aides, the general secretary insisted that the revolution be permitted to take its natural course without interference from outside.
⁸⁵
To make sure that his instructions were carried out, he sent Yakovlev to Berlin and other East European capitals with a very simple message. “I had to make the point over and over again. We are not going to interfere,” Yakovlev said later. “Please, we told them, make your own calculations, but make sure you understand that our troops will not be used, even though they are there. They will remain in their barracks and will not go anywhere, under any circumstances.”
⁸⁶

During what later became known as the October Revolution in Leipzig, Soviet officials urged Honecker and Krenz not to use force against hundreds of thousands of young people who were defying a ban on demonstrations. There was concern in Moscow about the possibility of an anti-Soviet “provocation.” In order to prevent this from happening, Soviet troops were confined to barracks, and all military maneuvers canceled, for the duration of the demonstrations.
⁸⁷
Similar instructions were issued in the hours immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
⁸⁸

Twenty-four hours after the wall had been breached, Ambassador Kochemasov received official instructions from Moscow, belatedly endorsing what had happened. He conveyed an oral message from Gorbachev to
Krenz, accepting the East German explanation for the failure in communication and adding, “Everything was done completely correctly. Act in a similar way in the future—energetically and confidently.”
⁸⁹

The wall was no more. Nearly four and a half decades of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe had come to an end.

PRAGUE
November 24, 1989

A
S THE HERO
of the Prague Spring stepped out onto the balcony high above Wenceslas Square, three hundred thousand people burst out into a deafening roar of “
DUBĈEK, DUBĈEK
.” An elderly, slightly stooping figure, with white hair and a gentle smile, Alexander Dubĉek waited for the chanting to subside. Then he uttered the slogan that had inspired millions of his countrymen in 1968 and caused a panic-stricken Soviet Politburo to send tanks rumbling into Czechoslovakia.

“Long live socialism with a human face!”
⁹⁰