Behind the breakthrough

Baltimore Sun
November 9, 2004

By Harry J. Gilmore

Fifteen years ago today, determined throngs of East Berliners breached the
Berlin Wall, and the United States and its allies helped facilitate the
safe
movement of Berliners through the wall that historic night. This story is
being told for American readers for the first time.

With the defeat of the Nazi regime, the victorious Allies divided Germany
and Berlin into four zones (sectors, in the case of Berlin). The victors
were unable to agree on Germany’s future, and two German states were
created, the Federal Republic of Germany in the west and the German
Democratic Republic in the east. Although the Soviet Union made its sector
of Berlin the East German capital, the United States and its allies did not
recognize East Berlin as part of East Germany and zealously insisted on
their four-power rights in Berlin, including the right to maintain
garrisons
in the city.

The allied ambassadors to Germany retained the residual authority of the
former military occupation commanders and high commissioners, and each
allied sector in Berlin was headed by a commandant. Each commandant had a
civilian deputy. I was the U.S. minister and deputy commandant that
historic
night. The United States held the rotating allied chairmanship that
November, so I was Governing Mayor Walter Momper’s point of contact with
the
Allies.

In the months before Nov. 9, 1989, there had been a steady crescendo of
peaceful and increasingly massive demonstrations for freedom in East
Germany, especially freedom of travel. Shortly before 6 p.m., East German
press spokesman Guenter Schabowski emerged from an emergency leadership
meeting to announce new travel regulations, making it possible for East
Germans to travel abroad at any time, via any checkpoint. Asked when these
new regulations would take effect, Mr. Schabowski vainly searched his
briefing materials for guidance and then indicated they were valid
immediately.

His statements were broadcast throughout Berlin and East Germany. Soon,
East
Berliners began to gather at the checkpoints along the wall. At Bornholmer
Strasse, they shouted that they had heard Mr. Schabowski and were
determined
to cross into West Berlin. The guards had no instructions, and about 10:30
p.m. let the most vociferous of them cross. This news was immediately
broadcast to virtually every household in Berlin and East Germany, and the
ranks of those seeking to cross spread like wildfire. By 11:30 p.m., the
East German border guards let everyone pass. Soon, all of the Berlin
checkpoints were open and legions of East Berliners were flooding into West
Berlin.

Mayor Momper and his staff had been monitoring the situation closely since
Mr. Schabowski’s news conference. After meeting with his government to
review preparations for a large influx of East Berliners and other East
Germans, Mr. Momper made a brief live TV appearance and drove to the
busiest
area of the wall.

He urged West Berlin Police President Georg Schertz to take every
measure to
bring order to the surging crowds, including the cluster of West Berliners
who had climbed onto the wall at the Brandenburg Gate. Mr. Schertz reminded
Mr. Momper that the West Berlin police were not permitted to approach the
sector boundary or the wall. This was because the wall had been carefully
constructed to stand just inside East Berlin. At that point, Mr. Momper
telephoned me to request urgent Allied authorization for the West Berlin
police to approach the wall and control the checkpoints.

In accordance with established procedures, and because of the acute
political sensitivity of West Berlin police encroaching or crossing the
sector boundary, I should have consulted our British and French allies and
higher U.S. authority before responding to Mr. Momper’s request. But this
would have taken far too much time.

From frequent conversations about possible contingencies, I knew that the
U.S. commandant, Maj. Gen. Raymond Haddock, would favor immediate positive
action. I also was sure that the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Vernon
Walters,
and President George H. W. Bush would want us to do everything possible to
ensure the safety of the tens of thousands of Berliners seeking to pass
through the wall. I was confident, too, that our British and French allies
would share this view. I therefore assured Mr. Momper on the spot that the
Allies would take immediate steps to provide greater latitude to the police.

When I hung up, I called General Haddock, who immediately concurred. I then
gave appropriate instructions to the public safety adviser, Frank Collins,
our official liaison with the West Berlin police. Within minutes, we had
given the police the flexibility they needed to establish order at the
wall.
Amid the teeming, surging crowds, no one was seriously injured at the wall
that night.

Our British and French counterparts gave their full support. Although I
would have preferred to inform my Soviet counterpart in East Berlin
personally and immediately, I decided not to risk complicating the already
delicate situation. He and I were in regular contact before and after the
wall opened, and he had indicated that the Soviets, under Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, intended to keep their troops away from demonstrators and crowds
so long as they were not provoked.

I am telling this story now because I want to put it on the record while I
can. I look back on our role that historic night with deep satisfaction. I
think of heroic Berlin Governing Mayors Ernst Reuter and Willy Brandt as
well as President John F. Kennedy and Gen. Lucius Clay, father of the
1948-49 Berlin Airlift. I also think of the many American soldiers, airmen
and civilians who stood firm over the nearly 50 years of our commitment to
the divided city.

The words of Mr. Brandt in the days after the wall fell still ring in my
ears: “What belongs together is now growing together.”

Harry J. Gilmore, the first U.S. ambassador posted to post-Soviet
Armenia, was U.S. minister and deputy commandant of Berlin from 1987 to
1990.

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