East Berliners and East Germans could not, at first, travel to West Berlin or West Germany at all.
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| An East German guard talks to a Westerner through a broken seam in the Wall in late November 1989 /photo credit: Sharon Emerson |
This regulation remained in force essentially until the fall of the Wall, but over the years several exceptions to these rules were introduced, the most significant being:
- Elderly pensioners could travel to the West starting in 1965
- Visits of relatives for important family matters
- People who had to travel to the West for professional reasons (for example, artists, truck drivers, musicians, writers, etc.)
However, each visit had to be applied for individually and approval was never guaranteed.
Euphoria
After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. Contrary to popular belief the Wall's actual demolition did not begin until the summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992.[1] The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
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| adapted from: Jotquadrat A sculpture called Mauerspringer ("Walljumper") by Florian and Michael Brauer, depicting Hans Conrad Schumann, an East German border guard who escaped to West Germany during the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. |
