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The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall
On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
It was an accident.
In The Collapse , prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist's eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin.
We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC's Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control.
Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
It was an accident.
In The Collapse , prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist's eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin.
We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC's Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control.
Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
November 11, 2019
Substantially reviewed and revised on the 30 year anniversary: Nov. 10, 2019
A day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event that made the end of the Cold War irreversible. The book emphasizes the actions of East Germans -- often ordinary ones -- who forced the changes. The DDR's control over the border turned out to be crucial to its power; remove that, and the regime crumbled. But, it wasn't by design: as de Tocqueville observed about the French Revolution, every concession by the old guard paradoxically made the masses demand more.
Some moving descriptions of the first truly mass rally in Leipzig, where over 100,000 people marched around the city's lovely central ring--and Stasi's (the secret police) shoot to kill orders were countermanded by the local command, without approval from East Berlin. Much the same would happen on November 9-10, 1989, when the Wall itself fell--a typical droning commie press conference, ended by two sentences (released prior to embargo) seemingly saying something new. The cynical press corps said, “They’d heard it all before.” Yet a sleepy Brokaw was too dumb to know what he didn’t know, or so wise to have picked up the code: He woke saying, “Wait a minute—did he just announce opening of East Germany’s border?” Despite scoffing from the long-time pressers, Brokaw and crew bolted for the Wall. So American, not FRG, TV got the scoop.
At the border crossing opposite Wedding, Stasi Lt. Col. Harald Jäger also watched the broadcast. Amassing 25 years as a paper-pusher, Jäger was an unlikely hero. But—equally confused by the announcement—Jäger called up the chain for orders. None were forthcoming. Instead, for the most part, two lines of a press conference would be interpreted-on-the-fly by Jäger (the name means “hunter” in German), and another similar Stasi office controlling one of the northern Berlin control points.
When some of the most notorious DDR dissidents gathered around the southern crossing point, then tens of thousands more crowded in, Jäger persevered on the ancient black Bakelite phones until finally a Stasi superior said, “Let them across, but stamp their DDR passports so they can’t return.” That’s what he did. Perhaps a hundred thousand surged and left overnight. Jäger stayed the entire night shift. Some Foreign DDR residents returned after a night of enjoying decadent capitalism (A Russian KGB agent fluent in German and stationed in Berlin named Putin). Many DDR residents were thrilled to leave permanently (a 38 year-old DDR Chemistry teacher named Merkel).
But others thought this one-night holiday-on-ice allowed them to return the next morning to their DDR homes and families. The Stasi said, “No.” Jäger, still on his post, was scheduled to see his oncologist the next day, to pronounce a growth benign or cancerous. Jäger had do doubt it would be the latter, and figured he had nothing to lose. Seeing two anguished parents, who had left their child in the care of another, blocked ever from seeing their offspring again, “Jäger snapped.” He let the two return to East Germany, disobeying a direct order. Soon he directed all the guards at his bridge to let any East German return.
The opening of the wall not only erased an ugly line in Europe, it broke the chains of humanity to allow acts of grace. And Jäger is alive today: he didn’t have cancer.
In short, the Wall came down not with a bang but with a whimper. (Given the personal efforts at demolition, much of which wound up as dust, a great deal of the Berlin Wall necessarily must have gone down the drain.). But, the East Germans interviewed by the author are adamant about causation: "First we fought for our freedom; and then, because of that, the Wall fell."
A day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event that made the end of the Cold War irreversible. The book emphasizes the actions of East Germans -- often ordinary ones -- who forced the changes. The DDR's control over the border turned out to be crucial to its power; remove that, and the regime crumbled. But, it wasn't by design: as de Tocqueville observed about the French Revolution, every concession by the old guard paradoxically made the masses demand more.
Some moving descriptions of the first truly mass rally in Leipzig, where over 100,000 people marched around the city's lovely central ring--and Stasi's (the secret police) shoot to kill orders were countermanded by the local command, without approval from East Berlin. Much the same would happen on November 9-10, 1989, when the Wall itself fell--a typical droning commie press conference, ended by two sentences (released prior to embargo) seemingly saying something new. The cynical press corps said, “They’d heard it all before.” Yet a sleepy Brokaw was too dumb to know what he didn’t know, or so wise to have picked up the code: He woke saying, “Wait a minute—did he just announce opening of East Germany’s border?” Despite scoffing from the long-time pressers, Brokaw and crew bolted for the Wall. So American, not FRG, TV got the scoop.
At the border crossing opposite Wedding, Stasi Lt. Col. Harald Jäger also watched the broadcast. Amassing 25 years as a paper-pusher, Jäger was an unlikely hero. But—equally confused by the announcement—Jäger called up the chain for orders. None were forthcoming. Instead, for the most part, two lines of a press conference would be interpreted-on-the-fly by Jäger (the name means “hunter” in German), and another similar Stasi office controlling one of the northern Berlin control points.
When some of the most notorious DDR dissidents gathered around the southern crossing point, then tens of thousands more crowded in, Jäger persevered on the ancient black Bakelite phones until finally a Stasi superior said, “Let them across, but stamp their DDR passports so they can’t return.” That’s what he did. Perhaps a hundred thousand surged and left overnight. Jäger stayed the entire night shift. Some Foreign DDR residents returned after a night of enjoying decadent capitalism (A Russian KGB agent fluent in German and stationed in Berlin named Putin). Many DDR residents were thrilled to leave permanently (a 38 year-old DDR Chemistry teacher named Merkel).
But others thought this one-night holiday-on-ice allowed them to return the next morning to their DDR homes and families. The Stasi said, “No.” Jäger, still on his post, was scheduled to see his oncologist the next day, to pronounce a growth benign or cancerous. Jäger had do doubt it would be the latter, and figured he had nothing to lose. Seeing two anguished parents, who had left their child in the care of another, blocked ever from seeing their offspring again, “Jäger snapped.” He let the two return to East Germany, disobeying a direct order. Soon he directed all the guards at his bridge to let any East German return.
The opening of the wall not only erased an ugly line in Europe, it broke the chains of humanity to allow acts of grace. And Jäger is alive today: he didn’t have cancer.
In short, the Wall came down not with a bang but with a whimper. (Given the personal efforts at demolition, much of which wound up as dust, a great deal of the Berlin Wall necessarily must have gone down the drain.). But, the East Germans interviewed by the author are adamant about causation: "First we fought for our freedom; and then, because of that, the Wall fell."
July 23, 2022
The proximate cause of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, and the freedom earned by the Soviet-dominated, Warsaw Pact nations?
An East German bureaucratic mistake.
A mistake . . . and wise, peaceful / nonviolent political street demonstrators in East Germany quick enough to take full advantage of that mistake.
The history of the world changed because of a lower level bureaucratic mistake! Absolutely fascinating. A truly gripping story. 5 Stars.
An East German bureaucratic mistake.
A mistake . . . and wise, peaceful / nonviolent political street demonstrators in East Germany quick enough to take full advantage of that mistake.
The history of the world changed because of a lower level bureaucratic mistake! Absolutely fascinating. A truly gripping story. 5 Stars.
June 20, 2015
I wandered into this book with a bit of ho-hum. Most of my historical reading centers on a different continent. Would I really be engaged by a different historical approach from an author I didn't know?
I was blown away.
The Collapse describes how the Berlin Wall fell, not by a malicious explosion of violence, but through patient nonviolent protests, face-palming mistakes by the repressors, and the bravery of freedom-loving Germans.
Two things stood out to me:
1. The Christian community can be thanked for their organization and pursuit of peace. Like those who resisted a generation before (e.g., Bonhoeffer, et al.) German Christians had an unshakeable commitment to social justice. By virtue of their identity as Christ followers, they were driven to act in keeping with that identity. Christian Führer, the “peace priest” figures largely in this historical narrative.
2. With all due respect to the good ol' U.S.A., it was not American heroism that took down the wall. Even though Reagan's "Tear down this wall!" is a strong piece of speechmaking, it was neither Reagen nor Gorbachev who were ultimately responsible for the crumbling of the barrier. It was the passionate pursuit of peace and reunification of the Germans.
I was blown away.
The Collapse describes how the Berlin Wall fell, not by a malicious explosion of violence, but through patient nonviolent protests, face-palming mistakes by the repressors, and the bravery of freedom-loving Germans.
Two things stood out to me:
1. The Christian community can be thanked for their organization and pursuit of peace. Like those who resisted a generation before (e.g., Bonhoeffer, et al.) German Christians had an unshakeable commitment to social justice. By virtue of their identity as Christ followers, they were driven to act in keeping with that identity. Christian Führer, the “peace priest” figures largely in this historical narrative.
2. With all due respect to the good ol' U.S.A., it was not American heroism that took down the wall. Even though Reagan's "Tear down this wall!" is a strong piece of speechmaking, it was neither Reagen nor Gorbachev who were ultimately responsible for the crumbling of the barrier. It was the passionate pursuit of peace and reunification of the Germans.
October 29, 2014
In German history it seems that November 9th commemorates many important twentieth century dates. In 1918, following the defeat of Germany in World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the Hohenzollern throne. In 1923, Adolf Hitler launched his failed Beer Hall Putsch in trying to seize power in Munich. In 1938, the Nazis unleashed Kristallnacht (the Night of the Broken Glass) against the Jews of Germany. Finally, November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down which is the topic of Mary Elise Sarotte’s informative and interesting new monograph, THE COLLAPSE: THE ACCIDENTAL OPENING OF THE BERLIN WALL. Sarotte’s thesis is evident in the title of her book. She argues in a clear and evocative manner that the opening of the Berlin Wall was not planned and it came as a dramatic surprise when “a series of accidents, some of them mistakes so minor that they might otherwise have been trivialities, threw off sparks into the supercharged atmosphere of the autumn of 1989 and ignited a dramatic sequence of events that culminated in the unintended opening of the Berlin Wall.” The purpose of the book according to its author was to examine not only the sparks, but the friction in East Germany that produced them in the first place; the rise of a revolutionary but nonviolent civil resistance movement; and the collapse of the ruling regime.”(xx) Sarotte argues further that the wall did not come down on November 9th because of the actions of the superpowers, and the figures that brought down the wall were not internationally known. The book is an important contribution to the literature on the subject because on the night of November 9, 1989, a peaceful civil resistance movement overcame a dictatorial regime. “It is all too seldom that such a peaceful process happens at all, let alone leaves a magnificent collection of evidence and witnesses scattered broadly behind itself for all to see.”(xxv)
Sarotte has written a carefully constructed narrative as she tries to ascertain why the Berlin Wall came down when it did. The book is cogently written, well thought out, and impeccably researched. The reader is drawn into the reasons behind events leading up to November 9 and almost half the narrative is spent explaining what led up to the opening of the wall that evening. The first half of the book describes the gradual growth of opposition in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, GDR) regime under Erich Honecker and his replacement, Egon Krenz. Sarotte lays out her argument carefully as the civil opposition movement gains the confidence and support it needed in order to confront the regime. The reader is witness to the growing opposition that relied on churches in Leipzig and East Berlin to host prayer meetings that throughout the summer of 1989 continuously grew in attendance that in the weeks leading up to November 9 saw crowds of upwards of 500,000 people leave the churches and take to the streets. These demonstrations were a key as dissidents adopted a peaceful approach in matching government repression and violence. Sarotte effectively explores the leadership on both sides, analyzing their strategies and actions to determine why events evolved as they did.
The three most important elements leading up to November 9 appear to be the dissident and church leadership during prayer meetings; the strategy, or lack of thereof by officials of the GDR government in trying to defuse the opposition by issuing looser travel restrictions into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, FRG); and decisions made during the course of November 9 that led to the unexpected opening of the Berlin Wall. The most important characters in this process were a pair of dissident filmmakers and their contacts in West Berlin, church leaders in Leipzig and East Berlin, the intransigent attitudes of Honecker and Krenz, and the draft of a new travel law by Gerhard Lauter, head of the GDR Interior Ministry that led to the uncertainties that resulted in the opening of the wall. We must be kept in mind is that none of this could have taken place without the actions, or inaction by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. The Russian economy was in dire condition and Gorbachev made the decision that the Soviet Union could no longer afford to keep 380,000 troops in the GDR. What is fascinating as Sarotte points out is that throughout the period leading up to and including November 9, the Soviet Embassy remained ignorant of what Lauter and his colleagues had drawn up. Moscow thought that a “hole variant,” allowing one exit gate with severe restrictions was the policy that they approved of. But in reality, that policy was obsolete and was replaced by a much more liberal plan.
The most interesting and surprising aspect of the book is Sarotte’s presentation dealing with the GDR Politburo meeting when Krenz announces the new travel plan and there is no opposition to it. Following the meeting, Gunter Schabowski, a member of the GDR Politburo holds a live broadcast news conference in which he announces that “private trips to foreign countries may, without presenting justifications—reasons for trips connections to relatives—be applied for. Approvals will be distributed in a short time frame.”(117) This included emigration and short trips and when pressed on when this would take effect, Schabowski replied, “right away.” What is incredible about the press conference that ended around 7:00 pm on November 9th is that Schabowski never read the new travel law before he made his presentation. This lack of communication is a dominant theme throughout the book and as evening took over on November 9, border guards and other officials were taken aback as they had no clarification as to what to do when thousands of people approached different parts of the wall. GDR officials tried to contact their counterparts in Moscow, but the Soviet Union was just completing a holiday and no one in authority was available.
Sarotte concludes her book with the reactions in Moscow, London, Washington, and Bonn to events and she is very clear that western officials and intelligence officers were taken completely by surprise. Sarotte brings her monograph to a close with an epilogue in which she examines the reunification of Germany as a year after the wall fell five new states that were carved out of the GDR were able to join West Germany on October 3, 1990. Sarotte points out that West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had moved quickly for fear of a Soviet change of heart based on hard line opposition to the reform policies of Mikhail Gorbachev. Sarotte goes on to update the reader on the lives of the major participants in the drama she described, one of which was Vladimir Putin who was a KGB officer stationed in Dresden at the time, who returned to Russia full of regret of how the Soviet Union had lost its position in Europe. This would lead to his political career fueled by the desire to restore Russia to what he believed to be its rightful place in Europe. The issues of justice also emerge as well as memorials to celebrate the events she describes. One interesting aspect in closing is that there are more “wall memorials” in the United States than there are in Germany. Sarotte’s monograph is an excellent tool for anyone who is interested in understanding why the Berlin Wall fell when it did and why it was so significant
Sarotte has written a carefully constructed narrative as she tries to ascertain why the Berlin Wall came down when it did. The book is cogently written, well thought out, and impeccably researched. The reader is drawn into the reasons behind events leading up to November 9 and almost half the narrative is spent explaining what led up to the opening of the wall that evening. The first half of the book describes the gradual growth of opposition in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, GDR) regime under Erich Honecker and his replacement, Egon Krenz. Sarotte lays out her argument carefully as the civil opposition movement gains the confidence and support it needed in order to confront the regime. The reader is witness to the growing opposition that relied on churches in Leipzig and East Berlin to host prayer meetings that throughout the summer of 1989 continuously grew in attendance that in the weeks leading up to November 9 saw crowds of upwards of 500,000 people leave the churches and take to the streets. These demonstrations were a key as dissidents adopted a peaceful approach in matching government repression and violence. Sarotte effectively explores the leadership on both sides, analyzing their strategies and actions to determine why events evolved as they did.
The three most important elements leading up to November 9 appear to be the dissident and church leadership during prayer meetings; the strategy, or lack of thereof by officials of the GDR government in trying to defuse the opposition by issuing looser travel restrictions into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, FRG); and decisions made during the course of November 9 that led to the unexpected opening of the Berlin Wall. The most important characters in this process were a pair of dissident filmmakers and their contacts in West Berlin, church leaders in Leipzig and East Berlin, the intransigent attitudes of Honecker and Krenz, and the draft of a new travel law by Gerhard Lauter, head of the GDR Interior Ministry that led to the uncertainties that resulted in the opening of the wall. We must be kept in mind is that none of this could have taken place without the actions, or inaction by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. The Russian economy was in dire condition and Gorbachev made the decision that the Soviet Union could no longer afford to keep 380,000 troops in the GDR. What is fascinating as Sarotte points out is that throughout the period leading up to and including November 9, the Soviet Embassy remained ignorant of what Lauter and his colleagues had drawn up. Moscow thought that a “hole variant,” allowing one exit gate with severe restrictions was the policy that they approved of. But in reality, that policy was obsolete and was replaced by a much more liberal plan.
The most interesting and surprising aspect of the book is Sarotte’s presentation dealing with the GDR Politburo meeting when Krenz announces the new travel plan and there is no opposition to it. Following the meeting, Gunter Schabowski, a member of the GDR Politburo holds a live broadcast news conference in which he announces that “private trips to foreign countries may, without presenting justifications—reasons for trips connections to relatives—be applied for. Approvals will be distributed in a short time frame.”(117) This included emigration and short trips and when pressed on when this would take effect, Schabowski replied, “right away.” What is incredible about the press conference that ended around 7:00 pm on November 9th is that Schabowski never read the new travel law before he made his presentation. This lack of communication is a dominant theme throughout the book and as evening took over on November 9, border guards and other officials were taken aback as they had no clarification as to what to do when thousands of people approached different parts of the wall. GDR officials tried to contact their counterparts in Moscow, but the Soviet Union was just completing a holiday and no one in authority was available.
Sarotte concludes her book with the reactions in Moscow, London, Washington, and Bonn to events and she is very clear that western officials and intelligence officers were taken completely by surprise. Sarotte brings her monograph to a close with an epilogue in which she examines the reunification of Germany as a year after the wall fell five new states that were carved out of the GDR were able to join West Germany on October 3, 1990. Sarotte points out that West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had moved quickly for fear of a Soviet change of heart based on hard line opposition to the reform policies of Mikhail Gorbachev. Sarotte goes on to update the reader on the lives of the major participants in the drama she described, one of which was Vladimir Putin who was a KGB officer stationed in Dresden at the time, who returned to Russia full of regret of how the Soviet Union had lost its position in Europe. This would lead to his political career fueled by the desire to restore Russia to what he believed to be its rightful place in Europe. The issues of justice also emerge as well as memorials to celebrate the events she describes. One interesting aspect in closing is that there are more “wall memorials” in the United States than there are in Germany. Sarotte’s monograph is an excellent tool for anyone who is interested in understanding why the Berlin Wall fell when it did and why it was so significant
June 24, 2015
So here’s a sad story. For some reason, I have been belaboring under the delusion for years that the Berlin Wall opened as a direct result of Ronald Reagan making his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech. I chalk this up to not paying enough attention in history, and also the fact that this line of speech appears in so many inspirational montages – but as it turns out, Reagan’s speech was made in 1987, and the wall didn’t open until 1989. I guess its inspirational montage appearances are just because it was a really good speech.
Even if, unlike me, you’ve never belabored under this particular delusion, you may still be misinformed about the circumstances of the opening of the Berlin Wall. According to the author, the wall did not open as a result of the wheeling and dealings of the big superpowers of the era at all; rather, she states, “The opening that night was simply not planned” (p. xix). She then goes on to recount the strange series of events – including numerous miscommunications and coincidences – that resulted in the opening of the wall. Contrary to popular thought, the main actors in the drama aren’t the huge political leaders, but rather the pastors who lead enormous peaceful protests, individuals who smuggled footage of the events to the outside media, and low-level members of the GDR Party who made a number of fateful choices.
The book is very well sourced, with impressive amounts of primary documents and interviews with those who lived through the event. The writing moved along at a good pace and kept my interest, although it was a bit on the heavier side of the spectrum as far as nonfiction that I’ve read.
The book was a great reminder that it is possible for individuals to make a difference on the world stage – and although the author does not draw this conclusion, as a Christian, it reminded me of the Sovereign hand that presided over a series of “accidents” and “coincidences.”
Even if, unlike me, you’ve never belabored under this particular delusion, you may still be misinformed about the circumstances of the opening of the Berlin Wall. According to the author, the wall did not open as a result of the wheeling and dealings of the big superpowers of the era at all; rather, she states, “The opening that night was simply not planned” (p. xix). She then goes on to recount the strange series of events – including numerous miscommunications and coincidences – that resulted in the opening of the wall. Contrary to popular thought, the main actors in the drama aren’t the huge political leaders, but rather the pastors who lead enormous peaceful protests, individuals who smuggled footage of the events to the outside media, and low-level members of the GDR Party who made a number of fateful choices.
The book is very well sourced, with impressive amounts of primary documents and interviews with those who lived through the event. The writing moved along at a good pace and kept my interest, although it was a bit on the heavier side of the spectrum as far as nonfiction that I’ve read.
The book was a great reminder that it is possible for individuals to make a difference on the world stage – and although the author does not draw this conclusion, as a Christian, it reminded me of the Sovereign hand that presided over a series of “accidents” and “coincidences.”
March 3, 2018
An excellent, fast-paced, concise account of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Aside from explaining this complicated story in clear terms, Sarotte has a lot to say here about the distinct benefits of historical analysis and causation. Sarotte argues that in order to understand why something happened, we have to understand how. I'm not sure if I've heard a more concise and perfect definition of how historians think and what they do. We can talk about causation all day, but we need a fine-grained sense of how events developed, what options people considered, what decisions people made and rejected, etc before we can see how big picture factors turned into movement on the ground. The fact that the opening of the Berlin Wall was an accident really can't be explained in anything but historical terms.
The government meant to issue a statement that would allow people to emigrate through CZ, although they would still have to apply for visas. However, mid level bureaucrats found the statement confusing, so they changed the statement to say that emigration restriction were being lifted right away, including into East Berlin. This led a population, mobilized already by protests in Leipzig and elsewhere, to go to the gates of the wall and demand entry. The confused guards, angry at their clueless superiors, decided against crushing the protests and started to let them through. This proved uncontrollable, leading to the complete collapse of the wall.
Of course, big picture forces were pushing against the GDR: economic disaster, de-legitimation at home, political upheaval in the Eastern Bloc, Gorbachev's reforms, increased media and human rights scrutiny. However, even with all these structural factors set up, the fall of the Berlin Wall still had to happen; people had to make decisions that interacted to produce an outcome that was by no means predetermined by those big structural factors that scholars spend most of their time arguing about. Things still could have gone in other directions; there could have been a German Tiananmen, for example, and people had to choose to not do that. In those moments, ripe with many potentials, history can veer off in many directions in spite of the weight of big picture factors. This is one of the best books I've come across on the sheer capriciousness of history and the fact that events are made by people rather than "forces," two big points that no other discipline can really grasp.
People impute all kinds of meaning to the end of the Cold War: the end of history, the definitive failure of communism, the voluntary surrender of communism, etc. These big narratives all have some truth to them, but this book shows the importance of overlooked forces in history: accident, confusion, misunderstanding, petty bureaucratic rivalry. The more you dig into any given case, the more you see this kind of "accidental" stuff shaping events.
I'd recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the end of the Cold War, German history, activism, or just someone who likes thinking about history as a discipline. Maybe some lessons in here for modern protest movements too, such as the importance of maintaining the moral high ground in spite of the endless provocations and indignities that authorities can inflict.
The government meant to issue a statement that would allow people to emigrate through CZ, although they would still have to apply for visas. However, mid level bureaucrats found the statement confusing, so they changed the statement to say that emigration restriction were being lifted right away, including into East Berlin. This led a population, mobilized already by protests in Leipzig and elsewhere, to go to the gates of the wall and demand entry. The confused guards, angry at their clueless superiors, decided against crushing the protests and started to let them through. This proved uncontrollable, leading to the complete collapse of the wall.
Of course, big picture forces were pushing against the GDR: economic disaster, de-legitimation at home, political upheaval in the Eastern Bloc, Gorbachev's reforms, increased media and human rights scrutiny. However, even with all these structural factors set up, the fall of the Berlin Wall still had to happen; people had to make decisions that interacted to produce an outcome that was by no means predetermined by those big structural factors that scholars spend most of their time arguing about. Things still could have gone in other directions; there could have been a German Tiananmen, for example, and people had to choose to not do that. In those moments, ripe with many potentials, history can veer off in many directions in spite of the weight of big picture factors. This is one of the best books I've come across on the sheer capriciousness of history and the fact that events are made by people rather than "forces," two big points that no other discipline can really grasp.
People impute all kinds of meaning to the end of the Cold War: the end of history, the definitive failure of communism, the voluntary surrender of communism, etc. These big narratives all have some truth to them, but this book shows the importance of overlooked forces in history: accident, confusion, misunderstanding, petty bureaucratic rivalry. The more you dig into any given case, the more you see this kind of "accidental" stuff shaping events.
I'd recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the end of the Cold War, German history, activism, or just someone who likes thinking about history as a discipline. Maybe some lessons in here for modern protest movements too, such as the importance of maintaining the moral high ground in spite of the endless provocations and indignities that authorities can inflict.
July 28, 2022
Захватывающий рассказ о том, как неожиданно поднялась волна народных протестов, перед которой не устояла прогнившая система. Читаешь и думаешь: «А вдруг Стена не рухнет?» А потом с облегчением вспоминаешь, что все-таки рухнула.
— Тамара Эйдельман, историк, заслуженный учитель России"
Прелюбопытнейшее расследование, которое хочется сравнить с паззлом из тысячи элементов (документов и свидетельств с обеих сторон от стены) скрупулёзно собранных в очень живую картину хроники разложения политического режима, подавлявшего права и свободы людей. Очень увлекательно хотя и не без занудства.
— Тамара Эйдельман, историк, заслуженный учитель России"
Прелюбопытнейшее расследование, которое хочется сравнить с паззлом из тысячи элементов (документов и свидетельств с обеих сторон от стены) скрупулёзно собранных в очень живую картину хроники разложения политического режима, подавлявшего права и свободы людей. Очень увлекательно хотя и не без занудства.
February 8, 2024
В качестве проводника в исторический экскурс падения Берлинской стены - крайне интересно, ведь оказалось, что я совершенно ничего не знаю о столь важном в современной истории событии. Но сняла одну звезду за стиль повествования - ОЧЕНЬ много героев с непривычными для памяти фамилиями, которых авторка представляет всего единожды. Далее, если не запоминаешь сразу, теряешься мгновенно, особенно если герои пропадают в начале книги и появляются в конце. Приходится возвращаться и вспоминать, кто же это был.
До глубины души потряс эпилог и анализ авторкой сохранения немцами памяти о Берлинской стене. Все-таки то, как они хранят память о боли, пережитой людьми, разделенными искусственной границей, и не ставят помпезных памятников, прославляющих победу над режимом, - этому нам надо было поучиться, чтобы не встать на тот путь, на которым мы, увы, сейчас.
До глубины души потряс эпилог и анализ авторкой сохранения немцами памяти о Берлинской стене. Все-таки то, как они хранят память о боли, пережитой людьми, разделенными искусственной границей, и не ставят помпезных памятников, прославляющих победу над режимом, - этому нам надо было поучиться, чтобы не встать на тот путь, на которым мы, увы, сейчас.
July 30, 2015
The Collapse opens with the following quote by Alexis de Tocqueville:
As Sarotte explains in her excellent book about the opening of the Berlin Wall, the above quote is a perfect way to describe the events that led to this momentous occasion on November 9th, 1989. She focuses on the 6 weeks to 2 months leading up to the opening, showing how a series of unplanned contingent events involving a variety of people, (including activists, church leaders, reporters, government officials, and border guards) converged to ultimately lead to the unexpected and unplanned opening of the Berlin Wall, and hence, the end of the Cold War.
It is not always going from bad to worse that leads to revolution. What happens most often is that a people that puts up with the most opressive laws without complaint as if it did not feel them rejects those laws violently when the burden is alleviated. The evil that one endures patiently because it seems inevitable becomes unbearable the moment its elimination becomes conceivable.
As Sarotte explains in her excellent book about the opening of the Berlin Wall, the above quote is a perfect way to describe the events that led to this momentous occasion on November 9th, 1989. She focuses on the 6 weeks to 2 months leading up to the opening, showing how a series of unplanned contingent events involving a variety of people, (including activists, church leaders, reporters, government officials, and border guards) converged to ultimately lead to the unexpected and unplanned opening of the Berlin Wall, and hence, the end of the Cold War.
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May 24, 2015Sarotte's thesis is that the Wall came down due to local actors and effects not high-level decision making. She makes the case well. It was the protests of reform churches in Leipzig particularly that grew to a size that forced authorities to forego the use of violence as a means to shut them down which prompted new leadership in East Germany to draft a travel law which unwittingly opened the border on the night of November 9, 1989. Miscommunication and failure to act was endemic within the East German government. The author shows that authority crumbled once the vast majority of people in East Germany no longer took their government seriously. Good history.
January 19, 2020
Хороший взгляд на падение Берлинской стены с интересной хронологией и набором героев.
October 29, 2022
4/5
Pretty good. Not very long, 180 pages of main text and another 100 pages for the notes and sources. The first chapter sets out the longer term context and history of the wall and then the book basically covers all of 1989 and the process that led to the end of the Berlin Wall. The book leans heavily and convincingly into the fall of the Berlin Wall. being a total accident, with a lot of focus on the things that seem trivial and the various cockups by the GDR leadership. Has a good mix of points of view, the leadership, foreign journalists, activists etc. Personally I enjoyed the bits about the Polituburo and the leadership with the high level politics the most.
Pretty good. Not very long, 180 pages of main text and another 100 pages for the notes and sources. The first chapter sets out the longer term context and history of the wall and then the book basically covers all of 1989 and the process that led to the end of the Berlin Wall. The book leans heavily and convincingly into the fall of the Berlin Wall. being a total accident, with a lot of focus on the things that seem trivial and the various cockups by the GDR leadership. Has a good mix of points of view, the leadership, foreign journalists, activists etc. Personally I enjoyed the bits about the Polituburo and the leadership with the high level politics the most.
December 28, 2020
Most of us know that Schabowski's made the announcement by mistake. But I haven't realized what a ridiculous series of events led to it. Pressure built by mass peaceful protests + incompetent bureaucrats + a few bits of luck = one of the best day in the human history.
I hope we are in the GDR of 1988.
I hope we are in the GDR of 1988.
December 18, 2023
Bureaucratic errors, oversights, foibles, contingencies and sequential stumbles worthy of Kafka and Yes, Minister. No, the GDR regime really did not open the Berlin Wall on purpose. Compared to this, the Cuban Missile Crisis was an exercise in communications clarity!
July 12, 2021
Great piece of research, predominantly with use of oral history. Stories of mid-level Stasi officers and DDR dissidents are touching, quite a few moments are new, at least for me.
November 2, 2023
A detailed account of events surrounding the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, proving that what seems to be inevitable and natural, was actually unexpected and unplanned.
March 30, 2022
Peaceful protest+ineptitude=accidental fall of the wall
December 12, 2020
This book came highly recommended to me, and for good reason: The Collapse tells the story of the opening of the Berlin Wall in a very different way from what I learned in school. In this book, Mary Elise Sarotte tells the story of how the wall opened not by an orchestrated political decision, but by a series of events, some of them merely accidental or misunderstandings. This book really shows the power of people, of why one should not just take the fall of the Berlin wall as a "thing that would happen sooner or later", and the precise set of circumstances that made this an incredible moment in history. I enjoyed this book a lot and recommend it highly!
June 23, 2023
С литературной точки зрения очень дурно написано. Бедный язык, путанное изложение, некоторые факты интересны, но торчат в тексте без связи с окружающим контекстом. Подозреваю, что дело не в русскоязычном переводе, а в изначальном тексте. Но изложенные факты, то как выстроены они и к каким выводам приводят делают книгу обязательной к прочтению. Хотя бы эпилог, но прочитайте!
April 14, 2023
Интересная история, которая легко читается. Довольно ясно и понятно написано, увлекательно читать.
Рекомендую к прочтению всем, кто интересуется историей Германии, СССР, Холодной войной и просто интересными историями.
Поразило, как много случайных событий привело к такому этичному событию, сильно повлиявшему на историю. Ретроспективно мы переписываем воспоминания и с высоты тех лет все кажется неизбежным :) но это - не так, и в книге это так же показывается.
Понравилось, что много пруфов, фактов и ссылок, а не только мнения и интерпретации в угоду повествованию.
Рекомендую к прочтению всем, кто интересуется историей Германии, СССР, Холодной войной и просто интересными историями.
Поразило, как много случайных событий привело к такому этичному событию, сильно повлиявшему на историю. Ретроспективно мы переписываем воспоминания и с высоты тех лет все кажется неизбежным :) но это - не так, и в книге это так же показывается.
Понравилось, что много пруфов, фактов и ссылок, а не только мнения и интерпретации в угоду повествованию.
October 3, 2017
The first hundred or so pages of The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall is preamble but the context is required for those without a penchant for modern history. It takes a world’s stage and distills it to the minute-by-minute lives of a handful of people. The prep work can get tedious because it is all marches and mimeographed flyers and you know how it ends, anyway. But if you jump right to the Berlin Wall being overcoming by the citizens of East Germany, the American exceptionalism—the false primacy of G.H.W. Bush and Reagan as Cold War heroes encoded in our national psyche—color the reality and serve to diminish the truth of the work.
And that reality is that non-violent civil unrest works. At least, it did this one time. The book repeats itself a thousand times over that this was a fluke, that nothing about it was inevitable, and that the circumstances may never be duplicated again. This hampers what seems to be the take-away this was ex post positioned toward to capitalize on the current zeitgeist; that the marches and protests going on right in America now can succeed in similar ways. Maybe they can, too, but more likely they will be met with violent state resistance.
This movement, this revolution, was a non-violent success preciously because of a string of mousetrap-like coincidences that led the state’s unwillingness to gun down its own citizens. The JFK quote being bandied about right now, shorn from context, has the same vibe of misplaced kismet: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” The important parts: that it was a speech to an alliance of Latin American countries; that it was about livable wages and workers rights and economic developments; that “the course of rational social change is even more hazardous for those progressive governments who often face entrenched privilege on the right and subversive conspiracies on the left,” seems to be ignored for the soundbite that is vague enough to fit the any present crises.
Similarly, taking excerpts from The Collapse out of context would undercut the structure of banal and bureaucratic malevolence: if I give you highlights, their impact is diminished by lack of contrast; if you get a taste of the day-to-day descriptions, they are stripped of context and also quite, well, boring. It brought honest-to-god tears to my eyes when the people walked through the checkpoints—and I had only been living with this trauma for two hundred pages, not forty years. The thought of another wall being built, or even the use of the rhetoric of another wall, is stomach-churning. The Collapse is short and compelling, so there is no excuse—none whatsoever—not to add it to your reading list.
And that reality is that non-violent civil unrest works. At least, it did this one time. The book repeats itself a thousand times over that this was a fluke, that nothing about it was inevitable, and that the circumstances may never be duplicated again. This hampers what seems to be the take-away this was ex post positioned toward to capitalize on the current zeitgeist; that the marches and protests going on right in America now can succeed in similar ways. Maybe they can, too, but more likely they will be met with violent state resistance.
This movement, this revolution, was a non-violent success preciously because of a string of mousetrap-like coincidences that led the state’s unwillingness to gun down its own citizens. The JFK quote being bandied about right now, shorn from context, has the same vibe of misplaced kismet: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” The important parts: that it was a speech to an alliance of Latin American countries; that it was about livable wages and workers rights and economic developments; that “the course of rational social change is even more hazardous for those progressive governments who often face entrenched privilege on the right and subversive conspiracies on the left,” seems to be ignored for the soundbite that is vague enough to fit the any present crises.
Similarly, taking excerpts from The Collapse out of context would undercut the structure of banal and bureaucratic malevolence: if I give you highlights, their impact is diminished by lack of contrast; if you get a taste of the day-to-day descriptions, they are stripped of context and also quite, well, boring. It brought honest-to-god tears to my eyes when the people walked through the checkpoints—and I had only been living with this trauma for two hundred pages, not forty years. The thought of another wall being built, or even the use of the rhetoric of another wall, is stomach-churning. The Collapse is short and compelling, so there is no excuse—none whatsoever—not to add it to your reading list.
July 11, 2017
This book recounts what is, to my mind, one of the most incredible, and most exciting, events of the 20th century. The fact that Western (particularly US) leaders have insisted on undeservedly making themselves its authors has always irked me; it is to be hoped that this book will make more people aware of *why* it was so incredible and exciting - because a lot of perfectly ordinary, mostly forgotten East Germans had the courage to rise up and do something the rest of us were convinced was impossible. Even if one is among those who think the triumph of 'democracy' failed to fulfil its promise, the peaceful events leading up to the opening of the Berlin Wall were remarkable.
March 29, 2022
С огромным удовольствием погрузилась в события 1989 года и узнала много нового о том, как жила Германия и Европа в попытке обуздать то, что нам сегодня обуздать не получается. Узнала о том, как оппозиционеры в ГДР проводили встречи и обмен запрещёнкой в церквях, о расстрелах и тысячах эмигрантов. Как хорошо, что стена пала, а вся книга рассказывает о предпосылках и действиях, которые привели к этому happy end’у.
July 25, 2021
Книжка о том, какие факторы на уровне микроистории повлияли на падение берлинской стены: чьи слова стриггерили, чья уступка спасла, чей выходной помешал, чья невнимательность имела решающее влияние. Написана замечательным, лёгким языком. Понятная и последовательная. Воспроизвести это после прочтения совершенно невозможно, да и читала я ее много месяцев, дольше многих других, но все равно это дивно как авторская задумка и образцово как способ подачи истории
January 29, 2015
The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989, unexpected and unscripted, illustrates Gandhi's point that whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is important that you do it: a great many insignificant individual actions added up to a very important event indeed. Sarotte gives us a detailed, fascinating, and affecting analysis of a remarkable moment in European history.
January 14, 2020
До этого мой уровен�� знаний об осени 1989 г. был примерно на нулевом уровне, поэтому я не могу оценивать, например, то, насколько книга дает адекватную историческую картину. Зато могу оценить то, насколько она интересна. Очень. Даже учитывая то, что я довольно часто путалась в фамилиях и героях.
December 7, 2015
Interesting read, good research and detail, well organized and presented.
February 8, 2020
Было бы 10/10, не будь вступление и эпилог невероятно водными и занудными
February 7, 2021
Хорошая, несколько воодушевляющая книга о том, как вроде ряд случайностей, а на самом деле воля людей к свободе привела к тому, что тоталитарный режим пал. Желаю нам всем того же
November 28, 2018
This book was phenomenal. It's a history narrative that reads like a thriller. I literally chewed my fingernails as I was reading, even though I knew how it would end - on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was suddenly opened and a flood of East Berliners walked into West Berlin and celebrated. This was one of the signal events of the end of the Cold War (and a precursor to the demise of Soviet Russia). This book recounts the events that led up to that fateful night, and even, on a minute-by-minute basis, what happened on November 9, 1989. And the title was not guilty of false advertising : the opening of the Berlin Wall was really an accident, or rather a chain of events, decisions (or more often : lack of decisions), fears, impulsive acts, blunders and other non-planned events. It is so easy, so tempting, even, to think that someone at some point made a decision to open the Wall, and then it happened. In reality, months of civil unrest in East Germany had made the party leadership realize that they needed to relax the travel restrictions on their citizens, not just for travel to the West, but even within the countries of the Warsaw pact. But in the days after the deposition of Erich Honecker by Egon Krentz, the Eastern German Politburo was too busy with political infighting to pay attention to the travel policy that 4 younger mid-level bureaucrats concocted based on the scant and contradictory instructions they had received. So, a few hours later, during a routine press conference, a befuddled spokesman reads out a text that has never been vetted, that he himself had never scanned before... and which seems to indicate that East Germans can travel freely... including across the Wall in Berlin....immediately. Within minutes people in East Berlin hear about this staggering development on the West German radio. Within half an hour there are humongous crowds at the checkpoints, clamoring to get into West Berlin. The discombobulated border guards, who have not received any instructions or information about what just happened, try to get hold of party bosses, to no avail. So, as the crowds swell into the thousands, they have to make a choice : shoot or open the checkpoint. And they choose to open the checkpoints, with the results shown in the iconic pictures of that day : hordes of people peacefully swarming into East Berlin, celebrating on top of the Wall.
I read this book with fascination. The author does an exceptional job of sketching both the broad historical and political perspectives, without neglecting the human element. She conducted extensive interviews with some of the dissidents who were active in the massive protest marches in Leipzig in September and October 1989, events that undoubtedly made the tottering East German regime realize that there was an enormous groundswell of dissatisfaction among the citizenry. The complicated relationships within the East Bloc countries were laid bare, as well as the impact of Gorbachev's restructuring of the USSR. One of the many miscommunications in early November 1989 was the fact that somehow no one had informed Moscow, or the Russian ambassador to East Germany, of the impending changes. It was one of those cases where everyone thought that someone else had taken care of it/would take care of it, with the net result that by the time Moskow figured out what was going on, it was too late.
One of the reasons why I rave about this book is that despite all the brutality of the East German regime, this was essentially a peaceful revolution. Although the party hard-liners believed that firing blindly into crowds (as in Tiananmen Square) was a viable response to dissidence, cooler heads prevailed, both during the protest marches in Leipzig, and at the Berlin Wall. So I finished this book with a sense of happiness, relief, gratitude, that every once in a while - rarely, but sometimes- major changes can happen without bloodshed.
I read this book with fascination. The author does an exceptional job of sketching both the broad historical and political perspectives, without neglecting the human element. She conducted extensive interviews with some of the dissidents who were active in the massive protest marches in Leipzig in September and October 1989, events that undoubtedly made the tottering East German regime realize that there was an enormous groundswell of dissatisfaction among the citizenry. The complicated relationships within the East Bloc countries were laid bare, as well as the impact of Gorbachev's restructuring of the USSR. One of the many miscommunications in early November 1989 was the fact that somehow no one had informed Moscow, or the Russian ambassador to East Germany, of the impending changes. It was one of those cases where everyone thought that someone else had taken care of it/would take care of it, with the net result that by the time Moskow figured out what was going on, it was too late.
One of the reasons why I rave about this book is that despite all the brutality of the East German regime, this was essentially a peaceful revolution. Although the party hard-liners believed that firing blindly into crowds (as in Tiananmen Square) was a viable response to dissidence, cooler heads prevailed, both during the protest marches in Leipzig, and at the Berlin Wall. So I finished this book with a sense of happiness, relief, gratitude, that every once in a while - rarely, but sometimes- major changes can happen without bloodshed.
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