Overview
- The Berlin Wall was opened on November 9, 1989, ending controls between East Germany and West Germany after dividing Berlin since 1961.
- Retrospectives credit Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1985 liberalization and pressure on RDA leader Erich Honecker with prompting the border easing that led to the breach.
- The wall’s opening cleared a path to German reunification and presaged the Soviet Union’s decline.
- The date also recalls Kristallnacht in 1938, with 90 people killed and about 30,000 Jews sent to concentration camps, and the failed 1923 Hitler–Ludendorff coup.
- Anniversary lists note Hedy Lamarr’s 1914 birth, marked by International Inventor’s Day, and Garry Kasparov’s 1985 world chess title win over Anatoly Karpov as the youngest champion.