Mary Elise Sarotte - The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall

Praise for The Collapse

The fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the landmark events of the twentieth century, but this great change involved accidental and non-violent causes. In wonderfully readable prose, Mary Elise Sarotte tells a compelling story of how history works its surprises.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and author of The Future of Power

In The Collapse, Mary Elise Sarotte provides a needed (and highly readable) reminder that the peaceful culmination to 1989s dramatic developments was in no way inevitable.

General Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor

Meticulously researched, judiciously argued, and exceptionally well written, The Collapse describes the fall of the Berlin Wall from an unprecedented perspective. Mary Elise Sarotte weaves together numerous German, American, and Soviet accounts, allowing the reader to crisscross the Berlin Wall on the eve and in the course of its collapse. It will come as a surprise to many that this climactic event in Cold War history resulted not from agreements reached in Washington, Berlin, Moscow, or Bonn, but from the uncoordinated actions of people on both sides of the Berlin divide. The Collapse makes it possible for those who made history in 1989 to speak in their own voices.

Serhii Plokhy, author of The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union

From a remove of 25 years, the fall of the Berlin Wall seems foreordained. In fact, as Mary Elise Sarotte shows, this historic moment was an improbable concatenation of events and decisions triggering in perfect if accidental sequence. Catastrophe at times was just seconds away. As someone who was in Leipzig and Berlin as the crucial events unfolded, I can say that Sarotte gets it exactly right, capturing the fear, confusion, courage, and growing excitement as hitherto ordinary people peacefully toppled the deadly barrier that symbolized the Cold War.

Mike Leary, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist

In her compelling and fast-paced narrative, Mary Elise Sarotte reminds us that the end of the Cold War was not foreordained, but that courageous acts by East German dissidents, offhand comments by GDR officials, and the actions of one perplexed border-guard changed the course of twentieth-century history. This is essential reading for those who want to understand the role of contingency and human agency in the unexpected opening of the Berlin Wall.

Angela Stent, author of The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century

The

Collapse

The

Collapse

The Accidental Opening

of the Berlin Wall

Mary Elise Sarotte

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

New York

Copyright 2014 by Mary Elise Sarotte

Published by Basic Books, a Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107.

Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For moreinformation, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 8104145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sarotte, Mary Elise.

The collapse : the accidental opening of the Berlin Wall / Mary Elise Sarotte.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-465-05690-3 (e-book) 1. Berlin Wall, Berlin,

Germany,1961-1989. 2. Germany (East)Politics and government1989-1990. 3. Berlin (Germany)

History1945-1990. I. Title. II. Title: Accidental opening of the Berlin Wall.

DD881.S215 2014

943.087'8dc23

2014026435

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Dianne and Al, Steve, and Mark

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 oppressive 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.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Contents

Maps

Photos

Abbreviations in the Captions,
Maps, and Text

ABCUS broadcast network

ADNEast German news service

ARDWest German broadcast network

CBSUS broadcast network

CDUChristian-Democratic Union (political party in West Germany; separate political party in East Germany; merged in 1990 in united Germany)

CIAUS Central Intelligence Agency

CSCEConference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

CSSRCzechoslovak Socialist Republic

DMDeutschmark (the currency of West Germany in 1989)

DPAGerman Press Agency (West German news service, initials in German)

ECEuropean Community

EUEuropean Union

FDPFree Democratic Party (West German, then German; also known as the Liberals)

FRGFederal Republic of Germany (generally known in English as West Germany; see note on names)

GDRGerman Democratic Republic (generally known in English as East Germany; see note on names)

IDPersonal identity paperwork

MfSEast German Ministry for State Security (also known as the Stasi)

NATONorth Atlantic Treaty Organization

NBCUS broadcast network

NSCUS National Security Council

RHGRobert Havemann Society (initials in German)

SBMBerlin Wall Foundation (initials in German)

SEDEast German Socialist Unity Party (the East German ruling party, initials in German)

UKUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

USUnited States

USSRUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics

ZDFWest German broadcast network

Writing a book in English based on audio and video recordings, documents, and interviews that were mostly in languages other than English creates a challenge in the use of certain names. For example, this book uses the common English-language terms East Germany and West Germany despite the fact that those precise names are used only rarely in German-language sources from the time period, which generally refer instead to East Germany as the German Democratic Republic, or GDR, and West Germany as the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG. The exact names are not trivialities, given that what, exactly, the two Germanys called themselves and each other was a constant source of contention. In the interest of producing a clearly written text for the English-language reader, however, I have adopted the common English terms despite their differences from the original sources, as well as using the acronyms GDR and FRG for variety. It is additionally worth noting that, starting on October 3, 1990, the newly reunified Germany kept the former West German name of Federal Republic of Germany for itself, so references to the FRG after that date describe all of the united country instead of just the western half of the divided one. Similar to my use of East and West Germany is my use of East Berlin for clarity, even though the GDR regime generally avoided referring to its half of divided Berlin by that name. Instead, it preferred to use either Berlinthus implying, incorrectly, that it held sway over the entire cityor the more formal Berlin Capital of the GDR. Finally, I have relied on common English-language names of not just places but also people, such as Joseph Stalin for the former leader of the Soviet Union.