Reagan’s Berlin Wall Speech

After years of economic decline and a rising awareness by average Russians that the Soviet political elites ate caviar in their dachas while they stood hungry in food lines, the Soviet Union’s ironclad grip over her citizens began to crumble by the late 1980s.

Fully aware of the failing state of the Soviet economy, in 1985, general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev began to usher in reforms that would move his nation from strict Marxist-Leninist Communism to social democracy. Sensing change in the Soviet’s core ideology after 40 years of budget-draining Cold War, U.S. President Ronald Reagan called out Gorbachev during a 1987 speech near the Berlin Wall that divided Communist East Berlin from democratic West Berlin.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

When Did The Berlin Wall Fall?

Two years later, on the 9th of November, 1987, East German politician Günter Schabowski inadvertently triggered the fall of the Berlin Wall, when at a live press conference he read a draft bill just passed by the East German government, which eased restrictions on the rights of citizens to immigrate to the West.

When asked by reporters when these more lenient measures would take effect, Schabowski answered “immediately.”

Known by Germans as Der Maur, when the news broke, people amassed on both sides of the Berlin Wall, celebrating the end to their divided city for the first time in 26 years. Early breach attempts to the Wall met with only mild resistance from border guards, which ushered in a full reunion as people freely crossed through Checkpoint Charlie. The following morning, after Berliners had chipped away at the Wall for souvenirs, the Wall came down in earnest when excavators were brought in to officially bring the Wall to its highly-anticipated end.