A senior East German official whose impromptu announcement at a news conference led to the demise of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has died aged 86.<\/p>\n
Guenter Schabowski said travel restrictions on the ex-state’s citizens would be immediately lifted, prompting tens of thousands to cross to the West.<\/p>\n
Officials had intended to phase in changes the next day, but the mass of people hastened the Wall’s rapid fall.<\/p>\n
The measures were intended to stem an exodus to Hungary amid mass protests.<\/p>\n
Less than a year later, East and West Germany were reunited into one country, ending 45 years of division.<\/p>\n
‘Without delay’<\/p>\n
Mr Schabowski was a spokesman for the East German regime in 1989, when Communist governments across Eastern Europe were facing a wave of popular protest.<\/p>\n
The government had decided to make it easier for East Germans to travel to Western Europe, in an attempt to curb a flood of people crossing into Hungary, which had itself opened its western borders.<\/p>\n
On 9 November he gave a news conference outlining the changes, but the late BBC correspondent Brian Hanrahan – who witnessed the events – said he had jumped the gun as they were supposed to be announced early the next morning.<\/p>\n
And asked when the changes would come into effect, he said: “This occurs, to my knowledge… immediately… without delay.”<\/p>\n
In 1997, Mr Schabowski was jailed for three years for his role in East Germany’s policy of shooting those who tried to cross into the West, but was pardoned after a year.<\/p>\n
In 2009 he wrote an autobiography denouncing the regime as being fatally flawed.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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