What I Saw in Berlin When the Wall Opened Up in 1989

A firsthand account of the day the Berlin Wall fell.

In the Fall of 1989, I was backpacking around Europe and just happened to be staying at a hostel in Bacharach, West Germany when news of the Berlin Wall opening reached me.

The West German government was housing East German refugees all over the country so I found myself staying in a hostel that was overflowing with East German refugees who had climbed over the fences in Prague.

The announcement was made when I was in a room with about a hundred East Germans who had abandoned everything they owned to escape the oppressive communist regime.

The experience was amazing. I have linked a story about the night in the hostel with the East German refugees at the bottom of this article.

The morning after the announcement, I decided to head to Berlin as quickly as I could.

I went down to the train station and took the first train heading for Berlin. As the train stopped at town after town, the train filled up quickly. It seemed everybody in Europe had the same idea as me.

By the time we got to the East German border, the train was packed, and people were hanging out the windows, riding on the luggage racks or standing squeezed in the aisles.

People were not annoyed, however, and the mood was party-like and jubilant.

With so many travelers heading to Berlin, the train was delayed in Hanover, West Germany. We all had to exit the train. As packed train after packed train sped by without stopping, I waited into the early morning hours in the brisk night until I was finally able to board a train at 3 am.

There was a stark contrast between the excited, loud train that afternoon, and the quiet, sleepy night as the East German guards boarded the train as we made our way across East Germany. I peered out my window into the darkness as we sped across the East German countryside.

It was easy to wonder if anything really had changed at all.

The Berlin Wall had just opened the day before and the borders were still patrolled. The train was still not allowed to stop in East Germany and East German guards still walked the train as it made its way to West Berlin.

When we finally arrived in Berlin, it was obvious the city had erupted in celebration. Horns blared everywhere, people shouted excitedly in German at every corner and the U-Bahn was packed to the brim. Everyone was heading towards the city center and the Brandenburg Gate.

When I finally got to the area around Check Point Charlie (a famous point of entry from West to East Berlin), there was a sea of people walking under the gate going from east to west. People in West Berlin surrounded the people, shook their hands, and hugged East Germans entering West Berlin for the first time since 1961.

For some of the East Germans, it was the first time they had ever been to the West. For a few of the older Germans, it had nearly been 30 years since they were able to cross the border. There were tears everywhere.

People were jumping around, shouting, and dancing on the Wall. Many had hammer and chisels that they were pounding away with to get pieces of the Wall as souvenirs. I walked around taking it all in. I was able to convince a gentleman with a chisel of his own to break off a few pieces for me.

I was eventually able to make my way to the top of the Wall and I celebrated with Germans excited for this first step towards reunification.

As I made my way around the city’s center, I noticed a few things that I have never seen in news stories since that time.

The first oddity I noticed was banana peels everywhere. After asking around, I found out that bananas were expensive and hard to get in East Berlin so East Germans marveled at the easy access and relative cheapness of the fruit in markets in West Berlin.

Second, I noticed a line of men circling a discreet building towards the edge of the center. Curious about what was attracting them, I walked towards the building to see what it was. It turned out to be a theater showing adult films. Apparently, pornography was illegal in East German and many East German men stood in long lines that afternoon to see a porno for the first time.

The last thing I noticed as the day turned into the evening was that the flow of traffic under the Brandenburg Gate had reversed. It seemed most of the people who had “escaped” East Germany during the day were heading back to their homes that night.

Mostly, they came over to see West Berlin and they were not going home empty-handed. Their hands were full of groceries, merchandise, various electronics, and even TV sets.

Laughing, dancing, and celebrating with Germans excited about the changing world around them was a life-changing experience for me. As I talked to many of them into the night, few were optimistic about the chances of reunification in the near future. They simply thought the two halves of Germany had become too different to reunite any time soon.

They, of course, underestimated how quickly the world was changing as country after country behind the Iron Curtain was able to break free of the suffocating hold of the Soviet Union. Although I mostly watched the jubilant celebrations, I was glad I got a front-row seat to one of history’s most amazing moments.

To read about the next day in East Berlin:

To read about the night before, when I was staying in a hostel with 100 East German refugees when I first heard the Berlin Wall was opened, follow the link below.