Humanities & Social Sciences
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall - Coincidence or Planning? /1989 Mauerfall Berlin - Zufall oder Planung?
by Michael Wolski
Classification in History The fall of the Wall in 1989 is a historical example of the end of the relationship between hegemon and vassal. It shows how the hegemon silently disposed of his now unloved child. It is a story of the betrayal of the most loyal political friends and a common ideology. East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Army on May 8, 1945 at the end of World War II in Europe and then, according to the decisions of the Allies, the Soviet-occupied zone in Germany was dominated by the Soviet Union. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was founded in this zone in 1949, when the Soviet Union under Stalin was still convinced of the victory of communism in the world. At the same time, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in the Western zones. After only ten years it became clear that the socialist (Soviet) system in the GDR - a Western European, highly industrialized country - was not working. People left their country across the open sector border in Berlin. For this reason, the East German Communists had to build the Berlin Wall in 1961 on the orders of the Soviet Union, hermetically sealing East Germany (and Eastern Europe) from the West. According to Allied regulations, Berlin was a jointly administered city, with one zone of each of the 4 Allies. Until 1990, West Berlin was therefore a territory of the Western Allies USA, United Kingdom and France. Westberlin became a capitalist island in the GDR. Ultimately, this isolation led to the decline of the entire Eastern Bloc. Only 25 years later, when Gorbachev came to power (1985), the Soviet Union decided in secret to separate from its Eastern European vassal states and introduce a market economy. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which was planned and carried out top secretly, was the opening of the clamp that had held the socialist countries together. One year later (on October 3, 1990), German unity was achieved and again one year later - in late 1991 - the Soviet Union disintegrated into 15 states and with it the socialist camp in Europe. This disintegration was due to a boomerang of history - the German-Soviet treaties together with secret protocols of 1939, which unexpectedly unfolded their destructive potential in 1989. Thus, 50 years after the Hitler-Stalin Pact and the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, both destroyed the Soviet Union as collateral damage of the opening of the Berlin Wall. The Book In this book, the course of events of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is portrayed differently than in current contemporary historiography. I claim on the basis of evidence and facts that the Soviet Union was responsible for the fall of the Wall. In a covert action, high-ranking East German KGB agents in the army, Stasi and mass-media took over command on the evening of November 9, 1989. At the same time, a meeting of the Central Committee of the SED was "randomly" extended by almost 3 hours, isolating over 250 high-ranking party and state officials from the outside world. Thus the state power was unable to act in the decisive hours of the fall of the Wall. I describe the fall of the Wall as an East German contemporary witness, working from 1986-1990 in the liaison office of a Dow Jones listed US corporation in East Berlin (GDR). While I had noticed events in East Berlin since 1986 that could indicate that unofficial KGB employees were being sought by Stasi in the International Trade Center (IHZ), this assumption became certain in 1994. The report on the evaluation of Stasi documents in the Bundestag confirmed my assumptions. In June 2020 the last GDR Minister of the Interior of the first freely elected government (9 April 1990 – 2 October 1990) gave this number for the first time since 1990: In 1989/90 there were about 50,000 people in the GDR working for KGB (and GRU). Thus my view that the Soviet Union planned and realized the fall of the Wall was confirmed after more than 30 years. The official German narrative (which is currently being retold worldwide) is based on the fall of the Wall by civil rights activists. They convinced the border officers to open the wall. However, no details are given about the process "behind the scenes". It must be remembered that as late as October 1989, the Politburo was still discussing the use of tanks against demonstrators in Leipzig (who demanded free passage out of the GDR). So why the change of mind within 4 weeks? More information about my alternative view of the fall of the Wall can be found here (in German, English, Russian, Chinese): https://www.1989mauerfall.berlin/expose-leseprobe.html The book reads like a thriller.
