Thirty
years ago this weekend, a dour and rumpled East German apparatchik named Günter
Schabowski faced a smattering of reporters and cameras for a press conference
in East Berlin. Rifling confusedly through a sheaf of papers, Schabowski mumbled details about new travel
stipulations for East Germans, hundreds of thousands of whom had recently been
protesting the ongoing brutalities and restrictions of the East German
government. Schabowski, according to later
recollections,
hadn’t actually bothered to pore through the details of the new travel
regulations—nor, it appeared, had
many of the East German officials who could sense their regime teetering toward
collapse. Shortly before the close of the press conference, Schabowski revealed
almost offhandedly …read more
Source:: The New Republic
