>have spent forty years constructing one of the most neurotically overengineered police states in human history
>Wall
>watchtowers
>Stasi
>informants informing on other informants
>filing cabinets containing enough paper to alter Earth's axial tilt
>entire government philosophy is basically "nothing happens unless seventeen bureaucrats stamp Form 38-B"
>economy is dying
>citizens discover Hungary has developed a mysterious glitch in the Iron Curtain
>people start escaping
>Leipzig demonstrations getting bigger every Monday
>Honecker gets fired
>Egon Krenz takes over and announces everything is under control
>Party decides maybe the people will calm down if travel restrictions are loosened
>supposed to be a gradual, orderly loosening
>Germans need time to update bureaucratic machinery
>send Günter Schabowski to give press conference on November 9
>Schabowski was barely involved in drafting the regulations
>gets handed a note without the full implementation briefing
>East German government chooses the guy reading the patch notes for the first time live to announce border policy
>journalist asks when the new travel rules take effect
>Schabowski rummages through papers
>entire Warsaw Pact watching
>millions of Germans watching
>border troops watching
>CIA probably watching
>"As far as I know..."
>already not a promising opening concerning THE BORDER OF THE IRON CURTAIN
>squints
>"This takes effect... immediately, without delay."
>record scratch
>journalists:
>"wait what"
>East Germans:
>"WAIT WHAT"
>border guards:
>"WAIT WHAT"
>Politburo:
>"HE SAID WHAT"
>Western television immediately reports East Germany has opened its borders
>thousands of East Berliners put on jackets and head toward checkpoints
>because when state television accidentally tells you thirty years of imprisonment have been cancelled, you don't wait until morning for clarification
>Bornholmer Straße fills up
>guards have received precisely zero corresponding orders
>phone superiors
>superiors phone their superiors
>superiors consult the ancient East German bureaucratic emergency protocol known as "Please God Let Somebody Else Make This Decision"
>crowd gets larger
>guards cannot exactly shoot thousands of civilians because some idiot gave contradictory instructions on live television
>everyone also knows Moscow isn't sending tanks this time
>checkpoint commander Harald Jäger realizes he has been placed inside the funniest command-and-control failure of the Cold War
>"Comrade, what are our orders?"
>"Maintain control."
>"How?"
>"According to regulations."
>"Which regulations?"
>"The new regulations."
>"What do they say?"
>"We don't know."
>"When do they start?"
>"Apparently immediately."
>"Can I open the gate?"
>"Absolutely not."
>"What do I do with the ten thousand people outside?"
>*dial tone*
>Jäger eventually says fuck it
>opens crossing
>people pour into West Berlin
>other checkpoints notice Bornholmer has opened
>realize the command economy of border control has entered the "every man for himself" phase
>start opening too
>Berlin Wall
>physical symbol of the Cold War
>guarded for decades by an authoritarian state with a gigantic security apparatus
>rendered functionally obsolete because one middle-aged party spokesman answered a follow-up question incorrectly
>East Germans climb onto Wall
>West Germans show up with beer
>people start smashing concrete with hammers
>border guards stand around experiencing the worst shift change in German history
>SED leadership discovers its most important geopolitical asset is now a street festival
>government tries to regain control
>unfortunately the fundamental premise of your government was that you controlled whether citizens could leave
>citizens have just discovered you control approximately jack shit
>Stasi begins existential crisis
>spent decades cataloguing who listened to Western radio
>now Westerners are literally handing champagne over the Wall
>entire legitimacy of regime evaporates
>people realize security apparatus will no longer enforce the old rules
>once everyone realizes everyone else realizes this, Communist authority becomes an elaborate office dress code
>Krenz lasts another few weeks
>Politburo resignations
>SED frantically rebrands itself
>Stasi offices stormed
>government holds actual elections
>East Germans vote overwhelmingly for parties favoring rapid reunification
>October 1990
>German Democratic Republic officially ceases to exist
>imagine being an East German apparatchik
>spend entire career maintaining Marxist-Leninist state
>survive uprisings
>survive Prague Spring
>survive Brezhnev
>survive NATO
>survive Reagan
>have nuclear-armed Soviet divisions stationed behind you
>country finally gets killed by press conference Q&A
>forty years of socialist statecraft
>billions spent on surveillance
>Wall constructed
>people shot trying to cross it
>entire ministries devoted to internal security
>weakness discovered:
>journalist asks bureaucrat "when?"
