WHERE WERE YOU WHEN The Berlin Wall crumbled - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Celebrity WHERE WERE YOU WHEN The Berlin Wall crumbled By You Magazine - September 15, 2019 Former foreign correspondent Anne McElvoy celebrated with chunks of the Wall in her vodka. East German border guards demolish a section of the wall to open a crossing point, as West Berliners celebrated. Image: GERARD MALIE/AFP/Getty Images. Berlin felt like waking in a dream. Strangers were hugging each other shouting, ‘The Wall has gone!’ I had been fascinated by East Germany since I was a child. It was formed after the Second World War when the Allied powers took control of a section of Germany, with Great Britain, the United States and France forming what became known as the West side, while the Soviet Union took East Germany. Berlin lay within the East but as the capital city, it was also divided. In 1961, the Communist regime began building the high concrete wall, which encircled West Berlin, supposedly ‘to keep Western fascists from entering East Germany’. It meant residents could not leave. How odd was that? While studying at universities in East Berlin and East Germany during the mid-80s, I found a country in lockdown, ruled by a rigid leadership that denounced critics and arrested peace activists who questioned the regime. When I returned to East Berlin in 1989 as a newspaper correspondent, the mood was edgy and people were louder about their dissatisfaction. But that summer, Hungary (also a Soviet satellite state) relaxed its Iron Curtain border dividing the Soviet Union from the rest of Europe, allowing thousands of East Germans to cross through into Austria and the West. It was the beginning of the end. In November, Gunter Schabowski, the main Berlin party boss for East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party, told us journalists at a press conference that residents could apply for passports ‘from immediately’. I rushed to the Wall and shouted that the border was open but the guard refused to budge. When the announcement appeared on the evening news many more people headed to the border, shouting that they wanted to cross. This time, the guards stood aside and I joined hordes of East Germans walking into the West to cheers and embraces. Car horns blared and rock music rang out of the tenement buildings. ‘Wall-peckers’ started hammering away at the concrete structure. People handed around vodka, with chunks of the Wall in the glasses. Berlin, reunited, was throwing one enormous party. Also that month… Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images The House of Commons was televised live for the first time. Rocketman actor Taron Egerton (above) was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside. Children’s TV show Byker Grove began broadcasting on the BBC. RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR 50 of the best celebrity Halloween costumes of all time Shirley Ballas ‘ Strictly gave me back my hope’ Davina McCall discusses how men can help women going through the menopause Popular in Celebrity TV chef Gino D Acampo on Sardinia Sophia Loren and scary salads May 25, 2017 The Evergreen Goddess Exercise guru Diana Moran on looking fit and July 10, 2017 More more Julianne Moore November 13, 2017 Author Jill Mansell on designer notebooks commissioning art and the family January 16, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES Kelly Hoppen on vodka vintage finds and being a April 4, 2018 ‘ I have no regrets’ Millie Mackintosh on divorce debt and reuniting May 20, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES TV presenter and tennis player Annabel Croft shares her July 1, 2018 Stella Parton ‘ Dolly and I have always been close’ August 12, 2018 Anna Friel on getting jeered in the street shared parenting with September 23, 2018 Queen of primetime Charlotte Riley on juggling rising stardom with pregnancy October 21, 2018 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. All Rights Reserved