30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Google Doodle Today

“Tor auf!” (“Open the gate!”) roared the crowds gathered at the Berlin Wall on this evening in 1989. Google Doodle Today, created by Berlin-based guest artist Max Guther, celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a peaceful revolution that signaled the simultaneous end of the Cold War and the beginning of German reunification.

Winds of change were blowing across Europe as new leadership in Russia, Poland, and Hungary had high hopes in East Germany for an end to 28 years of strict travel restrictions. During a government press conference, an official spokesman’s hasty statement gave reporters and TV viewers the mistaken impression that East Germany would be allowing free travel between East and West Berlin.

Within hours, a massive crowd gathered at the wall, far outnumbering the border crossing guards. Sometime before midnight, the officer in charge of the Bornholmer Street checkpoint defied his superiors and gave the order to open the gate.

Word spread quickly, and over the next few days, 2 million jubilant Germans crossed the border, some singing, dancing, and toasting the start of a new era while others began physically dismantling the wall.

Erected on August 13, 1961, the barbed wire and concrete edifice had long divided East and West Berlin. By the same token, its demolition triggered a series of events that led to the reunion of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic.