A senior East German official whose impromptu announcement at a news conference led to the demise of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has died aged 86.
Guenter
Schabowski said travel restrictions on the ex-state's citizens would be
immediately lifted, prompting tens of thousands to cross to the West.
Officials had intended to phase in changes the next day, but the mass of people hastened the Wall's rapid fall.
The measures were intended to stem an exodus to Hungary amid mass protests.
Less than a year later, East and West Germany were reunited into one country, ending 45 years of division.
'Without delay'
Mr
Schabowski was a spokesman for the East German regime in 1989, when
Communist governments across Eastern Europe were facing a wave of
popular protest.
The government had decided to make it easier for
East Germans to travel to Western Europe, in an attempt to curb a flood
of people crossing into Hungary, which had itself opened its western
borders.
Mr Schabowski said in his biography that the East German regime was fatally flawed
On 9 November he gave a news conference outlining
the changes, but the late BBC correspondent Brian Hanrahan - who
witnessed the events -
said he had jumped the gun as they were supposed to be announced early the next morning.
And asked when the changes would come into effect, he said: "This occurs, to my knowledge... immediately... without delay."
In
1997, Mr Schabowski was jailed for three years for his role in East
Germany's policy of shooting those who tried to cross into the West, but
was pardoned after a year.
In 2009 he wrote an autobiography denouncing the regime as being fatally flawed.
Title : Berlin Wall blunderer Guenter Schabowski dies at 86
Description : A senior East German official whose impromptu announcement at a news conference led to the demise of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has died...
