Walls Come Tumbling Down!

9th November 1989.

A defining moment in history, a fitting end to a decade of change.

In a TV studio in East Germany, Guenter Schabowski, a member of the East German Politburo is put under pressure.

"East Germans are free to travel where they like" he states. There is an air of change blowing throughout the East, but tension remains high and trust is not something that is seen in abundance the People's Democratic Republic of Germany.

"When?" questions the tenacious - and perhaps foolhardy - journalist interviewing him.

On the spot, without guidance he responds: "With immediate effect." An error, perhaps, but an error with the greatest of ramifications.

Hundreds, thousands of East Berliner's flooded Check Point Charlie, demanding to be allowed to pass to the East. Young, perhaps frightened, soldiers seek clarification from their superiors. None is forthcoming. The history of the Cold War is steeped with the brave and heroic. To that list must be added this group of soldiers who chose not to shoot, who chose not to bring their arms to bare on the sea of humanity sweeping before them.

First the gates opened and the 'Ossie' were welcomed in the West by their long divided brothers and sisters. But that was not enough. Like Shelly's lions rising from slumber, the people rose and pulled that wall down, pulling down with it decades of tyranny an oppression, to build a 'new world order' in its place. To see, on the news that night, young and old, men and women, East Berliner & West Berliner, stood atop the Berlin Wall, hacking at it with pick axe and hammer was a moment of hope, a moment of joy, a moment for humanity.

Walls really do come tumbling down.